CW Political and Social Thought

            As I  indicate in the sidebar, I have decided to take my blog in a new direction. In hopes of giving substance to my Black and gay identity, I have conceded that my previous attempt with "Black Gay Journeys" and, before that, "Mal a la Tete" simply does not suffice insofar as my personal development. My new goal is to delve more deeply into various historical and social frameworks as a springboard for developing a coherent and critical worldview. This is not a task that merely exposes me to the ideas that have taken root in particular academic or social circles, but one in which I can be engaged and enriched by the vast knowledge of those who have asked and answered the same questions that now consume me in my post-graduation state. I start with Cornel West's "Democracy Matters" not because I somehow think that it is a canonical book of African American literature, though I will not deny its noteworthy reputation as a book of prophetic voice and reason, I begin with "Democracy Matters" mostly because it was atop of my stacks of books. It was a convenient book in that way, nevertheless, I plan to bring you my response to it in the next few days. Also, look for a review of the Black film, Mahogany which stars Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams.

I'm on Hiatus

I'll Be Back in a Few Days. School is Done. Graduation is Just Around the Corner, So I am Taking a Well Deserved Break.

Walk for Change

I have a choice. I could sit back and do nothing, complain that Americans don't have the will to vote for an African American candidate. Or I could give them a reason why they should. I have taken it upon myself to volunteer on behalf of the Obama campaign. I am leading the first effort in Charlottesville, VA starting on June 9th to take it to the streets. I am asking others in the area to join me in getting out the word. It will be a part of an official campaign strategy where groups all across the nation will be doing the same. We will distribute information provided by the Obama campaign and help spread the word one house at a time. I am doing this because I believe that Obama is the best hope for tomorrow. Right now, we have so many reasons to be afraid, to be pessimistic, and to be disenchanted with our leaders, in what better way can we send a message than by saying that we want someone who has demonstrated a commitment to the people. Not to politics, not to war, not to division, not to business, we want a leader of the people. The fact that Obama has been in the Senate for fewer years than Clinton, McCain, Edwards, and Biden signals to me that he would be less assimilated to the ways of Washington. The fact the he has the most grassroots campaign of any candidate means that he wants to hear what the people are saying. He knows that Iraq is one of our most pressing issues, but he also knows that this President had failed the American people when it comes to healthcare, education, the environment, immigration, and common decency. Obama has put out a call to arms and I am standing up! Will you?

What Does Obama Stand For?

De-escalates the War with Phased Redeployment. Commences a phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq not later than May 1, 2007, with the goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008, a date consistent with the expectation of the Iraq Study Group. This responsible redeployment will be both substantial and gradual and will be planned and implemented by military commanders. The plan makes clear that Congress believes troops should be redeployed to the United States; to Afghanistan; and to other points in the region. A residual U.S. presence may remain in Iraq for force protection, training of Iraqi security forces, and counter-terrorism operations.

Transform the Military to Meet 21st-Century Threats. Barack Obama will ensure the United States Armed Forces maintain their technological edge, but will also invest in our warfighters to ensure they have the skills and training to fight and win the 21st century’s complicated conflicts. That includes counterinsurgency and intelligence expertise as well as language skills and cultural literacy. Obama supports incentives such as foreign language proficiency pay for high-demand languages.

Combat Global Climate Change. Climate change is an unprecedented man-made threat to the environment. While American lives, property and natural habitat are at direct risk, the destabilization and conflict that will be caused by potential droughts, migrations, border disputes, and food and water shortages around the world also pose serious threats to U.S. national security. In a report released April 16, retired Marine Corps General Anthony C. Zinni said, “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or, we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.” As the largest producer of greenhouse gases, America must lead by capping and reducing greenhouse emissions across the economy, and replacing more of our fossil fuels with clean-burning renewables and biofuels. Barack Obama would work towards binding, enforceable commitments from developed nations to reduce carbon emissions and provide more assistance to developing countries to help them fuel their growth with greener energy.

Reduce Debt of Developing Nations. Developing nations are amassing tremendous amounts of foreign debt that limit their economic development and make investments in public health, education, and infrastructure extremely difficult. Debt in Sub-Saharan Africa stands at $235 billion, 44 percent of the region’s gross domestic product and an increase of 33 percent since 1990. Obama would work with other developed nations and multilateral institutions to cancel remaining onerous debt while pushing reforms to keep developing nations from slipping into fiscal ruin. Obama also would better coordinate trade and development policies to use the full range of America’s economic power to help developing nations reap the benefits of the global trading system

Gay Rights: Obama believes that marriage is between a man and women, however he supports civil unions and legislation that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. (I can live without the marriage. At least, he is headed in the right direction.)

At BarackObama.com you can find more information on the issues.

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Presidential Impersonators

I have done a lot of serious topics lately, so I thought that I would throw in some presidential humor to lighten things up. Hope you enjoy!

More Information on Presidential Impersonators

The Queen Arrives in My State

Republican Debate: Nonsense and More Nonsense

Shorthand Summary of Republican Debate

Giuliani: We have the best health care system in the world

McCain: I think the war in Iraq is now on the right track

Romney: Fuck the polls! Let the president do want he wants

Brownback: We win the war by standing up for our values. (Of course he doesn’t bother to define what those are)

McCain: Iran poses one of the greatest threats to the world and the Middle East.

Tancredo: If there is a threat to Israel, the US will go to war

Romney: America is the greatest country in the world! Forget that we have the most violence! Forget that we have the worst health care system among industrialized countries. 

Huckabee: Global Warming…Humans only play a small part

Tancredo: Organ Transplanting! I don’t care about that!

Hunter: US has right to invade Iran

Paul: Get rid of the IRS!

All: REPEAL ROE V WADE!

Hunter: Strong national defense! That’s all that matters!

Thompson: Gay Employment Discrimination! Go for you!

Romney: We are the envy of the world

Hunter: Illegal immigration = smuggling drugs and crime

Thompson: Welfare Reform! (Racial codeword)

McCain: Line-item veto! Make the executive the legislator and the executive the king!

Huckabee: Bush is neither good nor bad. We should not judge his policy midway stream.

Gilmore: Mothers in jail! Keep them in there!

I can’t watch this anymore...

Republicans Are Morally Bankrupt

Just Look at the Headlines
Dodson Launches Drives to Stop Hate Crimes Bill

Bush Expected to Veto Hate Crimes Bill

Critics Say Hate Crime Bill Destroys American Freedoms

CWA Says Bill Encourages Homosexual Behavior

Republicans Compares Bill to Making 'Thoughts' a Crime

Republicans have reached an all-time moral bankruptcy. The Congress is now considering a bill that would help to prosecute people who commit violent acts against gay Americans. The bill says nothing about homosexuality being wrong or right. The bill says nothing about general discrimination against gays. It says nothing about gay marriage. All the bill wants to do is give gay Americans full equality of the law when it comes to acts of violence perpetuated against them! Read the language for yourself.

"OFFENSES INVOLVING ACTUAL OR PERCEIVED RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN- Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person--"

Instead of Republicans having integrity and standing up for what is right, they have used this opportunity to sell their agenda. In the process, they have made fools of themselves. They are acting against their own Samaritan principles of right, one of which is to help your fellow man when he is in need. Millions of gay Americans are in need of help. Hundreds more, who suffered needlessly at the hands of a violent criminal, were in need of help, but help did not come soon enough. Gay Americans are in fear of their lives on a daily basis. We don't know if it's safe to walk down certain streets or at certain times because we don't know if we might be yet another corpse left for dead on the street. We need protection!

Despite all of the moral diversity of our nation, there isn't a decent American who does not believe that one man has a right to beat, stab, sodomize, murder, shoot or injure another man or woman because he or she is gay! Tell Republicans that they are absolutely wrong!

Write NOW!

More Cultural Sharing

I am a facilitator for a class on multicultural education at the University of Virginia. Here are the cultural materials that the students shared on the second day. The previous post was what the facilitators shared during our Monday discussion. I hope you'll find all the videos as fascinating as I. Too bad we had to wait until the last two days of class to see this stuff! You can click on the link for more information.

Tinikling

Bermuda Gombeys

Dabke

CHOOSE

Eskesta

Part I: Emancipation of the Mind

"...(T)here are certain truths which the Americans can learn only from strangers or from experience."

I have decided to start a series that I am calling "Emancipation of the Mind" because millions of African Americans like myself are struggling to exercise an independence of the mind that is not subjected to the world view of the white population. This task is difficult, to say the least, because it essentially involves a self-induced lobotomy or reprogramming in which  I am having to assert an identity that has been denied to me and of which I know very little. That is to say that I am calling upon all the material and immaterial resources available to me to construct a historical philosophy that speaks to my  greatness, my beauty, and my genius as an African American and as a member of the African American people. Of course, some may wonder if I am exaggerating the state of our nation in order to advance my own principles. To that I say, you need only look inward at your lack of self-consciousness and glutinous appetite for ignorance and passivity to see that Black people, specifically those descendants of enslaved persons, have been paralyzed by the enduring chains of mental slavery. I do not limit my critique to abstractions, but encompass all the facets of American life including but not limited to education, politics, religion, and entertainment. In all of these areas, there is a great tendency of the African American population to blindly follow the commands of the masters without little objection. Even the most intelligent among us busy themselves with the task of maturing their income instead of maturing their mind.

I am not, neither will I ever be, a slave to any man.

Let us start with a critique of American democracy. One of the best critiques of American democracy was by a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859). It's a shame that Americans are so self-absorbed with the pursuit of a dollar that the writings of a man from well over a century ago still hold true for American society. I hope  that this piece is the first of many to awaken my self-consciousness and those of African Americans to realize our true selves.

"Democracy in America"

THE very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in democratic states that is capable of resisting it. Most of the American constitutions have sought to increase this natural strength of the majority by artificial means.

Several particular circumstances combine to render the power of the majority in America not only preponderant, but irresistible. The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a number of men united than in a single individual, and that the number of the legislators is more important than their quality. The theory of equality is thus applied to the intellects of men; and human pride is thus assailed in its last retreat by a doctrine which the minority hesitate to admit, and to which they will but slowly assent. Like all other powers, and perhaps more than any other, the authority of the many requires the sanction of time in order to appear legitimate. At first it enforces obedience by constraint; and its laws are not respected until they have been long maintained.

The right of governing society, which the majority supposes itself to derive from its superior intelligence, was introduced into the United States by the first settlers; and this idea, which of itself would be sufficient to create a free nation, has now been amalgamated with the customs of the people and the minor incidents of social life.

The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers. This notion made obedience very easy; it enabled the subject to complain of the law without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.

In the United States, political questions cannot be taken up in so general and absolute a manner; and all parties are willing to recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope at some time to be able to exercise them to their own advantage. The majority in that country, therefore, exercise a prodigious actual authority, and a power of opinion which is nearly as great; no obstacles exist which can impede or even retard its progress, so as to make it heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. This state of things is harmful in itself and dangerous for the future.

In America the authority exercised by the legislatures is supreme; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their wishes with celerity and with irresistible power, and they are supplied with new representatives every year. That is to say, the circum- stances which contribute most powerfully to democratic instabil- ity, and which admit of the free application of caprice to the most important objects, are here in full operation. Hence America is, at the present day, the country beyond all others where laws last the shortest time. Almost all the American constitutions have been amended within thirty years; there is therefore not one American state which has not modified the principles of its legislation in that time. As for the laws themselves, a single glance at the archives of the different states of the Union suffices to convince one that in America the activity of the legislator never slackens. Not that the American democracy is naturally less stable than any other, but it is allowed to follow, in the formation of the laws, the natural instability of its desires.2

The omnipotence of the majority and the rapid as well as absolute manner in which its decisions are executed in the United States not only render the law unstable, but exercise the same influence upon the execution of the law and the conduct of the administration. As the majority is the only power that it is important to court, all its projects are taken up with the greatest ardor; but no sooner is its attention distracted than all this ardor ceases; while in the free states of Europe, where the administration is at once independent and secure, the projects of the legislature continue to be executed even when its attention is directed to other objects.

TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY

I hold it to be an impious and detestable maxim that, politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?

A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are therefore confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered as a jury which is empowered to represent society at large and to apply justice, which is its law. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society itself whose laws it executes?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep the boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may be given to the majority by which it is represented. But this is the language of a slave.

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength.3 For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.

I am therefore of the opinion that social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere; but I think that liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its course and give it time to moderate its own vehemence.

Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself or clothed with rights so sacred that I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws.

In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.4

If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the other two powers, a government would be formed which would still be democratic while incurring scarcely any risk of tyranny.

In the United States the omnipotence of the majority, which is favorable to the legal despotism of the legislature, likewise favors the arbitrary authority of the magistrate. The majority has absolute power both to make the laws and to watch over their execution; and as it has equal authority over those who are in power and the community at large, it considers public officers as its passive agents and readily confides to them the task of carrying out its de signs. The details of their office and the privileges that they are to enjoy are rarely defined beforehand. It treats them as a master does his servants, since they are always at work in his sight and he can direct or reprimand them at any instant.

In general, the American functionaries are far more independent within the sphere that is prescribed to them than the French civil officers. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by the popular authority to exceed those bounds; and as they are protected by the opinion and backed by the power of the majority, they dare do things that even a European, accustomed as he is to arbitrary power, is astonished at. By this means habits are formed in the heart of a free country which may some day prove fatal to its liberties.

IT is in the examination of the exercise of thought in the United States that we clearly perceive how far the power of the majority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted in Europe. Thought is an invisible and subtle power that mocks all the efforts of tyranny. At the present time the most absolute monarchs in Europe cannot prevent certain opinions hostile to their authority from circulating in secret through their dominions and even in their courts. It is not so in America; as long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason for this is perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers of society in his own hands and to conquer all opposition, as a majority is able to do, which has the right both of making and of executing the laws.

The authority of a king is physical and controls the actions of men without subduing their will. But the majority possesses a power that is physical and moral at the same time, which acts upon the will as much as upon the actions and represses not only all contest, but all controversy.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitutional state in Europe every sort of religious and political theory may be freely preached and disseminated; for there is no country in Europe so subdued by any single authority as not to protect the man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the consequences of his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to live under an absolute government, the people are often on his side; if he inhabits a free country, he can, if necessary, find a shelter behind the throne. The aristocratic part of society supports him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But in a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like those of the United States, there is but one authority, one element of strength and success, with nothing beyond it.

In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that he is in danger of an auto-da-f�, but he is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority that is able to open it. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before making public his opinions he thought he had sympathizers; now it seems to him that he has none any more since he has revealed himself to everyone; then those who blame him criticize loudly and those who think as he does keep quiet and move away without courage. He yields at length, overcome by the daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence, as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.

Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments that tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has perfected despotism itself, though it seemed to have nothing to learn. Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression; the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as the will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says: "You shall think as I do or you shall die"; but he says: "You are free to think differently from me and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow citizens if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."

Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old World expressly intended to censure the vices and the follies of the times: Labruy�re inhabited the palace of Louis XIV when he composed his chapter upon the Great, and Moli�re criticized the courtiers in the plays that were acted before the court. But the ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of. The smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke that has any foundation in truth renders it indignant, from the forms of its language up to the solid virtues of its character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape paying this tribute of adulation to his fellow citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual utterance of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can learn only from strangers or from experience.

If America has not as yet had any great writers, the reason is given in these facts; there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds much better in the United States, since it actually removes any wish to publish them. Unbelievers are to be met with in America, but there is no public organ of infidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to protect morality by prohibiting licentious books. In the United States no one is punished for this sort of books, but no one is induced to write them; not because all the citizens are immaculate in conduct, but because the majority of the community is decent and orderly.

In this case the use of the power is unquestionably good; and I am discussing the nature of the power itself. This irresistible authority is a constant fact, and its judicious exercise is only an accident.

Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor with the many and introduce it into all classes at once; this is the most serious reproach that can be addressed to them. This is especially true in democratic states organized like the American republics, where the power of the majority is so absolute and irresistible that one must give up one's rights as a citizen and almost abjure one's qualities as a man if one intends to stray from the track which it prescribes.

I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and I have found true patriotism among the people, but never among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy: despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the king often has great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that American courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your Majesty," a distinction without a difference. They are forever talking of the natural intelligence of the people whom they serve; they do not debate the question which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure him that he possesses all the virtues without having acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the rank of his concubines; but by sacrificing their opinions they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil of allegory; but before they venture upon a harsh truth, they say: "We are aware that the people whom we are addressing are too superior to the weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of their temper for an instant. We should not hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world." The sycophants of Louis XIV could not flatter more dexterously.

For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and adulation will follow power. The only means of preventing men from degrading themselves is to invest no one with that unlimited authority which is the sure method of debasing them.

GOVERNMENTS usually perish from impotence or from tyranny. In the former case, their power escapes from them; it is wrested from their grasp in the latter. Many observers who have witnessed the anarchy of democratic states have imagined that the government of those states was naturally weak and impotent. The truth is that when war is once begun between parties, the government loses its control over society. But I do not think that a democratic power is naturally without force or resources; say, rather, that it is almost always by the abuse of its force and the misemployment of its resources that it becomes a failure. Anarchy is almost always produced by its tyranny or its mistakes, but not by its want of strength.

If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.

Further Reading

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch15.htm