Juneteenth

The Hidden History of Juneteenth tells a story that this week shows us we still need to hear: Juneteenth and what it really was.

Not just that white, rebel Texans hid the news of Emancipation.But that

Ending slavery was not simply a matter of issuing pronouncements. It was a matter of forcing rebels to obey the law. To a very real extent, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment amounted to promissory notes of freedom. The real on-the-ground work of ending slavery and defending the rudiments of liberty was done by the freedpeople in collaboration with and often backed by the force of the US Army.

Granger’s proclamation may not have brought news of emancipation but it did carry this crucial promise of force. Within weeks, fifty thousand U.S. troops flooded into the state in a late-arriving occupation. These soldiers were needed because planters would not give up on slavery. In October 1865, months after the June orders, white Texans in some regions “still claim and control [slaves] as property, and in two or three instances recently bought and sold them,” according to one report. To sustain slavery, some planters systematically murdered rebellious African-Americans to try to frighten the rest into submission. A report by the Texas constitutional convention claimed that between 1865 and 1868, white Texans killed almost 400 black people; black Texans, the report claimed, killed 10 whites. Other planters hoped to hold onto slavery in one form or another until they could overturn the Emancipation Proclamation in court.

Against this resistance, the Army turned to force. In a largely forgotten or misunderstood occupation, the Army spread more than 40 outposts across Texas to teach rebels “the idea of law as an irresistible power to which all must bow.” Freedpeople, as Haywood’s quote reminds us, did not need the Army to teach them about freedom; they needed the Army to teach planters the futility of trying to sustain slavery.

Fiona anniversary video

I love Fiona! Watch her galloping around!

Kavanaugh

Here are several things re that train wreck... some funny stuff at the end!


"It is possible that his accusers might have mistook him for someone else... and the mysteriously disappearing gambling debts may be innocuous, not mafia connected. But there is one absolute inarguable fact from last week's hearing. The bilious, voice-cracking rage and openly partisan expressions of hate toward half of the voting populace were not behaviors of a mature jurist and adult. The simple and politically defensible thing for Susan Collins to say is: "Go back to the bench/bullpen and send us a conservative grownup." -David Brin

This by Albert Burneko:

the skeleton key to understanding American conservatism is this: At bottom, it lacks absolutely any moral or ideological underpinning beyond the reactionary protection of moneyed white men—of their station, their wealth and power, and their egos. Its supposed ideas and abstractions are just a framework for spasmodic lashing-out against anything that can be interpreted as a threat to rich white dudes. It likes supply-side economics because the supply side is made of rich white dudes. It likes tax cuts because the taxes are mostly cut for rich white dudes. It likes cops and soldiers because cops and soldiers uphold a social order with rich white dudes at the top. It likes “traditional family values” because social, economic, and sexual dominion over women are the most traditional family values of all. It likes “Make America Great Again” because rich white dudes used to roll through society and over everyone else with even greater impunity than they do now. All of these things are just proxies for reiterating, over and over and over, forever, the power and security and primacy of rich white dudes.

Something else to think about:

What we do know suggests the likelihood that Kavanaugh, both as Associate White House Counsel under George Bush from 2001 to 2003 and then as his White House Staff Secretary from 2003 to 2006, had significant involvement in the Bush Administration’s torture policies. We need to continue to demand to see Bush White House files to “pin down specifics of any Kavanaugh involvement in detainee policy discussions.” (See the Chicago Tribune article by Michael Kranish, “Kavanaugh’s role in Bush-era torture debate now an issue in his Supreme Court nomination,” July 18, 2018.)

This terrific picture from Boing Boing (is that guy on the left asleep???

And this from Andy Borowitz:

Obama said that it was “a little comforting” to know that he was not the only person Kavanaugh neglected to blame in his remarks. “I just got off the phone with George Soros, and he is bummed as well,” Obama said.

And finally, Randy Rainbow!!!!

The "Resistance"

Bolling notes* "the author claims to be part of the "Resistance."  The term seems a bit grandiose for someone who is enabling a deranged narcissist under the thumb of a foreign enemy, who is scapegoating and destroying the lives of the most vulnerable in our society, just so that the author's goals of gutting environmental regulations and ballooning the deficit to give tax breaks to the wealthy aren't jeopardized."

For the newsletter, with comics AND commentaries, check out the Inner Hive.

Stolen valor

Look. She deserves respect for her real accomplishments, which are many (see here). And she's not the one exaggerating them. But being in the military while a war is going on doesn't mean you served in the war. I was in freaking Germany but I have a Vietnam service medal (aka "everybody button"), because it's VIETNAM WAR ERA, as it plainly says right there in the photo. She was only stationed in the US and Okinawa (the latter in the 1950s). She was never in Korea OR Vietnam.

Why don't conservatives understand that this is "stolen valor" just as much as buying a Silver Star on Ebay?

Plant a tree

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best is now." ...

Happy Earth Day!

(source)

Silence is one thing, refusing to affirm is another

Here's the thing, Tennessee Legislature.

You can just be quiet about it, and tell yourself and your constituents that, hey, hating Nazis is the default position, of course we do, we don't have to say so. And as long as nobody brings it up, you can get away with that.

BUT.

Once somebody does bring it up, the game changes. If somebody says, I think we should announce publicly that we hate Nazis, and your response is dead silence and refusing to advance the resolution? Now you're saying "We won't say we hate Nazis."

Now you're saying "We don't hate Nazis."

You're saying you actively refuse to “strongly denounce and oppose the totalitarian impulses, violent terrorism, xenophobic biases, and bigoted ideologies that are promoted” by the groups.

Is that really what you want to say?


Source: The Tennessean, March 14, 2018

What they missed

The brilliant Alexandra Petri writes a column covering what the kids missed in school when they walked out.

("I have seen a number of Sage Folks on the Internet complaining that students across the nation walked out Wednesday to protest gun violence instead of remaining in class and learning important things. How dare they! Don’t worry: I have you covered for the 17 minutes of walkout, and beyond. Here is what you missed. ")

Here's what they missed if it was their period for American History:

U.S. HISTORY
The people on the Internet think you would have been discussing the Second Amendment today, but if it has taken you until March to get to the Second Amendment, something is very wrong in your class. You are supposed to be on America’s role in World War II, but you are a little behind, and so today Mr. Z is discussing the bonus marchers. You will erroneously learn about a time when people who believed in something showed up in a certain place and made their demands known. This is not how it works in real life, adults will tell you.

(Source link)

James Baldwin at Cambridge, 1965

I can't figure how to put the video itself here. But go watch it, it's short and it's powerful.  

The Guardian says: "At the start of Black History Month, we take a look at a seminal speech by writer, essayist, poet and civil rights activist, James Baldwin. Attending Cambridge University Union in 1965, Baldwin debates whether the ‘American dream’ has been achieved at the expense of African-Americans."

I add, take a look at 1:20 - William F Buckley doesn't like what he's hearing, at all.

Burn it all down

This article, by Charles P. Pierce, is intense and devastating. It's also in Sports Illustrated. That means it will reach more people who need to read it than it would have in something like Vanity Fair, Harper's, or Teen Vogue. Aly Raisman's statement alone should be read by every athletics fan in the country.

A couple of quotes from the article to whet your appetite:

"Burn it all down. That is the calm and reasoned conclusion to which I have come as one horror story after another unspooled in the courtroom. Nobody employed in the upper echelons at USA Gymnastics, or at the United States Olympic Committee, or at Michigan State University should still have a job."

"The courthouse is supposed to be the great leveler. It is supposed to be the place where all the monsters are called to final account as fairly as possible. It is supposed to be where flaming vengeance is cooled into steely justice. It is the secular equivalent of the passage from the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus tells the assembled that, “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” God knows, it doesn’t always work out that way in our courthouses. The thumbs on the scales of justice weigh heaviest on the poor and the brown. But it is by god working out in the courtroom in Lansing, Michigan over which Judge Rosemarie Aquilina presides."
 
And "the school’s gymnastics coach tried to coerce her athletes into signing a card to support Nassar when the first charges began to come down. This is unfathomable to me. I believe it also would be unfathomable to Vlad the Impaler."

And then this: "Twenty-three years ago, a gifted journalist named Joan Ryan tried to warn us that gymnastics and figure skating – two sports that attained wild success through athletes who barely were old enough to go to high school – were warping young lives in dangerous ways, and that they were ideal hunting grounds for predators like Larry Nassar and pocket fascists like the Karolyis. That book, Little Girls In Pretty Boxes, was named by Sports Illustrated as one of the top 100 sports books of all time, and the revelations therein prompted USA gymnastics to put together a handbook for parents to alert them to the signs of eating disorders, abusive coaches, and other delights of the sporting life. By then, Larry Nassar was already climbing the ladder of that organization, so we can see how well that all worked out."

Farewell, Dmitri

Dmitri Hvorostovsky has died, of brain cancer, at 55.  Here is his New York Times obituary. I had the privilege of seeing him perform at the Met several times, in Un Ballo in Maschera, Rigoletto, and Il Trovatore. He was a fine performer and a very gifted singer. He is gone too young. Below "In loving tribute to Dmitri Hvorostovsky, one of the greatest and bravest artists to ever grace the Metropolitan Opera stage. Watch excerpts from some of his most memorable performances at the Met."

Uncle Vova

Here's something that leaves me fairly speechless. Lyrics, quick translation, and notes below.



Uncle Vova (by Vyacheslave Antonov)

The 21st century is here, the globe is tired of wars
A leader has won the people
In the EU there’s no consensus, the Middle East is drowning in poverty
Across the ocean the president is losing his power

chorus:
For us, from the northern seas all the way to the southern borders
From the Kuril Islands to the shores of the Baltic,
We would have peace in this land, but if our commander in chief
Calls us to the last battle, Uncle Vova We are with you

And what will we gain, my generation,
By refusing to see, we will lose our whole country
Our true friends are the Navy and the Army,
The memory of the friendship of our grandfathers, and the Red Star

The samurai will never take the ridge,
We will defend the amber capital,
Our Sevastopol and our Crimea we will preserve for our descendants
And back into the haven of the motherland we will return Alaska

A few quick notes:
гегемон does not mean hegemony, but rather hegemon, "one who possesses dominant power or hegemony, i.e. a strong leader, i.e. Putin;
The reference to a president losing power is the Russian view that Trump wants to cooperate with Russia but is prevented by Congress from doing so;
"the last battle" recalls an iconic WWII song;
дать слабинку is to have a blind spot, but here I think it means more to turn a blind eye or refuse to see what's in front of you;
the reference to grandfathers is to WWII;
the Amber Capital is Kaliningrad;
Uncle is a term of address for an older man from children;
and Vova is a nckname for Vladimir - Putin, in other words.

Дядя Вова - Вячеслав Антонов

Двадцать первый век настал, шар земной от войн устал
Населенье шара гегемон достал
В Евросоюзе мненья нет, Ближний Восток стонет от бед
За океаном лишен власти президент

прирев:
Нам от северных морей, вдаль до южных рубежей
От Курильских островов, до Балтийских берегов
На земле сей был бы мир, но если главный командир
Позовет в последний бой, дядя Вова мы с тобой

А что достанется тому, поколенью моему
Дать слабинку, потеряем всю страну
Наши верные друзья, это Флот и Армия
Память дружбы деда красная звезда

Не достанется гряда самураям никогда
Грудью встанем за столицу янтаря
Севастополь наш и Крым, для потомков сохраним
В гавань Родины, Аляску возвратим

http://slavaantonov.ru/

Juneteenth

The Hidden History of Juneteenth tells a story that this week shows us we still need to hear: Juneteenth and what it really was.

Not just that white, rebel Texans hid the news of Emancipation.But that

Ending slavery was not simply a matter of issuing pronouncements. It was a matter of forcing rebels to obey the law. To a very real extent, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment amounted to promissory notes of freedom. The real on-the-ground work of ending slavery and defending the rudiments of liberty was done by the freedpeople in collaboration with and often backed by the force of the US Army.

Granger’s proclamation may not have brought news of emancipation but it did carry this crucial promise of force. Within weeks, fifty thousand U.S. troops flooded into the state in a late-arriving occupation. These soldiers were needed because planters would not give up on slavery. In October 1865, months after the June orders, white Texans in some regions “still claim and control [slaves] as property, and in two or three instances recently bought and sold them,” according to one report. To sustain slavery, some planters systematically murdered rebellious African-Americans to try to frighten the rest into submission. A report by the Texas constitutional convention claimed that between 1865 and 1868, white Texans killed almost 400 black people; black Texans, the report claimed, killed 10 whites. Other planters hoped to hold onto slavery in one form or another until they could overturn the Emancipation Proclamation in court.

Against this resistance, the Army turned to force. In a largely forgotten or misunderstood occupation, the Army spread more than 40 outposts across Texas to teach rebels “the idea of law as an irresistible power to which all must bow.” Freedpeople, as Haywood’s quote reminds us, did not need the Army to teach them about freedom; they needed the Army to teach planters the futility of trying to sustain slavery.

Justice long delayed

The Guardian has a wonderful piece on the Hillsborough disaster. Read it; it's well worth your time.

A taste:

The evidence built into a startling indictment of South Yorkshire police, their chain of command and conduct – a relentlessly detailed evisceration of a British police force. Responsible for an English county at the jeans-and-trainers end of the 1980s, the force had brutally policed the miners’ strike, and was described by some of its own former officers as “regimented”, with morning parade and saluting of officers, ruled by “an iron fist” institutionally unable to admit mistakes.

The dominance of Wright, a decorated career police officer who died in 2011, loomed over the catastrophe. He was depicted as a frighteningly authoritarian figure who treated the force “like his own personal territory” and whose orders nobody – tragically – dared debate.

The families of those killed in the “pens” of Hillsborough’s Leppings Lane terrace, who have had to fight 27 years for justice and accountability, recalled the appalling way the South Yorkshire police treated them, even when breaking the news of loved ones’ deaths. Relatives and survivors recalled indifference, even hostility, in the unfolding horror – although the families’ lawyers thanked individual officers who did their valiant best to help victims. Then there was the unspeakably heartless identification process in the football club gymnasium, after which CID officers immediately grilled families about how much they and their dead loved ones had had to drink.

Ahahahahahaha

"So they’re both factually wrong and ridiculous in their conclusions. That’s why it’s on Fox News."

From Ed at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Torture Yay!

I like to think that not all that long ago this country wasn't so goddamned scared that a presidential candidate who wrote a column promising to use torture would have been rejected overwhelmingly and immediately. But if that was so, it isn't any longer.

Donald Trump promises to use torture:

"I have made it clear in my campaign that I would support and endorse the use of enhanced interrogation techniques if the use of these methods would enhance the protection and safety of the nation. Though the effectiveness of many of these methods may be in dispute, nothing should be taken off the table when American lives are at stake." And he added, "I will do whatever it takes to protect and defend this nation and its people."

And the other Republicans aren't far behind him - they just haven't written columns yet.

At a time like this, I think of Sarah Vowel's words:

Whenever I hear the president mention, oh, every 12 minutes, that his greatest responsibility is "to protect the American people," the insufferable civics robot inside my head mutters: "Actually, sir, your oath, the one with the Bible and the chief justice and the Jumbotron, is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. For the American people are not mere flesh whose greatest hope is to keep our personal greasy molecules intact; we, sir, are a body politic -- with ideals."

Because once we adopt Trump's position, how are we different from our enemies? Things aren't Good® because We do them and Bad® because They do them.

Kissinger as litmus paper

"The difference between the two views of Kissinger is not simply of academic or historical interest. How a presidential candidate feels about him is a clear sign of her or his worldview and indicates the kind of decisions she or he will make in office – and, perhaps even more importantly, suggests the kind of staffers she or he will appoint to key positions of authority in areas of diplomacy, defense, national security, and intelligence."

Here's an excellent look at what embracing Henry Kissinger means, and what, therefore, shunning him means. And why the media, especially the Washington press corps, doesn't even want to talk about it.

A taste:

The sparring during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over whether Henry Kissinger is an elder statesman or a pariah has laid bare a major foreign policy divide within the Democratic Party.

Clinton and Sanders stand on opposite sides of that divide. One represents the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment, which reveres and in some cases actually works for Kissinger. The other represents the marginalized non-interventionists, who can’t possibly forgive someone with the blood of millions of brown people on his hands.

Kissinger is an amazing and appropriate lens through which to see what’s at stake in the choice between Clinton and Sanders.

McCain and torture and the GOP

A quick little something from Fred at Slacktivist's latest round-up:

John McCain wants to believe that, in 2016, it’s still possible to be a Republican while opposing torture. He notes that torture is illegal, immoral, counter-productive, and disgraceful. He’s right about that. Whether or not he’s right that it’s still possible to be a Republican while believing that is yet to be determined.

Two words

I'm getting very tired of being lectured for supporting Bernie over Hillary (even though I'm not a "young woman").

To Madeleine Albright, Gloria Steinem, and Barbara Res, I have this to say:

Yes,all other things being equal, I would in fact support Hillary first because she's a woman. But all other things are not even close to being equal. They may agree 93% of the time, but that 7% is pretty significant.

Certainly I'd prefer my third choice to win than my first choice to lose, but that doesn't make my third choice my first. And certainly I will vote for the (D) in the general election, but that doesn't mean it's the (D) I would have preferred.

And one last thing. If you're going to say, as does Albright that "There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women," or, as does Res, "But I shake my head and ask myself, why can't they just go with Hillary because she is a woman?", I've got 2 words for you:

Margaret Thatcher.


** Apparently Steinem was cut off and out of context, which pleases me.

Edit: I came home planning to edit this to ask if I should vote for Carly Fiorina instead of Bernie, should that be the way it falls out. Of course, Fiorina just dropped out, so that existential dilemma will not be posed this year.

Error

In his latest newsletter, Michael Quinion tells us that a couple of his readers "spotted a headline error that turns up on US newspaper sites so often that it has become a perennial joke. Let’s give it one last moment in the sun because this time it appeared (on 26 January) on the website of the prestigious New York Times: “Police Officer Shoots Man With Knife in Lower Manhattan”. The NYT rapidly changed it."

The problem is that this isn't an "error", it's merely structural ambiguity that is fully grammatical and permitted. And not one that anyone really misunderstands it. Sure, "police shoot man with sniper rifle" is somewhat rude to your readers, though I expect the readership would be able to understand from context who had the rifle.

But "police shoot man with knife"? Really? Do people think it's a knife that fires bullets, or a gun that fires knives? "Police shoot man with black hair" - still an "error"?

Look, I'm not saying that the sentence is flawless. Writing things that make your readers drop out of the text to laugh (unless it's a comedy piece) isn't good writing; it might even be slightly rude. But it's not a grammatical or syntactic error.