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As
I watch the pathetic Republican parade of so-called presidential candidates
strut their stuff I’m struck by what these people think are the important
issues facing the United States and how conservatives define “liberty”.
It’s old hat, I know, to suggest that to them it means we all do
things their way, but it’s hard to get away from it when they keep reinforcing
that definition.
For Americans who define themselves as progressive or liberal, these positions are bad enough. But for the Republicans, they’re nothing more than bread and butter positions from which the real discussion can begin, which brings us to the subject of race. Yes, race. As we hack through the weeds of our “post racial” society we come upon the GOP, the Party of Lincoln, and its best and brightest using black Americans as examples of bad policy. Whether it’s Newt I’m-out-of-my-mind Gingrich and his food stamp example – “ I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention to talk about why the African-American community should demand pay checks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”- or Rick what-century-is-this-again Santorum - "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money”- the overwhelming impression is that these people really believe that all voters are white. Or at least most of them. Just this afternoon I watched a video put together to celebrate the 50th year of Glenbrook South High School's existence. My father, Ralph Ganzer, taught mathematics there for 18 years, the last high school teaching assignment he had. One of his former students spoke of how dad would teach, standing up in front of the class, with a pencil in one hand, saying, "Okay, here's a point, and here's another point. Now, let's connect these two points, and we have a line. Now, let's add a third point, out here, and connect these three points. Now we have a plan. Now, let's rotate the plane so that it is perpendicular to where I'm standing. One of our "postulates" is that two parallel lines never intersect. A postulate is a building block, and from postulates, we build theorems, and from theorems we build proofs. And Mr. Ganzer continued like this for the rest of the term, and it was fascinating to see him build an entire world out of thin air. And then, towards the end of the term, we came to class one day, and Mr. Ganzer said, 'I'm going to ask you now to postulate that two parallel lines DO intersect.' And it was like, ouch, what do you mean? Two parallel lines don't intersect. But he continued, 'I'm going to ask that you postulate this. Now, what happens next, after you take THIS as a postulate, is that EVERYTHING CHANGES.' So I thought about this, and it was part of my great awakening. Because it taught me how important it is, as a critical thinker, to always examine our underlying postulates, because, whenever we need to change them, well, then, EVERYTHING CHANGES." And thus I was given the great gift of insight into my father's art, his craft, his teaching, his gift for demonstrating, with no tools whatsoever, and with only words, an entire world, and then, with only words, deconstructing that entire world and building and entirely NEW world, where, nothing was the same; where everything changes, and if you were to tell me, "But Mark, parallel lines, they never intersect." Than I would have to gently reply, but consider this: You are standing between two railroad tracks, and you look out into the distance. And you see the railroad tracks drawing ever nearer together, so that, ultimately, you KNOW that they intersect, because you can see that they eventually must. Therefore, what does this tell us? It tells us that OUR EYES see things in a geometric dimension where ..... PARALLEL LINES INTERSECT (we call this binocular optical visual space) and from this, all sorts of new worlds, with new applications are opened to us (and we see in the divine plan, the divine scheme of things, incredible possibilities, incredible flexibilities, just incredible things, where there are many, many, many worlds, and where many, many, many postulates and their exact opposites both apply, and have utility. And this is indeed a wondrous thing. Newt Gingrich actually BELIEVES HIS OWN RHETORIC. He takes it on faith, and he is not the only one of the so-called Republican elites who do this. He has not examined his postulates; he would not know how; he couldn't find a homeless person on skid row; he wouldn't see the homeless person if he could find her; he wouldn't even be able to carry on a conversation with her, because he has no knowledge of any world other than the world of WHITE PRIVILEGE, WHITE SUPREMACY, WHITE CHRISTIAN PROSPERITY, and into his world, he has drawn Al Shaprton, to go on the barn-storming tour of America, singing up CHARTER SCHOOLS as the solution to all of our educational ills, when in fact, the #1 impediment to learning (to becoming educated) in America is POVERTY - poverty as exemplified in children starting school malnourished (for five plus years, as they enter kindergarten) nutritionally, malnourished culturally, malnourished verbally, with parents who have known only extremes of poverty, the most irregular and ragged of employment opportunities, who simply have NO IDEA that a better life is possible, because this life, the one they have been confined to, is where they are stuck, forever, for they too have been malnourished nutritionally, culturally, verbally, academically, and if they have SOMEHOW avoided being institutionalized (jailed) and somehow avoided the twin sirens of alcohol and drug pain management self-medication, and somehow avoided the bitter coldness of being homeless on the streets in these gentrifying northern cities that are opening up their former low income housing neighborhoods to gentrification ... the list of obstacles and hurdles is so long, the mountain is so high to climb, and these impoverished HUMAN BEINGS, who DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER, have been tossed to the bottom of the pile, and they are FOREVER being trampled on, and having what very little they've ever been given reduced, and taken away, so that them that's gots can gets them some more ... it is an abomination in the eyes of humanity, and in the eyes of the Lord God Almighty ... and, it is COMPLETELY INVISIBLE TO THE REPUBLICAN ELITES, the right-wing upper-middle class that still cleaves unto REPUBLICAN MANTRAS, and, ever the most sadly of all, these are wretched, but oh so beautiful, and oh so brilliant, and oh so deserving, and oh so worthy impoverished ones, they have been abandoned in all but name to ... the DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL ELITES, ACADEMIC ELITES, MEDIA ELITES, the INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE GATE KEEPERS who attend the mega churches, who delight in the Prosperity Gospel, and who see not the hunger, the degradation, the homelessness, the poverty that lies in the very hearts of their own communities ... because, indeed, RACISM is the original sin, but one chooses to be racist because one needs to believe it is his superiority, his moral superiority that hath blessed him, rather than the accidental mating of sperm and egg. How else to explain it? Even George Bush didn’t stoop this low. The baffling part of this is that the message is being targeted to working class white people, who benefit from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) – or food stamp program – in greater numbers than blacks. Roughly a third of all recipients are white, about a fifth are black. Half of all recipients are children. Is Gingrich planning to get these kids jobs? Oh, wait! He did say something about that. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work. Child labor laws, he says are “stupid.” What is really happening here, it seems to me, is blame. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe the country is in trouble and declining. The evidence strongly suggests that the reason we are in this mess is poor leadership caused by the undue influence of big-money interests on Wall Street and other financial sources. These are the folks who convinced past administrations to de-regulate the markets which then ran the economy into the ditch. You all know the story. But these same interests are funding the GOP campaigns and they are not in the mood to blame themselves, the top one-percenters, so they reach down, way down, to blame the people at the bottom. How else to explain the reference to “poor blacks on food stamps”? Or children? Or the elderly? Or the sick? Or unions? The solution to our current problem lies in what we are willing to give up to make things better. That’s where the game is now. The Republican field believes the sacrifices should be made at the bottom and so, in their thinking, the blame lies with the Americans who are benefiting from the so-called entitlements. But these are the people who are already suffering and whose hold on security is tenuous or non-existent. These are the working poor who work at Wal-Mart or Burger King for minimum wage and still need food stamps and other assistance. Many of them are white. Are they asking themselves why the likes of Gingrich and Santorum and the others are playing them against their black brothers are sisters? Do they care? Between now and November we will all be subjected to what is likely to be a sickening political attack season that promises to bring out the worst in our discourse. Perhaps when it’s over we’ll take a look at the wreckage and see if we can pick up the pieces and rebuild this country free of the poison that’s in the air today. BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Larry Matthews, is a veteran broadcast journalist. He is the recipient of The George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcast for his reporting on Vietnam veterans. He is also the recipient of a Columbia/DuPont Citation, Society of Professional Journalists, Associated Press, and other awards for investigative reporting. He is the author of I Used to Be in Radio, and two novels. Click here to reach Mr. Matthews. |
Friday, January 20, 2012
A Sickening Political Season By Larry Matthews
