My uncle Clarence was tested with an IQ score of 160. Considered to
be in the Genius range. Yet, despite his great mental talents and his
photographic memory, my uncles. personal life was a shambles. For
some reason he could never handle his financial obligations. It was
as if each situation was new and unique. He was unable to build on
past experiences. As a result he and his family lived close to the
poverty level.
This "flaw" stood out because everyone held such high expectations for
a man with such a high IQ. But it strikes me that we all share a bit
of this mental flaw. Today, we Americans are looking more and more
like the Axis of the 30's and 40's, that we swore we'd never allow to
happen again. We seemingly cannot learn from our past. We change
names and tweak some of the details, and we have before us a brand new
situation.
But underlying it all is the unchanging issue. In this case it is
Racism and Religion. Mark my words, when we get done with the Latinos
and the Muslims, we'll go back to trashing the Jews, Blacks and
Indians. With our attention distracted we'll never get down to
solving the real issues.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/20/19, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Miriam, I wonder how many American Jews realize that they are supporting the
same rise of fascism now with Trump that they supposedly deplore?
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2019 9:22 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The White House, home of the Great White
Father
I'm reading a novel called, The German Girl, which Is about a Jewish family
who leaves Germany during the Nazi era. There's a snippet of a Hitler speech
quoted in that novel, which could have come straight out of Trump's mouth.
Only substitute Mexicans or immigrants for the word, Jews, and it's Trump
talking.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2019 9:30 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] The White House, home of the Great White Father
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
President Donald Trump has given new meaning to the “White House.”
From his perch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he hurls racist epithets via
tweet while commanding armed agents to terrorize immigrants at the border
and in communities from coast to coast.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi summed it up well, commenting last week about
Trump’s attempts to insert a citizenship question into the U.S.
Census even after
he was rebuffed by the Supreme Court. She accused Trump of trying to “Make
America White Again.”
It is well known that Trump is a voracious consumer of Fox News. On Sunday
morning, just 20 minutes after “Fox & Friends” ran a piece attacking
Congressmembers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and
Rashida Tlaib, Trump tweeted:
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally
came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe …
loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States … how our
government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally
broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Go back to where you came from? Three of the women he attacked were born in
the United States: Ocasio-Cortez, born in the Bronx, is the youngest woman
ever to serve in Congress; Pressley, born in Cincinnati, is the first
African-American congresswoman to represent Massachusetts. Tlaib, born in
Detroit, is Palestinian-American. She and Ilhan Omar are the first Muslim
women ever elected to Congress.
Omar is also the first congresswoman to wear a hijab. Born in Somalia, she
came to the U.S. as a political refugee when she was a child. As one viral
video pointed out, Omar has been a U.S. citizen longer than Trump’s third
wife, first lady Melania Trump, a native of Slovenia.
Trump’s racist tweets united a fractured Democratic Party, quickly
mobilizing support for the four freshmen congresswomen, now referred to
collectively as “The Squad.”
By Tuesday, a resolution, House Res. 489, “Condemning President Trump’s
racist comments directed at Members of Congress,” was being debated on the
House floor. Republicans temporarily derailed the debate by invoking an
obscure line contained in the congressional rules that states, “References
to racial or other discrimination on the part of the President are not in
order.” The original rule book banning use of the word “racist” was written
by Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, but any irony in that was
apparently lost on the Republicans. The resolution ultimately passed, with
four Republicans voting with the Democratic majority. While it was the first
formal House rebuke of a sitting president in over 100 years, a more serious
motion to censure Trump was blocked by Pelosi.
Trump doubled down on his verbal assaults on the four congresswomen,
accusing them of being socialists or communists. Trump’s use of McCarthy-era
attacks should surprise no one, as his early mentor was Roy Cohn, who served
as Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s lead attorney when destroying thousands of lives
through red-baiting during the 1950s.
Trump went to North Carolina on Wednesday to hold a campaign rally.
Once again, he went after his favorite targets: women and people of color,
telegraphing what will likely be a strategy of using racist rhetoric to
inflame his white base. In the midst of his long tirade directed against
Ilhan Omar, the crowd began chanting, “Send her back! Send her back!”
In his book “The Black History of the White House,” American University
professor Clarence Lusane chronicles the history of the presidential
mansion, from the slaves forced to build it to the first African American
presidential family, the Obamas.
Lusane writes: “For many African Americans, the ‘white’ of the White House
has meant more than just the building’s color; it has symbolized the hue and
source of dehumanizing cruelty, domination and exclusion that has defined
the long narrative of whites’ relations to people of color in the United
States.”
On Monday, the four congresswomen who so clearly threaten Trump held a news
conference, denouncing his racism toward them and people of color overall,
pointing to his policies on migrant detention, family separation and the
threatened ICE raids. Refusing to mention Trump by name, Ayanna Pressley
made clear whose country this is:
“Despite the occupant of the White House’s attempts to marginalize us and to
silence us, know that we are more than four people. We ran on a mandate to
advocate for and to represent those ignored, left out and left behind.
Our squad is big. Our squad includes any person committed to building a more
equitable and just world. That is the work that we want to get back to.
Given the size of this squad and this great nation, we cannot, we will not,
be silenced.”
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