Charleston

What, really, has to be said about the cold-blooded murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina by a screwed-up white kid (I say “kid” because 21 years is not always enough to be called a ”man”).

http://www.charismanews.com/us/50183-this-pastor-pulling-no-punches-about-demonic-south-carolina-massacre

Why does it still happen here?  Were not 250 years of slavery enough?  Were not 150 years of Jim Crow enough?  Were not 100 years of lynching enough?  Were not 100 years of segregation enough?  If the history of race relations in this country prove nothing else, it is that whites are surely NOT the superiors of blacks.  By any measure.  Especially morally.

Beautiful -- but Provocative and Shameful

Three governors (and counting) have decided to outlaw the Confederate flag from license plates.  The governor of South Carolina has ordered the removal of Confederate flags from state grounds.  This is proper and long overdue.  Indeed, the flag of the Confederacy should be removed from any and all official Southern displays.  Imagine the Nazi flag being displayed in modern Germany, it would provoke a riot (and if it did not, that would be worse).  The Confederate flag is not merely the flag of the Confederate South, it is the flag of the slave-holding South.  We fought that war, the Union won that war, and while mercy and forgiveness were routinely granted to officers and soldiers who fought for the Confederacy, neither mercy nor forgiveness were offered to the institution of slavery or to white supremacy.

On the other hand, YOU may love the Confederate flag, you may own the Confederate flag, it is probably legal for YOU to display that flag on your own property as surely as it is legal for you display the Nazi flag (this being America and not Germany).  The 1st amendment protects your right to free thought and free speech and free expression.  But it does NOT allow a governing body the same "freedoms."  This is not splitting hairs, as it is legal for you to pray in a public school, but it is not legal for the school authorities to conduct a prayer.  You may discriminate, no governmental body may do the same.

The Irony of Democracy

One of the great ironies of contemporary American life is that the greatest democracy the world has ever known (that would be us, the United States of America) and the land that spends half of its annual tax receipts exporting democracy around the world, is not a democracy itself.  A democracy is a nation-state where the people rule.  All we are is a nation-state where the people VOTE, but the people do not rule.  You don’t need me telling you this, you know it.

This sorry state of affairs is the single reason why I wrote my book and why I write my blog, that we are not a democratic land where the people rule and what we must do to become a true democracy once again (well, that and I like to write and I like seeing my ideas and words in print).

What ARE we then, if not a democracy?  Lawrence Lessig thinks we are Lesterland, a nation-state where the Lesters rule.  Greg Palast thinks we are "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."  Maybe we are an oligarchy, where a few rule the nation-state.  Or a corporatocracy, where corporations rule.  Or a plutocracy, where the rich rule.  Or a kleptocracy, where the thieves rule.  Or fascism where big businesses have taken the reins of democratic power for their own purposes.  All these apply, all except democracy, because the people clearly do NOT rule.

Freedom

What is freedom?  Who is free and who not?

I think that when we think of freedom we must first think of what it means to be without it.  We must think first of freedom from foreign domination: Nazi domination, Soviet domination, pre-Revolutionary British domination.  After that, we must think of forms of physical incarceration: prison, official governmental coercion (house arrest, parole), or even non-governmental confinement (kidnapping).