Do Police Have The "Right" To Brutalize-- And Execute-- Citizens? Republicans Tend To Think So

If the election is a referendum on Trump, get ready for President Biden. If it's about Trump's handling of the pandemic, expect an landslide that will see Republicans at every level of government losing their offices. The Republicans know that, of course, and they are working make the election about anything else. They've settled on a bogus "law and order" narrative. Bogus because Trump is the most criminal president in history, presiding over the most criminal regime in American history. This may not be that big a deal compared to Trump's major, daily criminality but last February he pardoned the female Darrell Issa, Angela Stanton-King, who had served 2 years of her sentence for running a car theft ring. A few weeks after Trump pardoned her, she launched an election campaign against John Lewis in Atlanta's 5th congressional district, one of the bluest districts in the country (D+34), where Trump only drew 11% of the vote. With Lewis' death Stanton-King is now running in an open seat (against state Senator Nikema Williams). A gay-bashing, anti-Choice Q-Anon nut case with a flare for getting attention, Stanton-King has no chance of being elected to Congress but every TV appearance and every newspaper article or social media mention brings money into her coffers. She's very much like her hero, Señor Trumpanzee.

"Law and order" is not part of today's Republican Party-- except inasmuch as it can be used to oppress poor people. The Republican campaign theme this cycle is all about painting a picture of Democrat-run cities being overrun by angry mobs and looters. Trump in New Hampshire Friday: "Today's Democratic Party is filled with hate. Just look at Joe Biden supporters on the street screaming and shouting at bystanders with unhinged manic rage... They are not protesters. They are anarchists, they are agitators, they are rioters, they are looters." And actual Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha.

The protests in Kenosha were all about the police shooting Jacob Blake in the back-- 7 times-- last Sunday. Blake lived but is now paralyzed from the waist down. The police responded to protesters by gassing them. Some of the protesters, angry and provoked-- possibly by Trumpist agents provocateurs-- burned businesses. There is a legitimate sense that police are not accountable for their criminal activity and the fascist impulses they act out against citizens.

"I support the protestors, so I am against the police. That’s the lie I hear every single day in America," wrote John Pavlovitz yesterday. "It’s a myth perpetuated by this President and his party and by people like them: white people who don’t want to address the systemic racism embedded in law enforcement or the persistent brutality against people of color on display-- and who attempt to push people to the very opposite of poles in order to avoid talking about it: 'Choose Black Lives or Blue Lives.' they say. 'Those are the options.' This choice is not only unnecessary, it is rooted in a fundamental falsehood: the existence of Blue Lives. There is no such thing as a 'Blue Life.'"

Law enforcement officers are not a race and they are not a monolith, either. They come from every disparate part of this nation; out of many families of origin, religious traditions, sexual orientations, and political affiliations, when they choose this work. It is among the most dangerous and stressful and volatile work on the planet-- but they do choose it.

And when they do, they take an oath to protect and serve humanity in its fullness. That is the job description. It is the very heart of the calling. It is the singular purpose they exist: defense of all life under the Law, a Law they represent and embody.

There are expectations we have for those choosing to put on that badge and that uniform:

• They are expected to defuse combustible situations, not exacerbate them.
• They are expected to use wisdom and restraint instead of emotionally exerting force.
• They are expected to withstand provocation without responding in kind.
• They are expected to be beyond prejudice and above biases that would deny another human being’s inherent worth.
• They are expected to uphold the civil rights of every person in their path equally, without caveat or condition or excuse.
• They are paid by American citizens (including citizens of color) to do this chosen work on behalf of the public who they are accountable to.

And when they are off-duty, members of this diverse community can remove the badge and uniform and they can escape the hazards and the threats of their jobs, and live fully into their other “non-Blue identities”-- that is, except for the black and brown police officers.

They like (all people of color) can’t take off their skin to avoid the taunts that come with it, they can’t be undercover or off-duty or take a break from the demands of their difficult reality. They can’t step out of their pigmentation in order to sidestep the violence it brings every moment of every day. They are not black or brown at some portions of the day or some days of the week or when they clock in, which is why the supposed #BlueLivesMatter movement isn’t an equivalent advocacy of life in response to the call for people of color to be treated with dignity, it is an insult. It is a white excuse to avoid confronting discrimination against people of color, to distract from the difficult conversations, to deny the systemic sickness, and to stop all conversation.

This is something far beyond citizen on citizen violence, this is violence initiated by those with both the power of the Law and weaponry in their hands. That means they are subject to even greater scrutiny because the stakes are higher and the impact on communities is profound.

It is not an attack on law enforcement to name and to condemn police brutality, or to demand that those who comprise its ranks are of the highest standard as human beings-- it is a reiteration of its value as an entity.

And it is not anti-American, but the essence of patriotism to responsibly police the police; to ensure that they are living into their oath with regard to all citizens, because every human life literally depends on them doing so: at traffic stops and in city streets and in public parks and in their homes.

And as citizens of this country, we don’t have to apologize for our standards and our expectations of public servants. That’s part of the gig. Law-abiding, tax-paying Americans are not accountable to violent police officers-- violent police officers are accountable to law-abiding, tax-paying Americans. It is not incumbent on us to avoid criticizing them, it is incumbent on them to listen and to respond to valid criticism.

It’s not asking too much to insist that officers not only protect people of color as passionately as they protect white Americans, but that they not actively harm them.

It’s not unreasonable to expect them not to kneel on a man’s neck for over eight minutes until he expires, not to shoot a man seven times in the back, not break into a woman’s bedroom and murder her, not to beat peaceful protestors, not to knock unarmed old men to the ground, not to allow a young white man with an AR-15 to run past them while being alerted to his murderous presence.

Being furious when police officers do these things is not an act of hatred against law enforcement as an entity-- but against the acts of hateful cowardice committed by some that pervert it and cheapen them all.

I am not for Blue Lives, I am for human lives, and the human lives that continually find themselves brutalized by those entrusted to protect them are black and brown-- and Americans need to name and confront and own this because until we do, we will continue to conflate outrage at inequity, with attacks on the perpetrators of this inequity.

The good people of this country fighting against brutality will not be defined by the calculated lie that to be for Black Lives is to be against the police.

We simply demand that the police be for Black Lives without exception-- or we demand they no longer be police.

If You Want To Live Longer, Settle Down In A Blue State With Democratic Governance

drawing by Nancy Ohanian

There's much more to "Black Lives Matter" than police brutality, the tip of the ugliest aspect of American society.

Just 8% of African-American voters cast ballots for Trump in 2016. That seems like an awful lot. But, hey, how many Jews who were fanatical about law-and-order, nationalism or anti-Communism voted for Hitler? Anyway, things have worked out badly for African-Americans in the Trump era. When he was asked about a thousand people dying of COVID daily in the U.S., he shrugged and said, "It is what it is." That may have more than little to do with the same thing that caused the very White House to halt the stop-the-pandemic plan as soon as Trump heard that a disproportionate number of blacks and hispanics were getting COVID and dying from it. "It is what it is."

Most Americans-- other than KKK members and sympathizers-- see the Black Lives Matter movement for what it is: a demand for justice and equality before the law. Trump sees it as a direct attack on him, his agenda and his authority-- and as an opportunity to stoke up the racist sentiments of his base and to instill some fear in his vision of the suburbs.

The CDC reported that in the U.S., 31.8% of cases are Hispanics (as are 17.1% of COVID-related deaths-- a younger cohort), and 20% of the cases are African-Americans (as are 22.4% of deaths). The CDC attributes that to 5 factors:

• Discrimination and racism which "can lead to chronic and toxic stress and shapes social and economic factors that put some people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk."
• Healthcare access and utilization-- including lower insurance rates among minorities, as well as "lack of transportation, child care, or ability to take time off of work; communication and language barriers; cultural differences between patients and providers; and historical and current discrimination in healthcare systems."
• Occupation, minorities being "disproportionately represented in essential work settings such as healthcare facilities, farms, factories, grocery stores, and public transportation [since] people who work in these settings have more chances to be exposed to the virus, as well as not being able to work from home and not having paid sick days.
• Educational, income, and wealth gaps
• Housing, as in overcrowded conditions and multigenerational households.

The CDC concludes that "These factors and others are associated with more COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in areas where racial and ethnic minority groups live, learn, work, play, and worship. They have also contributed to higher rates of some medical conditions that increase one’s risk of severe illness from COVID-19."

Yesterday. L.A. Times reporter Noam Levey wrote about how, generally speaking, people who live in "blue states" live longer. He was specifically speaking about race or about COVID-19. He noted that "Weak environmental protections, safety rules and labor and civil rights protections may be cutting lives short in conservative states and deepening the divide between red and blue states," referencing a new study released yesterday by the Milbank Quarterly, a health policy journal, which concluded that "states where residents live longest tend to have much more stringent environmental laws, tougher tobacco and firearms regulations and more protections for workers, minorities and LGBTQ residents." And the problems can't all be blamed on Trump. The gap between states had been steadily narrowing until Reagan was elected. The toxic neoliberal, pro-corporate agenda pushed by Reagan, both Bushes and Clinton changed the trajectory radically, Obama didn't change it back and Trump has made it worse.

Some states, mostly in the Northeast and the West, have seen average life expectancies rise relatively steadily, placing them on par with the wealthiest nations of Western Europe. Those states tend to have more stringent regulations.

By contrast, the life expectancy in states with more conservative health, labor and social policies-- concentrated in the South and Appalachia-- has stagnated in recent decades, according to the study, which adds to growing research on health and political disparities between states.

California has among the highest average life expectancies in the country, at 81.3 years. It also had the most liberal policies in the nation in 2014, the most recent year the study analyzed, according to the system the authors developed to rank states.

Although the study's authors note that they can't prove that state policies caused the gap in life expectancy, the correlation is a persistent one across multiple states and several decades.

"It's disheartening to see another example of a missed opportunity by policymakers," said David Radley, senior scientist at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund who studies differences in state health policies and the effects on people's health. Radley was not involved in Milbank report.

..."The overarching conclusion is clear: States that have invested in their populations' social and economic well-being by enacting more liberal policies over time tend to be the same states that have made considerable gains in life expectancy," the study's authors wrote.

Even before the current public health crisis, life expectancy in the U.S. had been declining, setting America apart from most other wealthy nations. That decline has fueled tough questions about domestic policy.

The opioid epidemic, which has had a devastating impact on regions of the country already hit hard by economic stagnation, has been the focus of a lot of the discussion about that shift.

But Syracuse University sociologist Jennifer Karas Montez, the lead author of the new study, said the impact of opioids may be only part of the story.

"When we look at what is happening with life expectancy, the tendency is to focus on individual explanations about what Americans are doing," she said, noting obesity and smoking behaviors as well as drug use. "But state policies are so important."

To assess what role these policies may be playing, Montez and other researchers reviewed more than 120 policies enacted by states over the years and assessed whether each policy choice in each state was more liberal or more conservative.

Policies included housing rules such as rent control; health and welfare policies such as Medicaid eligibility and welfare limits; labor protections such as paid sick leave and minimum wages; and civil rights policies such as gender discrimination bans, hate crime laws and same-sex marriage.

They also looked at state abortion restrictions, tax policy, education spending, immigration rules and gun control laws.

...Through the 1960s and 1970s, for example, state life expectancies generally converged. That trend began to reverse in the mid-1980s, around the same time that a conservative movement, led by President Ronald Reagan and mirrored in many state capitols, became ascendant.

The gap between states accelerated further after 2010, when sweeping Republican victories in state elections shifted policies further to the right in many places.

By 2017, residents of the state with the highest life expectancy-- Hawaii-- were living on average seven years longer than residents of the state with the lowest life expectancy-- Mississippi.

By contrast, the gap between the best- and worst-performing states in 1984 was less than five years.

The gap is not only about policy: States where people live longer tend to be wealthier and have better educated populations, for example.

But Montez noted that decisions by state leaders have helped shape those factors.

"States like Connecticut are investing in their population, investing in schools, setting an economic floor for their workers, discouraging behaviors like smoking that kill people," she explained. "You have other states like Mississippi and Oklahoma that aren't doing any of this."

In Connecticut, whose policies have become steadily more liberal over the last half a century, life expectancy increased 5.8 years between 1980 and 2017 to 80.7 years.

In Oklahoma, which has become markedly more conservative, life expectancy increased only 2.2 years over the same period, reaching 75.8 years in 2017.

Identifying which state policies may have the most impact on how long people live is difficult, the researchers concede. But the study points to a group of policies that appear to correlate most closely with longer lives.

These include some unsurprising candidates such as tougher environmental laws, which the authors note may protect people from toxic substances. The authors also found a correlation between longer life expectancy and labor policies that increase economic security, such as a minimum wage.

Tougher gun laws appear to track with longer life expectancies, the study notes, as do stricter tobacco controls.

The authors also point to civil rights laws, which they suggest may protect residents from ill health related to persistent stress.

And they found a correlation between longer life expectancy and better access to abortion, which the study notes may reflect other research that has linked abortion restrictions to women's poverty and ill health.

As of 2018 these states had the lowest life-expectancy. There are two numbers next to each state-- first their residents' average life expectancy and second the percentage of the vote that went to Trump in 2016. West Virginia is both state state that voted most heavily for Trump and has the lowest life expectancy. Think about cause and effect for a moment.

• West Virginia- 74.79 (68.50%)
• Mississippi- 74.89 (57.94%)
• Kentucky- 75.41 (62.52%)
• Alabama- 75.42 (62.08%)
• Arkansas- 75.93 (60.57%)
• Oklahoma- 75.97 (65.32%)
• Tennessee- 75.99 (60.72%)
• Louisiana- 76.07 (58.09%)
• Ohio- 76.93 (51.69%)
• South Carolina- 77.01 (54.94%)
• Indiana- 77.04 (56.82%)
• Missouri- 77.29 (56.77%)

Those were the states where residents have the lowest life expectancy. The states with the highest life expectancy (along with their Trump vote) are these-- notice that Hawaii is the exact opposite of West Virginia:

• Hawaii- 82.29 (30.03%)
• California- 81.58 (31.62%)
• New York- 81.27 (36.52%)
• Minnesota- 89.94 (44.92)
• Connecticut- 89.87 (40.93%)
• Massachusetts- 80.51 (32.81%)
• Colorado- 80.50 (43.25%)
• New Jersey- 80.43 (41.35%)
• Washington- 80.41 (36.83%)

Conclusion is obvious-- progressive policies-- across the board-- are beneficial and  pro-life; conservative policies are toxic and anti-life. Think about that next time you fill in a ballot. Bob Lynch, a state legislative candidate against Trumpist Daniel Perez in Miami-Dade told us that "Florida might as well be two states, which is why it doesn’t show up on either table.  On the one hand, we have millions of wealthy retirees that are on some combination of former employer pension/healthcare plans, Medicare, or supplemental Cadillac insurance plans. On the other, we have close to 800,000 people who have been denied access to health care because Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis have rejected the Medicaid expansion-- something even the voters of Oklahoma and, as of a few hours ago, Missouri have now approved..."

Bob went on to explain that Florida's state unemployment system is "a debacle and now Ron DeSantis is openly admitting it was designed to be just that. This has led to a situation where Floridians are forced to go back to work in unsafe service economy jobs, at a fraction of the tips, because the alternative is letting their families starve. A large part of the state doesn’t care because they want to be able play golf, have their houses cleaned, and drink martinis for happy hour. Their server’s help be damned. The situation is entirely unsustainable. The impending public health crisis as a result of not being able to safely open schools will bring many of these issues to a head. The results won’t be pretty and are a direct result of over two decades of failed Republican policies."

My Jewish Trumpist Friend Is Offended By Mobs Tearing Down Statues Of Notorious Racists

My old friend-- let's call him "Mordecai X"-- a Floridian Trump parrot, says he's not a racist because:

1- he has a black cousin he likes and
2- he donated $70 (it was supposed to be $35 but he couldn't navigate ActBlue efficiently) to Mondaire Jones, who is black and gay.

Yesterday he shared this: "My grandmother was very very progressive artist socialite and actually gave way more love to her black grandchildren then to us white ones. I think she thought they needed it more." see? Not a racist bone in his body.

Like Señor Trumpanzee, X freaks out daily when he reads about a statue being defaced, let alone torn down. It offends him no end and considers it left-wing censorship and insists "they're" banning books and plays as well, something I assume he gets from Reddit or 4chan, which is where he gets his news.

But X, who is Jewish, is also a rabid Zionist and Judeo-nationalist. I don't want to further stoke his statue-mania with another discussion of the topic but I nearly sent him the Aiden Pink story in The Forward yesterday: 8 American Monuments Celebrating Anti-Semites. I wonder if X would take part in tearing them down-- or perhaps just approve if it were to happen. "In the weeks since protests against racism began after the killing of George Floyd," wrote Pink, "activists around the world have been toppling statues, either by pressuring public officials or by tearing the monuments down themselves. Activists have naturally focused on memorials to Confederate leaders or others who enacted racist policies, and associate monuments to anti-Semites with Europe, where they are common."

We don't have to look to the cheesy statue of King Edward I in Burgh-le-Marsh, England, standing in memory (since 2007, when it was erected) of the 700th anniversary of his death. Edward, if you're not up on your history of notorious anti-Semites, issued the 1290 Edict of Expulsion, expelling Jews from England. But here in the U.S. we also have memorials to rabid anti-Semites.

General George Patton's diaries, posthumously published in 1996, "reveal," wrote Pink, "that his opinion of the Jewish prisoners he encountered was scarcely different than the Nazis he had just defeated. He described the Jewish displaced persons as 'locusts,' 'lower than animals,' 'lost to all decency,' and 'a subhuman species without any of the cultural or social refinements of our times.' A monument to Patton was unveiled at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. in 1950, and then rededicated in 2009-- 13 years after his diary was published."

Who knew? But one we all did know about was Nazi-sympathizer Henry Ford... who did more than write in his secret diary. He was the owner and publisher of the Nazi propaganda newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which were distributed in Ford auto dealerships nationwide. "The Independent," Pink reminds us, "frequently published screeds and conspiracy theories against Jews, including several under Ford’s own name, as well as copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic forgery. Ford was also frequently praised by Nazi leadership, which gave him a medal in 1938. Today, a statue of Ford is present at the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Mich. Another statue of him is found on the property of The Henry Ford, a history and science museum he founded."

You didn't have to watch The Plot Against America to know that Charles Lindbergh was a Jew-hating Nazi stooge. He was, after all the spokesperson for the MAGA-organization of his day, the America First Committee. "Lindbergh publicly claimed Jews were pushing the United States needlessly into World War II," wrote Pink. "He also was a close friend of Henry Ford, who said in 1940, 'When Charles comes out here, we only talk about the Jews.' Today, a statue of Lindbergh, depicting him both as a child and an adult, is found on the lawn of the state capitol complex in St. Paul, Minn., his home state. A bust of his face also graces the Lindbergh Terminal of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport."

Going back a little further, there is Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New Amsterdam before it was taken over by the British and renamed New York. Pink reminded his readers that "Stuyvesant initially refused to allow Jews to settle permanently in New Amsterdam, and while he later changed his mind, he made them pay a special tax. He also referred to Jews as 'the deceitful race, such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ.' Today, several New York City locations are named after him, including the Bed-Stuy neighborhood and Stuyvesant High School. Statues of him can be found at Stuyvesant Square in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Bergen Square in Jersey City, N.J. An Israeli legal advocacy group in 2017 called on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to remove the Stuyvesant Square statue, saying that the former governor was an 'extreme racist.'"

And what about Jew-hating fanatic Martin Luther whose virulent and deranged anti-Semitism influenced Europe for centuries. And although "the official Protestant organizations of Germany and Norway officially condemned Luther’s anti-Semitism in 2015, owing to his historical and theological significance, statues of Luther are still present at Protestant universities and seminaries across the United States. But there is one monument to him sitting on public lands: an 18-foot-tall statue in Baltimore administered by the city’s department of parks and recreation. The statue was erected in 1936 and had a rededication ceremony in 2011."

Last week, when his statue was pulled down in San Francisco, many of us learned that President Ulysses S. Grant, hero of the Civil War, once owned a slave. But did you know that as a conquering hero he expelled all Jews from Tennessee? The largest equestrian monument in the United States is a memorial to Grant in the nation's capital and isn't his visage on the $50 bill a monument to his memory we're all carrying around in our pockets from time to time?

And then there's notorious Kansas Jew-hater, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Actually, populist and suffragette Mary Elizabeth Lease-- upon who Dorothy was based-- has a statue standing in Wichita. While campaigning for women's and farmers' rights she was a crusader against the banksters, but "often veered into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories," wrote Pink. "People who were forced to take out bank loans were 'paying tribute to the Rothschilds of England, who are but the agent of the Jews,' claimed Lease."

A statue of former Georgia Senator Thomas Watson used to stand on the steps of the Georgia state capitol until it was moved to the park across the street in 2013. "Watson," wrote Pink, "was a Georgia congressman and newspaper publisher who served as a vice-presidential nominee for William Jennings Bryan’s Populist Party in 1896. During the 1913 trial of Leo Frank, a Jewish man falsely accused of murdering a 13-year-old Christian girl, Watson’s paper whipped up anti-Semitic sentiment. After Frank was convicted and his sentence was commuted, Watson advocated for Frank to be lynched, which he eventually was. Watson was elected to the Senate in 1922 but died in office a year later. In addition to his anti-Semitism, Watson was also a white supremacist and anti-Catholic."

Just sayin'. But GovExec.com also noted yesterday that it isn't just military bases named for disgraced figures but that civilian federal buildings are also named after confederates, KKK members and segregationists. Eric Katz wrote that "In recent weeks as protesters nationwide have demanded new steps to promote racial justice, pressure has mounted for the U.S. military to rename its bases that honor Confederate leaders and for local governments to remove monuments. A review of civilian federal buildings shows a number of offices and federal courthouses named after Americans with racist histories as well... Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), who oversees GSA and federal buildings as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s panel on Government Operations, called for a change. 'The federal government must be a beacon of inclusivity,' Connolly said. 'Having federal buildings named after Confederate generals and members of the KKK is shameful and they must be renamed.'"

Here are a few from Katz's list of buildings named for notorious racists:

• John A. Campbell U.S. Courthouse; Mobile, Ala.: Campbell resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court at the outbreak of the Civil War to accept a role as Confederate assistant secretary of war. After the war, Campbell fought as an attorney against reconstruction in the South.

• Clifford Davis - Odell Horton Federal Building; Memphis, Tenn.: Davis served as a Democratic congressman in Tennessee for 25 years. He first rose to political power with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, a group in which he was actively a member. Davis went on to become a signatory to the Southern Manifesto in 1956, a resolution introduced in Congress to decry Brown v. Board of Education’s mandate that states end segregation in schools.

• William M. Colmer Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse; Hattiesburg, Miss.: Colmer, a Democratic congressman, helped spearhead what became the Southern Manifesto, a document that implored southerners to use all "lawful means" to resist the "chaos and confusion" that school integration would cause. It was signed by 82 House members and 19 senators. He fought “tooth and nail” to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s, according to the New York Times. Of early court rulings against segregation, Colmer lamented there would be "an even increasing intermingling of negroes and whites in public places." Colmer went on to author a second manifesto in Congress that warned of “grave” dangers of federal legislation protecting civil rights.

• Thomas G. Abernethy Federal Building; Aberdeen, Miss.: Abernethy also signed the Southern Manifesto, as well as a letter to the administrator of Veterans Affairs in 1957 requesting VA segregate its medical facilities. A Democratic House member for 30 years, Abernethy left a significant trail of racist speeches and writings. In one such address on the House floor, Abernethy said, “There can be no dispute that a negro problem does exist in our country; that it exists in each and every section where negroes have collected in number; and that the problem is in proportion to the number in each area or city,” adding that, “for nearly 200 years we have lived in peace with our Black brethren of the South.” He went on to say God supported segregation. “Had he intended us to all be alike-- an amalgamated, mulattoed mixture of man-- surely he would have so created us.” Abernethy suggested the push for civil rights was part of a Zionist and communist conspiracy.

• Strom Thurmond Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse; Columbia, S.C.: Thurmond served in the Senate for 48 years and was one of the leading voices against desegregation and civil rights. He ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948 on a pro-segregation platform and vehemently opposed all civil rights legislation, launching the longest-ever speaking filibuster in an attempt to defeat the 1957 Civil Rights Act. When running for president, Thurmond said at one event, “There’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.” While he served in the Senate through 2000, he never publicly renounced his segregationist views.

• J.L. McMillan Federal Building and Courthouse; Florence, S.C.: McMillan served in the House for more than 30 years. He spent two decades as head of the District of Columbia Committee, and “made little attempt to hide his contempt for the capital’s African-American majority,” according to John Lawrence, a long-time congressional staffer and author of "The Class of '74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship." When Washington’s black mayor sent the district’s first budget to Congress as it pushed for autonomous rule, McMillan responded by sending a truckload of watermelons to the mayor. McMillan was a signatory to the Southern Manifesto.

• Richard B. Russell Federal Building; Atlanta, Ga.: Russell, a senator for nearly 40 years, co-authored the Southern Manifesto. He led a boycott of the 1964 Democratic convention after President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, calling the landmark legislation, “shortsighted and disastrous.” Gilbert Fite, a historian who wrote a biography of Russell, said, “White supremacy and racial segregation were to him cardinal principles for good and workable human relationships. He had a deep emotional commitment to preserving the kind of South in which his ancestors had lived. No sacrifice was too great for him to make if it would prevent the extension of full equality to blacks.” One of the Senate office buildings next to the Capitol Building is also named after Russell.

Morty did have a good point, though: who decides? Also, where do you draw the line? I'm all for renaming bases and removing statues of Robert E. Lee and other traitors to the country, but, at the same time, toppling a statue of George Washington offends me. But who exactly should be the judge of the balance of history? Yesterday I got a press release entitled "Teddy Roosevelt supporter to offer to spend $1 million to save statue at American Museum of Natural History." Frank Scurlock, public masturbator, founder of Scurlock Entertainment Global, Positive Sky and Air World Enterprises, and the owner of Space Walk Inc, a company specializing in bounce houses, ran for mayor of New Orleans in 2017 and came in 9th in the crowded field, garnering 385 votes (0.47%). He has now "announced a rally to save the statue and has offered $1 million to purchase the statue if it was to be taken down. Scurlock announced a rally of local residents this week. Scurlock says taking down this iconic monument defames the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt and believes that the history of our first environmentalist president should be preserved for future generations to learn from. Scurlock has been a controversial figure in fighting for statues that memorialize history and was arrested attempting to preserve the Jefferson Monument in New Orleans."

Pride In America-- Shame And Embarrassment About The Soon-To-Be-Gone Political Leadership

I spent most of the years Nixon was in the White House living abroad. He was nearly as bad as Trump and I couldn't live in a country where he was president. So embarrassing. But eventually-- it was a morning after I woke up dreaming in Dutch instead of English-- I decided I wanted to live in my own country. I moved back to the U.S., the country I can now say I chose to live in, didn't just happen to be born in-- though I was that too. And even if I'm on a ferry on the Chao Phraya, Bangkok's river waterway, talking with some friends and a Danish girl comes up and asks us how we can let Trump be president... I'm still proud to be an America. Maybe a little embarrassed sometimes, but never to the point of seriously consider changing my address.

A new Gallup poll released over the weekend, though, shows that national pride here is America has fallen too a record low-- the lowest since Gallup started polling the question in 2001. They report that "15% of Americans say they are 'moderately proud,' 12% 'only a little proud' and 9% 'not at all proud.'"

Do you blame Trump? How could you not? This is just a small thing, but it's a good example. Reporting for Bloomberg News from Seoul yesterday, Jeong-Ho Lee, Nick Wadhams, and Jennifer Jacobs wrote that Trump and Pompeo forced U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Harry Harris, to remove two gigantic banners on the front of the embassy honoring the kind of U.S. diversity that has been so admired around the world-- and so detested and feared by the Trumpist Regime. One honored the LGBTQ+ community in celebration of Pride Month and the other honored Black Lives Matter. This is the "before" picture:

This makes me feel proud of my country. Trumpists flip out though

Señor Trumpanzee hasn't responded to this tweet from the Embassy on his Twitter account yet... but plenty of Trumpist shills have:

Racism? In Texas? Here's Why Mike Siegel Will Never Stop Fighting Against It

Mike Siegel is a civil rights lawyer and former public school teacher, who nearly beat right-wing Republican Michael McCaul in 2018 in a gerrymandered district the DCCC never took a serious look at. He intends to finish what he started this cycle and was endorsed last week by Bernie and is a long-time top priority Blue America candidate.

Yesterday, Mike demonstrated the kind of coalition-- and movement-- he's building with an online event featuring Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), author and former Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower, Sunrise Movement founder Varshini Prakash, DFA chief Yvette Simpson, Texas state Rep Sheryl Cole, Texas AFL-CIO president Rich Levy and others. "The way we beat a $300 million Republican," said Mike in closing, "is with people power, and that’s what we’ve been building... This is a race where organizing can beat money. Mike and his team are fighting for Medicare-for-All, a Green New Deal to combat climate change and create millions of good new jobs, building a renewable economy, racial justice and to end the War on Drugs, to stop voter suppression and strengthen voting rights.

"There is this conventional wisdom," he said that to win a "swing district" like this one, with a Republican incumbent, that the Democrat needs to be conservative, that you shouldn’t fight for transformative change, and policies like these, but this campaign is about a different approach... Fighting for progressive policies helps us build a broad movement. My commitment is to support these movements, and to bring the streets into the halls of Congress." I asked Mike to write about the struggle that's going on in the streets right now. If you like what he has to say, please contribute to his campaign by clicking on the Take Back Texas thermometer on the right.



The Murder of George Floyd Started With Three Words: "Forgery In Progress."
-by Mike Siegel
Congressional candidate (TX-10)

You may know the story that brought us here. Mr. Floyd went to a grocery store and paid with a $20 bill-- but the currency was no good. The shop called the police. And like so many times before, the officers who responded took a Black man's life.

For $20.

This may go without saying, but I will say it: if I had paid with that bill, I would be alive today. My body would not have been on a Minneapolis street. No officer would have pushed their knee into my neck.

If a white man from a privileged background pays with a fake $20 bill? 99 times out of 100, it would be dismissed as "a mistake."

The moment we are in is historic massive nationwide protests to demand an end to racist police killings. During a health pandemic that has taken over 100,000 lives. During an economic crisis. Under a dictatorial and vindictive president.

Yet I am struck by this incident in another way-- as a father.

Because I have a counterfeit $20 bill in my possession right now, given to me by my daughter.



How did she get it? Well, she's eight years old, and a Girl Scout. Like countless girls across the nation, she was busy selling cookies this Spring. Learning economics and team-building and communication skills and more.

And one day, someone bought several boxes of cookies and gave her a fake $20 bill.

We didn't realize it until later. If you haven't sold Girl Scout cookies before-- the parents buy cookies in advance, and then pay ourselves back as we make sales. Weeks ago, my wife went to deposit the money we collected, and happened to notice this bill. It didn't feel right. On closer inspection, even though much of the design is the same, you can see words that are different. It says "Motion Picture Use Purposes."

So we wrote it off as a loss. And I had the bill on my desk when I learned how George Floyd was killed.

You may know this: my daughter is Black. Her mother is Nigerian-American. Living in Texas-- let's be honest, living in the United States-- she is perceived differently than I was at her age.

And maybe at 8-years old, a shop owner wouldn't perceive her as a threat if she tried to buy candy or Pokémon cards with this counterfeit bill. Maybe.


But what if she was a little older? 10 years old? 12 years old? At what point does your life become expendable in this country, by virtue of the color of your skin?

It shouldn't be this way. Racism may be the "original sin" of the United States, as some have said, but it does not have to be our destiny.

That is why we are in the streets. That is why in every state in the Union, in towns big and small, people young and old are marching for justice.

And to demand that Black Lives Matter.

As a candidate for Congress, my pledge is to fight for major criminal justice reforms. Several leading members of Congress, including Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley and Barbara Lee, have put forward essential bills that will create accountability for local police. A database of police abuse; ending qualified immunity for officers who violate constitutional rights; stopping the transfer of military equipment to local police; and investing in Black and other over-policed communities, to lay the foundation for transformative change.

I will certainly fight for these reforms. In the Texas 10th, we have our own history of racist policing. Sandra Bland died in police custody in Waller County, after a racist and unconstitutional arrest. Rodney Reed has been on Texas Death Row for decades-- for a crime likely committed by a white former police officer.

There are countless reasons to demand change at every level of government, right now.

And one of those reasons is for the future. To protect our children as they grow up in this society. To ensure that their lives will be treated as sacred. To make certain that Black Lives Matter.

Defund The Police: Good Idea, Poor Choice Of Words

-by Noah and Exile Johnny

The police have not just been incidentally tainted by racism. For much of U.S. history, law enforcement meant enforcing laws that were explicitly designed to subjugate black people.

-Jon Oliver, HBO's Last Week Tonight, June 7, 2020

Of course, unfortunately, much of that law enforcement structure still exists, as most recently exemplified by a career criminal cop's knee on the streets of Minneapolis. George Floyd is dead but a lot of traditions die hard. Those 4 cops that we've seen on film thanks to a 17-year-old armed with a smartphone thought they had permission, not just from the President of the United States but even more so by the police culture they live in, and, certainly, as events have proven for decades, there is nothing unusual about the Minneapolis Police Dept. and no amount of sensitivity training has or will change a sociopath in a blue uniform.

So what happens now? We will always need some sort of entity to "protect and serve" but simply chanting "Defund The Police" is an offer of words that are way too easily used against those who chant them and justifiably demand change. For a large segment of the population, those three words are a non-starter. Older citizens, whether they are Democrats or easily scared FOX viewers aren't going to buy in. This has bothered me for the last several days as I heard the phrase. As a person who witnessed police violence live and in person 50 years ago, I got it but as an adult who marketed pop culture, I knew it was a poor choice of wording.

Yesterday morning, I got an email from a close friend. He goes by the name Exile Johnny and he shares the byline of this post. As you can see below, he feels the same. It ain't what you say. More often than not, it's how you say it. My friend grew up in a right wing working class neighborhood in the Bronx. It was the kind of neighborhood where, if you sold your house, you should offer it to your neighbors or members of your own extended family rather than put it on the market. That might lead to, you know, "the wrong kind of people" moving into the neighborhood. His own family inhabited a political mindset that was slightly better but was either apolitical or definitely leaned to the right. Until he was almost 40, he was of the apolitical variety and rarely voted. Then George W. Bush came along, followed by the passing of Obamacare which has been "a godsend" to his family. That was enough to set his mind seriously in motion about politics and he is particularly focused on the messaging used by the two major parties while painfully aware of the shortcomings of both. Here's Johnny:

...of why Republican win elections and Democrats lose them consistently:

Republicans pay millions of dollars to people like that guy, Frank Luntz, to come up with names and slogans like "The Freedom Caucus," or "Make America Great Again." They never give you a hint as to what these things really are. They never call their groups or causes "Make America White Again" or "The Racist Coalition" or "The Economic And Social Injustice League."

Could Democrats tee it up any better than they just have? Defund The Police? Surely, they could have taken 3 or 4 minutes and called this movement something like "The Social Unity Project or "The And Justice For All Movement." And those headings, at least would have been honest. If this was a Republican movement, they would be certain to name this something that is the opposite of what it really is. Instead of "Defund The Police," they'd call it the "New Law And Order Regime."

As usual, Democrats have gone out of their way to give Republicans fuel that they can use. There are swarms of older Democrats right now, who are saying aloud "Defund The Police, what the hell are they talking about? I'm not for that!" Even in a best case scenario, one where Dems get the presidency and both houses, I guarantee you this branding costs them at least a few elections where a candidate has already said that they are looking into or sympathize with "Defund The Police" and their opponent was able to use it against them, getting voters to think that that means the democrat wants to totally do away with their local police department.

Obviously, there's a ton of discussion on the subject to be had. As members of the Minneapolis City Council have said, you can't reform something that is rotten to the core. Across the country, city councils and the voting public are discussing variations on the same theme. Most center around restructuring what police departments should be doing. We've given way too much money and power to the police. We have 911 for a variety of services. Do so many have to be handled by the police? In some cities and towns, more people are taken to the hospital by police squad cars because there are many more squad cars than ambulances. It's an imbalance. Do cops always have to go to every domestic dispute or petty crime episode? Might a lot of the money we give police departments, including the money for tanks and high end military gear be better used for social programs that alleviate crime in the first place? Might the money be better used for prevention in the form of youth summer programs, job and economic development, more easily obtainable medical care, food security, and other things that provide hope and end despair? Here's an idea, how 'bout we do things that level the playing field and not literally steal whatever gains impoverished citizens can achieve if given a fair chance? Well, that's not the republican way at all, no matter what they say. They come up with frauds like "Trickle Down Economics" and laugh. "Trickle Down Economics" is one of the Republican Party's greatest hits. As Kimberly Jones says, the social contract is badly broken.

Foreign Correspondent-- The Rest Of The World Sees Uprisings, Not Riots

The United States is paying the price for denying people what Malcolm X called "the right to be a human being."

-by Reese Erlich

One of Germany's largest dailies ran the headline “This killer cop set America ablaze,” with a photo of the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd. Protests in the United States, the article reported, looked like “scenes out of a civil war.”

Bettina Gaus, political correspondent for the Berlin daily Die Tagezeitung, tells me that everybody in Germany, “regardless of political affiliations, is appalled by the murder of George Floyd and sees it as just another example for racism in the U.S. And nobody thinks Donald Trump is helpful.”

In another part of the world, Palestinians and some Israelis recognize that both U.S. and Israeli security forces regularly shoot unarmed civilians. On May 30, Iyad Halak, a Palestinian student with autism, was murdered by Israeli soldiers claiming he had a gun. No weapons were found, and former general Benny Gantz later apologized.

As victims of America’s long history of supporting violence, Palestinians have expressed solidarity with U.S. demonstrators. “The growing protests... against police brutality in the U.S. are fundamentally an uprising against an entire system of racist exploitation and oppression,” read a statement issued by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement in Palestine.

Uprisings not riots

While President Donald Trump’s White House, many U.S. politicians, and the corporate media condemn the protests as riots, much of the rest of the world sees them as uprisings. Ajamu Baraka, founder of the Black Alliance for Peace and 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate, says U.S. officials are hypocrites when it comes to criticizing violence.

The U.S. government and corporate media “cheer on demonstrators in Hong Kong, regardless of the level of violence and property damage,” Baraka tells me. He adds that the worst looting took place when the U.S. government “transferred billions of public resources into banks and corporations under guise of helping the economy during the COVID-19 crisis.”

Bill Fletcher, executive editor of GlobalAfricanWorker.com and former president of TransAfrica Forum, notes that the vast majority of protests against police killings have not engaged in violence or looting.

“I’m sure there are opportunists out there who just loot and provoke,” he says. “But there are also very frustrated people.”

Spontaneous demonstrations have broken out in more than 140 American cities in the largest U.S. uprising since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. But this time African Americans have been joined by white, Asian, and Latinx protesters.

The black liberation movement has a long history of solidarity with the Third World. Some of today’s protesters, particularly whites, may not be familiar with that history and its lessons for today.

Solidarity with the colonized

African American historian and political activist W.E.B. Du Bois travelled to the Versailles peace talks after World War I in order to express solidarity with colonized Africans. Britain, France, and the United States had promised democracy and self determination following the war. Instead, the victorious imperialist powers carved up Africa, Asia, and the Middle East into colonies under their control.

“Self determination didn’t apply in the colonial world,” says Fletcher.

During the 1920s and 1930s, leftist and nationalist movements developed in the black community. Marcus Garvey led a massive Back to Africa movement. The Communist Party and other leftists gathered considerable support by organizing non-segregated trade unions and defending African Americans against police brutality.

African Americans strongly opposed Italy’s 1935 invasion and occupation of Ethiopia, and joined the fight against fascism.

Activists from that era came to understand that African Americans are “not only exploited as workers but are a colonized people,” Baraka says. “The source of their oppression was the colonialist, capitalist system. So they had a common interest with other anti-colonial struggles.”

Malcolm X

By the 1950s, African Americans and liberal whites had joined together in the civil rights movement demanding an end to segregation in education, housing, and employment. But leaders such as Malcolm X, particularly in the last year of his life, said demanding civil rights was not enough.

“We believe that our problem is not one of civil rights but a violation of human rights,” he said in 1965. “Not only are we denied the right to be a citizen in the United States, we are denied the right to be a human being.”

By calling for human rights, says Fletcher, Malcolm X “meant that our struggle was not simply a struggle for constitutional rights but for political power and self-determination. It was a struggle for other people in the Global South. U.S. blacks are fighting the same system.”

Malcolm X questioned the way U.S. society was organized, according to Baraka, “not just what’s in the heads of individual white people, but the structure and logic of white supremacist domination.”

It was an analysis that would prove prescient.

Human rights

U.S. officials, whether Democrat or Republican, pretend that only other countries violate human rights. Every year, the State Department issues a report on worldwide human rights with the heaviest criticism aimed at enemies du jour such as China, Russia, and Iran.

Human rights, as defined by U.S. officials, include freedom of the press, maintaining an independent judiciary, and civil rights. But most of the world, the United Nations included, goes further, saying human rights include the right to a job, health care, and housing, among other things.

Not surprisingly, U.S. leaders never mention authoritative international reports detailing U.S. human rights violations. In 2017, the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights issued a report sharply criticizing U.S. human rights abuses. It noted that the United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries.

“The persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power,” the report stated. “With political will, it could readily be eliminated.”

Dangerous times ahead

The Trump Administration finds itself increasingly isolated at home and abroad. The United States has the world's highest death count from COVID-19 and faces a massive recession.

But Trump is not deterred. He uses the issue of “violent demonstrators” to proclaim himself “the President of law and order.”

Progressives see large demonstrations in front of the White House as a call for freedom and democracy. Trump supporters see radicals and anarchists attacking the U.S. government.

I worry that Trump could mobilize his supporters to provoke a race war. Or these multiple crises could lead to Trump's removal from power.

Baraka, for his part, does not foresee a return to normal in the months ahead.

“There’s never been a period like this,” he says. “This is one of the most serious and dangerous moments in the history of this country.”