Day: February 27, 2020

Rudeness is indeed warranted

benfell

Bernie Sanders

We have an update to my last blog post: Should Bernie Sanders fail to win the 60 percent supermajority of committed delegates in the primaries needed to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot, superdelegates will do everything they can to stop him.[1]

The relevant sentence from that blog post? “I have absolutely no reason to let [Bernie Sanders opponents] live unmolested in their comfortable privileged bubbles dreaming about how we have all these problems but we can take our time solving them while the Democratic National Committee schemes or fumbles to deny Sanders the nomination anyway[2] because that’s what they do[3] and we’re already pretty clear about how they feel about progressives anyway.[4]”[5]

But no, I’m not saying you heard it here first. A bunch of folks on Twitter have been saying the same thing.

Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein, “Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders,” New York Times, February 27, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html

Utah

Jennifer Dobner, “Decriminalization of polygamy in Utah clears key hurdle in state legislature,” Reuters, February 26, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-utah-polygamy-idUSKCN20L0DI

Pittsburgh

Jason Togyer, “Red Streets v. Blue Streets in McKeesport,” Columbia Journalism Review, February 27, 2020, https://mailchi.mp/cjr/the-mystery-of-caroline-county-virginia-687825

Coronavirus

The spread of the disease [HIV] was attributed to people injecting Opana, an addictive painkiller, with shared needles. But Pence didn’t agree with federal health experts that distributing clean needles was a good idea.

“I don’t believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia,” he told the Indianapolis Star at the time. Despite assurances from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it is an effective way to halt the spread of infections and diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B and C, Pence said if state lawmakers tried to send him a bill for a needle-exchange program, he would veto it.

As cases spiked, Pence reportedly turned to prayer.[6]

As I said.

Meryl Kornfield, “Mike Pence was criticized for his handling of Indiana’s HIV outbreak. He will lead the U.S. coronavirus response,” Washington Post, February 27, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/27/mike-pence-hiv-indiana/

  1. [1]Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein, “Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders,” New York Times, February 27, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/democratic-superdelegates.html↩
  2. [2]David Benfell, “Bipartisan ‘meritocracy’ and ‘vote Blue no matter who,’” Not Housebroken, February 6, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/02/06/bipartisan-meritocracy-and-vote-blue-no-matter-who/; David Benfell, “The Democrats don’t need ‘election interference,’” Not Housebroken, February 9, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/02/09/the-democrats-dont-need-election-interference/↩
  3. [3]Donna Brazile, “Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC,” Politico, November 2, 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774; Justine Coleman, “Obama privately said he would speak up to stop Sanders: report,” Hill, November 26, 2019, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/472090-obama-privately-said-he-would-speak-up-to-stop-sanders-report; Shane Goldmacher, “Hillary Clinton Slams Bernie Sanders for Not Working to Unite Democrats in 2016,” New York Times, January 31, 2020, ttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html; Ryan Lizza, “Waiting for Obama,” Politico, November 26, 2019, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/26/barack-obama-2020-democrats-candidates-biden-073025; Dan Merica, “Hillary Clinton suggests Russians are ‘grooming’ Tulsi Gabbard for third-party run,” CNN, October 21, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/18/politics/hillary-clinton-tulsi-gabbard/index.html; David Roth, “Bernie Sanders Is No Donald Trump,” New Republic, February 21, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/156639/bernie-sanders-no-donald-trump; Alex Shephard, “The Impotence of ‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats,” New Republic, April 18, 2019, https://newrepublic.com/article/153605/impotence-stop-sanders-democrats↩
  4. [4]Blue Texan [pseud.], “Early Morning Swim: Ed Rendell tells Democratic base to ‘Get Over It’ on Rachel Maddow,” Shadowproof, September 23, 2010, https://shadowproof.com/2010/09/23/early-morning-swim-ed-rendell-tells-democratic-base-to-get-over-it-on-rachel-maddow/; Blue Texan [pseud.], “Stop Whining, Liberals!” Shadowproof, September 27, 2010, https://shadowproof.com/2010/09/27/late-night-stop-whining-liberals/; Michael Falcone, “Opposite Day On The Campaign Trail?” ABC News, September 21, 2010, archived by author; Glenn Greenwald, “Obama’s view of liberal criticisms,” Salon, September 17, 2010, http://www.salon.com/2010/09/17/obama_139/; David Neiwert, “President Obama lashes out at his liberal critics: Choice is to ‘get things done’ or feel ‘sanctimonious’,” Crooks and Liars, December 7, 2010, http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/president-obama-lashes-out-his-liber; Heather Digby Parton, “‘It’s always the hippies’ fault’: Why the left treats its idealists all wrong,” Salon, February 5, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/02/05/its_always_the_hippies_fault_why_the_left_treats_its_idealists_all_wrong/; Greg Sargent, “Liberal blogger directly confronts David Axelrod, accuses White House of ‘hippie punching’,” Washington Post, September 23, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/09/liberal_blogger_directly_confr.html; Stephen Stromberg, “Joe Biden scolds progressives — and he’s right,” Washington Post, September 16, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/09/joe_biden_scolds_progressives.html; Sam Youngman, “White House unloads anger over criticism from ‘professional left’,” Hill, August 10, 2010, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/113431-white-house-unloads-on-professional-left↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “Bernie Sanders’ supporters have reason to be rude,” Not Housebroken, February 27, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/02/26/bernie-sanders-supporters-have-reason-to-be-rude/↩
  6. [6]Meryl Kornfield, “Mike Pence was criticized for his handling of Indiana’s HIV outbreak. He will lead the U.S. coronavirus response,” Washington Post, February 27, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/27/mike-pence-hiv-indiana/↩

An existential locus of control

benfell

White supremacism

Had I not moved to Pittsburgh, I probably would not bother to take notice of the Marine Corps Commandant ordering the removal of Confederate symbols.[1]

But in Pittsburgh, while I wouldn’t say these flags are ubiquitous, they certainly aren’t rare. I see them in front of people’s homes, often in tandem with a U.S. flag, betraying—at minimum—an authoritarian populist imagination that the Civil War was about something other than a secession to preserve the “peculiar institution,” that is, slavery,[2] against an insistence on preserving the Union[3] and, afterwards, only afterwards, a contest to determine on what terms the Union should be preserved, a contest that continues to the present.[4] While as artifacts, the flags form one element in the evidence supporting my very strong suspicion of possible white supremacist (paleoconservative) militia activity in this area,[5] I have little doubt that those who fly these flags all support Donald Trump.[6] So yeah, I’m wondering what Trump’s reaction to this order will be.

But also, for further thought, as I retrieve and archive the articles I cite above, and refine my understanding, I am struck by how slavery was as existential for the South as guns seem to gun nuts today. Am I really looking at some kind of a substitution? And to what extent can we draw a line from Confederate soldiers’ “alcoholism, unemployment, mental illness, and suicide” after the war[7] to “deaths of despair”[8] today?

That latter conflation is ugly. But I think in broad terms. And given my longstanding question about why, really, Simon de Beauvoir is right,[9] why people so persistently demonize, discriminate against, and subjugate the other, my thoughts are turning the notion of autonomy, a term ethicists use in preference to “freedom,” and how that may be in play.

As a critical theorist, I ask of so-called “freedom” for whom, to do what, to whom? This effectively interprets “freedom” as power over others, distinguished from power-to (do something) and power-with (to accomplish in coordination with others). My question challenges the term freedom as generally used in neoliberal society, for example, often in economic terms with so-called “free trade.”

But conceptually, I pose autonomy, one’s authority over one self, opposite a condition of being subject to someone else’s authority, often political or economic. Put one way, this is about my freedom to swing my fist ending somewhere before your jaw. But the question is often more nuanced than this, for example, when a manufacturing facility upstream unintentionally but negligently pollutes water needed for drinking downstream. Where, really, does “freedom” lie here?

The view of slaveholders leading into the Civil War seems to lie with no limitation on the swinging of their fists whatsoever on slaves. The view of gun nuts seems to lie with no limitation on their ability to dominate anyone they perceive as a threat. Blacks appear on the receiving end of both of these.

But when that concept of control, that so-called “freedom,” is challenged, whether in even brutal power over others[10] or even the ability to earn a living,[11] we seem to be seeing the behaviors associated with “deaths of despair.”

It may be that Blacks who have dismissed these deaths as a consequence of white privilege are not entirely wrong—my musing today seems to support that connection. But they aren’t entirely right either. Because it also cannot be right that I cannot find a real job.[12]

Jeff Schogol, “Marine commandant banishes Confederate symbols from all Corps installations,” Task and Purpose, February 26, 2020, https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-corps-bans-confederate-symbols

  1. [1]Jeff Schogol, “Marine commandant banishes Confederate symbols from all Corps installations,” Task and Purpose, February 26, 2020, https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-corps-bans-confederate-symbols↩
  2. [2]Alexander Abad-Santos, “Racists Ruined the Confederate Flag for Lynyrd Skynyrd,” Atlantic, September 21, 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2012/09/racists-ruined-confederate-flag-lynyrd-skynyrd/323381/; Ta-Nehisi Coates, “What This Cruel War Was Over,” Atlantic, June 22, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/; Prachi Gupta, “Lynyrd Skynyrd decides it’s finally time to stop using the Confederate flag,” Salon, September 21, 2012, http://www.salon.com/2012/09/21/lynyrd_skynyrd_decides_its_finally_time_to_stop_using_the_confederate_flag/; Julia Martinez, “For Civil-War Scholars, a Settled Question That Will Never Die: What Caused the War?” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 31, 2017, http://www.chronicle.com/article/For-Civil-War-Scholars-a/241627; Jonathan Terbush, “Lynyrd Skynyrd calls Confederate Flag racist, prompts fan revolt,” Raw Story, September 22, 2012, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/22/lynyrd-skynyrd-calls-confederate-flag-racist-prompts-fan-revolt/; Tracy Thompson, “The South still lies about the Civil War,” Salon, March 16, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/03/16/the_south_still_lies_about_the_civil_war/; Chris Willman, “Lynyrd Skynyrd Backtracks On Comments, Proudly Lets Confederate Flag Fly,” Yahoo!, September 24, 2012, http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/stop-the-presses/lynyrd-skynyrd-backtracks-comments-proudly-lets-confederate-flag-003332446.html↩
  3. [3]Tony Horwitz, “150 Years of Misunderstanding the Civil War,” Atlantic, June 19, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/150-years-of-misunderstanding-the-civil-war/277022/; Glenn W. LaFantasie, “How the South rationalizes secession,” Salon, December 19, 2010, http://www.salon.com/2010/12/19/lafantasie_south_secession/; Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, “A Letter from President Lincoln.; Reply to Horace Greeley. Slavery and the Union The Restoration of the Union the Paramount Object,” New York Times, August 24, 1862, http://www.nytimes.com/1862/08/24/news/letter-president-lincoln-reply-horace-greeley-slavery-union-restoration-union.html↩
  4. [4]David W. Blight, “The Civil War Isn’t Over,” Atlantic, April 8, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-civil-war-isnt-over/389847/; Andrew O’Hehir, “Welcome to the new Civil War,” Salon, January 5, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/01/05/welcome_to_the_new_civil_war/; ↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “Militia territory,” Not Housebroken, November 22, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/11/22/militia-territory/↩
  6. [6]Mary B. McCord, “Armed Militias Are Taking Trump’s Civil War Tweets Seriously,” Lawfare, October 2, 2019, https://www.lawfareblog.com/armed-militias-are-taking-trumps-civil-war-tweets-seriously↩
  7. [7]David W. Blight, “The Civil War Isn’t Over,” Atlantic, April 8, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-civil-war-isnt-over/389847/↩
  8. [8]Laura Bliss, “The Pessimism of White, Working-Class America,” CityLab, November 17, 2015, http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/11/the-pessimism-of-white-working-class-america/416379/; Julia Belluz, “Why the white middle class is dying faster, explained in 6 charts,” Vox, March 23, 2017, http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/23/14988084/white-middle-class-dying-faster-explained-case-deaton; Andrew J. Cherlin, “Why Are White Death Rates Rising?” New York Times, February 22, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/why-are-white-death-rates-rising.html; Gina Kolata, “Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds,” New York Times, November 2, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html; Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen, “Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Young Whites,” New York Times, January 16, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/science/drug-overdoses-propel-rise-in-mortality-rates-of-young-whites.html; Paul Krugman, “Heartland of Darkness,” New York Times, November 4, 2015, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/heartland-of-darkness/; Paul Krugman, “Despair, American Style,” New York Times, November 9, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/opinion/despair-american-style.html; Alana Semuels, “Is Economic Despair What’s Killing Middle-Aged White Americans?” CityLab, March 23, 2017, https://www.citylab.com/politics/2017/03/economic-despair-killing-middle-aged-white-americans/520554/↩
  9. [9]Simone de Beauvoir, “Women as Other,” in Social Theory, ed. Charles Lemert, 6th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2017), 268-270.↩
  10. [10]David W. Blight, “The Civil War Isn’t Over,” Atlantic, April 8, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-civil-war-isnt-over/389847/↩
  11. [11]Laura Bliss, “The Pessimism of White, Working-Class America,” CityLab, November 17, 2015, http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/11/the-pessimism-of-white-working-class-america/416379/; Julia Belluz, “Why the white middle class is dying faster, explained in 6 charts,” Vox, March 23, 2017, http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/23/14988084/white-middle-class-dying-faster-explained-case-deaton; Andrew J. Cherlin, “Why Are White Death Rates Rising?” New York Times, February 22, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/why-are-white-death-rates-rising.html; Gina Kolata, “Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans, Study Finds,” New York Times, November 2, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html; Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen, “Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Young Whites,” New York Times, January 16, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/science/drug-overdoses-propel-rise-in-mortality-rates-of-young-whites.html; Paul Krugman, “Heartland of Darkness,” New York Times, November 4, 2015, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/heartland-of-darkness/; Paul Krugman, “Despair, American Style,” New York Times, November 9, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/opinion/despair-american-style.html; Alana Semuels, “Is Economic Despair What’s Killing Middle-Aged White Americans?” CityLab, March 23, 2017, https://www.citylab.com/politics/2017/03/economic-despair-killing-middle-aged-white-americans/520554/↩
  12. [12]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/↩