Why America's Survival Depends on Rejecting Trump's Nationalism

by Nomad

(From Mad Magazine, 1968)

The Beneficiaries of Hatred

Blind hate has been around since the days of Cain and Abel. According to that story, Cain's hate caused him to murder his own brother and as a result, Cain was cursed and marked for life. In some respects, we all wear that mark. It sometimes seems as though humanity will never be able to extinguish it. People hating other people is just part of our DNA.

Our Obligation to Call Out Unjust Things

by Nomad

Trumpcare, Paul Ryan, and Founding Father Dr. Benjamin Rush's Warning

by Nomad

Last Thursday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was interviewed by MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. It wasn't very interesting, to be honest with you.
As expected, Ryan performed the same retractions and dodges and, in order not to be accused of saying anything either for or against the president, twisted more than a talented contortionist.

We can't really blame Trump for his slanderous tweets against Obama because, as Ryan said, ten-year-old Twitter is "new" and 70-year old presidents can't be blamed for not understanding how all this new technology stuff works.
Ryan really said that.

Watching a grown man squirm like that is hard to watch. It wasn't any easier to view knowing that there really were people out there who might actually believe him.
However, among all of this intentionally complicated fast talk, there was one thing he said that caught my ear.

Colin Kaepernick, Cliven Bundy and The Man who Refused to Salute

by Nomad

The Colin Kaepernick controversy has highlighted America's divide over paying respect to symbols and the right to dissent, as a form of free speech.
In this post, we look at the historical reasons why our views changed following the rise of fascism and perhaps why they are presently called into question again. 

"False Rogues, Boring from Within"

Back in March 1944, The California Law Review published an interesting article called "Conscience v. The State" by Chester Charlton McCown.

Despatches from Switzerland a few months ago told of the execution of some and the arrest of many more of these sectaries. They were accused of teaching children to pray for peace and for the return of their fathers and brothers from the battle front; of putting Germans in the dilemma of choosing between the Fuehrer and a heavenly leader; of interpreting their visions as warnings of impending doom upon the German people.

These "false rogues, boring from within," who were chiefly working people, exhibited admirable courage and tenacity of faith. When, recently, seven were executed, their wives begged them not to sign a recantation in order to obtain a possible pardon. Repression seems to have had no deterrent effect upon the spread of the movement.

McCown, as a Professor of New Testament Literature, inevitably saw parallels between this act of defiance in the face of a fascist state and the early Christian martyrs who refused to pay their not only their taxes but their absolute submission to Caesar. 

That ethic has remained a long part of the faith. The writer cited the formal protestant attitude to nationalistic symbolism:

They believe that they "must obey God rather than man." If a national majority should decide upon policies which they thought wrong and they should be ordered to take part in the resulting actions, many would refuse to comply, accepting without resistance whatever punishment resulted.

This is, incidentally, the basis for Kim Davis' and her position on religious liberty. 

Generally speaking, religious convictions (and, in more secularist form, the moral conscience of the citizen) have found safe haven in any nation that dares to call itself free.  

Sovereignty and Due Process : A Tale of Two Traffic Stops in Mississippi

by Nomad

Here's a post about two traffic stops in Mississippi and two very different outcomes. How much did race play a factor in how the incidents were handled? When it comes to allegations of police brutality, are we missing the big picture about the violations to every citizen's right to due process?

When Slidell Mississippi police officers pulled over the green Ford Ranger, it was just a routine traffic stop. They had observed the driver violating several traffic laws on Fremaux Avenue.  

It was immediately clear that the driver, 54-year-old James Doyle Webb, was going to be a problem. He refused to give the police his driver’s license, registration or insurance. Instead, he declared himself a "sovereign citizen" and demanded the officers’ names and badge numbers, according to the Slidell police department press release. The police obliged Webb and yet, when the officers again requested to review Webb's papers, he refused to recognize to cooperate in any way.

Homefront: How WWII and the US Military Provided the First Spark for the Civil Rights Movement 2 / 2

by Nomad

In Part One, we took a look at how the approaching World War provided an opportunity to reform hiring practices in the defense industry.

In this part, we examine the post-war years and the momentum from that initial reform were about to push for an even more astounding shift in attitudes.

Upon Roosevelt's death, the torch was passed to Truman who was far less reserved support for income equality for all. After the war was over, the pressure was off the defense industry to hire minorities.
The question was: would the federally-imposed hiring practices for the defense industry during the war be recognized as a standard for all hiring?

G.I. Bill and the Discovery of Two Americas

As we mentioned in the first installment in this series, Roosevelt signed the G.I Bill of Rights on June 22, 1944.
It was an attempt to prevent the miserable situation that Depression-era veterans faced. The Bonus Army March on Washington was a shame for the entire country and, the president felt, should never be allowed to happen again.

In real terms, the law provided enough support so that vets who had served their country should not be burdened economically after his service.

Gordon Parks' Images of Alabama Segregation in 1956 are an Important Reminder to All Americans

by Nomad

In honor of the tenth anniversary of the death of photographer, film director, musician, and writer Gordon Parks, we look at the man's life and work. His images serve to remind us that when people talk about taking America back to a better time, we need to pay close attention what they mean to every American.  

To appreciate the photography of Gordon Parks- or any artist- we need to understand his origins and his early experiences.

Hard Times in the Heartland

Parks was born on November 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kansas, the youngest of fifteen children. According to his biography, his family was dirt-poor in a town of considerable racial tension. 

When Gordon was 15, his mother died and he was sent to live with a sister and her husband in St. Paul, Minnesota. After an argument with his hosts, Parks ended up a homeless high school dropout.
Fortunately for him, he had a natural talent for the piano and, after a series of jobs, he joined a touring band. That gig took him to New York. 

After the band broke up, Parks again faced hard times, this time in Harlem. During the Great Depression, he was living in a rat-infested tenement and unable to find work.

In 1933, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). part of FDR's recovery program after the Great Depression.

Around this time, he married Sally Alvis in 1933 and returned to St. Paul a year later. He found work as a dining-car waiter and porter on the North Coast Limited. The couple had three children, Gordon, Jr., Toni, and David.

The Vision of an Invisible Man

One could say that at this point, Gordon's story was not a particularly distinctive life. He gave no outward sign that he would go on to do great things or even that he had impressive talents, outside of his musical ability. Had you been around at that time, it might have been easy to overlook this practically invisible man. 

Looking back at those hard times, Parks wrote:

I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand.

Forgotten Memorials: The Conscience of Viola Liuzzo and the "Heroism" of the KKK

by Nomad

One state representative in Georgia has drafted legislation calling for the eternal preservation of Confederate monuments, as a testimony to those who "suffered and died for the cause."
Who we select to honor and who becomes our source of pride says so much about who we are as a people.

Cultural Terrorism

The other day I was struck to read about Georgia State Rep. Tommy Benton's proposed amendments to the Georgia Constitution. One of the two amendment aims at protecting the Confederate monuments at Stone Mountain.  The bill salutes the heroes of the Confederacy like Lee and Davis. Monuments dedicated to such heroes of the South, the bill demands, shall never be 

"altered, removed, concealed or obscured in any fashion and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.”

What cause is he talking about? Nothing less than the overthrow of the federal government.

Republican Benton has called the movement to remove Confederate symbols in the South a form of "cultural terrorism."
Our source tells us:

“That’s no better than what ISIS is doing, destroying museums and monuments,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). “I feel very strongly about this. I think it has gone far enough. There is some idea out there that certain parts of history out there don’t matter anymore and that’s a bunch of bunk.”

It is a big deal in the South and remembering the Confederate past and the fallen warriors is considered part of the South's cultural heritage. It was literally all the South had left after the crushing defeat.

The problem is, contrary to what Benton says, many in the South would prefer to remember a warped version of their history. A history without shame or misjudgment and effectively free of facts. 

(And not just the long past history, but, as we shall see, the more recent times too.)
For a person that talks about remembering history, Benton seems to forget that it was foolishness of the proud and rather stupid politicians in Georgia and the other rebelling states that kicked off America's greatest and most pointless war. 

Hacker Group Anonymous to Release Names of 1000 KKK Members Next Month

by Nomad

The hacker group Anonymous recently issued an announcement that it would reveal the identities of some 1000 members of the white supremacist organization, the KKK next month. The announcement read:

“After closely observing so many of you for so very long, we feel confident that applying transparency to your organizational cells is the right, just, appropriate and only course of action.”

Anonymous plans to reveal names of about 1,000 Ku Klux Klan members

An Insidious Evil: Voting Rights Act, the SCOTUS Blunder and Voter ID Laws

by Nomad

A couple of years ago, one of the great legislative achievements from the 1960s was all but dismantled. Strange too since only seven years before it was gutted, both parties in Congress had voted to keep this landmark legislation around for another generation. We examine how this could have happened and what have been the effects.

In American history,  7 March 1965 became known as Bloody Sunday.

It was on this day that civil rights protesters clashed with Alabama State troopers. With billy clubs and tear gas, state troopers and county possemen beat, before the eyes of the nation, unarmed demonstrators. 

Despite that, two days later, a second march was organized. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was there and led the marchers and this time troopers stepped aside to let them pass. 

But that night, a gang of white thugs took their revenge of a civil rights activist, James Reeb. Reeb a white Boston minister, had come to join in the second march. Beaten to death by white men with clubs for his support of African American rights. Reeb became a martyr to the civil rights cause when he lapsed into a coma and died on 11 March 1965.

The entire nation shocked that such things could happen in the land of the free. What followed was remarkable, a national outcry against the activities of white racists leading to direct legislative action by Washington.

The Search for a Solution

On 15 March 1965, President Lyndon Johnson swiftly moved into action. He spoke before a joint session of Congress on a matter that was important to him and, he believed, important to the nation. The subject was the proposed Voting Rights Act, new laws which aimed at prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

In certain areas of the nation, racial discrimination in voting was a deeply entrenched  problem. It had become “an insidious and pervasive evil,"  the result of an "unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.” The time had come to rectify this long-standing problem as the federal government sometimes had to do.

How We Came to Accept Police Brutality as the Norm 1/2

by Nomad

With all the protests around the country against abusive law enforcement, it is a good time to ask how we as a country got into this situation. Is it simply a matter of racism permeating police departments or does it go deeper?

With all of the safeguards hard-wired into the Constitution, how could we have allowed it to happen?

A Simple Question of Trust

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.    Frederick Douglas

There's been a lot of superficial analysis about the reasons for the nationwide protests in the wake of the Brown and Garner cases. The fact that US law enforcement can literally get away with murdering unarmed citizens in front of witnesses has shocked the nation. 

(In fact this phenomenon has been going on for decades and if anything, the patience of the black community is the truly surprising aspect.) 

Racism in the country's police departments has been blamed. A broken-down justice system has also been pointed to. In fact, it's all of those things but there's a deeper problem as well:  A lack of trust in the law enforcement agencies by the black and minority communities. 

This lack of trust has been further reinforced by a lack of credibility of the oversight process after possible violations have occurred.

It's not something that should be under-estimated. Trust is the glue that holds the entire justice system together. Without trust, the entire structure of law and order collapses pretty quickly. Now America has begun to question whether we might not have bestowed too much trust in law enforcement.  

Every time a case of police brutality goes unpunished, it becomes a double failure for the entire justice system. Firstly, from the offense itself and secondly, by the damage it does to public trust.

The Other Side of Anger: The East St. Louis Race Riots of 1917

by Nomad

A century, in the summer of 1917, East St. Louis was rocked by a race riot that has today been largely forgotten. It was, in many ways, a classic example of how things between the majority and the minority can quickly get out of control.

Exodus from the South

It is the summer of 1917 and the place is East St. Louis.
For the black laborer, the conditions in the Deep South, with its Jim Crow laws and the prevailing atmosphere of oppression, offered very little enticement to stay. Despite federal laws which were supposed to provide equal protection and due process, the African American in the South at that time was considered a second-class citizen.

As one source points out, all Southern states had some form of Jim Crow laws. Segregation was a way of life for black in the South, affecting every social activity, not merely schools, but also in restaurants, theaters, parks, and hospitals. All these restrictions were held in place by a justice system that favored the white race in every way. And when injustice was challenged, the KKK was on hand to provide the intimidation to keep the "coloreds" in line.

It was a time of great demographic changes. Around 1910, African Americans had constituted more than half the population of South Carolina and Mississippi, and more than 40 percent in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. The Black exodus had rendered the South essentially without a labor force. In the North, cities that once been virtually all white at the turn of the century now became centers of urban black culture.

Factories in the North offered great opportunities for men willing to work, especially in 1917 with America about to enter the World War. Between the years 1916 through 1918, an estimated 400,000 African Americans left the South in to take advantage of a labor shortage in the wake of the First World War.

During that spring, African Americans from the South were moving to St. Louis at the rate of 2,000 a week. And this influx presented the Northern manufacturers an ultra-cheap source of labor. That was to prove to be an excellent bargaining chip against unhappy union workers.

Unions vs Management

At the same time, workers unions were embroiled in labor disputes not only in the US but globally. Among the demands, workers were attempting to establish a fair wage, the right to collective bargaining, an eight-hour work day, increased worker safety and job security. Across the nation, unions were attempting to assert their dominance over industry.

With wartime demands for industrial production increased, the timing for workers couldn't have been any better. If industrialists were going to get rich, then workers believed that they had every right to demand their own share. Added to that, union leaders understood that conscription for military service was bound to create a shortage of civilian manpower. The time to seize the moment was now.

For the corporation owner, therefore, the black migration -cheap labor that would accept whatever conditions and at whatever wages that company owners offered- was one sure way that they could break the power of the largely white unions. since the Industrial revolution began the one tactic that has long become fool-proof is to pit worker against worker. In the 1917 case, the plan was to pit white union labor and black easily-exploitable labor.

When 470 African American workers were hired to replace striking white workers at the Aluminum Ore Company in East St. Louis, the stage was set for a war between the races. The strike. which included, at least, half of the company's workforce, had already gone on for several weeks.

It was one of a series of labor actions in the area that had weakened the power of the unions. These companies were now in the power position and felt no need to arbitrate.

The hatred for corrupt management and greedy company owners swiftly turned into racial hatred for the black "scabs."

That discord was, historians have noted, largely stirred up by management that was in no mood to negotiate. Government orders meant profits and these dangerous combined factors would soon erupt into all-out calamity.

The book, Power, Community, and Racial Killing in East St. Louis, author Malcolm McLaughlin. points to the tactics (along with collaboration with local government) as the chief factor for the racial violence to come. The war allowed the industrialists to identify their own interests with the interests of the nation at war. Striking workers were portrayed as un-American. Any tactic to break the strike was considered fair.

The company had also, McLaughlin also notes, employed professional strikebreakers, armies of thugs and armed them with secretly-obtained US government issued rifles. The company had apparently received the rifles from a local gun club set up by Estes Sorrell, the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. McLaughlin speculates that the club was specifically intended as a means of gun running since the rifles appeared at the Aluminum Ore plant, packed and ungreased.

Rumblings Before the Eruption

Tensions were reaching a breaking point. On May 10, union leaders warned local government that something had to be done about the black workers taking white jobs. They threatened to take action themselves if nothing was done.

Eventually, on May 28th, 1917- just weeks after America had entered the war, the spark caught fire and the race riots of East St. Louis exploded. Formal complaints about black workers were lodged with the Mayor of East St. Louis Fred Mollman by furious whites. 

A month earlier Mayor Mollman had won re-election on a promise to clean up the city. He had also assured black voters that black police officers would be hired and a new firehouse would be built for black neighborhoods. White voters were also furious when Mollman threw a post-election party with hundreds of black supporters. 

The mayor assured the angry white crowd that he had a plan to handle the Negro problem. However the remarks of another speaker, a white lawyer, that struck an ominous note. He told the crowd that "there's is no law against mob violence." 

It was exactly the wrong thing to say and the worst message to give.

Immediately after the meetings, with passions running high, a rumor was circulated about a white man being robbed by an armed African-American. Mobs of angry white civilians gather and set off a rampage through the downtown, assaulting all blacks they could find. African Americans were pulled off trolleys and beaten on the street.

Critics claimed that the police were more interested in disarming the black residents instead of protecting lives and property.

This violent episode was brought to an end only when Illinois governor Frank Lowden called out the National Guard to restore calm.

Had the governor followed up with a thorough investigation and prosecution of transgressors along with preventative measures, the situation could have been resolved. 

However, in the month that followed, the riot was all but forgotten while the simpering underlying causes remained. As one source notes:

No precautions were taken to ensure white job security or to grant union recognition. This further increased the already-high level of hostilities towards African Americans. No reforms were made in police force which did little to quell the violence in May.

When Governor Lowden ordered the National Guard out of the city on June 10th, the black residents of the city faced the situation alone. 

During this time, the strike was officially called off two weeks later, all that was left of the labor action was a bitter resentment that demanded its expression in violence.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

On July 2, 1917, an automobile driven by white males passing through a black neighborhood, firing shots at African Americans. 

Not long afterward, black residents mistook another car carrying a journalist and two police officers for the same attackers and fired shot at the passing vehicle, killing both police.

Later that day, thousands of white residents gathered on the scene to view the blood-stained auto. The crowds then turned and marched into the black parts of town, reportedly beating any African American they found along the way - including women and children.

Professor Elliot Rudwick's 1964 book Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917, provides an insight to the terrible night. After cutting fire department water hoses, white rioters torched entire black neighborhoods of the city and shot at residents as they attempted to escape. 

Several innocent African Americans were lynched by the mobs.

Guardsmen were called in but accounts exist that they joined in the rioting rather than stopping it. More joined in, including allegedly "ten or fifteen young girls about 18 years old, [who] chased a negro woman at the Relay Depot at about 5 o'clock. The girls were brandishing clubs and calling upon the men to kill the woman."

Some unverified reports claimed that "black women were stripped by white women for the amusement of the crowd." 

Troops were ordered not to shoot rioters and a number of rifles were stolen from the soldiers. When squads of soldiers were sent out to round up firearms, it was clear that both sides were well-armed. 

One Col. S. O. Tripp of the Illinois Guard came out as a hero of the hour when he rescued an elderly black man from a lynching party of hundreds. The black man, with a rope around his neck, was being dragged through a street by more than a hundred men. Col. Tripp forced his way through the crowd and demanded the crowd release the man. 

Such acts of heroism were not common and later, as the details emerged, the actions of National Guard on that night would seem anything but heroic. 

According to one account at the time, African Americans were "being shot down like rabbits" and hanged to telegraph poles in the south end of the town. Other reliable reports counted nineteen black corpses on a side street. 

Throughout the night of July 2, the atrocities against black Americans continued despite the presence of patrolling Guardsmen. In addition, high winds spread the flames engulfing three different parts of the city. 

In the early hours of the following morning, leaders of the black community gathered together to make an appeal directly to President Wilson and to the Illinois governor. They demanded increased security for the black population under mortal threat. The total number of Guardsmen was 1.500, but officials conceded that that number would not be enough to restore order. 

Here's how one reporter described the scene the following morning.

Estimates of the number of dead varied widely from 25 to 250. At 9:30 o'clock 24 bodies had been recovered, including three whites, 74 wounded negros were found.

Estimate of the bodies supposed to lie under the acres of ashes and smouldering debris, where fires consumed hundreds of negro shacks and house last night run into the hundreds.

Keeping Out of Sight 

The morning brought some degree of calm to the city. Exhausted Guardsmen patrolled the streets while many black residents driven from their homes huddled together "seemingly anxious to keep out of sight." 

Six thousand blacks were left homeless and five hundred men women and children had been forced to spend the night in the city jail. presumably, the only place that would provide any degree of security.

Otherwise. said the reporter,  the city appeared normal. There were broken windows here and there, other wreckage and the breeze carried the acrid smell of water-soaked embers.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dispatched two representatives, W.E.B. DuBois, and Martha Gruening, to investigate the events. Silent marches of 10,000 were held in New York City in silent protests for what black leaders were calling a "massacre."

In the days after the event, there was a national outcry for those responsible to held to account. including the police commission and other government officials. Closer to home, however, it was a different story. 

According to Ann V. Collins, author of the book, All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II, 

In the days following the riots, the city's whites exhibited little regret. Many toured downtown, which buzzed with a mardi-gras environment, showing off mementos that they had gathered during the unrest (mainly pieces of clothing from dead bodies). They also blamed their black neighbors for the July 2 disturbance.

Collins also points out that when justice finally came, it was the based on a surreal version of impartiality.

A grand jury eventually handed down indictments to 134 people, about one-third of them black. Most of the whites paid a small fine or spent a few days in jail. Six substantial trials stemmed from the riot- four involving whites and two blacks. Nine whites and twelve blacks served time in prison.

The Garvey Indictment

The controversial and charismatic Marcus Garvey, the president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) delivered a speech on July 8, less than a week later. 

His words were unambiguous calling what had taken place as "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind for which any class of people could be held guilty."

It was, he said,  "no time for fine words, but a time to lift one's voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy."

“This is a crime against the laws of humanity; it is a crime against the laws of the nation, it is a crime against Nature, and a crime against the God of all mankind.”

He did not blame just the individuals involved, but Garvey indicted the entire system:

For three hundred years the Negroes of America have given their life blood to make the Republic the first among the nations of the world, and all along this time there has never been even one year of justice but on the contrary a continuous round of oppression.

Quoting   Acts 17:26, Garvey said that  God has created "of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth." Yet, it was the white race that was determined "to enslave, conquer and rob the rights of the Peaceful."

Through that system of enslavement, conquest and robbery, the black man was taken into this country where he was forced against his will to labor for the enrichment of the white man. Millions of our people in the early days of slavery gave their lives that America might live. From the labours of these people the country grew in power, until her wealth to-day is computed above that of any two nations.

In spite of this inarguable contribution to the American success story, the Negro race was still "a despised creature in the eye of the white people." How else can the massacre in East St.Louis be explained?

"The white man," Garvey told the crowd, "has never found it convenient to live up to the principles of brotherhood which he himself teaches to all mankind." 

In that speech, Garvey also outlined a conspiracy against African Americans who had abandoned the brutal oppression of the South in a bid for their fair share of prosperity and a better life in the North. He took direct aim at East St. Louis Mayor Mollman. 

"I am convinced that he fostered a well arranged conspiracy to prevent black men migrating from the South much the loss of Southern Farmers who for months have been moving heaven it seems to prevent the exodus of the labor serfs of the South into the North."

He accused Mollman of doing "absolutely nothing to let the people know that the law would be enforced to preserve order and ensure the peaceful lives of the black people."

The authorities instead of attempting to keep law and order had simply stood by and watched.

We have a police department that is incompetent and inefficient if not worse. Not only was the word sent out that law would not be rigidly enforced but the impression was allowed to spread that law violations would be winked at."

There were reports, Garvey said, that the East St. Louis mayor had been contacted by representatives from the South to see what could be done about the black migration.

As proof of the conspiracy, Garvey also cited a message from Legislature of Georgia that "their good Negroes must come home as they will treat them better than East St. Louis did." 

In one day, Garvey said, the mayor of East St. Louis succeeded in driving out a black population in fear of their lives in the face of a white mob. he promised that he would do all he could to discourage Negroes from Louisiana going into East St. Louis as the city did not want them. 

The South was, he said, wild about the "splendid performance."

 *   *   *

Within a month, insurance companies in East St. Louis were canceling policies on property owned by African Americans, in advance of the National Guards eventual departure. 

According to an article in the St. Louis Argus for July 20th, landlords were rumored to be demanding tenants leave and that certain time payment furniture houses were offering to take back partially paid for furniture and refund amount advanced. The same article noted that Illinois Senator Lawrence Sherman was warning the Senate that the rioting was likely to erupt again unless a Congressional committee was formed to investigate the incident.

The message to black residents was clear: they were not safe and they were not wanted. Go back to where you came from.

Committee Hearings

By August of 1917, the United States House of Representatives formed a special Committee investigation of the East St. Louis Race Riots. It came at the request of President Wilson. He wrote a letter to Congress declaring it was "a very serious thing for the whole Nation that anything of the sort that happened in East St. Louis should be possible." 

The committee was charged with reporting the causes that led to the murdering, the lynching, the burning, and the drowning of innocent citizens. The testimony of witnesses presented the Congressmen with horrors that could not be ignored. One witness gave his own account of victims begging for mercy at the hands of a mob gone utterly insane. as well as death by stoning and African Americans randomly being burned alive.

Black skin, a witness told the Congressmen, was a death warrant. 

Another witness stated that the white mob could be a "frugal" lot as well. After shattering the windows of a black residents, white mobs would then loot homes and would remove "every useful piece of furniture, especially if they were large pieces, and carried them to the homes of the poorer whites."

(The complete report was held under seal by the U.S. Government as "classified information" and the U.S. Government did not declassify this report until 1986.) 

The definitive findings of the committee revealed gross negligence of the National Guard and the St. Louis police force. They had not, the report said, acted adequately during the riots, revealing that the police often fled from the scenes of murder and arson. Others had deserted the station houses and refused to answer calls for help. 

In short, law and order were essentially non-existent when it came to protecting the black population on that fateful night. The result as one witness observed was a spectacle worthy of the barbarity of the Roman Coliseum, except, in this case, the white mob had "become were their own gladiators and their own wild beasts."

The Echoes of the Race Riots

In 1918, Representative Leonidas C. Dyer, a Republican from Saint Louis, Missouri introduced the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. Dyer had been on the Committee and had been appalled at the race riots. Th bill was an attempt to punish lynchings and mob violence. The legislation would have made lynching a federal felony, thereby overcoming any question of state jurisdiction. 

The draft bill not only demanded punishment for perpetrators but also  prescribed a maximum of 5 years in prison for "any state or city official who had the power to protect a person in his jurisdiction but failed to do so or who had the power to prosecute those responsible and failed to do so."

There was more. 

A $10,000 fine was to be paid by the county in which the lynching took place, to be turned over to the victim’s family. If the victim was seized in one county and killed in another, both counties were to be fined.

 States, especially in the South at that time seldom prosecuted lynchings and they claimed that the prosecution of mob violence including lynchings was a matter of states to decide. 

Congressional Record also showed that senators defended lynching on the grounds that it helped control what they characterized as a threat to white women and also served to keep the races separate.

The bill was passed by a large majority in the House of Representatives, however, the legislation was blocked by a filibuster each time it was put up for a vote.  The opposition was led by the South.

Ninety percent of all lynchings occurred in the Southern states Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama furnished nearly half the total victims. Before the civil rights era- which radically changed the direction and agenda of the Democratic party, the South was firmly in the hands of the white ultra-conservative Democrats. 

This faction effectively prevented the passage of the anti-lynching each time the matter came up. 1922, in 1923 and once more in 1924. Each time, Southern Senators replied that they could their own affairs pretty well without Federal interference.

 

In June of 2005, the US Senate formally apologized for its failure to enact anti-lynching bills. Between the years 1882- 1968, nearly 200 anti-lynching laws were drafted. Of those, only three passed the House vote. All of them died in the Senate, a result of the Southern Democratic opposition. 

(That political trend continued until the Democrats under President Eisenhower who challenged the segregation policies of the South. The civil rights policies of Democrat Presidents Kennedy and Johnson ended the Southern conservative wing of their party and today, thanks to the Southern Strategy of Nixon and Reagan, the South is firmly in the hands of the Republican party.) 

Even in 2005, the vote to apologize for the failure was not unanimous. Two Senators from Mississippi, Republicans Trent Lott and Thad Cochran.refused to sign.

Before the Endless Loop

Marcus Garvey once said that the function of the Press was public service "without prejudice or partiality, to convey the truth as it is seen and understood without favoritism or bias."

Today, we have the 24/7 news cycle which may show a glimpse of the truth (when it wishes) but it is rarely the whole truth. Today we have cameras in helicopters soaring over crowds of angry protesters. Close ups of furious African American faces, shouting and holding up handwritten signs. Today CNN reports can show live shots of buildings aflame and National Guard troops in full uniform firing tear gas canisters into silhouetted crowds. We see an endless loop of shots of black residents breaking into shops and carrying out whatever they get a hold of.

Back in 1917, none of this technology existed, of course, and the news coverage of the events in East St. Louis was limited to a small item at the bottom of a page. In the East St. Louis incident, there were practically no photographs of the atrocities and the few that were taken were not flashed every hour to a disgusted public. 

All and all, that's a lucky thing for the white race. Without a mirror, it's so easy to forget what one looks like.

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The Key to Happiness and the Death of the American Dream

by Nomad

A recent study on happiness can tell us why Americans are so angry with Washington. It has, the study suggests, been a long time coming.

According to a study highlighted in Psychology Today, researchers from University College London have discovered, after studying more than 18,000 people from all over the world, what really makes people happy. One key factor, they concluded, comes down to what we expect and how strongly we expect it. They were even able to derive an equation to predict the factors that created happiness.

Dr. Robb Rutledge, a cognitive and computational neuroscientist and lead author of the study,

“Life is full of expectations — it would be difficult to make good decisions without knowing, for example, which restaurant you like better. It is often said that you will be happier if your expectations are lower. We find that there is some truth to this: lower expectations make it more likely that an outcome will exceed those expectations and have a positive impact on happiness

But, according to Rutlege, that's only half of the story. Sometimes happiness comes solely from the expectation itself. When some people play the lottery, the expectation of winning and the plans of what they would do with the winnings is more than enough to keep people playing week after week. This is true when those expectations are known to be false or based on fantasy.

Using MRI scans, the researchers were even able to track the place in the brain where our happiness originates. They found that setting expectations and receiving the pay off trigger a release of a the pleasure hormone, dopamine, which excited those areas of the brain.

So, the researchers seem to suggest that having high hopes is one way to achieve short term happiness but having realistic expectations is more important to long term happiness. 

The American Dream and the Happiness of Fantasy

The findings on the surface might seem a little obvious. At least the results of the study fits pretty squarely with conventional wisdom about keeping your expectations low.

However, on a social and political level, there are some interesting implications. 
There are things that Americans have tended to believe to the core. One of those articles of faith is the American Dream. Some have argued that that dream is dead. The expectation that life will forever improve, that social mobility is possible if only one works harder and that you too can rise out of poverty by virtue of your ambition and your intelligence, all that is now forever lost. 

If the American Dream is truly dead, then America is going to be a particularly unhappy place to live. Especially for the middle class. The poor have learned from grim experience to expect less and many have been forced to rely on social programs. The rich tend to have their expectations met and can use the system to guarantee it. However, it is the middle class that will not so easily adjust to the downgrading of our dreams.

Election Night, Cargo Bar- 2008

by Nomad

It was exactly four years ago. Another election night with all of the apprehension and lip-biting that goes with the political event. Having watched the election for those several months that I was back in the US, I kept asking myself whether it was actually possible that Old man McCain and his cartoon sidekick, Sarah Palin might actually win. No, definitely not. Well, maybe. What if..

I had been living in Staten Island- the least appreciated borough of New York City- for a few months as I sorted out some family business. Although Staten Island seemed the complete antithesis of New York City in so many ways, the shimmering lights of the towers of Manhattan were in clear view across the harbor. On that night I chose to be a recluse and keep my distance. 

I had my reasons, though, looking back, they do seem pretty silly. 

As the election results filtered in from various states, I sat at home, in front of my laptop checking all the usual sites for information and then confirmation. I had, I admit, hesitated a little about going out. The neighborhood was primarily minority and poor. In the rush of an unexpected Obama loss, I thought that I might be conceivably be mistaken for a symbol of white elitism. It seems silly now but at that time, I thought: why take any chances? It probably had a lot to do with my Midwest upbringing than any real threat.

The Line It Is Drawn: A Look Back at October 1963

by Nomad

Of the many critical moments in American history, the year 1963 stands out as one of the most climactic.

Yet there were so many things going on and so many stories being told just before that awful moment that were lost in the shadow that fell over the nation after the assassination.

The year 1963 was a momentous one for the fight against discrimination and events were moving quickly. By that year, many leaders in the civil rights movement had begun to question the sincerity of President Kennedy’s commitment to racial equality.

A Great Change is at Hand

In terms of social unrest, it had been a very hot summer. In June, the president had been forced to take a bold step, to federalize the Alabama National Guard when George Wallace, the segregationist governor of the state, refused to allow two black students to attend the state university in Tuscaloosa. Peaceful protests throughout the south had been met with police brutality which, in turn, ignited violence and rioting in many cities.