#...you were *failed* by an education system that was more interested in american exceptionalism than actual factual history

[uncanny-tranny]

Big reminder that your country is not immune to bigotry. I've seen so many people, for example, pretend like antisemitism doesn't exist in the USA because we were part of the allied forces in WWII (of course, they conveniently don't remember that we rejected jewish refugees when WWII broke out and we only really joined because Pearl Harbor was bombed, but I digress).

If you think your country is immune from antisemitism, racism (including anti-Indigenous racism), class issues, ableism, whatever else it may be, look deeper because you will find it.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Florida has just become the first state in the Union to mandate that high school students learn about the crimes of communism.  The subject is indeed very important, and too little known. The problem is that the new legislation, like other recent Florida measures, itself recalls certain evils of communism.

As of this coming school year, high school students who wish to graduate from a Florida school must pass a class in U.S. government that includes "comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States."  

Any high school teacher is going to sigh at the awkward circularity of the "principles essential to the principles" formulation.  As Orwell tried to remind us in "Politics and the English Language," though, vague formulations demand our critical attention.  This weird phrasing serves a sinister purpose, one that becomes clear later in the law.  The point is that the United States is to be defined as free and democratic, regardless of what Americans or their legislators actually do.  American is free and democratic because of a miraculous investiture from the past.  Complacency is therefore patriotic, and criticism is not.

The law presents "totalitarianism" as an ideology.  Totalitarianism is not an ideology, so Florida teachers are henceforth legally required to teach nonsense.  To be sure, one can find historical figures who referred to themselves as "totalitarian" in a positive sense, but in general the term has been used as analysis and critique.  In use for about a century now, "totalitarianism" has generally been used as a category that brings together regimes with very different ideologies, drawing attention to underlying similarities.

As such, totalitarianism can also be a tool for self-critique, since it draws attention to political temptations that make different systems possible.  The most important book about totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt, presents Nazism and Stalinism as possibilities within modern politics.  When in Origins of Totalitarianism Arendt wrote about conspiracy theories, she was writing not only about Nazi and Soviet practices, but also about a human failing.  When she wrote about narratives where we are always right and they are always wrong, where we are always innocent and they are always guilty, she was describing a universal risk.  When she wrote of people who were simultaneously gullible and cynical, for whom “everything was possible and nothing was true,” she got uncomfortably close to contemporary American reality.

By defining totalitarianism as a foreign ideology to be contrasted with American principles, Florida legislators have denied students not just the knowledge of what the term actually means, but also the possibility to appeal to a rich body of thought that might help them to avoid risks to freedom and democracy.

Unlike totalitarianism, communism is an ideology.  Its ideological character is visible in its approach to the past: communists transformed history, an open search for fact and endless discussion of interpretation, into History, an official story in which one's own country was the center of world liberation regardless of what its leaders did.  The party was always right, even if what the party said and did was unpredictable and self-contradictory.  The most important communist party still in power, the Chinese, takes this line today.  To question the revolution or the inevitability of the system is to fall prey to "historical nihilism."  In April 2018, a Chinese memory law accordingly made it a crime to question the heroism of past leaders.  What we have is good and right because we inherited it from glorious dead revolutionaries, and we must not question what the government tells us about our glorious dead revolutionaries.

We have our own official story of revolution. The Florida board of education has recently forbidden teachers from defining American history "as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence."  That narrow formulation rules out most of reality but crams in a good dose of mysticism.  Nothing is ever entirely new, and nations arise from many sources aside from principles.  The board of education’s claim is political rather than historical: Everything good comes from the past, and we must not question what the government tells us about its righteousness.  If there is only one story, and you have to tell it, that is not history but History.  The point is not that the American Revolution is the same thing as the Chinese Revolution. The point is that we are treating it the same way, describing it in dogmatic terms that we enforce in memory law. And that is deeply worrying.

The same spirit is in evidence in that Florida communist law.  Deep in the past, it instructs us, is where we find freedom and democracy.  Freedom is not something to be struggled for by individuals now, but magically "inherited from prior generations."  That phrase should give pause to anyone who cares about freedom.  If you seriously think that freedom is something that you can inherit, like a sofa or a stamp collection, you are not going to be free for long.

In the law's logic, democracy is not actually allowing people to vote, but some silent tradition that somehow exists whether or not real Americans can vote in reality.  Despite what actually happened between the eighteenth century and now (slavery, let's say, or voter suppression), we must close our minds to everything but those mythical "principles essential to the principles."  The facts give way to an underlying logic, impossible to articulate, that demonstrates that my country is better.

The Florida communism law requires that someone (it is hard, given the awkward phrasing, to say who) must "curate oral history resources."  The curation will involve the selection "first-person accounts of victims of other nations' governing philosophies who can compare those philosophies with those of the United States."  There is something humiliating about turning real people into poster children for American exceptionalism.  Refugees from other countries past and present have individual and complex stories, which cannot usually be reduced to tales of American superiority.  Edith P., a Holocaust survivor, speaks of waiting for hours every day in front of the American embassy, which denied her family a visa.  American schoolchildren read about Anne Frank, but no one tells them that her father applied for an American visa.  Leon Bass was an African American soldier who saw a German concentration camp.  He had something comparative to say about "governing philosophies," but it would not survive curation.

America today is not an especially free country.  Our own non-governmental organization Freedom House, relying on our own preferred notions of freedom (civil and political rights) ranks us in fifty-eighth place.  In other words, it would theoretically be possible (and it would certainly be valuable) for the Florida board of education to solicit testimonies from people from fifty-seven other countries where people live more freely than here, who could explain why they have not moved to the United States.  They could compare their countries' "governing philosophies" with that of the United States (favorably, unfavorably, who knows: they are free people).  But we know that this will not happen.  Such an application of the Florida communism law is unthinkable, because the Florida communism law is not about freedom.  It is about repeating that America is the best country in the world.

Self-absorption is not anti-communism.  Anti-communism would entail listening to history rather than History, and educating individuals who can make up their own minds.  You don't get freedom from the flock.

Another familiar communist trick can be found in a recent directive by the Florida board of education.  The trick has to do with leveraging victory in the Second World War.  Beginning in the late 1960s, a certain version of the Second World War became an important part of communist ideology.  In the Soviet Union, and also in today's Russia, any wrong done by the system was explained away by the fact that the Red Army had defeated the Germans.  The fact that Nazis were evil made the Soviets good.  The fact of having resisted the Nazis made one's own system unassailable.  This communist technique has now, uncannily, resurfaced in official Florida pedagogy.

In the recent school board directive, we learn that "examples of theories that distort historical events and are inconsistent with State Board approved standards include the denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of Critical Race Theory, meaning the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons." This repeats the Soviet (and Russian) logic.  We don't deny German crimes, and therefore we are innocent of any crimes ourselves.  Indeed, anyone who suggests that we look at our own history: well, they are like Holocaust deniers!

Another sad resemblance concerns voting. Freedom involves educating people about the past as it was so that they can make up their own minds about what the future should be.  Democracy involves giving people the vote in the meantime.  The Soviet Union held elections, but they were ritualistic and fake.  When Soviet power extended across eastern Europe after the Second World War, local communist parties rigged elections.  Thus authentic anti-communists would make sure that their own elections were not rigged, and that all citizens could take part.  But the Florida communism law was passed in circumstances that suggest a lively interest in making voting more difficult.  In 2019, the Florida legislature enacted pay-to-vote legislation that effectively disenfranchised people that Floridians, in a referendum, had voted to enfranchise the year before.  The Florida communism law came into effect this 1 July, hard on the heels of a new Florida voter suppression law.

I have spent decades teaching and writing about communism, and I certainly think that young people should know about communist systems and their policies of mass killing.  But declarations of superiority do not amount to a pedagogy, nor to an anti-communism worthy of the name.  The content of the Florida communism law, and the Florida voter suppression law, and the board of education directive on race, do not suggest that Florida lawmakers and administrators have learned much about what was wrong with communism.  

These measures reveal American weaknesses that make American tyranny more likely.

* * * * *

When I went to High School in Florida [many decades ago] all Seniors had to take a class called “Americanism vs Communism.” As I recall, most students slept through the class. I thought that it was insulting propaganda - using an inadequate text that was filled with poorly written boilerplate and boring poorly made films.  If the right wing wants to inflict propaganda on teenagers it should invest in decent writers and film makers.  They are very poor in the literacy department.  I was 16 at the time and unsophisticated but I could still tell that what i was being taught was a waste of my time.

[hachama]

Democratic debate analysis

I’ve read the transcripts.  I read the fact-checkers’ analysis.  I have ranked them. 

Due to the size of the field, I’ll be splitting my analysis into four groups.  This first one will be the Please Do Not Make Me Vote For Them group: 

Ryan, Hickenlooper, Williamson, Bennet, Delaney, O’Rourke, and Biden.

Under the break, I’ll be analyzing their debate performance, how effectively they represented themselves on the issues, and how much I hate them, in reverse order of preference. Let’s begin.

20) Biden

Biden is so… so out of touch.  Even the moderators asked if he was out of touch, and when the moderators of a debate you’re participating in think you don’t know what you’re talking about?  For a career politician, that has got to hurt.  Frankly, they were right.  Biden thinks that the reason people can’t pay their student loans without sacrificing everything else they want to do with their lives is because we’re not earning more than $25k a year, that freezing payments and interest until the graduated student crosses that threshold would magically make everything ok.  If he were right, there’d be no Fight for 15.  A $15 minimum wage, assuming full time hours, is more than $30k per year.  

His response to accusations of racism was to point to his “black friend,” former President Obama, which… dude.  You’ve got to know better than that by now.  Please tell me you know having been the first and only black President’s VP does not immediately absolve you of being an old white guy who worked with Southern Segregationists against integrating schools.  

His entire platform seems to be “remember when I was a senator/the vice president?  Wasn’t I great, back when I had ideas and did things?” and I gotta say, No.  No, you weren’t that great, Joe.  Even his closing comments were lackluster, talking about “restoring the soul of America,” and “restoring the dignity of the middle class,” and “building national unity.”  His answers to simple questions were, frankly, terrible.

Joe, what would you do, day one, if you knew you’d only be able to accomplish one thing with your Presidency?  Thanks for asking, I’d BEAT DONALD TRUMP!  Joe.  Joe, that’s how you get to Day One.  Unless you mean “grab him by the collar, haul him out on the White House lawn, and bludgeon him with heavy objects,” you’re not answering the question.   Joe, which one country do you think we need to repair diplomatic ties with most?  NATO!  Joe.  Joe, NATO is more than one country.  I just… *sigh*

To his credit, Biden trotted out many of the same old campaign promises Democrats have been making for as long as I can remember.  Closing tax loopholes, universal pre-K and increased educational funding, let Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices.  These are tried and true campaign promises because they’re things we can all generally agree we want.  But they’re old, a lot like Biden.  They’re not the bold solutions we need.  His newer ideas all sound pretty moderate and old, too: free community college (not 4 year public university), creating a public option for healthcare so people can choose between insurance companies and Medicare, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, and instituting national gun buybacks.  His suggestion of requiring all guns to have a biometric safety is also a vague gesture in the direction of a solution.

Biden is too old, too timid, and too arrogant to understand that he’s got nothing to offer in an election where Millenials and Gen Z are going to be the largest portion of the electorate.

19) O’Rourke 

Beto, or as I like to call him, Captain Wrongerpants, got off to a roaring start by giving a non-answer in two languages.  This incredible display of pandering, and wasting precious time, made him seem pretentious and obnoxious in twice the number of languages most politicians aspire to.

Possibly more than any other candidate, O’Rourke completely failed to answer any question he was asked.  He presented a few good ideas, saying that he sees climate change as the most pressing threat to America and calling for an end to fossil fuel use.  He supports universal background checks and reinstating the assault weapons ban.  He wants comprehensive immigration reform, to reunite families separated by the Trump administration, and to increase the corporate tax rate.  

Unfortunately, he wants to increase the tax rate from the new-for-2019 level of 21% to a lower-than-2018 28%.  He wants immigration reform to protect asylum seekers, but thinks other immigrants should “follow our laws” and makes no guarantee to decriminalize undocumented border crossings.  Like Biden, he supports healthcare “choice,” meaning that for-profit healthcare would continue in this country until everyone, in every city, state, county, and cave, can be convinced that insurance companies don’t care about them.

In short, O’Rourke reaches for relevance and relatability, and lands in pretension and centrism.  

18) Delaney

John Delaney is the first candidate on my list to have been caught in a bald-faced lie by Politifact. Good job, John.  His lie, by the way, was about Medicare for All.  He claimed that the bill currently before Congress required that Medicare pay rates stay at the current levels, and that if every hospital in America had been paid at Medicare levels for all services, every hospital would have to close.  The truth?  The Medicare for All bill does not require that pay rates stay at current levels, and even if it did no one knows what effect that would have on the country’s hospitals.  There is no data to support his assertion, even if he was right about the terms of the legislation being considered.

Unsurprisingly, John is another healthcare “choice” advocate.  I think I’ve said enough about why this position doesn’t fly for me, so I won’t rehash it again.  

In a discussion of family separation, he interjected that his grandfather was also a victim of family separation, which must make him feel so relevant.  He also referred to company owners as “job creators,” a lovely little conservative talking point, and claimed that America “saved the world,” in some vague appeal to American Exceptionalism.  He also agrees with Nancy Pelosi about not pursuing impeachment proceedings.  

On the “I don’t hate him quite as much as Beto and Biden” front, he’s in favor of tax breaks for the middle class, increasing the minimum wage, funding education, family leave policies, a carbon tax (which he imagines would fund a tax dividend paid to individual citizens, rather than, I don’t know, paying for green infrastructure development?), thinks China is our biggest geopolitical threat, and is scared of nuclear weapons (a very sane, reasonable position, really).

If you want to pick a candidate based on who your moderately conservative uncle will yell about least if they win the White House, Delaney might be your guy.  If you want to pick a candidate based on issues like student loan debt and healthcare, keep looking.

17) Bennet

I had never heard of Michael Bennet before the debates.  In fact, I just Googled him to find out his first name.  After the debates, though?  You guessed it: I hate him.

His closing statement was an appeal to the American Dream.  He thinks there are too many people in America to make a single payer healthcare system work.  Asked to identify one country to prioritize diplomatic repairs with, he named two continents.  And he believes the world is looking to America for leadership.  

However, he did rate higher than three whole candidates, and here’s why: He supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  He wants to end gerrymandering and overturn Citizens United.  He wants to expand voting rights and electoral accessibility. He considers climate change and Russia to be the biggest threats to America, and he didn’t use any obvious racist dogwhistles.  He’s from Colorado, so he’s kinda proud of the state’s marijuana legalization and reproductive health policies, but he’s way too quick to see partnership with private businesses as the ideal path forward.

16) Williamson

Oh man.  Marianne Williamson.  I almost threw something every time she opened her mouth.  She is like a walking, talking, uninformed Tumblr guilt trip post.  At a nationally televised debate, she asked why no one was talking about… something. I didn’t write it down in my notes because I would have had to gouge out my own eyes if I had.  According to Google, she is a self-help speaker and that explains So Much.

In her closing statement, Williamson claimed that she would be the candidate to beat Trump, not because she has any plans, but because she will harness love to counter the fear that fuels Trump’s campaign.  I am not making this up and I wish I was.  

She claimed that Americans have more chronic health issues than anywhere else in the world, and attributed this to all sorts of factors, starting with diet and chemical contamination and extending, I assume, to solar activity and Bigfoot.  According to Politifact, the only American demographic with a higher incidence of chronic illness than other countries is senior citizens, and I’m going to guess that has a lot more to do with our crappy healthcare system than it does a lack of detox teas.

When asked what policy she would enact if she could only get one, she said that on her first day in the White House she’d call the Prime Minister of New Zealand and tell her that New Zealand is not the best place in the world to raise a child, America is.  

When asked which one country she’d make a diplomatic priority, she said “European leaders.”

By now you must be wondering how she rated higher than the bottom four, and I can sum it up in eight words: She supports reparations and the Green New Deal.

Please, please do not make me vote for Marianne Williamson.

15) Hickenlooper

John Hickenlooper is the former Governor of Colorado, and proudly takes credit for everything good that has ever happened in the state.  He is also proud of being a small business owner, a statement that makes me immediately suspicious of any politician.

To his credit, he supports “police diversity,” a charmingly non-specific term that could mean one gay Latine nonbinary single parent in an otherwise entirely white male department, or could mean he wants the demographics of the police force to match the demographics of the population being policed.  He also considers climate change a serious threat, and China.  The best thing he said all night?  He supports civilian oversight of police, a policy which has improved police relations with citizens.

Sounds pretty good, right? Wrong.

He also supports ICE “reform,” as if there is anything redeemable about that agency, and thinks that the worst thing the eventual Democratic candidate could do is allow their name to be connected to anything socialist.  He said it twice, it wasn’t an accident.  

14) Ryan

That brings us to the last of the worst, Tim Ryan.  Tim here cannot stop using conservative dogwhistles, like talking about “coastal elites,” and saying that acknowledging differences between people is divisive.  He is a basic ass white boy in the worst, most boring sense.

He wants to bring about a green tech boom, supports decriminalizing border crossing, supports gun reform, and thinks China is a serious threat to America.  He also thinks that, in addition to dealing with the issues that allow school shootings to happen, we need to address the trauma kids are growing up with as a result.  Unfortunately, he thinks that school shooters are misunderstood victims of bullying.

His confrontation with Tulsi Gabbard was very instructive and possibly the most damning exchange all night.  He mis-identified the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center as being “the Taliban” (they were Al-Qaeda) and said that our military forces have to “stay engaged” for… stability?  I guess? As a veteran, I’m with Tulsi on this one: that’s not acceptable.

[khalilhumam]

Why is Trump obsessed with suburbia?

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/why-is-trump-obsessed-with-suburbia/

Why is Trump obsessed with suburbia?

By Willow Lung-Amam In a raucous first presidential debate, there were few coherent moments. Among Donald Trump’s many distractions and personal attacks, he turned a question about homicide rates to the suburbs. “Our suburbs would be gone” under a Biden presidency, he claimed. “You would see problems like you’ve never seen before.” Over the last several months, the topic of suburbia has been of endless fascination to the President. He has made inflammatory comments in press briefings, late night tweets, policy statements, and a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal penned with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary (HUD), Ben Carson. While presumably related to HUD’s recent decision to revoke the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulations, Trump’s comments have often extended far beyond the narrow ruling, leading many to question his obsession with suburbia. The op-ed offers his clearest statement as to why. America is often perceived as being deeply divided between rural Republican and urban Democratic strongholds. Suburbia, it is often said (though less often proven) is the land of swing voters—the place that decides elections. That appeared to be the case in 2016, when Trump won the suburban vote and the White House by narrow margins. Since then, suburban voters seem to be slipping from his narrow grasp—and Trump is more determined than ever to win them back, largely by appealing to suburban stereotypes and racial tropes. Urban policy makers are convenient scapegoats for what conservatives cast as failed liberal policies. Trump and Carson attack the two African American senators leading efforts to enforce 50-year old fair housing laws, implying that suburbanization (implicitly of Black and Brown Americans) is a response to “failed liberal governance” of cities they represent that are “unaffordable” and “unlivable”. Playing on longstanding fears of cities as crucibles of crime, disease, and dysfunction, Trump and Carson recast urban history as a series of failed policies that spread from cities to suburbs, rather than from the federal government to local municipalities. They ignore decades of population growth and capital investment in Democrat- and Republican-led cities. They forget bi-partisan neoliberal urban policies, including HUD’s opportunity zones that led to a pre-pandemic affordable housing crisis and widespread urban displacement. Trump and Carson elide the federal government’s abysmal response to the pandemic that devolved responsibility to states and municipalities lacking adequate public health resources and guidance, and the cascading economic crises that followed. They dismiss the relative success of Democratic mayors in securing lives and livelihoods with insufficient federal support for small businesses, homeowners, renters, and low-wage workers compared to Republicans who followed Trump’s lead and rushed to “open their economies”. Instead, Trump tries to assuage White guilt, particularly that of suburban women which he calls “housewives”, justifying their defense of their “suburban lifestyle dreams”, even if from the specter of the racialized “other”. Some have shirked his openly racist, misogynistic comments. The latest statement softens Trump’s typical hard-edged racism, acknowledging that most people of color also live in suburbs. This is not an appeal to Black and Brown voters. It is an assurance to White suburbanites that the “shameful days of redlining are gone” and their desire for homes “in safe, pleasant neighborhoods” are what all Americans want. Trump’s anti-density, anti-change message offers false comfort to “color blind” liberals that supporting exclusionary housing policies that reinforce the racist status quo is not racist. It denies how racism has shape shifted from de jure to de facto practices that uphold White supremacy—through tax policy, historic preservation and design guidelines, private lending, home assessments, municipal incorporation, and zoning. Trump and Carson want White Americans to invest in an ever-elusive suburban dream. “[S]uburbs are a shining example of the American Dream,” they write, “The left wants to take that American dream away from you.” The postwar period of racially exclusive, tight-knit suburbs that gave birth to the middle-class mark the height of American “greatness” to many White Americans. Decades of deindustrialization, a declining welfare state, corporate deregulation, and global capitalism have torn away at that dream. Their sense of security has withered alongside once-shining suburbs—mirroring larger economic inequality trends. Many have watched poverty, foreclosure, and unemployment rates rise in their communities, while other suburbs became increasingly exclusive and advantaged. The pandemic and economic crises threaten to strip away the pretense of American exceptionalism and myth of meritocracy. Trump and Carson do not White America to see itself as recipients of federal welfare policies that made suburbs possible, profitable, and desirable–from Federal Housing Administration loans and interstate highways to mortgage interest deductions. Instead, they position White suburbanites as defenders of democracy in their commitment to private property rights and local control–Americans who “voted with their feet” and grew their communities “from the bottom up.” Trump and Carson reinvest in a suburban success story they hope will keep White suburbanites from supporting policies that might benefit them for fear that others might reap unearned advantages. They want suburbanites to equate American-ness with securing their homes—not from predatory real estate companies like that of Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, already profiting from their pain that he helped to create. Not from landlords like Trump, who has been sued by the federal government for denying housing to African Americans in violation of the Fair Housing Act. And not from “tyranny” of the occupant of the most powerful seat in the nation—but from that of big government boogeymen like Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders plotting to build low-income housing in their back yard. It is not clear whether Trump’s suburban strategy is a winning one. According to some polls, the suburban winds are gathering behind Biden’s sails. In others, Trump still holds the lead. And while Trump has taken his appeal directly to swing suburbs, Biden’s counter strategy is less clear. For longtime advocates of equitable development, the politics are disturbing, but have brought attention to policies that have been opening up housing for low-income households in suburbs and other “high- opportunity neighborhoods” for decades. Fortunately, many of them do not require the blessing of the federal government, as land use policy is largely set at the local level. Recent reforms enacted in localities, regions, and states across the U.S. offer promising possibilities with either a recalcitrant or hostile future federal administration.

Minneapolis and Oregon have all but banned single-family zoning, allowing for denser, and presumably more affordable, housing in low-density neighborhoods. In Portland, state-level reforms allowed the city to revamp its zoning code to allow duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and accessory dwelling units in neighborhoods previously zoned for single-family homes. Many other states and municipalities are considering similar bans.

Several states, including Washington, incentivize private developers to build low-income housing in “high-opportunity” suburban neighborhoods by assigning them additional points in their housing tax credit allocation system. In Seattle’s King County, the housing authority also works with Housing Choice voucher holders to help them locate housing opportunities in “high-opportunity” neighborhoods by providing tenants with educational, housing search and financial assistance to move into these areas.

Baltimore put in place a similar program to Seattle’s as part of a settlement of federal lawsuits filed by public housing tenants over racial discrimination in the citing of subsidized housing. The region has since set aside vouchers for families to move into high-opportunity neighborhoods and established a regional project-based voucher program to build new low-income units in these neighborhoods. The state of Maryland also recently passed a statewide law preventing landlords from denying housing to voucher holders after Baltimore suburbs and many others throughout the state consistently refused to do so.

These places are not only testbeds for effective policy making. They show the kinds of political organizing and capacity building needed to make progress regardless of who the next occupant of the White House is.

[meglynchworldtraveler]

Our last two days in Sokode were surprisingly some of the best. On Sunday, the village threw us a Durbar. Essentially, that's a cultural festival of celebration. There's food, dancing, singing, and praying. And we did all of that. Our class presented the school supplies and money that will go towards their preschool. I've never been to a festival, so for me it was a positive experience. The village gifted us with cloth, beads, fruit, and hospitality. Everyone wanted to dance with us, little kids sat on out laps (mostly for our phones) but everyone was so kind. The Durbar fell on a Sunday so everyone was dressed in traditional African clothing that they would wear to church. The American girls got fitted for African dresses which we all wore. The festival was interesting to be apart of. First, we paraded into the gathering and took our seats. Then, it is in tradition to go around and meet the village so my classmates and I went around shaking truly everyone's hands. Then the celebrating commenced and it was one to remember. Before heading back to the city the next day, that morning we went to visit the villages' school. We met with the headmaster and staff. This particular school is a boarding school and high school. The girls and boys had separate boarding dormitories. However, each room slept 15 students. The Headmaster said in about five years the school would be a first class school. Currently they have about 600 students attending with a 60 to 40 ratio. It's about 600 cedis per term (three terms per school year) to go to school there, so about $150. They have an over abundance of staff members. The student to faculty ratio is 20 to 1, which is exceptionally good in comparison to anywhere in the world. I think the most shocking thing that the head master brought up was their biggest challenge at the school and in Ghana in general. School systems are focused on keeping girls engaged and involved in school so they don't go down the wrong path. Teen pregnancy is a huge issue in Ghanaian schools. One day a girl could borrow lunch money (4 cedis) from a boy and in return the boys expect to have sex with them. Once the girls become pregnant they drop out of school and do not return, which is probably one of the contributing factors to the poverty. I couldn't imagine borrowing money and practically getting raped for the equivalent of $1. It's completely absurd. Ghanaians don't believe in contraceptives, so girls get pregnant as early as 10 because it's just not in their culture. My classmates received several questions about how to balance a relationship while you're in school. For us, we don't even think about it because it's apart of our culture and we have healthy relationships to model ours after. They don't. The only thing they look up to is their dad having several women in their life with more than enough siblings. Living in society where girls are pretty much set up to fail unless you are gifted enough to get an education is unfathomable.

[96thdayofrage]

Because Black people don't exist as a monolith, relationships with each other are mostly defined by common experiences. Arguably, no communities within the Black diaspora have exhibited animosity between themselves than Africans and African Americans. To understand the friction between these communities is to closely examine white supremacy as a culprit. White supremacy is a system, or power structure, established to prioritise the feelings, interests, care, attention, and prosperity of White people even at the expense of other racial groups.

Its role in colonisation, violent capture and forceful removal of native Africans from their homelands is well documented. In truth, a significant number of African Americans today would have remained in Africa were it not for the disruptive event of the transatlantic slave trade. And although this has since been abolished, it has left internalised racism as a by-product for Black people to grapple with. To stay in context, Black Americans and Africans.

Source Of Tensions

African immigrants in America not only have to navigate systemic racism, but also microaggressions within African American spaces. But the migration regime that has enabled Africans to arrive in America to seek education, economic opportunities and others was made possible by the Civil Rights movement.

''I don't think this represents how all Black Americans think but I think the reason for this tension between Africans is that some Black Americans feel African immigrants come to America to take away opportunities,'' says Chanel Johnson, a Black American residing in Baltimore, Maryland, ''We are talking about opportunities in colleges that award scholarships and other educational or welfare packages to Black immigrants to thrive. We are also talking about opportunities away from academia. I also think dealing with racism and discrimination as Black Americans is pushing some of us to see how we are neglected and impoverished by the system.''

Although the friction between Black Americans and Africans predates social media popularity, a platform like Clubhouse for instance, is showing how this discord is ever-present. The voice-only app launched last year to massive reception, allowing for real-time conversations. Along the line it has produced xenophobic attitudes, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism. Black Americans and Africans are no different when it comes to propping up long-held sentiments against each other.

''This in-fighting is such a regular theme on Clubhouse that whenever I enter the app and see no room with an inflammatory title targeting Africans or Black Americans, I always think something is wrong,'' shares Nigeria-based Tracy Imafidon. ''I have been in a room where a Black American man was openly xenophobic towards Nigerians and said we always cause problems wherever we go, even in America. On the contrary, Nigerians are doing well for themselves in America and becoming successful, whether it is school or work. And maybe this is what is eating Black Americans up? On the other side, I have also witnessed Nigerians and Africans be rude and uncouth towards Black Americans, using police brutality against them.''

Before Clubhouse, these kinds of interactions existed on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly enough, anything can act as a trigger. The cultural meltdown around the release of Beyoncé's Black Is King visual album last year, where Africans criticized it for flattening various African experiences pitted them against Black Americans. Or even this tweet that proclaims Black American culture as the blueprint for other Black cultures.

Common Struggles Much?

Despite the differences in realities that Black groups have, the news cycle has shown how Black people around the world and their political struggles are intersecting across white supremacy, imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The establishment of the police system during colonialism and slavery was primarily to subjugate people and protect capitalist interests. With anti-police brutality movements like Black America's #BlackLivesMatter and Nigeria's #ENDSARS, Black people are finding commonalities in their struggles.

Chris Edeh, a Nigerian-American currently residing in the UK, is more curious about solutions. ''What I have noticed about these divisions is that you don't actively need White people to divide Black people. We as Black people have internalized what white people have said about us and we use it against each other, and this is why we should embrace Pan-Africanism and read the works of Pan-Africanist thinkers. This doesn't mean we should ignore our differences. There are different groups of White people, but history shows how they had one thing in mind — capitalist expansion and accumulation of wealth via slavery and colonization. Likewise, Black people need to be united for the goal of liberation. I'm talking about having a Pan-African consciousness.''

Not all Black people subscribe to Pan-Africanism, an anti-slavery and anti-colonisation movement formed in the 19th Century and built on the premise that people of African descent should be in solidarity to achieve common goals. And while Pan-Africanism pushed for the liberation of Africans and those in the diaspora, the era of independence installed African dictators who once espoused Pan-African ideas but still went ahead and oppressed their own people. It's also why Pan-Africanism failed to deliver socio-economic prosperity for Africans.

''I don't believe in Pan-Africanism as the approach to address issues within Black communities,'' argues Joan Agyapong, a Ghanaian feminist living in Accra. She adds: ''Africa itself is too polarized and there's also the need for the continent to decolonise or break away from colonial notions that have been instilled in us. What I will recommend for individual Black communities is to continue to build enough political and revolutionary power to combat its issues on small levels. And you know what? It's already happening. We all in Ghana admired the END SARS movement in Nigeria and what it sought to achieve. I think it's rather lazy to suggest Black universality as a revolutionary praxis when today's Black realities contain more nuance than before.''

The existing tensions between Africans and Black Americans can also be seen through the lens of American exceptionalism and imperialism. America as a global power wields much cultural and political clout that it provides a ready infrastructure for Black Americans to be hyper-visible than other Black groups. Unwittingly, their experiences and culture is framed as a kind of 'superior Blackness,' filtering into their interactions with others on the Black spectrum. At least, mutual respect and understanding are necessary for Black Americans and Africans to co-exist courteously.

[thinktosee]

TOWARDS AN EQUITABLE AND JUST WORLD

Emblem courtesy UN.org

The on-going viral pandemic has fleshed out the unremitting and tragic consequences of our global economic system to an extent which no other crisis in recent memory had done. The aged, infirmed, poor, dispossessed and disenfranchised minority groups – the most vulnerable among us, are once again left to cope with the little which sustain them. Many have and will succumb to the disease and the myriad ailments, including war and poverty, which plague their communities. A global economic order which proclaims to be equitable and progressive, or if one prefers, neoliberal, has clearly failed to nourish, elevate and to sustain a stable, healthy, prosperous and peaceful existence for billions of people on earth. This is all the more telling from the standpoint of the charter of the United Nations Organization (UNO), the centre-piece of the self-same global order.

Following upon the close of WW2, and at its formation, the UNO’s preamble promises us the following :

“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,…” (1)

These noble aspirations were a direct response to the prolonged horrors of WW2. A rage against its inhumanity, devastation and injustice, especially in the context of the 40-50 million deaths, hauntingly displayed by the coldly deliberate and systematic annihilation of whole human settlements and civilizations. (2)

This new global order envisaged a community of nations with common interests and standing, underpinned by a desire for economic and social development, individual rights and emancipation, and adhering to a set of deliberative or consultative conflict management protocols, consistent with and under the ambit of the UNO and its charter. These declarations accelerated the expansion of the Westphalian system of independent states and to the decolonization initiatives across the globe. The UNO’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was additionally proclaimed in 1948 in furtherance of this aim. Article 1 of this crucial document captures the overall intent :

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” (3)

To escalate this movement and to reconstruct a new and more equitable global system following upon WW2, the Bretton Woods Agreement was promulgated in 1944.  It “envisioned an international monetary system that would ensure exchange rate stability, prevent competitive devaluations, and promote economic growth.” (4) The absence of these factors was deemed to have contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s and to WW2. (4)

Bretton Woods also birthed the World Bank and IMF. The former’s mission statement : “To end extreme poverty; To promote shared prosperity” clearly depicts the judicious aims of the creators of the new system (5). This is reinforced by the following statement from the IMF : “zero interest rate on loans to low income countries.” (6)

To speed up the reconstruction of Europe following WW2, and to diminish the influence of totalitarian socialism/communism, the U.S. Marshall Plan was launched in 1948. The scheme  “generated a resurgence of European industrialization and brought extensive investment into the region. It was also a stimulant to the U.S. economy by establishing markets for American goods.” (7) In the Pacific, the reconstruction of Japan ensued, with similar objectives. American grants and loans to Japan from 1946-1952 were not insignificant. (8)

Post war economic and social development across the globe, directed by the newly-formed international system and led by America was very positive in so far as it created opportunities for hundreds of millions of people to acquire a higher and deserving quality of life. The new middle class which arose was instrumental toward the general economic and social advancement of their societies. The old colonial-endowed, monopolistic east india companies were replaced by transnational corporations operating across every economic sector. These global actors were arguably the most transformative influence in the societies in which they did business. (9) Their overwhelmingly competitive access to capital, technology and management systems also favoured their domination in every economic activity in which they had a presence. I had an opportunity to observe this enormous influence many years ago whilst working in a major oil company.

The post war economic boom was possible only because of the devastation and tragic cost to humanity arising from WW2. The victors, led by America were determined to refashion a new economic and political order which worked within the framework of collective interests. A system which they were also quite intent on sharing with and where needed, to compel the global community towards. To this end, they succeeded. In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved and its fragmented parts joined in the neoliberal experiment. (10)

The end of the Soviet Union was possibly the singular most important event leading to the refinement of the existing world order since U.S. President Nixon’s decision from 1971 to jettison the gold standard and fixed currency exchange rates. (11) Except this time, global power rested more solidly in the muscular arms of the residual superpower – America. This created an exuberance of American exceptionalism, which was quite natural and acceptable under the circumstances. However, provocative and unfortunate declarations emanating from a few leaders, and which included “Does America need a foreign policy?” (12), and “You are either with us or against us….” (13), entered the lexicon of global diplomacy. This new thinking was given practical meaning in the successive wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria (thereby rejecting the collective auspices of the battered UNO). The war on terrorism, like the war on drugs before, led to exactly more wars, drugs and misery. The balancing presence of the Soviet Union was perhaps missed by some then. They seized on China as a potential balancer. But the country was not yet then a developed society like it is today. In the interim, global multilateral institutions including the UNO, World Bank, BIS, NATO, GATT, WTO, etc. fell increasingly under the influence of the existing superpower. Neoliberal ideas and systems, refined by the American political and economic establishment had finally triumphed. There was little in way now of slowing or ameliorating its course throughout the world. Financial markets were the new darlings, attracting capital and other speculative investments, and driven by monolithic investment and sovereign wealth funds, a modern version of the colonial east india company.  These in tandem, engendered unimaginable wealth and social disparities. We are currently at this moment in global history. 

The international system which started out after WW2 as a noble and inspiring experiment to alleviate poverty and disparity (and it did for almost three decades), had fallen on its own sword. It had become an abusive tool for a few self-serving sovereign, corporate and individual actors  - “While more than half of all adults worldwide have a net worth below USD 10,000, nearly 1% of adults are millionaires who collectively own 44% of global wealth.” (14) This is a testament to the failure of the system in relation to its stated aims, be they the UNO’s or World Bank’s. Added to this, the millions who are victims, including children, of modern slavery. (15)

The global pandemic and our draconian responses have exacerbated the already unacceptable consequences brought about by the neoliberal and monopolistic economic experiment. The international community is at a tipping point. Equitable, fair, respectful, comprehensive, workable and cooperative solutions have to be found and implemented to govern our global realm. Every major stakeholder, ranging from nation states to the financial/business sectors and labour unions, academia, public health and civil rights organizations, climate and earth sciences specialists, media, and not forgetting the NGOs who work to alleviate the conditions which give rise to poverty and disenfranchisement, should be actively involved in the design of this new global architecture. The post WW2 order had become dysfunctional for several decades, and as a consequence, had outlived its original purpose. Perhaps it was good while it lasted, for some, as the saying goes. The greatest challenge for us, at this historic moment is one of rapid changes wrought by technological innovation. It is obvious to anyone that a child in a socio-economically disadvantaged home will face some difficulty in adapting to a post-modern technological society than one who has all the privileges to get ahead. Our civilization rests on a dramatically tense setting presently. Not dissimilar to where the colonials were when they cruelly and avariciously reigned supreme nearly 200 years ago – a situation which evinces enormous disparities in social development across the globe. 

Something has to be done urgently to remedy the disorder, whose characteristics not surprisingly, appear to mimic the political, economic and social conditions preceding WW2.

Universal education, dignified work, freedom, peace, security, stability, anti-monopoly and anti-tax shelters, transparent business practices, and the preservation of the natural environment through sustainable economic activity, are a few of the unalterable rights which should be enshrined in the new post-pandemic global system. Where then are our leaders?

In closing, a restatement of Article 1 of the UDHR is perhaps appropriate under these circumstances:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

In the Spirit of David Cornelius Singh

 - David’s father

www.thinktosee.tumblr.com

Sources/References

1. https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/preamble/index.html

2. https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II

3. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

4. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/bretton_woods_created

5. https://www.worldbank.org/en/who-we-are

6. https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/IMF-at-a-Glance

7. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/marshall-plan

8. Serafino, Tarnoff, Nanto, “U.S. Occupation Assistance : Iraq, Germany and Japan Compared.” p11. 2006. CRS, Library of Congress.

9. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/restoring-a-global-economy-19501980

10. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union

11. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/gold_convertibility_ends

12. https://www.amazon.com/Does-America-Need-Foreign-Policy/dp/0684855682

13. https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/

14. Shorrocks, Davids, Liuberas, “Global Wealth 2019 : The Year in Review.” Research Institute, Credit Suisse. 2019

15. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_574717/lang--en/index.htm

[theliterateape]

American Shithole #11 — Scott Pruitt: Ambien From Oklahoma

By Eric Wilson

“I don’t want to write about these bloviating, Machiavellian fuckfaces this week!” I raged, as Monday morning slid unproductively into Monday afternoon. I nervously plucked at my guitar while watching the news cycle blitzkrieg on my monitor a few feet away — a now daily ritual.  

Mostly, I love writing this column. Some days though…

Later, from underneath the covers, I howled the muffled words “I don’t want to write about these soul-sucking servants of the shitgibbon every seven days for seven more years!” as I buried myself under a mountain of pillows.

On Wednesday I cried, “I’m staring into the void!” as I fumbled around my closet looking for a comfortable pair of pants. There was no reply from the darkness within.

“You’re fine,” I finally thought to myself, “you’re just reading too much about that conniving motherfucker, Scott Pruitt.”

Ugh, Scott Pruitt — bane of the Environmental Protection Agency. I never would have imagined that someone could actually bore me to death. Is this how he's killing the environment? Is he boring it to death?

He is a slow internet connection personified.  

I’ve read nearly 50 articles about the head of the EPA over the last few days, along with ingesting and digesting a fair amount of CNN coverage about the man — and I was uncharacteristically disinterested with all of it.

Even writers for the New Yorker and the New York Times were unable to capture my attention, as they, too, failed to bring color and life to a man will all the charm and allure of an abandoned Porta Potty.

It was the most painful slog so far, and I’ve already spent a week reading about Stephen Miller!

Never has there been a more boring villain in the Trump rogue’s gallery, than this litigious Jesus freak. Reading a bio piece on Scott Pruitt is like reading a 40-page white paper on the chemical properties of Vaseline.

I have been distracted this past week; I admit that could be part of it. A week dominated by the dangerous surgery my father was forced to undertake. (I love you, dad! Get well soon.)

But this Pruitt goon is just such an ordinary, run-of-the-mill bad guy that he can’t compete with the hyperbolic carnival barkers and legitimately terrifying shadow figures that have all come out of the woodwork. I fell asleep reading about him two nights in a row, and I’ve successfully read Moby Dick!

Okay, I haven’t. Fuck that tome. But you get the point.

In the age of comic supervillains, Pruitt comes off less like an evil genius, and more like a creepy office temp — the kind of guy that’s always looking at you when you happen to glance in their general direction.

Stop creeping on me Pruitt!

Conversely, if Pruitt were a superhero, you would find yourself constantly asking what his powers were. He’s just sort of, there. If the Trump administration were the Avengers, Pruitt would be Hawkeye.

I can just imagine eavesdropping on the conversations about Trump’s Avengers at Comic-Con:

“So what’s this Pruitt character do again?”

“He furthers the conservative agenda from within his department, he abuses housing, finance and travel privileges on the tax payer’s dime, and in general he behaves like a bought and paid for horse’s ass, born of the cronyism era of political yore.”

“So basically, he’s just a republican.”

“Yes. One that can skewer libruls with a nifty composite bow, and also turn invisible.”

“C’mon now, he can’t turn invisible, he’s just really, really boring.”

“Yes, but if his boringness results in what would effectively be invisibility, then that should be considered a power.”

“I disagree. That would be like saying…”

Ah, Comic-Con. How I long for your Nerdspeak. Someday I shall find you as crowded, overpriced and befouled by virgin body odor as I imagine you to be…

I managed to read enough about Pruitt — through caffeine-assisted focus — to understand that he is clearly another incompetent and grossly overconfident fool within this administration. They are all terrible fools, but some of them are so spectacularly inept in their villainy. Following the lead of Trump’s almost laughable bungling of everything he touches, I suppose.

What kind of fucking idiot disobeys this White House when they expressly forbid you to give lavish salary increases to friends in your department? What kind of numbskull defies this president by circumventing the law with an obscure loophole via the Safe Drinking Water Act to get two buddies roughly an extra 70K a year?

What kind of muttonhead lies about a private email account used for communications with his ties to the oil and gas industry, during the Senate confirmation hearings on his appointment to the EPA? – a crime itself.

What kind of fool perfectly positioned to dismantle Obama era EPA initiatives and regulations — something he’s worked years to accomplish — breaks the law by accepting the gift of cheap D.C. housing as quid pro quo for awarding a lucrative pipeline contract?

The boring, invisible kind of fool, apparently.

“So what’s his origin story?”

I’ll handle this, Comic-Con nerds.

Scott Pruitt is a lawyer (J.D.) and politician from Oklahoma, so his origin story is that he’s a good ol’ boy. I lived in Oklahoma for four miserable years in my youth, and if there’s a barren and lifeless place filled with more wingnuts and whackadoodles, I have not seen it.

I do not wish to ever visit such a place.

Here is a brief aside offering insight into the mindset of Oklahoma’s educational system. When I was in sixth grade in Oklahoma, they gave the incoming class various aptitude tests, and then separated the exceptionally high-scoring kids from the herd, to be educated elsewhere, along with the children exhibiting behavioral problems. I have always found it interesting that the troublemakers and the intellectually gifted were considered the same in that cultural backwater.

That was 40 years ago. I couldn’t possibly imagine what Oklahoma’s public schools have devolved into today. Oh wait, yes I can imagine, as the teachers for the entire state are on strike, due to the gross undervaluing of their services, among other indecencies and injustice.

Pruitt wasn’t formally educated in Oklahoma, he grew up in Kentucky, but you couldn’t possibly care about that, dear reader. I certainly didn’t. He moved to Tulsa in the early '90s, but no one really cares about that either. Or that he was a State Senator and then Oklahoma’s Attorney General. Zzzzzzz. Boring. He’s the Benadryl of Evil.

His whole life story is boring as shit.

I hope he gets fired so that at the very least, I never have to read about him again. Reading about this stone-faced conservative boor actually made me care less about the environment he so desperately wants to destroy; so please universe, no more Pruitt.

Unless I have insomnia, then get me that bio, pronto.

He is dangerous though, and he certainly seemed devious from the get-go. Not only did he spend several thousand dollars sweeping his new offices for bugs, he also built a super-spy silent phone booth in his office with 43K of tax payer funds.

I’ll save you all the usual links; trust me on this one, I did the fucking reading for you, and I am a less-interesting man for the effort.

There is a lot of conjecture over whether or not Pruitt is next on the chopping block. Opinions are all over the place on this one, so I’ll throw in my two cents. If he were from a family of billionaires, I would say no, he stays. This is one of the reasons DeVos will be around for a while. Pruitt is not from upper-crust wealth though. Trump ultimately sees the Pruitt types of the world as lesser, and therefore expendable; and considering the amount of bad press he’s generating for the administration, well, Trump has gotten rid of people for far less.

So, unless the heat dies down, its adios, you boring motherfucker!

Breaking News: Pruitt on the controversial pay raises for his staff: My staff did it, not me!

Here's Pruitt hammering nails into his own coffin Wednesday evening, and in an environment you would expect to be simpatico. This is a FOX News interview with Ed Henry, no less. My new prediction is he is gone by the time this posts Thursday.

B.S. Report

In case you missed it, another conservative talking head looked to belittle one of the Parkland survivors in the digital arena — this time it was Laura Ingraham gunning for David Hogg. She was outmatched. She came damn close to losing her show.

These assholes are dropping out of elections, losing advertisers — losing their jobs — every damn time they say some evil shit about these kids. THAT is power. That is their own beloved capitalism biting them in the fucking ass. Taking out a good chunk. How’d you like them apples, Laura Ingraham? I’d wager you shit your spanks when those advertisers started dropping like flies. I bet your knees were shaking like twigs in the breeze when the boys from the FOX News home office called to inform you if you still had a job.

So this goes out to all of the Fox News family, and their ilk.

Enjoy scrutinizing and fretting over every miserable fucking thing you used to be able to say with impunity — for the rest of your miserable lives — you overvalued, right-wing, shitgibbon-blowing, squawk-box media whores.

You sold out our country for ratings, and eventually America is going to make you pay for that, dearly.  

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Exceptional America: What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other is the type of book where you have to laugh in order not to cry when reading. Mugambi Jouet systematically explains how Americans are born and raised into an anti-intellectual culture where harsh incarceration practices, Christian fundamentalism, gun violence, and a plutocratic economic structure controls the lives of average citizens. Jouet, a lawyer, reveals in the introduction of the book the strict, Old-Testament style of the US judicial system, where his client is faced with a sentence far longer than it should be. When Jouet appeals to reason by pointing out that lengthy sentences do little to reduce crime, put a drain on public finances, as well as explaining that rehabilitation is far more effective, the judges shut him down. His client is sentenced to six years for a minor, non-violent drug offense. After one reads these first pages, one can hear a gavel smashing down giving judgment, but it isn’t towards Jouet’s client: it is directed squarely at the US criminal justice system. To further his point, Jouet appropriately quotes Camus: “One can judge a society by its prisons.” Jouet explains that Alexis de Tocqueville was not referring to American exceptionalism as a simply positive characteristic, but that America was exceptional in its uniqueness. Being one of a kind has positive and negative qualities in terms of society and governance. For instance, conservative America’s fundamentalists belief in the Christian God, and the End Times, fuels the far-right wing belief that the United States can do no wrong in foreign policy and even domestically. On a positive note, most Americans perceive themselves as classless; or at least part of a broad middle class, where the industrious can get ahead and egalitarianism is encouraged. However, perceptions can be misleading. Although Americans pay lip-service to promoting an egalitarian society, wealth inequality continues to deepen. As Jouet shows, religious indoctrination, massive egos, and privileged upbringings have convinced citizens that one’s ignorant view deserves just as much respect as another’s reasoned, thoughtful arguments. While liberal America tacks very close to European political worldviews, conservative America has moved off the map to the right ideologically, compared to other Western nations. As Jouet shows, right-wing America has deepened its commitment towards uninformed policy positions and demonstrates a lack of empathy regarding health care and the pro-life position, and a lack of planetary awareness regarding climate change. In Chapter Six, Jouet devotes time to understanding how Americans vote against their economic interests, blaming anti-intellectualism among right-wingers, and makes an important connection between religious fundamentalism and market fundamentalism. He also points out how a racial divide due to slavery, segregation, and structural racism has kept white America from joining forces with minorities to form a class-based political identity. Jouet is also quick to point out that what many Americans call patriotism is really nationalism: believing in the myth of “American exceptionalism”, which is simply a not-so-subtly coded way of saying the USA is superior to every other nation. There is a knowledge gap regarding world affairs that continues to slide Americans into a more insular, venal attitude towards the international community. Jouet provides startling statistics about how little Americans know about world geography, history, and international leaders. He does not, however, offer much of a model going forward as to how to stem the tide of anti-intellectualism in the US. Towards the end of the book, Jouet touches on the rise of authoritarian nationalism which is rising around the world, citing the election of Trump, and the National Front’s influence in France. Jouet is very smart, and informed about many nations’ politics and culture, yet he either does not have the inclination or the background to connect the problems of American ignorance, religious fundamentalism, market neoliberalism, and imperialism back to our system of ever-increasing exploitation and inequality due to capitalism. Jouet offers the tepid liberal trope that Americans, if better educated, should and will accept a social democratic system, citing Sweden and Japan as models where wealth inequality is relatively low and standards of living and general happiness are high. Unfortunately, although Jouet acknowledges that “social democracy will not lead to utopian societies in America, Europe, or elsewhere”, his mild call for what some refer to as a “New New Deal”, while laudable, will fall on deaf ears. American political leaders, the “elite”, are mentally unfit for office (see Trump, Donald) and are not prepared to listen, take advice, or think rationally, just as in the start of the book, his judges were not willing to heed his well-reasoned argument for a reduced sentence for his defendant. What Jouet and other well-meaning progressives fail to see is that the US elite are not simply anti-intellectual, or market and religious extremists: they are unhinged, mentally ill, and represent a clear and present danger to the world. Jouet’s call for social democracy and redistribution is like the progressive version of Trump’s call to “Make America Great Again”, except in liberal-left form, it would go something like: “Make America Keynesian Again”. Jouet and other progressives do not want to face facts: mainstream American culture and its political system are in a steep decline, and reforming around the edges is not going to solve the core issues at the dark heart of neoliberal capitalism. Only a radical restructuring of the economy with a new emphasis on sustainability, the interdependence of nations, and international solidarity with the meek of the world, with transnational bodies able to share resources, food, medicine, and technology, will be able to guarantee a future for all of us. That would be a truly exceptional path for us to take. http://clubof.info/