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The Cognitive Dissident

A blog by Ronald P. Thompson, Ph.D.

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Racism

Exodus: The Story of a Brutal God

 

With the spectacle of religious violence on the rise, particularly by Islamists; I think it is time to take a hard look at the monotheistic vision of God from its inception. Not from the time of Mohammad, though his followers were spectacularly violent, but further back to the effective birth of the monotheistic religion that is the basis for Islam, Christianity and Judaism.  I think we need to look at the story of Moses and his general Joshua.  Actually, we need to look at the vision of God that is presented in the story of the Exodus and the conquest of the land of Israel and the actions of those two key figures.

I know most people in the US know the story, but the question is have you ever really thought about what it says beyond the feel good story of an oppressed people being freed?

Consider this.  The story opens in the empire of Egypt, ruled by a god-king, Pharaoh Ramses the Great.  In this world, everyone, rich and poor, are essentially owned by the Pharaoh.  In the story God tells Moses that his people should be released from bondage and leave Egypt. Significantly, not all people should be freed from slavery and oppression, but only a select group.  This clearly indicates that the God of Moses did not believe in universal human rights, but only in rights for his chosen people.  Thus the concept of justice by race and/or group affiliation is given divine sanction.  Continue reading “Exodus: The Story of a Brutal God”

How do so many good people do so many bad things.

One of the great mysteries in life is: How do so many good people do so many bad things?

It is so easy to write off anyone we do not want to address in a meaningful way as being evil and point out their misdeeds negate the good that they might have done.  The sad truth is that there is not a soul on earth that could not be so dismissed.

So the question becomes how is that the same humans can on one hand be committed to doing the right thing and still find themselves doing so many things that are hurtful?

I live in the Deep South, the land of churches and southern hospitality and Jim Crow.  The people of the Jim Crow world were on one hand generally honest, hardworking, generous and committed to living a Christian life. Yet, they perpetuated an abhorrent system of repression and dehumanizing behavior.  My 88 year old mother-in-law is of that generation. Sure, the good church people were not usually the ones that actually committed the lynchings and terror, but they provided cover for those who did.  A number of years ago I asked my mother-in-law how she and her peers, after WW2, had justified denying the vote to the black vets returning from fighting the same war their brothers and husbands had been fighting.  She did not have to look for an answer, right off she said “Well our blacks just weren’t smart enough to vote.”

Her answer to my question gives me the answer to the question I am asking in this essay. Why do good people do evil things? I propose that fear supported by man’s uncanny ability to engage in self-delusion allows good people to do evil things. Continue reading “How do so many good people do so many bad things.”

Mocked and forgotten: who will speak for the American white working class?

This is a terrific article. Here are two excerpts.

“The National Review, a conservative magazine for the Republican elite, recently unleashed an attack on the “white working class”, who they see as the core of Trump’s support.

The first essay, Father Führer, was written by the National Review’s Kevin Williamson, who used his past reporting from places such as Appalachia and the Rust Belt to dissect what he calls “downscale communities”.

He describes them as filled with welfare dependency, drug and alcohol addiction, and family anarchy – and then proclaims:

“Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster, There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. … The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles.”

“The differences are manifest in education. The pathway offered out of the working class is to get a college education. Yet at the best colleges there are veryfew low-income students, except for a few lucky enough to grow up in New York City, Los Angeles or Boston.

Differences are also stark around health issues, as well as social issues such asmarriage, family and where people live. The growing differences have made it easier and seemingly acceptable to ridicule the white working class, further marginalizing and isolating them. Go into an office in New York City (I worked in them for 20 years) and you will hear people joke about “white trash”, “trailer trash”, “rednecks”, “round people from square states”. Turn on the TV and you hear more cheap jokes about how they dress, talk and behave.”

My thoughts:

The author is quite right in how the Republican elites attack working class whites, but he is remiss in not pointing out that the Democrat elites do the same.

I spent over a decade as a social worker in Appalachia.  I know full well how these people feel utterly abandoned and powerless.  As a social worker I found that all of the activist and advocacy groups were based on race not income. The Urban League, NAACP and La Rasa are all good groups that do a lot of great work. However, there is no comparable group advocating for the working poor whites, especially rural and suburban whites.  It is hardly any wonder why they feel marginalized and are easy prey for those advocating white supremacy.

These are the Donald Trump voters. I am seeing and hearing increasingly virulent attacks on these low income white supporters calling them neo-NAZI’s and such, but in fact they are not; however, it is easy for them to be convinced the problem is caused by foreigners when no other easy answer is given.  You will notice that working class whites are also flocking to Bernie Sanders. He also gives the working poor whites a simplistic scapegoat (Wall Street bankers); but in reality he, just like Trump, sidesteps the larger problems facing the working poor.

To make matter worse, the working poor whites are increasingly hearing attacks on them because they are white. Poor blacks and Hispanics are being taught to scapegoat whites in general, not just rich whites, but all whites.   Talk of “White Privilege” coming from rich kids at elite universities does great harm to impoverished whites who would love to trade places with their accusers. The effect of this is to divide the working poor and further dis-empower all of them.

It seems the white working poor no longer have any political friends and are consequently easy targets for the elites of both parties. Not only is this immoral, it is a ticking time bomb in the US.

No, Trump is not another Hitler

 

Not only is Trump not like Hitler, he is not even George Wallace and likely isn’t even a racist.   I know this goes against the popular media refrain, but I do not see there is evidence to make these very serious charges. While it is easy to fall into this lazy habit of hyperbole, in the end the hype never lives up to the words. When that happens, the overall argument falls flat. We saw this when Al Gore’s movie promised Hurricane Katrina’s every year due to global warming. When it didn’t happen, many American’s wrote off climate change as a hoax.   So too with Trump. When we advance to the general election this summer, Trump will abandon some of the radical rhetoric and move to a more palatable form of populism. When he does this, many Americans will see the over the top warnings about Trump as unfounded. We have already seen a preview of his playbook for the general election. A few weeks ago he told the NY Times that the whole “build a wall” business is no more than a negotiating strategy.

Let’s make an honest contrast of Hitler’s rise and Trump’s. By the time Hitler began his rise to power, not only did he have a private army (the SA or brown shirts), he had a track record of using violence to achieve political goals and he had a detailed plan for a movement based on a long history of anti-Semitism. Adolph Hitler was building a movement, Donald Trump is only promoting Donald Trump.   Yes, one can draw superficial parallels, but to do so runs the risk of being discredited. Continue reading “No, Trump is not another Hitler”

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