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The Witch Hunt Against Planned Parenthood – posted 8/2/2015 and published in the Concord Monitor on 8/5/2015
This piece appeared in the Concord Monitor on 8/5/2015.
Planned Parenthood is under siege. Long-term opponents have been working overtime to try and create a witch hunt atmosphere in an attempt to take down the organization. What is going on is a creepy form of McCarthyism based on maliciously edited videos. The videos have been edited to make it look like Planned Parenthood is profiting from selling fetal body parts.
I have been surprised that the media has treated this story as credible. Usually, there is an expectation of evidence behind a story. The concept of evidence implies some degree of reliability and authenticity.
In this instance, we have a group of zero credibility (the Center for Medical Progress, the group behind the videos) which falsely presented itself to Planned Parenthood employees over the course of three years in an attempt to get a gotcha moment. They then doctored the videos to manufacture wrongdoing and create a misleading impression. I would point out that the Center for Medical Progress, humorously named, had no online presence until a few weeks ago. Some of the actors involved have a long history with deceptively editing undercover footage of abortion clinics.
The news cycle becomes slow during the summer but this smear campaign doesn’t deserve the heading “news”. It is less newsworthy than shark bite stories.
The accusation that Planned Parenthood is illegally selling fetal body organs and tissue is patently false. Women, who have abortions, which is a legal medical procedure, can, in some states, donate fetal tissue to research if they choose to do that. That does not happen at Planned Parenthood centers in New Hampshire.
I would note that donating fetal tissues to scientific researchers can help contribute to our understanding of Parkinson’s, diabetes, muscular dystrophy, and eye diseases. Scientists at universities and at government labs have been using fetal tissues for many years. On July 28, the New York Times provided much more detail about the value of this scientific work. As the Monitor pointed out in its recent editorial, those Planned Parenthood affiliates in other parts of the country do not profit from donations of fetal tissue. The money Planned Parenthood receives only recoups the costs of collecting and preserving it and sending it to researchers.
Less reported than the videos has been the recent breach of Planned Parenthood’s employee database. Anti-abortion hackers who have the announced intention of decrypting and releasing personally identifiable information are behind this. Given the track record of the pro-life movement, I have to say this is scary.
Whatever the innocence of many in the pro-life movement, there is a dangerous minority of anti-abortion fanatics who want to stop at nothing to obtain their goal of shutting down Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood employees have a perfect right to be concerned and frightened. The extreme element of the anti-abortion movement has killed abortion providers. Dr. Tiller and Dr. Slepian come immediately to mind. The mainstream of the anti-abortion movement says precious little about its crazies. Maybe they are scared of them too.
The intent of releasing personally identifiable information is about harassment. Part of the strategy of the extreme sector of the anti-abortion movement has been threatening and stalking abortion providers. It is hard to know what these fanatics will do but past history is not reassuring.
I believe the story of vigilante action against abortion providers has been underreported. For those who doubt what I am saying, I would recommend the book Living in the Crosshairs by David Cohen and Krysten Connon. The authors document how every day men and women who are associated with abortion care are harassed, threatened, stalked, picketed, sent hate mail and terrorized.
I think this is a more worthy news story than the transparently phony videos devised by fanatics.
The blogger Rebecca Watson who blogs at Skepchick.org persuasively compares the Planned Parenthood video story to other examples of alleged heresy. I think of the blood libel against the Jews and the persecution of witches. Begin with a fake story, add hysteria (and social media) and voila – you have the recipe for a debacle.
Facts get lost along the way. In considering Planned Parenthood, we should remember that it provides health care, education and outreach to more than five million women, men, and adolescents. Nationwide only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortion-related. More than 90% of the abortion services are for first trimester abortions.
Planned Parenthood performed 400,000 pap tests and 500,000 breast exams. These services are critical for detecting cancer. It also has provided 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections.
As a non-profit, Planned Parenthood has been a critical provider insuring poor women have access to basic medical care including birth control. Contraception accounts for 34% of its services. It is estimated that the work of Planned Parenthood prevents 516,000 unintended pregnancies a year.
There is an irony in the attacks on Planned Parenthood. Through its sex education efforts and its promotion and distribution of birth control, it has done more to prevent abortions than anybody.
Planned Parenthood has been around almost 100 years. It will not be as easy to take down as say, ACORN. It is the largest provider of reproductive services in the Unites States with over 700 locations. Historically, attacks are nothing new. When Margaret Sanger, her sister and another woman founded the first American birth control clinic in Brooklyn, they were arrested and jailed for violating the Comstock Act. Then the accusation was distributing obscene materials. That conviction was overturned.
I have come to believe that “pro-life” is really a misnomer for the anti-abortion movement. More correctly, I think it should be identified as “pro-birth”. A quote from Sister Joan Chittister makes the point:
“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think you don’t?” Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation what the morality of pro-life is.”
The extreme right wing jihad against Planned Parenthood is disturbingly irrational. We now have 18 male House Republicans signing a letter committing to shutting down the federal government if Planned Parenthood is not defunded. In New Hampshire, the Executive Council is voting this week on Planned Parenthood’s state contracts. After the 2008 and 2012 national election defeats, I would have thought the national Republican party would have reconsidered whether attacking Planned Parenthood and denying women access to reproductive health was wise strategy.
I guess the war on women is not dead.
The Inspiring Example of Eugene V. Debs – posted 7/26/2015 and published in the Concord Monitor on 7/31/2015
This piece appeared in the Concord Monitor on 7/31/2015 under the title “Man of the People”.
Probably, like almost everybody, I have been surprised by the surge of Senator Bernie Sanders in the presidential race. At first, I thought, given the proximity to Vermont, he might do well in New Hampshire. Then I thought he might do well in Iowa. He has been drawing large crowds wherever he goes. That includes surprising places like Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston.
It does not take a political genius to realize that, at this time, his message is resonating in a powerful way. Sanders’ arguments about the dangers of income inequality are the same arguments he has made for the last 40 years.
I had read that Sanders was inspired by the example of Eugene V. Debs. There is a plaque of Debs in Senator Sanders’ office. Back in 1979, Sanders produced an audio documentary about Debs. In the liner notes for the documentary, Sanders wrote the following:
“It is very probable, especially if you are a young person, that you have never heard of Eugene Victor Debs. If you are the average American who watches television 40 hours a week, you have probably heard of such important people as Kojak and Wonder Woman, have heard about dozens of different kinds of underarm deodorants, every hack politician in your state, and the latest game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Strangely enough, however, nobody has told you about Gene Debs, one of the most important Americans of the twentieth century. Why? Why haven’t they told you about Gene Debs and the ideas he fought for. The answer is simple: more than a half century after his death, the handful of people who own and control the country, including the mass media, and the educational system still regard Debs and his ideas as dangerous.”
So who was this guy Eugene Debs and why does he matter? Is he as important as the Kardashians?
I think it is fair to say Debs was one of the most revered figures in the history of the American Left. He was the most popular and effective socialist figure ever to appear in America. Throughout his life, Debs advocated for fair wages, worker’s rights, social justice, and equality. For 30 years, from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, Debs was the spokesperson for a democratic socialist vision for America.
Really, those were the glory days for American socialism. It always has been a minority movement but, for a time, it had a significant following.
Debs did not come from Berkeley or Cambridge. He was born in Terra Haute, Indiana in 1855 and he grew up there. I know about Debs’ Indiana roots from reading Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut often wrote that he took pride in being from the same state as Debs. Vonnegut even named the protagonist in his novel Hocus Pocus after Debs.
Debs went off to work on the railroad at age 15. He started as a yard laborer, moved on to painter, and finally became a locomotive fireman. He helped to organize the first lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in Terra Haute. He then quickly rose in the National Brotherhood. In his job, Debs traveled around the country to organize and assist in the formation of new lodges.
Through his work and travels, Debs became familiar with almost every sector of the American working class. Always interested in politics, Debs was repeatedly elected Town Clerk in Terra Haute. He also got elected as a state representative in the Indiana state legislature in 1884 but he did not seek reelection there. His heart was more in organizing.
In 1893, Debs went on to organize the American Railway Union (ARU), an industry-wide union dedicated to the rights of every worker in the railway industry. Although he had previously built the Brotherhood of Railway Firemen, he found craft unionism too narrow. Debs believed solidarity could not be achieved under the old craft set-up.
After a significant victory in a battle over a wage cut by the Great Northern Railroad, Debs and the ARU faced off against George Pullman and his railroad company in the massive Pullman strike. The story is novel-worthy. A federal judge who had been appointed through the influence of George Pullman issued injunctions that forbid virtually all union activity. Also, the court had 700 strikers arrested including Debs and other ARU leaders.
Debs did six months in prison. With the ARU smashed, Debs had time in prison to reflect. He had started organizing with an idealistic, humanitarian perspective. He now saw the need for a class viewpoint. He came to see that all workers shared an identical interest. The Pullman strike reinforced Debs’ growing class consciousness.
He came to the conclusion that a workers’ political party needed to be organized to defend workers’ interests politically. At the same time, he favored a class-wide union to defend workers’ interests economically. In 1897, Debs went on to found the Social Democratic Party which became the American Socialist Party.
Debs made his first run for the Presidency in 1900. He subsequently ran for president four more times. During the next 18 years, he travelled the country incessantly. He went by train and spoke everywhere in the country, often giving 6 to 10 speeches a day. He threw himself heart and soul into the effort. Debs brought hundreds of thousands of people into the Socialist Party. Debs increased his vote totals as he ran. By 1912, he got 900,000 votes which was 6% of the total votes cast.
When the United States chose to enter World War I, Debs took an anti-war position and spoke out against the war. He believed the decision to enter the war was motivated by capitalism. In 1918, under the Espionage Act of 1917, Debs was arrested. The Espionage Act made it a crime to give speeches that interfered with the war effort. The court sentenced Debs to 10 years in federal prison.
Always quotable, in his speech to the court, Debs said:
“Your honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it and while there is a criminal element, I am of it and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
He went on to describe his general outlook this way:
“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. ”
In his last run for President in 1920, Debs received 900,000 votes. At the time, Debs was Prisoner 9653. He ran the race from jail. He remained incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. President Harding commuted Debs’s sentence in 1921.
When people consider greatest Americans, the usual candidates named are former Presidents. Lincoln does come to mind. However, I would place Debs in my own top five. His oratorical skills were legendary. He fought selflessly for working people his whole life. Debs was total salt of the earth. He identified with the down and out – not leaders or bureaucrats. He always remained down-to-earth, informal, with the democratic spirit of a Midwesterner.
For Debs, socialism was the movement for the emancipation of working people from the fetters of authoritarian government of whatever variety.
Bernie Sanders could not have picked a more noble person to serve as inspiration. I will leave the last word to Debs:
“If you go to the city of Washington, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress and mis-representatives of the masses claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make the claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.”
No Basis for Northern Smugness in the Battle Against Racism – posted 7/19/2015 and published in the Concord Monitor on 7/22/2015
This piece appeared in the Concord Monitor on 7/22/2015 under the title “North has its own set of demons”.
It was encouraging to see the Confederate flag come down in Charleston, South Carolina. It does represent a victory of sorts for anti-racists. That flag is and has long been a hateful symbol. You have to overlook so much to celebrate that flag. Still, the victory should not be overstated. All over the South, there are memorials to the Confederacy – not to the victims of slavery.
The mythology of happy Plantation-land is widespread. There has been something of a delusional Southern world view. The Civil War has been characterized as the War of Northern Aggression, the War Between the States, and the War for State’s Rights.
To this day, racists everywhere in America still cry for state’s rights. It has been obvious for a long time that state’s rights is the ideological cover for racism. People can say what they will about the federal government but it is the federal government which has historically acted as the protector of civil rights for all.
The Confederate heritage advocates have tried to bury the matter of slavery as if it is an irrelevant detail. The history of lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and the Ku Klux Klan have been brushed off as no big deal. That is remarkable considering that in 1860, one in three people who lived in the South were owned as property.
Whatever the Southern sins and they were vast and unspeakable, I want to suggest that historically the North was not that much better. There is no basis to contrast the bad racist South with the good anti-racist North both before and after the Civil War.
The form that racism took in the North was simply different. Instead of slavery, the North featured deep segregation laced with the same white supremacist mentality. When the abolitionists started out in the North, they were a hated minority. According to Howard Zinn, as late as 1810, one quarter of the Black population of the North remained slaves.
While I would never belittle the tenacity and courage of the abolitionists in the North, it was not until the mid-1830’s that the abolitionist movement dramatically grew. Northerners regularly criticized the abolitionists for being too extreme.
In his book, Inhuman Bondage, the historian David Brion Davis writes:
“The Northern and especially New England reformers learned to their dismay that American society was not only deeply permeated with racism but that the basic institutional structures from the judicial system to the international economy were connected with slavery: Most Americans wore or consumed slave-grown produce; many Northerners’ jobs were tied in some way to Southern markets or to servicing the export of Southern products. To make matters worse, white workers, some of whom had seen black workers used as strike breakers, expressed deep fears that even a partial emancipation would lead to the northward migration of freed blacks, who would then literally work for starvation wages.”
Davis makes the point that before he became president, Abraham Lincoln believed there was a “Slave Power” conspiracy that united pro-slavery presidents, the Supreme Court, and Southern Senators and Congressmen. Lincoln felt the pro-slavers were intent on nationalizing the institution of slavery as the United States expanded.
In the aftermath of the Civil War and not counting the relatively brief interlude of Reconstruction, American apartheid was the general rule in the whole country. That lasted for a very long time – until the Civil Rights Movement. Whether in employment, housing, education, voting rights or health care, Black people were constantly discriminated against and relegated to second class citizenship. They were generally kept in a world apart with circumscribed opportunities.
Doubters need only look at the Kerner Commission report produced after the riots in urban areas in 1967. The report was mandated by President Johnson. The report famously stated: “Our nation is moving toward two societies – one black, one white – separate and unequal.” The Kerner Commission report remains a good read.
While it is impossible not to acknowledge the progress that has been made on race matters, I remain very unimpressed with the place we have reached. We are so far from any kind of racial or economic equality. America is still deeply enmeshed in institutional racism. If anything we have re-segregated while talking a phony line about colorblindness. The election of an African American president hasn’t changed that much for the masses of people although it probably has made America feel better about itself.
I think we have lacked the requisite will to tackle racism. One sick thing is how efforts to remedy racism like affirmative action are seen as racist. One can only ask: what has happened to our historical understanding?
In assessing America’s racial history, I want to mention three watershed moments which set us on our present course.
First, I would begin with the infamous three-fifths clause of the federal Constitution. The clause provided that representation in Congress was to be based on “the whole number of free Persons and three fifths of all other Persons”. The other persons were the slaves. The point of the provision was not that slaves were considered three fifths of a person. The provision allowed Southern states to get more representation in Congress because the three fifths clause gave the slave states more seats even though the slaves could not vote.
For 70 years, the three fifths clause enabled the South to block federal legislation hostile to slavery. It allowed there to be more pro-slavery representation in Congress so that slave states like Missouri and Texas became part of the United States. It also helped the South gain an advantage in presidential races through the Electoral College. The Electoral College allocated presidential electors based on the number of members of Congress each state had.
There is a terrible irony embedded in the three fifths clause. Slaves were counted to give the South more political power but they remained slaves and could not vote. That is why the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison described the Constitution as “a covenant with death, an agreement in Hell”.
When Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution after the Civil War, it abolished slavery and nullified the three-fifths clause. However, disenfranchising black citizens has remained a continuing theme. Witness the continuing struggles around voting rights. It was no accident that immediately following Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion in Shelby County v Holder, Southern states like North Carolina, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi almost immediately began efforts to restrict the franchise.
The second watershed moment was 1876. A disputed presidential election between the Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes and the Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden led to the compromise of 1877. In that compromise deal, the Democrats agreed to allow Hayes to become president in exchange for the Republicans agreeing to withdraw federal troops from the South.
The removal of the federal troops from the South was a betrayal of the former slaves. It amounted to losing their protection. In effect, the North acquiesced in what the writer Douglas Blackmon called reimposition of slavery by another name. Black people were left to the mercy of deeply racist state and local governments. Jim Crow followed.
Part of the story was the retreat of Northern liberals from the goal of racial equality. The country moved on from the old anti-slavery issue sort of like how we have moved on now. On June 1, 1876, the New York Times wrote, “Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison are not exactly extinct forces in American politics but they represent ideas in regard to the South which the great majority of the Republican Party have outgrown”.
Many abolitionists did oppose the retreat from Reconstruction but they lacked the political power to influence events. From 1875 to 1957, Congress did not pass a single civil rights bill.
The third watershed moment I would cite is the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v Ferguson, the case that upheld separate but equal. In that case, Louisiana had passed a state law segregating railroad cars and requiring people of color to sit in the “colored” car. Homer Plessy, of light-skinned Creole ancestry, boarded the train in New Orleans and sat in the white section. He intended to be arrested and wanted to act as a test case. When the conductor ordered Plessy to move out of the coach, he refused. The police arrested him and he was ejected from the coach.
An almost unanimous Supreme Court ultimately upheld the segregation with only Justice Harlan dissenting. The Court wrote that separate facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were “equal”. Of course, they were never equal. Until Brown v Board of Education, a long generation later, Plessy was the law of the land. It is hard to overstate just how consequential the decision was. Segregation was legitimated by America’s highest legal authority. With its reaffirmation of segregation, Plessy gave the green light to expansion of racist practices in public accommodations and in all areas of life.
While many people may have heard of Plessy and Dred Scott, it is shocking just how dismal the role of the U.S. Supreme Court was on race issues in the 19th Century. There are quite a few decisions which can most charitably be described as an embarrassment. For those historically inclined, I would mention United States v Cruikshank, the 1883 Civil Rights Cases and United States v. Harris. These are not the Supreme Court’s finest moments.
One story I did want to mention involves New Hampshire’s own former President, Franklin Pierce. Pierce opposed the abolitionists and saw them as the main threat to the unity of the country. In 1853, Pierce nominated John Archibald Campbell to the U.S. Supreme Court. Campbell,an Alabama lawyer, was quickly confirmed and he served 8 years on the Court. Campbell resigned from the Court three weeks after the first shots in the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter. He resigned to become assistant secretary of war for the Confederacy. Of note, when he was on the Court, Campbell voted against Dred Scott.
In the more recent era, with the exception of the Warren Court, the Court has not exactly clothed itself in glory on race cases. As was reflected in Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion in Shelby County v Holder, there is an out-of-touch quality there and a continuing lack of historical understanding of racism.
James Baldwin once wrote, “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” Those words still ring true.
Shady, Bodie, and Bailee – posted 7/12/2015
The pic is my dog Shady (on the left) with two of his brothers, Bodie (in the middle), and Bailee (on the right).
The Charleston Shootings: A Historical Perspective on South Carolina and Racism – posted 6/21/2015 and published in the Concord Monitor on 6/24/2015
This piece appeared in the Concord Monitor on 6/24/2015 under the heading “Flags at Odds”.
In the awful news department, the shootings of the nine black people in Charleston South Carolina is hard to surpass. Like so many, since the Charleston shootings happened, I have followed reactions of politicians and others.
The Mayor of Charleston, Joseph Riley, called the shootings an act of “one hateful person”. He said, “The only reason that someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate”. Riley also said the lack of gun control in the United States was “insane”.
Various presidential candidates have weighed in. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry initially suggested the fatal shootings were a drug-induced accident. On CNN, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said the alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, was just “one of those whacked out kids”. Graham went on to say: “There are people out there looking for Christians to kill them”.
To date, I have not seen the Charleston shootings placed in a historical context. Most politicians seem to see the shootings as isolated tragedies outside history and carried out by a crazed lone gunman. To see things that way is shallow and it assumes terrible things like the Charleston shootings exist independent of past events.
South Carolina has a long history as one of the most racist states in the country. I don’t think the shooter’s actions can be understood outside that background. While senseless murder borders on the incomprehensible, the shooter’s extreme racism came out of his world and life experience.
The tradition of racism in South Carolina long predates its history becoming an American state. The African slave trade had deep roots in South Carolina. It has been estimated that after the Middle Passage over 40% of African slaves reaching the British colonies before the American revolution passed through South Carolina.
The key port of entry was Charleston and Sullivan’s Island, a nearby island. Slaves were typically screened for disease on the island before they were sold in Charleston’s slave markets. Many slaves went on to work in the rice fields in South Carolina, a particularly brutal work environment.
Before discussing South Carolina’s history, I did want to mention a bit more about the Middle Passage, the slaves’ journey from Africa to America. The crowding on the voyage was so severe, the ventilation so bad, diseases so rampant, and the food so poor during the trip (which lasted five weeks to three months) that a loss of 14-20% of “cargo” was considered the normal price of doing business. Millions of slaves experienced that hellish journey.
South Carolina became rich off the slave trade. No other colony relied on slaves more. By 1760, Charleston was among the richest towns in America.
However, the white population lived in some fear of slave revolts. In 1739, the Stono Rebellion, a slave revolt, resulted in 21 whites and 44 blacks killed. Most of the captured blacks were executed – a few who survived were sold to markets in the West Indies. Severed heads of the rebel slaves were placed on stakes on the road outside Charleston.
South Carolina passed a comprehensive Negro Act of 1740 that made it illegal for slaves to move abroad, assemble in groups, raise food, earn money and learn to write English. Owners were given the right to kill rebellious slaves if necessary. If the slaveowner perceived the slave as “rebellious” that was enough to justify killing them.
Even after South Carolina joined the United States, slavery remained its way of life.
In 1822, Denmark Vesey, a former slave who had gained his freedom, planned a slave insurrection that was to take place on Bastille Day. Vesey was co-founder of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church – the same church the Charleston shooter just violated.
It is a fascinating story but Vesey did not succeed. Two slaves who were loyal to their owners informed on him. The South Carolina court ultimately convicted 67 men of conspiracy and hanged 35, including Vesey. Four white men were also arrested in connection with Vesey’s planned insurrection. The white community in Charleston feared the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The conviction of the white men was a warning to white sympathizers who might support black slaves.
Interestingly, the mayor of Charleston at that time, James Hamilton, blamed the insurrection on Black Christianity and the AME African Church, an increase in slave literacy, and misguided paternalism by masters toward slaves. I do wonder if the Charleston shooter picked the Emanuel AME Church because of its long historical role and leadership of the Black struggle.
In the 1990’s, African-American activists in Charleston proposed the erection of a memorial to honor Vesey’s anti-slavery effort. That effort did not meet with success. In 2014, a statue representing Vesey as a carpenter was completed but it was not placed near the main tourist areas.
On April 12, 1861, cadets from the Citadel fired the first shots against the United States at Fort Sumter. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union even before that. The secession declaration outlined South Carolina’s principal reason for leaving the United States:
“…increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery.”
At the time of the Civil War, only 2% of South Carolina’s black population was free although African Americans did comprise the majority of the state’s population.
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the South Carolina Legislature passed new Black Codes (also known as Jim Crow laws) to control the work and movement of the allegedly free former slaves. These codes essentially attempted to reimpose slavery by another name.
Many South Carolina whites felt betrayed by the actions of their ex-slaves. During the Civil War, African Americans had deserted en masse and many joined the Union army. Not too long after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan emerged, dedicated to reinstituting white supremacy.
South Carolina was one of the most notorious zones of Klan activity. Between 1877-1950, South Carolina had 164 lynchings in 36 different counties. Lynchings were a form of terrorism designed to maximize fear among African Americans. They were a tool to enforce segregation. Lynchings were often very public events where Black men were tortured and murdered in front of picnicking crowds.
After President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877, the white power structure worked to unravel the reforms of the Radical Republicans. South Carolina again returned to unrestricted white supremacy. In fact, white supremacy was state policy. Blacks were excluded from the South Carolina political system in every way and were prohibited from voting.
The most famous South Carolina politician of the late 19th century was Governor Ben Tillman. Tillman had a deep-seated fear of Black power. The white leadership followed what was known as the Mississippi Plan designed to disenfranchise blacks. The plan made voting registration more difficult through the use of poll taxes and literacy tests.
Segregation remained the norm until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement. The State had enforced legal racial segregation in all public facilities. On the extralegal side, night riders firebombed churches and homes with the ongoing intent to intimidate. Black churches have long been targets of white supremacists. I am old enough to remember the church bombing in Birmingham Alabama when four little girls were murdered.
For 60 years, African Americans had no political representation in South Carolina. It was not until the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Blacks regained suffrage.
While much has changed in South Carolina, the Confederate flag still flies at the state capital. Imagine if the swastika flag still flew over Germany and if Germans justified it on the basis of “heritage”. South Carolina is awash in Confederate memorials allegedly celebrating its Southern heritage.
The actions of the Charleston shooter cannot be seen apart from the racist history of South Carolina. The shooter said his intention was “to shoot Black people”. Allegedly he said, “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country and you have to go”.
Racism is learned. Even though it is pathological, bigotry is not mental illness. Pictures in the media of the shooter show him with the Confederate flag as well as the flags of apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). These are all symbols of the ideology of white supremacy.
I would speculate that the shooter turned to white supremacist ideology to reverse his own feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy as an unemployed high school dropout. White supremacy gave him an identity.
The shooter’s actions are consistent with a powerful strain in the history of his state. Unless we see the underlying racism, we will not be challenging the forces who push the shooter and people like him.
Will Social Security Be There For Today’s Young People? – posted 6/14/2015
In August, Social Security will celebrate its 80th birthday. I think it is fair to say the program has been solidly established for a long time now. Every month, 165 million workers make Social Security contributions and over 58 million receive earned benefits. 93 percent of all workers are covered by Social Security.
In spite of this most impressive, consistent, and uninterrupted record, many young people have been led to believe the program will not be there for them when they retire and need it. According to one poll I saw, half of Americans between the ages of 18-29 don’t believe Social Security will exist by the time they reach retirement. I must say I am surprised by how many young people seem to believe that.
I was jolted when my own son Eric recently voiced the same sentiment. He said that since middle school he and his friends have not believed Social Security would endure for them. Eric is now 33.
While the belief Social Security will not be there appears to be widely held, nothing could be further from the truth. There may be more evidence for the Loch Ness monster, UFOs’ in Rozwell, New Mexico, and Bigfoot than there is for the demise of Social Security.
Social Security is far more solvent and strong than its critics and doubters seem to realize. Even if no new measures are taken to shore up the program, the 2014 Social Security Trustees Report found that Social Security can pay all benefits until 2033. After 2033, Social Security could still pay three quarters of scheduled benefits for another 50 years after that using its tax income. And that is again with policymakers doing nothing.
Of course, there are plenty of reforms Congress could initiate which would strengthen, secure, and expand the program for the indefinite future.
I would suggest that information about Social Security is contested terrain. Since its inception, it has been subject to a campaign of misinformation and lies by its opponents. They have wanted to shake confidence, turn people against the program, and ultimately destroy it.
The effort to persuade young people that Social Security will not be there for them is only the latest episode in an 80 year battle. I think young people are being conned by the same extreme right wing, moneyed interests who have always opposed the program. It is instructive to examine the history.
Initially when President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration created the program, the Republican Party opposed Social Security altogether. The 1936 Republican presidential nominee, Alf Landon, who ran against Roosevelt, called Social Security “a fraud on the workingman” and “a cruel hoax”. Landon tried to scare the American people with fantasies about federal snooping by a vast array of bureaucrats who would be collecting information. President Roosevelt won reelection by a crushing margin winning 61 percent of the popular vote.
Next came the court challenges to the Social Security Act. In Helvering v Davis, a 1937 case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Social Security was constitutionally permissible as an exercise of federal power to spend for the general welfare and did not contravene the 10th Amendment.
After sustaining these losses, opponents of Social Security retreated and were more marginalized. There was a long period of time when the program gained wider acceptance, including in the Republican Party. No one knew what President Eisenhower would think about Social Security but he evolved into a strong supporter. He expanded the program to cover 10 million more Americans who had not previously been covered. These included farmers, domestic workers, and self-employed professionals.
A split developed in the Republican Party between more extreme right wingers and moderate forces. Some Republicans opposed all New Deal programs including Social Security; some believed Social Security should become a means-tested welfare program; and some supported the program.
Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who became the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, reflected the more right wing perspective on Social Security. He advocated making Social Security voluntary. During the New Hampshire primary, he was on the defensive because he had created the impression he would abolish Social Security. President Johnson politically annihilated Goldwater and caused much soul searching in the Republican Party, with different factions drawing different conclusions about the lessons learned.
For a time, the more moderate forces gained ascendancy. It may be forgotten but it was President Richard Nixon who initiated the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a critical safety net program for the poor and disabled. President Ford ran for president on the theme that he would preserve the integrity and solvency of Social Security.
Whatever expectations may have been about what President Reagan would do, he created the Greenspan Commission which only very modestly reformed Social Security. When Reagan signed the bi-partisan Social Security Amendments of 1983 into law, he said:
“This bill demonstrates for all time our nations’s ironclad commitment to Social Security. It assures the elderly that America will always keep the promises made…Our elderly need no longer fear that the checks they depend on will be stopped or reduced…Americans of middle age need no longer worry whether their career-long investment will pay off…And younger people can feel confident that Social Security will still be around when they need it to cushion their retirement.”
Neither the older President Bush nor Kansas Senator Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, who were both from the moderate wing, wanted to mess with Social Security.
It was President George W. Bush, with his privatization scheme, who broadly opened the door for attacks on Social Security. I recall Bush saying he was going to spend political capital he had accumulated on his effort to privatize Social Security. Although the wildly unpopular effort got nowhere, many long-time criticisms which had been dormant were again voiced.
These included: Social Security is going bankrupt: it is a Ponzi scheme; too much is going to greedy seniors; the program is unfair to young people; you could do better investing on your own: and the only way to stave off catastrophe is to cut benefits, increase the retirement age, and privatize. Critics have derided Social Security as “an entitlement”.
The allegation that Social Security is intergenerational theft is a newer spin. Accompanying that charge is concern about the demographics of a large number of Baby Boomer retirees being supported by a small group of post-Baby Boomers.
In fairness to young people, I do think it is easy to believe the older generation is selling young people out. I would point to the failure of my older generation to act decisively on climate change. Still, the arguments around intergenerational theft are a sham and they are based on a misunderstanding of the program and its solvency.
The opposition to Social Security and the right wing and libertarian intellectual critique of the program have been heavily bankrolled by billionaire interests, including Pete Peterson and the Koch Brothers. These billionaires have created a cottage industry of think tanks, bought academics, talking heads on TV and elected officials to make their extreme views seem mainstream. They are good at messaging.
Their effort to set young against old has been effective. I would encourage young people to consider the sources and the financial interests behind the misinformation being fed.
For a thorough refutation of the arguments of the opponents of Social Security, I would recommend the book Social Security Works by Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson.
As I noted earlier, there are progressive reforms which could go a long way to solving any Social Security solvency concerns. I would suggest increasing revenue by raising the maximum amount of wages subject to the payroll tax which now encompasses only 83% of covered wages.
Income over $117,000 is not subject to payroll tax. So our wealthiest billionaires pay the same payroll tax as someone who makes $117,000 annually. There are many ways the payroll tax on the wealthiest could be increased.
I believe Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would impose the payroll tax on income above $250,000 a year. There are 8.3 million American workers who make more than $110,000 a year and almost 2 million who make over $250,000 annually. That move alone would generate significant money and would dramatically strengthen Social Security for the next 75 years.
Simply as a matter of equity, the very rich should pay their fair share. Why should billionaires be paying the same amount of tax as someone who makes $117,000 a year? In this context, it is worth pointing out the tremendous growth in income by our 1% over the recent historical period.
Our 2016 presidential nominees should be quizzed closely on whether they favor expanding Social Security or cutting it.
In writing this piece, I know I can be accused of bias as I am writing about the agency I work for. I do have a stake in the program’s continuity and success. I guess I would admit my bias about the importance of the program for the American people. As a 60’s person and a representative of my sometimes maligned and idealistic generation, I feel a responsibility to pass along a healthy Social Security to future generations. I admit I do not like to see young people sold a line.
At the time of its 80th birthday, the original vision of FDR still seems vibrant to me. To quote Roosevelt:
“We can never insure one hundred percent of the populace against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete…It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.”
Book Review : “Ghettoside” by Jill Leovy – posted 6/1/2015
I have to say Ghettoside by Jill Leovy was not what I expected. We are awash in crime fiction, crime-solving TV shows and a million shallow and stereotyped portrayals of inner city crime. Ghettoside is not like any non-fiction book or novel of that genre. It is a very sharply drawn book with compelling characters and a unique perspective.
Leovy takes on the subject of the murder of Black men in America. Through the true story of one murder in Los Angeles County and its successful investigation, she makes a powerful argument.
“…where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death, homicide becomes endemic.”
Leovy argues that the criminal justice system has preoccupied itself with control, prevention and nuisance abatement rather than responding to victims of violence. She says the criminal justice system has done a poor job in addressing black on black homicide.
It is admittedly a difficult and sensitive topic to tackle. Leovy recognizes the harshness of the American criminal justice system, the racist misuse of capital punishment, the excessively punitive drug laws, and the mass incarceration of young black men but she forcefully argues the State has failed to protect black men from bodily injury and death. Leovy sees too little application of the law – not too much.
Leovy’s theme is quite consistent with the campaign Black Lives Matter which has grown out of the police shootings of young black men. She argues that homicides in the black community have garnered inadequate attention and resources. Generally, these murders are not well-covered by the media. Too often they are ignored completely.
That tragic lack of attention and indifference are rooted in racism and devaluation of Black lives. An L.A. detective coined the term “the Monster” to refer to the epidemic of black on black homicide. Especially in the late 1980’s and 1990’s, there was a crazy ravaging where murder followed murder. Leovy says the murder rate has declined since then but the underlying phenemonon remains.
She says that the lack of media coverage was intended to convey the message that black on black homicide is “small potatoes”. She writes:
“Gangs were a big topic but atrocity, trauma, and lifelong sorrow were not part of the public’s vocabulary about black on black violence. Somehow mainstream America has managed to make a fetish of South Central murders yet still ignores them. The principal aspect of the plague – agony – was constantly underrrated.”
There is nothing cliched or less than three dimensional in Ghettoside. Leovy develops the characters in her story from the victims, to the victims’ families, to the police and homicide detectives. She gets into the role of homicide detective and the special talents required to be a good one. She describes the homicide detectives’ creed this way: “…standing over the body of a murdered prostitute..”She ain’t a whore no more”, he said. “She some daddy’s baby.” To the homicide detective, the murdered person, no matter their criminal involvement, deserved justice. As she says, the murdered were inviolate.
Leovy looks hard at high-homicide environments and adds to our understanding of why there have been so many killings. She says a large share can be described by two words: men fighting.Stupid grudges, debts, competition over women, snitching, and drunken antics – all have led to murder and lasting feuds. Whatever the original basis for the dispute, the desire for vengeance intrudes. The fixation on honor and respect in circumstances of weak legal authority leads to more acts of violence.
Since the 1980’s and 1990’s there has been a decline in the murder rate in Los Angeles County. Leavy provides a nuanced explanation for the decline. She cites an easing of residential hypersegregation. She says that integration and mobility into mixed communities tended to reduce homicide rates. A reduced caseload has then allowed for better archiving, investigation of cold cases and clearing new cases. Detectives have more time and new technology allows for better, faster matches of bullets to revolvers.
Interestingly, she thinks an increase in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits paid to poor black people has been a positive. While SSI is often maligned, she argues that the receipt of SSI has reduced homicides. Leovy cites the federal Second Chance Act of 2005 which inspired efforts to provide SSI to prisoners upon reentry. Many prisoners qualify for SSI on the basis of mental illness such as bipolar disorder and ADD. Leovy explains it this way:
“An eight hundred dollar a month check for an unemployed black ex-felon makes a big difference to him. He can move, ditch his homeys, commit fewer crimes, walk away from more fights.”
Leovy remarks that SSI has been a transformational positive force. She says “cold cash paid out to individuals is a powerful thing”. It has countered extreme economic marginalization. Leovy sees SSI as saving many from being murdered or maimed. This is a perspective that is rarely if ever heard but it makes perfect sense. When people have nothing and opportunities are totally lacking, what are the alternatives?
While there are many cool things about this book, it is uniquely a product of personal reporting. For years Leovy had created a website called the Homicide Report. She attempted to provide a comprehensive accounting of every homicide in Los Angeles County. She began seeing patterns and as she wrote she tried to penetrate the mystery of disproportionate black homicide. She particularly listened to the bereaved – all those parents, children, spouses and siblings who had suffered. I don’t believe anyone has attempted anything like this before.
At the same time as Leovy offers up this book, she maintains a degree of humility about understanding all the murders. She recognizes that black on black homicide remains an ongoing issue. I do think that the book offers many insights into how police departments and our larger society could reform and do a better job at addressing the roots of violence. She makes clear that we have brushed over tremendous tragedies out of indifference and racism. I hope this book is widely read. It takes up a significant problem that has been largely swept under the rug.
Anger at Poor People – posted 5/25/2015 and published in the Concord Monitor on 6/3/2015
This piece appeared in the Concord Monitor on 6/3/2015 under the title “The art of hating the poor”.
Being hostile to poor people is a long American tradition. Historically, the American people have fluctuated between a desire to help the deserving needy and an alternating desire to castigate and punish the undeserving poor. The tension between these conflicting desires lies behind public policy disputes about poverty and what to do about it.
Nationally, in the state legislatures this session, it would appear that anger at the unworthy poor had the upper hand. Here I am thinking about a new Kansas welfare law signed by Governor Sam Brownback that restricts Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients from accessing more than $25 of their monthly benefit money per day from ATMs.
The Kansas law contains many other restrictions including a prohibition against spending TANF cash assistance in retail liquor stores, casinos, tattoo parlors, massage parlors, body piercing parlors, nail salons, lingerie shops, movie theaters, swimming pools and cruise ships.
Kansas is not the only state that introduced legislation like that. A Missouri bill introduced by Republican state Rep. Rick Brattin outlaws the use of TANF funds to purchase chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood and steak. The Missouri bill has not yet passed.
Questions arise about these restrictions. How are TANF recipients, who often do not have bank accounts, going to pay rent or utility bills if they can only take out $25 at a time? What about ATM fees? Won’t TANF recipients get hit up on every withdrawal so they are losing precious and needed dollars? And as for purchases, is buying seafood bad? How about paying to go swimming? I guess the worst thing you can be is a welfare swimmer who loves tuna fish.
The laws do wreak havoc on lingerie-wearing, tattooed, energy-drinking TANF recipients who are getting massages, gambling, and watching movies on cruise ships. If you are from Kansas, I can understand that you would want to go on cruises.
Seriously, these type laws, whatever their intentions, reflect a mean-spirited mentality. The view is not one that sees poverty as a result of misfortune or social class. It is about bad persons. Poverty is seen as a willful result of personal deficiencies, laziness, and vice.
In his book The Undeserving Poor, the historian Michael Katz fleshes out the long historical consistency of this view. He quotes an 1834 sermon preached by Reverend Charles Burroughs, who spoke at the opening of a new chapel in the poorhouse in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
“…Pauperism is the consequence of willful error, of shameful indolence, of vicious habits. It is a misery of human creation, the pernicious work of man, the lamentable consequence of bad principles and morals.”
The anger in this view is palpable and it is still with us today. Many Americans direct their anger downward on the poor rather than upward at the superrich. Possibly that is because most Americans are physically closer to poor people whether in supermarkets, other stores or nearby neighborhoods. They personally observe the poor. The superrich live apart in a rarified world beyond direct personal observation. It is easier to be mad at someone you see and experience than people you may envy who are a distant abstraction.
Overlooked in the welfare discussion is the national decline in the number of people on TANF. States everywhere have dramatically pared down their welfare rolls. Yet, an almost irrational hatred of welfare lives on. In its new legislation, Kansas also lowered the lifetime limit recipients could stay on TANF from 48 months down to 36 months. The original 1996 welfare reform legislation allowed states up to 60 months.
I would suggest that anger at the poor reflected in the Kansas and Missouri welfare laws is misdirected. Whatever their faults, the poor have minimal power to shape our political world. The same cannot be said of the superrich. Their wealth translates into inordinate political power . They buy politicians to do their bidding and their priorities do shape our world.
So why do the poor get blamed so much? I think there is a lack of understanding of social class and our class structure. Many are uncomfortable with talking about it but class is the dirty secret of American life. Even with our increasing economic inequality, talking about it is a little taboo. I do think that class has a pervasive influence on the way we live, work and think.
Americans are conditioned to think we are all middle class. Maybe there are some really rich people and some poor people at the ends of the spectrum but most people are alleged to be in the middle. This view is part of the mythology of America. I would argue that most Americans are working class. Unlike Europeans, we do not generally look at the world through a class lens and class consciousness is not recognized as a virtue.
This is too bad because, among world views, I think class provides a powerful tool for making sense of the world. Not everybody starts in the same place in this life. The prep school-attending child of great wealth is in a way different place than the inner city, public school-attending poor child. The advantages for the child of extreme wealth are profound, multi-faceted, and lifelong.
Those born into a family on welfare are near the bottom of the class structure. Focusing on their vices obscures their social class position. It is their class position – not their personal qualities – which largely dictate their life opportunities. One unfortunate feature of our increasing economic inequality has been the decline in social mobility. While there always are exceptions, class is a more important determinant than has been recognized.
I know there are different ways to define class. I should say that I am defining class based on the power and authority people have at work. Working class people typically have little control over the pace or content of their work.
Over the last four decades, the American working class has experienced lower real income, longer hours at work, and fewer protections by unions and government regulation. Big business shipped many of the formerly good paying manufacturing jobs overseas as they sought cheaper labor elsewhere outside the United States.
If you consider the 2016 presidential candidates, with the notable exception of Senator Bernie Sanders, the candidates have precious little to say about our class system. Republicans usually say people who mention social class are promoting class war. They ignore the reality that our Big Business class is far and away the most class conscious about pursuing its interests. When Big Business advances its interests at the expense of labor that is not called class war. That is business as usual.
While the Republicans are a coalition of interests including Big Business, social conservatives, and libertarians, from a class viewpoint, they consistently reflect the interests of the superrich.
Democrats generally do not talk about the working class any more. Now they talk about appealing to the middle class. I do not think it is an accident that Democrats have lost some appeal to working class voters. If your appeal is more to rich yuppies and professionals, working people notice. To their credit, the Democrats do offer some support for raising the minimum wage and addressing income inequality.
The writer Michael Lind once wrote:
“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.”
Demonizing and being angry at the poor reflects a deep misunderstanding of American politics.
Jonathan P. Baird 