SEE WHAT HAPPENS when you allow yourself to be convinced that your principles are self-evident and universal? When all evidence to the contrary is simply pushed to one side and dismissed as aberrant or insignificant?
See what happens when you give up on the prospect of ever persuading Southern Whites to abandon Jim Crow? When your fear of the Klan overwhelms your determination to change the hearts and minds of your neighbours. When you turn, instead, to the civil rights lawyers and begin the long, painful ascent through state and federal, courts. When, in 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States overturns its earlier validation of “separate but equal” schools, hospitals, public washrooms, busses and trains for Blacks and Whites, and tells the Topeka Board of Education that segregated education is in breach of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. When US Marshall’s and federalised National Guardsmen are required to enforce the Court’s ruling. When all that Southern Whites see are the ghosts of the Union soldiers who occupied the defeated Confederacy at the end of the Civil War.
Even then, we didn’t learn.
See what happens when Dr Martin Luther King’s extraordinary strategy of non-violence sears the consciences of not only the liberal North, but also the racist South, setting in motion a national change of heart, only to be condemned as too slow and insufficiently radical by his younger followers? When the ghettos erupt in violence, looting and arson. When the heavily-armed Black Panther Party scares the skin-deep liberalism out of White America. When the FBI’s COINTEL programme is unleashed upon the Civil Rights Movement. When the final passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 seals the fate of the Democratic Party in the South and sets the Republican Party on its racist “Southern Strategy”. When James Earl Ray guns down Dr King in Memphis.
Even then, we didn’t learn.
See what happens when the Supreme Court upholds a woman’s right to abortion? When seven (out of nine) unelected judges, strike down state laws that, for better or for worse, reflect the values and beliefs of the electors and their representatives in those states. When the opportunity offered to the Republican Party to drive a wedge between the “secular-humanist elites” of the big cities on both coasts, and the “God-fearing” working-class communities of the much smaller towns and cities of the “flyover” states, is simply too good to pass up. When the arguments between the “Pro-Life” and the “Pro-Choice” movements divide not only men, but women as well. When religious belief and political ideology find themselves on a collision course.
Even then, we didn’t learn.
See what happens when a charismatic conservative, Phyllis Schlafly, attracts more and more conservative/religious women to her cause, and powerful men shower her Eagle Forum with advice and money? When all the easy, liberal states are safely included in the feminists’ “Yes” column, but the hard ones in the South and the Mid-West show no signs of following suit. When the clock is running down on your Equal Rights Amendment, which had sailed so effortlessly through the Democratic Party-controlled Congress, but which now seems certain to fall victim to the United States’ arcane federal constitution. When – yet again – the clear will of the majority is about to be thwarted.
Even then, we didn’t learn.
See what happens when you tell White men, already alienated by the claims and counter-claims of the Black civil rights, women’s liberation, and anti-Vietnam War movements, that the liberals are coming for their guns? When centuries-old family traditions of hunting in the forests and mountains of America, and of acquiring the marksmanship needed to bring down game animals, is presented as some sort of political sickness. When the stark reality of a criminal fraternity accustomed to carrying and using handguns has rendered it only prudent for ordinary citizens to similarly arm themselves. When the social and economic conditions that unhinge the most damaged members of American society are routinely ignored, and their bloody rampages are, instead, blamed on the ready availability of firearms. When trust and confidence in the political process has reached such a low point that many Americans feel it necessary to arm themselves against their own government.
Even then, we didn’t learn.
See what happens to a nation when the core values that once encouraged its citizens to refer to themselves as “We, the People”, fracture and are rearranged into antagonistic belief systems? When long-established economic, sexual and racial hierarchies are challenged by those expected to endure their subordinate status in perpetuity? When the rights enjoyed by the privileged few are claimed by the disenfranchised many? When, in short, the purpose and distribution of social, economic and political power are subjected to unrelenting questioning – and there is no agreement as to the answers.
It is only then we learn that the rights we seek are never given. If we cannot summon sufficient strength to take them, and hold them, then we must resign ourselves to living without them.
See what happens when the word “democracy” doesn’t appear anywhere in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States
Listening to US commentators is frightening – basically – if it’s not written down in an 18th Century document then it isn’t a legal right for US citizens. Following from abortion is equal marriage, the right to privacy and presumably the right to vote – none of which are in “the constitution”. The US is becoming a theocracy.
See what happens when a fake empathy queen moves all the homeless Maori to Rotorua, out of the way, then leaves them to fend for themselves.
When the United States was founded, religious faith was a given. The constitution was only secular because it was intended to allow freedom of religion without regard to denominations, of which there were many. In recent years militant secularists have been on the rise, and they have unreasonably laid claim to the constitution as a secular manifesto. However an equal number of Americans, black, white and Latino, remain attached to the religious values which made America great (and which have no material connection to one Donald Trump). Whenever the secular left has challenged those ideas head on – as in republican Spain, the Soviet Union and east European socialist states – it has ultimately failed.
The fault lines were there from the very beginning. A secular capitalist order with more wisdom than the current neo-liberal manifestation would have trod around those lines with care and circumspection lest the earth open up beneath its feet and draw it into the abyss. Unfortunately the Labour/Green coalition currently predominant in New Zealand politics suffers from the same secular hubris and will meet a similar fate.
The inevitable civil war is the result.
Inshallah
Chris, I cant help wondering if we wouldnt be here at all (and we are all here at this moment, pretty much across the entire western world) if we hadnt hit rapid technological growth combined with global capitalism.
We live in a world where people are exposed to everything via technology but are actually able to achieve a tiny fraction of what we aspire to because all the money is going into the pockets of the very few.
Small wonder we are divided. Through poverty and identitarianism, we are divided into more and more groups.
Without political leadership and some grown ups at the top who can see the big picture, there is only one way it can end and that is violence and strife. Throw in a major recession and food shortages and watch cities around the globe light up. And
Interesting comments again Fantail . .
Fantail Good points
‘We live in a world where people are exposed to everything via technology but are actually able to achieve a tiny fraction of what we aspire to because all the money is going into the pockets of the very few.
Small wonder we are divided. Through poverty and identitarianism, we are divided into more and more groups.’
US and the UK are destroying themselves with right ring ideology and appalling legal judges.
Meanwhile the right stays in power or got in power because voters are being turned off by the alternative left anti middle/working class ideology, via woke, neoliberalism, identity politics and globalism.
Money, donations, religion and corporates should be independent from schools because it is becoming the thick teaching the thick.
Burger King schools have a lot to answer for, and not just obesity. (Don’t tell NZ – or it will be their next private partnership with schools, to ‘solve’ truancy!)
https://www.edweek.org/education/turning-lives-around-is-the-goal-of-burger-king-school-partnerships/1992/04 Yeah Right.
The good old “we the people” is getting a good old workout.
“Supreme court sides with high school coach who led on-field prayers.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/supreme-court-joe-kennedy-high-school-football-coach-school-prayer-case/
Today I saw the comment, “If coach Kennedy were named coach Akbar and he had brought a prayer blanket to the 50 yard line to pray after a game, I’ve got a 4501(k)* that says this illegitimate Christofascist SCOTUS rules 6-3 against him.”
“We the people” as defined by who has the power to define who “We the people” are and what they’re going to get and be allowed to do.
*4501(k) = pension plan
Is that image from Norman Rockwell,? Not banksy is it.
It does look like Rockwell but Rockwell was earlier?
Rochwellesque at the very least . .
It is Rockwell – good spotting.
Rockwell has a certain style that brings out the human in me. I like the one of the hung jury – do you know it? One beskirted female stubbornly sticking to her decision against the others in a jury which must be unanimous. Priceless character poses. Are you a fan of his – I know someone who may be putting up a book of his on TradeMe soon.
“Perhaps, if you weren’t so busy regarding my shortcomings, you’d find that I do possess redeeming
qualities, discreet as they may be.
I notice when the sky is blue. I smile down at children. I laugh at any innocent attempt at humor. I quietly carry the burdens of others as though they were my own. And I say ‘I’m sorry’ when you don’t. I am not without fault, but I am not without goodness either.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year
A case for looking at someone and deciding if they are a good human What would you say about your good qualities and not so?
Chris, until you realise
1. that the constitution, was formed by white men who owned land and slaves (and did not see women as legal persons) and of a design to ensure that they controlled appointment to SCOTUS via control of the Senate and thus the immigrant worker of the urban centres could vote for HOUSE or POTUS as they chose – but this democratic form was subject to their higher power (which they associate with being a Christian dominionism nation of God).
NOTE – if this challenged the filibuster would be used to sustain the power of the Senate against the House and even POTUS (as it was in 2016 to block Garland).
2. that the gun symbolises power to the American (War of Independence), to support or to depose their government (and in the south, this is related to Jim Crow laws and states rights for white people and their God identity).
Then talk of struggle to realise rights is Mr Magoo like. Their revolution is incomplete and those who want a modern democracy will have to secede (NE USA and West Coast USA).
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