The DISH
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Volume 6 Issue 26…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…July 4, 2003
Impending Crisis (1857)
Hinton Rowan Helper was born in Rowan (now Davie) County, North Carolina on December 27, 1829. After a visit to California in 1850, he wrote The Land of Gold (1855). His second and most famous work, Impending Crisis in the South and How to Meet It was published in 1857, the year the US Supreme Court issued its historic ruling in the Dred Scott slave case.
In stark contrast to pro-slavery propaganda, Impending Crisis attacked slavery as an economic institution that victimized small-scale white farmers, making it impossible for them to compete against the free labor supplied by slaves. Helper believed slavery rendered the region backwards. It was so dangerous that he likened it to throwing strychnine in a public well. Though not a friend of enslaved blacks, he called for their immediate emancipation and exportation.
Impending Crisis came at a time when Southerners ceased to apologize for the peculiar institution and justified slavery as "a positive good" sanctioned by the Bible and critical to national prosperity. It was such a good thing that some pro-slavery propagandists recommended extending it to include white workers. In Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (1854), George Fitzhugh praised slavery as the only workable form of socialism. He urged its worldwide adoption as the only cure for class conflict and the other ills of competitive society.
While spreading pro-slavery propaganda, Southerners violently sought to silence their critics. In 1835, a mob attacked a Charleston post office destroying sacks containing abolition literature. Thereafter, Southern postmasters refused to deliver anti-slavery mail. Southern states passed resolutions demanding that Northern States suppress "incendiary" abolitionist agitation. With Northern cooperation, Congress adopted a "gag rule," automatically tabling slavery petitions.
Throughout the North, people began to feel that civil liberties were endangered. They came to suspect, as abolitionists claimed, the existence of a "Slave Power Conspiracy" bent on controlling the government and destroying the liberties of the entire country. They wondered, as Abraham Lincoln did, whether the nation could continue to be half slave and half free - whether the nation might become solely slave. Many Northerners, though not necessary for love of the Negro, came to sympathize in varying degrees with the anti-slavery cause. An even larger and more determined majority of Southerners rallied to the defense of slavery, thereby laying the foundation for a "solid South."
Thrown into this volatile mix, Impending Crisis aroused a firestorm, forcing Helper to leave the South; he moved to New York. Impending Crisis was widely used by Republicans in the election of 1860. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln sent Helper to Buenos Aires, Argentina, as United States consul. Helper returned to the US in 1866 to write more books. He wrote Nojoque (1867) and Negroes in Negroland (1868).
Helper remained committed to strong friendly relations between the US and South America and spent the later years of his life promoting a railway between Hudson Bay and the Strait of Magellan. He wrote The Three Americas Railway (1881) in support of the project. Discouraged by its failure and his impoverishment, Helper committed suicide on March 8, 1909 in Washington, DC. (Sources: Encyclopedia Americana and American History: A Survey, Current, Williams and Friedel) History Homepage
The Dark Knight - Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is on a summer hiatus. While he enjoys a well-deserved break, his fans have missed his cogent insight. Hopefully, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro will return soon to enlighten us. Back to Bat Cave
By John Burl Smith
Lacking tolerance, Neanderthals killed their perceived adversaries as a basic survival strategy. Descending from this line, Europeans manifested the same psychology fighting imperial wars that killed thousands, sometimes millions over centuries. During the last millennium, Homo sapiens comprehended such massive carnage benefitted wealthy industrial families. The consensus is that when a society kills off a generation of its best and brightest, then rush to put that reality "behind it and move on," its people fail to grasp war's true horrors and devastating losses. Therefore, like Neanderthals, the George Bushes of the world continue slaughtering human beings.
The Vietnam War is just such an event in the psyche of Americans. Hundreds of gruesome senseless deaths slipped quickly into the recesses of closed minds, which would not accept as just the US' humiliating defeat. "Forgetting and moving on" covered, not healed, deep ugly wounds that continued to fester. Remaining like scar tissue, today, names like Donny Delaney, Dorsey Arps, Charley Walker, John Gary Williams and Zeb Hill cover America's face. Places like Ia Drang Valley, Hue, Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill are like lanced boils oozing with significance for the war in Iraq.
Ho Chi Minh, the greatest general of the 20th century, had been fighting to liberate his country from foreign domination, occupation and oppression for thirty years in 1960 when US troops arrived. Ho developed a strategy that fit the terrain and the condition of his people. His basic tactic was to make the cost in lives so high the US would eventually withdraw. Battle plans were designed to kill as many US soldiers as possible rather than take or control territory. Perfect in this shifting quagmire of hit and run ambushes, the Viet Cong trapped units sent to rescue ambushed US soldiers.
One such place was "Hamburger Hill," a piece of jungle not worth anything to anyone, except those who depended on it for survival. For a brief moment, this isolated plot became the most expensive piece of real estate in Vietnam. Drafted to replace white boys being killed by Ho's successful strategy, young black boys were swept up and dropped into a political meat grinder. City slick ghetto-wise brothers, who knew nothing of rice paddies, bamboo spikes, booby traps and horseshoe ambushes, died by the hundreds. "Hamburger Hill" was just another heap of young bodies. Once the battle ended and the Viet Cong moved on, it returned to its previous worthless state. Without moral justification and only government denials, US citizens developed "collective amnesia" to avoid guilt over believing the lies that have caused so many deaths.
A throwback to their Euro-Neanderthal heritage, today whites refuse to see the relationship between a Vietnam quagmire and the quicksand in Iraq. As in Vietnam, even though the military claims to control the country, young Americans keep dying. Ironically, then as now, US intelligence does not understand that when a war of aggression is disguised as a war of liberation, liberated people become a threat. Deductively, retaliatory strikes against people create vengeful families. Moreover, when liberators attack the people, the occupier becomes a target to everyone. As the body count raises in Iraq, Homo sapiens ask Neanderthals, does dying for Bush's lies help them rest better than the families whose loved ones died in Vietnam?
Disgruntled wants to know: Long-term interest rates are historically low, yet mortgage foreclosures are at a five-year high. The lackluster US economic recovery translates into double-digit unemployment rates among the historically disadvantaged. Too often, black homebuyers are victims of predatory lending. After recent revelations that mortgage lender Freddie Mac plans to restate profits by billions of dollars, one wonders will US lawmakers make inquiries into the mortgage industry's practices that victimize black Americans?
Disgruntled says: George W. Bush plans to visit several African countries. The Internet buzz is, Bush is only interested in African oil! Ahead of his trip, plans are being made for demonstrations on every leg of his tour. Africans want to make a strong statement against imperialist policies, despite the fact that their corrupt and greedy leaders are in the West's back pockets. More Disgruntled Moments
What to the Slave is 4th of July?
By Frederick Douglass
Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?...Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then, would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful...But such is not the state of the case.
I declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will...call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! ... it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply....
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity, your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery, your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despots- of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
About Me:
The above are selected excerpts from a July 5, 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass. Born a slave in 1818, when Douglass died in 1895, he was recognized as the foremost black spokesperson of the 19th century. A human rights activist, orator, author, journalist, publisher and social reformer, Douglass has been called the father of the civil rights movement. Venue for an Artist Homepage
On Celebrating Liberty!
By Dot
I recall like yesterday the expression on my parents' faces when I informed them that their ancestors were slaves when the US' founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. It was 1959, and I was a mature eight. My poor parents struggled every year to provide us with the wherewithal to celebrate the Fourth of July in style. In the best of times, the new outfits and special foods meant pinching pennies to make it through the rest of the month or the next when times were tough.
At eight, I wondered aloud, "why bother?" In unison my dear parents replied, "To celebrate our freedom!" Uneducated, my parents thought slaves were freed on July 4, 1776. In their minds, it was the British that held blacks in bondage. I corrected their erroneous assumption and clarified their current lack of liberty. My parents were so upset, they threatened to whip me!
In the end, my parents saw the light. They were proud of me! The celebration went forward, because so much of what little we owned was already spent in preparation, but the day took on a new meaning. In 1959, my family celebrated the Fourth of July for the last time. Now, when the day rolls around, I tell the story of that day to anyone willing to listen as a reminder of what remains before blacks can celebrate their liberation. DISHing It Up Hot! Homepage
Elevate, Educate and Liberate
For US citizens that reject the lie, but wish to commemorate the Fourth of July, here are some things that you can do to elevate your spirits and advance the search for truth, entertain and educate and help liberate the people's house by first rescuing the fourth estate - the press, which is supposed to be the people's voice.
On May 18, 1836, Congress adopted a gag rule to stop debate on slavery petitions. The rule remained in effect six years. Former president John Quincy Adams, aided by widespread public protests, succeeded in getting it rescinded. At the time, Northerners feared a "slave power conspiracy" controlled the government and threatened civil liberties. Today, some believe a "right-wing conspiracy" controls all branches of the US government, including the fourth estate, the US press.
Even before Election 2000, the press pounded presidential candidate Al Gore on every front, while giving George W. Bush a "bye." Tales of his wild and wooly days at Yale, his alcoholism, drug abuse and reckless ways were hushed up; even his unapproved hiatus from the National Guard during the height of the Vietnam War got buried. Anything that reflected negatively on Bush was off limits for the press. It is time to remove the gag order and cease the Bush bye! In a recent CNN Internet poll, 88% of the respondents believe George W. Bush will not be reelected in 2004. Help close the door! Join the Poets for Peace Bomb Bush with Truth Campaign. Bomb Bush and your elected representatives with email, snail mail, faxes and telephone calls demanding an Iraq independent investigator. Flood US newspapers' editorial boards demanding they cease the Bush bye and report the truth!
Marvin X will read Frederick Douglass' speech at the July 4th Freedom Concert with the Last Poets, Destiny, Tarika Lewis, Tacuma King and Raynetta Rayzetta at Recovery Theatre, 133 Golden Gate, San Francisco, California. Show begins at 8 PM. Seating limited. Tickets at Reggae Runnins, Fell and Divisadero, and Da Corner, Hayes and Fillmore, San Francisco. Berkeley: tickets at Aquarius Rising, 60th and Telegraph. For more info, call 510-798-9155.
Congress can still overturn the FCC decision to weaken the rules limiting how many television stations a media giant can own and prevent conglomerates from owning newspapers and television stations in the same markets. Because these changes will have a negative effect on competition for news, the amount of local content and the diversity of views presented to viewers and listeners, thousands of Americans sent comments to the FCC prior to its June 2nd 3-2 decision. For more on efforts to reverse that ruling, log on to http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=467&id4=ES. More News You Use
To BSK: Byrd, Skolnick and Wolff
Senator Robert Byrd (D-VA) is one of a few members of Congress brave enough to stake out positions or voice opinions contrary to the line advanced by the Bush Administration. With a sense of history and eloquence aplenty, Senator Byrd has taken the well of the Senate and endeared himself to millions. He is the voice of reason on issues from deficit spending and tax cuts that favor the wealthy to the bogus bill of particulars used to justify US armed aggression against Iraq. Kudos to Senator Byrd, our man on the hill!
Internet sleuth Sherman Skolnick at www.skolnicksreport.com/ootar17.html has posted an interesting page uncovering the reason behind Dubya's wide-leg cowboy swagger and his silence on the Supreme Court's sodomy decision, given he is a "family values man." Skolnick's page provides tidbits about efforts to conceal info on Bush's days at Yale and his membership in the Skull & Bones Society. The dirt includes cover-up of an ongoing relationship with his male college sex-mate, which includes the possible existence of pictures of coffin copulation. If Skolnick is right, this information could threaten national security in the hands of US enemies. Skolnick's site is in the public domain, but mainstream media remain silent on its damning content. Kudos to Skolnick for spying it out and having the intestinal fortitude to create the site!
Media commentator and columnist Michael Wolff lambasted television networks' coverage of the Iraq war. According to Wolff, in return for the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) relaxation of media ownership rules, US media "meekly followed the flag-waving agenda of the Bush administration." To Wolff, "Ass kissing has gone on to a profound degree. It's pervasive throughout all these news organizations. They need the FCC to behave in certain ways. In order to do this we have got to go along to get along." Kudos to Wolff for having the balls to chide the press for being in bed with the government! Kudos and Blahs
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