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Kyle Kulinski is a smart guy with a youtube video/pod cast that I often check out. He recently offered his own critique of the popular book, White Fragility.

A few days ago, I posted a piece by Matt Taibbi criticizing this book, as well. Tomorrow I will post a critique by the African-American professor, Adolf Reed.

Today Kulinski jumps into the fray with his own analysis, very much in line with Taibbi’s. If you are interested in this book, I encourage you to watch the entire clip.

So, why am I highlighting these various criticisms of a New York Time’s bestseller about anti-racism? Because we all need to confront America’s racist past and present intelligently and productively, in ways that will bring about meaningful change.

There are many people of all skin colors who are doing this work very  well. They need to be heard and their instruction heeded.

Unfortunately, White Fragility appears to be a gross distraction from that cause which, in the end, will only be counter-productive. A lot of white folks may only read one book on this subject. Many will think, Oh, the new bestseller, and choose accordingly.

It will be a shame if America chooses to read this book but nothing else.

Yes, the Confederate statues (primarily erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy) need to be removed and placed in American history museums where children will learn about this country’s despicable history of slavery.

No, removing public memorials valorizing those who fought a war in order to maintain slavery will not “rob the nation of its history,” as conservatives are now lamenting.

Has Germany’s prohibition of public memorials to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi comrades robbed the German public of its historical memory about the Holocaust?

Of course not.

The current conservative hand-wringing is reactionary balderdash, pure and simple. But then reactionary balderdash is what gave rise to these statues in the first place. It comes as no surprise, then, that contemporary reactionaries are marching in step with the tradition.

Many (most? all?) of these Confederate statues, memorializing men like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, were erected by chapters of a southern women’s organization called the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Their purpose was to keep the southern flame burning for “the lost cause,” which was regularly translated into the rhetoric anticipating how “the south will rise again.”

The monuments were the first resurrection, so to speak, of the southern states’ reassertion of white supremacy.

These monuments were erected as reactionary displays against Lincoln’s vision for southern Reconstruction.

UDC statues stood (and still stand) as cruel reminders to every former slave, and to all of their descendants (who certainly were never consulted about whether they wanted a memorial in their community to the nobility of white slave owners), that they were still surrounded by the living, white descendants of their former, white slave owners who still believed in White Power.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy even published a children’s catechism (a series of questions and answers for them to memorize; many Protestant churches use catechisms), fusing the racist with the religious dimensions of the confederacy together.

Here is an excerpt of what the children memorized about slavery:

Dr. Cornel West was on CNN last night saying what needs to be said.

Every Christian in America needs to join with him in repeating his message.

It is always disappointing when a person you’ve long admired for their counter-cultural, Christian thinking reveals the decay of a conventional adherence to the status quo.

Thus my growing disappointment in Ron Sider’s blog. A blog, I suspect, that is read by a good many evangelical Christians.

I was a young man when I got my hands on Dr. Sider’s classic book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.  I have deeply admired him and followed his work ever since. He was kind enough to write a promotional paragraph for my last book, I Pledge Allegiance: I Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America.

Unfortunately, his most recent blog post, entitled “Why Are the Russians Promoting Bernie Sanders,” continues the surprising (at least, to me) revelation that Dr. Sider’s ability at cultural criticism has eroded, his posts merely repeating the predictable canards of our corporate news outlets and the Democratic establishment.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I won’t repeat my deep skepticism of the world-weary “Russian hacking/collusion” conspiracy started by Hillary Clinton as a malicious fig- leaf used to distract from her terrible presidential campaign.

I will only point my readers to the numerous — and consistently vindicated — reports (both in print and online) from real investigative journalists like Glenn Greenwald (here, here at The Intercept), Matt Taibbi (here, here at the Rolling Stone), Max Blumenthal (here, here, and Aaron Mate (here, here, here, here, and here  both at the Greyzone Project and The Nation magazine).

Each of these men exposed the Russia-gate (I hate that term) narrative as a complete lie, perpetuated by the Dems as a useful tool to attack Donald Trump.

The new “intelligence reports” of ongoing election interference, on behalf of both Trump and Sanders, is even more dubious. Notice that we are never given any evidence to support the charges.

We are just supposed to take the intelligence community’s word for it.  Excuse me, but does anyone remember when Iraq’s WMDs were a “slam dunk” according to our CIA director?

Or, more recently, remember the Congressional intelligence briefing (regarding the assassination of Iranian general, Soleimani) where Congress-people left the meeting complaining about the complete lack of evidence presented to them. One Congressman called it “a farce” another “a disaster.”

We discover much wiser counsel from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who urges all citizens to “condemn” the malicious, anti-democratic “election interference by US intelligence agencies“! Please read what she says as a sitting member on the House Armed Services Committee.

In her article, Gabbard vehemently — and quite rightly — condemns such in-house intelligence tactics as the new McCarthyism. And she is absolutely right.

Not only am I deeply chagrined to see Sider uncritically repeating the establishment mantra about Russia, but he is also mimicking the DNC talking points against Bernie Sanders’ unelectability.

I won’t indulge in long counter-arguments here. I will only say, “Phewey on all that malarkey!”

Instead, I will give you a few short informative video clips to watch below.

Check out:

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, debunks the 6 common criticisms made against Sanders with data and evidence, not Democratic establishment talking points. Spoiler alert: numerous polls predict Sanders would beat Trump in a general election.

Jeremy Scahill, at The Intercept, talks about Sanders’ life-long opposition to America’s vicious  wars of imperialism here, and how red-baiting is a long-standing tactic for fear-mongering and the deflection of public attention away from the virtues of an anti-establishment candidate like Sen. Sanders.

Finally, watch this ad from the organization Jews for Bernie explaining why they support Sen. Sanders, as do I.

So, I will probably continue to read Dr. Sider’s blog, but I stopped anticipating helpful political insights.

They are not to be found.

 

The Trump News Network, aka Fox News, refused to sell 30 seconds of air- time for the Academy Award nominated documentary, “Night at the

Garden.”  The ad is called “It Can Happen Here.” Read the story here and here.

The 7 minute film consists of archival footage showing a pro-Nazi rally held in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939.  Hitler had just completed construction of his 6th concentration camp.  In only seven months Germany would invade Poland, triggering the bloodiest war in recorded history.

During that East coast winter evening 79 years ago, 20,000 Nazi-supporting Americans packed the New York City arena, raised their right arms in the Nazi salute, and applauded wildly to virulent, anti-Semitic speeches.

We can even see a mob of Nazi brown-shirts beat a protester who climbs onto the stage, until he is finally saved by New York police on the scene.

You can watch the entire film at the producers’ website here, or on YouTube here.

Yes, IT CAN happen here, folks.

Is it unfair of me to suspect that this is why Fox News refused advertisement time for this documentary; the

very network that daily encourages Trump to take more and more extreme measures in his racist policies against people of color?

I don’t think so.

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna expose the fact

that the lion’s share of pharmaceutical research for the development of new drugs is funded by the National Institute for Health not by the drug companies themselves.  Watch the video here.

In other words, the long-standing argument used by pharmaceutical companies,  insisting that they had no choice but to charge high prices for their medications in order to recoup the initial investments demanded by

their own research and development, has always been a lie.

No. These companies have used our tax dollars, invested into the publicly funded scientists working for the public good at the N.I.H., to develop new drugs for their private, commercial benefit.

They then lie about the costs of their own research in order to justify the extreme price gouging that prevents many people from being able to afford the medications that they need.

It’s class warfare, again, folks.  Class war in the land of crony capitalism.

Big corporations exploit the little people both coming and going.  It’s like paying a huge cover charge, first, to get into the dance, and then being mugged by the same bouncer as you exit out the back.

 

The independent, investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal has reported

extensively on the unfolding situation in Venezuelan at his news site The Grayzone Project.

He is now reporting from Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.  Check out the recent video segment posted on his Twitter feed here.

Max’s headline reads:

“I’m at Simon de Bolívar square in Caracas where Venezuelans are lining up for blocks to sign a declaration denouncing US intervention and imperialism. One man waiting just told me: ‘Please put in your picture that we’re not invisible and not being paid.’

“…Lines stretch for blocks. Maybe some other western media is here but I haven’t seen them.”

I am grateful to intrepid reporters like Max and his co-workers who bring us the other side of this important story; the side that U.S. news outlets will never report; the side that our government wants to hide; the side which highlights American aggression in the pursuit of American greed and self-interest.

This is the side that the American church ought to be defending….there’s no two ways about it.