CUOMO/NIXON: An Election Debacle in the Age of Facebook

Being the dutiful citizen that I am, I sat through what proved a most 21^st Century debate in the Democratic Primary for NewYork State’s Gubernatorial Election.  I honestly found myself disappointed with it, as both candidates showed little pretense of courtesy towards one another.  I might as well have been reading the comments section on any political post on Facebook, in terms of the quality of their arguments and tactics.  Call me old-fashioned, but I expect better from those applying for the job of being my elected employee.

Cuomo was the picture of a New York Mafioso:  confident, condescending and pulling no punches, most of which he landed below the belt.  In terms of corruption, he came across as a man up to his elbows in it.  He did, however, play that as a positive, demonstrating his intimate knowledge of how the unwieldy apparatus of New York State Government -- a massive economy of $1.19 Trillion, covering 62 distinct and very demanding counties, including the iconic New York City, none of whom get along with one another -- operates, and showed a fierce determination to hold the line against the horrors of Drumpf.  He made the case that the most effective governors are the ones who, for better or worse, really know how the sausage is made.

Nixon largely came across as shrill, rude and entitled.  She had that familiar deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes one would expect from a last-minute Broadway understudy on opening night.  She clearly was in over her head and hadn’t the faintest idea how think on her feet, beyond the script she had rehearsed.  The fact that she couldn’t answer the question: “If marijuana is legalized, as you’ve called for it to be, how are you going to explain it to your kids?”  -- the correct answer, by the way, is “The same way I already talk to my kids about cigarettes and alcohol.  Next question.” --  speaks volumes about exactly how much she has to learn.

That said, there is no denying that she hit Cuomo with some very important and relevant questions on his record and voiced valid concerns that have yet to receive serious attention.  Her heart is clearly in the right place and the State overall would benefit greatly from her presence in government, assuming, of course, that she remembers that New York City is not the entirety of New York State.

Now, at this point most will expect me as a political observer to make an endorsement.  

Do I want a naïve celebrity crusader who likely will get eaten alive by Albany or do I want the Mafioso standing strong against the real and larger threat of Drumpf, knowing that this may stall real change that I agree needs to happen?  

Or, more simply for those in back, do we want Miranda Hobbes from Sex in the City or a slightly higher-class version of Tony Soprano keeping the Empire State in line?

In all honesty, I want them both. 

I want the heart, voice and ethics of Cynthia Nixon to be wed with the Mafioso know-how of Andrew Cuomo.  Given that the realities of Albany politics are what they are – and let’s face it, Albany has been the poster child for political corruption since before Lincoln and is showing no signs of diverting from that machine model – I’d say it’s the only combination that will keep New York State standing strong in these dark times for the principles etched at the feet of Lady Liberty.

The question is, how to get it?  

Were I in a position to do so, I would pull the Machiavelli card and put Cuomo, Nixon, their campaign managers, and their lawyers into one of Albany’s back rooms and make them an offer:

In exchange for bowing out of the Primary, Nixon is to be installed as Cuomo’s new Lt. Governor, giving her a bully platform, some real authority to grow into and the loudest voice in Cuomo’s ear about how to proceed.  Cuomo would be able to keep his position and lose the loudest critic against his foibles in exchange for doing the hard work of making sure that the critical items on Nixon’s list are addressed within 100 days.  New York State would be stronger for it and the Left would gain a solid and valuable asset on the national scene.

And then, I'd make sure they can’t refuse the offer.

A Citizen's Platform -- 2018 Edition

A CITIZEN'S PLATFORM – 2018 Edition

In 2013, I, with the help of like-minded friends, began developing a full Progressive Platform to address the growing concerns about the future of this nation.

Today, I present the updated version tailored for our current situation.

Ultimately, this is what I, as a self-styled Liberal Progressive would do to fix the issues facing the USA were I handed the power necessary to do so.

CONGRESSIONAL BEHAVIOR, ELECTIONS & PROCEDURE

• Ban all Federal Lobbying and remove all Lobbyists from Federal Buildings.  Lobbying shall be considered a form of Bribery, with the penalty for such being full seizure of all Lobbyist’s assets and the removal of the bribed official from Office.  SuperPACs to be completely disbanded and "Citizens United" to be overturned in law. 
• All Incumbent members of both Congressional Houses to immediately resign.  Hold emergency national elections to replace them, allowing only Independent/Third-Party candidates on the ticket.
• All funding for Elections for Public Office will be provided publicly and all private monetary donations to campaigns will be banned.  Campaign contributions will be in the form of personal time commitments only.  Full Voting rights to all unregistered citizens who can provide a Birth Certificate, Passport or two forms of State/Local ID.  All those already registered to vote will only have to sign on-record register at the polls. 

BANKS,  ECONOMICS & WELFARE

• Reinstate Glass-Steagle and break up the “Too big to fail” banks into smaller, more competitive entities.  All tax havens will be seized entirely.  All corporations that made record profits after receiving bailout money from the government to be nationalized until such time as those funds are entirely paid back.
• Raise Federal Minimum Wage to match the local cost of living.
• Create a Federal Maximum Wage of $10M/year using the tax code to enforce the latter. 
• All Senators, Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices and Executive Branch Department Heads (including President) to accept salaries at Federal Minimum Wage (travel benefits to remain intact).  Savings to be used for Deficit Reduction.
• Welfare benefits to be redesigned to focus on job training, education and temporary relief, with benefit cutoffs to end after a recipient has successfully maintained a standard of living above the economic poverty line for 2 full months.  All beneficiaries of Federal Welfare must serve a mandatory 1 year with AmeriCorps if receiving benefits for longer than 6 months.
• Creation of an infrastructure fund to be distributed to local government agencies directly based on proportion of citizen and businesses without regard to taxable contribution of the inclusive group in an effort to recognize businesses and employees need sustainable, safe and effective roads, bridges, etc. to ply their trade, etc. and balancing small community vs large community needs.  This fund will be overseen by a board of Federal, State, County and local citizen representatives on a regular basis.
• Program of public works projects for domestic infrastructure improvements:
•           Transformation of the American public transportation grid to 21^st Century standards: electromagnetic bullet trains, etc.
•       Transformation of the American energy grid to 21^st Century standards: renewable energy investment, increase carbon taxes

TAXATION

• Redesign the tax code on a scale similar to Eisenhower era framework, with increased revenue divided as follows:
•       Increased revenue divided into thirds:  1/3 for Deficit Reduction, 1/3 for Domestic Infrastructure Improvements, 1/3 for Public Health Option and Education funding 
• Forbid moving money from one domestic program to another. 
• Return to the tax brackets of the Eisenhower Era for corporations.
• Double taxes on Businesses that:
•       Outsource American Jobs or damage American Ecology. 
• Tax rewards for business that do the following:
•           Bring jobs back to impoverished American areas.
•          Are Unionized, with programs to allow for new members to join the Union.
•          Use Green technology and go above-and-beyond EPA regulations in Environmental Safety
•          Give back to local communities and invest in local economies.

MILITARY POLICY AND BUDGET

• 50% reduction of military spending, with reductions of the Standing Army and Foreign Bases accordingly.  Remaining resources on augmenting and streamlining the Navy, Air Force, CyberDefense, Special Forces and AmeriCorps.  
• Take 1/3 of the savings to increase funding for NASA and Tech R&D.  Use 1/3 of the savings for Deficit Reduction and 1/3 for Domestic Infrastructure Improvements.   Low-ranking Army Personnel still under contract to serve will serve the rest of their time with AmeriCorps and receive a 1-grade promotion in rank. 
• Full disclosure to Congress of all Intelligence & Military Activities, Treaties (both secret and public), Deals, Slush Funds and Black Ops.  Failure to do so will result in summary prison sentences for all personnel who refuse to disclose.  All who willingly disclose this information can do so anonymously.

SICK CARE

• Creation of a National Single-Payer Health Care Option to cover Basic Medical Care, Catastrophic Illness or Injury, Generic Prescriptions, including Generic Birth Control/Women’s Health Services and Annual Physicals 
• This is to be a Public Option alongside Private Insurance, comparable to the Public/Private School System.  Private Insurance would be subject to the same regulations as the Public Option.  Elective Procedures will not be covered under the Public Option but could be covered by Private Options.  Abortions will be covered in cases of rape, incest, minors and medical emergency, but will not be covered if deemed by the physician to not be medically necessary. 
• Lifetime medical care to be covered, with doctors being given final say over their patients’ care, subject to Medical Review boards of their peers.

DOMESTIC SOCIAL JUSTICE

• Reinstitute the Assault Weapons Ban, with limited exceptions for Veterans and Law Enforcement, subject to strict regulation.
•  Gun ownership to be placed under the same basic universal regulations as are       commonly seen with automobile ownership as regulated by the States
• Training and licensure specific to each type of weapon
•  Licenses to be reviewed for renewal every 5 years
• Mandatory Liability Insurance against the foreseeable accidents inherent in their use.
• The sale of Ammunition to be limited and subject to high sales tax, proceeds of which go to the States in which the Ammunition is sold.  
• Increased, stricter oversight of manufacturers and distributors of arms.  Harsh penalties on gun manufacturers (including automatic jail time for their Owners, Boards of Directors and CEOs) for all crimes committed with an unlicensed weapon.
• Federal Recognition of Marriage as defined as “a legal union of adult human beings” with all accordant benefits.
• Federally Prohibit the Death Penalty, and change sentencing protocols for Non-Violent Offenders to focus more on Community Service and less on Incarceration.  Violent Offenders, Grand Theft, Fraud and White Collar criminals to face stiffer penalties.  Penal management to be returned to direct State control, with Private Prison Companies relegated to minor support with no control over policy.
• Reinstate secular curriculum for all Public Schools.  Full immersion tri-lingual education in all public schools, K-12: English, Spanish, French.  Create an education fund which is used to reimburse new network of National Universities offering both academic and vocational degrees
• Payment of institutions to be withheld until post-graduation under a set flat rate for 2, 4, 6, 8-year programs. All institutions to be subject to regular audits to prevent artificial price-gouging.
• Repeal the Patriot Act and NDAA. 
• Universal Voter Registration, with compulsory voting in all elections, to be Administered by the local States and Counties.
• Institutional Reparations for American citizens of African and Native descent
• Ban all religious trappings from Federal Buildings (including X-Mas decorations, Ten Commandment statuary, etc), while allowing Federal Employees time off for religious observance.
• Religion can not be used as a cover for bigotry and such arguments are to be considered illegitimate in Judicial proceedings.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

•  Legalize, License and Tax Marijuana, placing it under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of ATF and similarly regulated.  Tax revenue to be used to help fund the Public Health Option.  All non-violent convicts currently incarcerated for Marijuana possession to be immediately released with time served and given jobs in the new legal industry.
• All local police precincts to turn over their military-grade equipment and weaponry to the local National Guard.
• All local police precincts to be subject to financial penalties for every single fatality that happens in their jurisdiction, regardless of justification.
•  All officers in a penalized precinct, from the Commissioner to the youngest rookies to be penalized along with their unit for the actions of any member of their unit, as a recognized means of fostering proper discipline.
• Any officer who is found to be abusing their authority to be stripped of rank and privilege, without appeal or benefits.
• Nationalize all prisons and put them under local civilian review.  For-profit prison companies to be immediately dismissed.

Breaking the Silence -- An Open Letter

OK, this one is for the Regressives and the Trump Supporters.  Consider this a direct challenge to your collective manhood, because I genuinely don’t understand the Orwellian Double-Think logic behind your support of Trump.

Please enlighten me as to where registering, rounding up and deporting millions of people -- based solely on their ethnicity or religion, with NO logistical guide for how to distinguish between a citizen and non-citizen aside from grabbing people off the street and demanding to see their papers -- constitutes liberty when that same policy is the possible end result of a slippery slope people have been screaming in terror of for nearly a decade as a manifestation of tyranny when it comes tolethal weapons.

Or are these policies OK when they target Muslims or Hispanics (or Jews, for that matter), but NOT OK when they target White Christians?   If you feel this is so, then you’re endorsing a double-standard when people are unequal under the law.

Let's set a single standard here.  What’s it going to be? 

Please enlighten me as to why you Trump supporters are perfectly fine with placing your trust in a man who's lied to them more than Hillary Clinton, whom you feel is "untrustworthy" for the many times she's lied to us.

Plus, he's endorsed by the greatest domestic terrorist group in US History, which means that everyone who's supporting him is choosing to side with card-carrying racists and Neo-Nazis.

Please explain to me why this racist, fascist con-man is the best candidate for any country, let alone our own. 

Given all that, you don’t have much of a leg to stand on tell me I’m out of line for calling a proverbial spade a spade here.  Nobody would be wrong to join me in that condemnation.  I’m quite factually telling it like it is.

How can a person be intelligent and compassionate and still subscribe to a proven liar out to round up millions of people based solely on their ethnicity or religion?

The Regressive Agenda

I find myself in the unique position today of working in an office that serves Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity’s shows – making me a raging liberal in the belly of the Regressive beast.  While the temptation to slip some hardcore LSD into their coffee is intense, I’ve decided to put my time to more productive use and, as I did initially with the Tea Party, examine what it is Regressives are after, based on the policies they pursue.

  Republicans should be the sole party in power.

Let’s start with Karl Rove’s publicly stated goal of a permanent one-party state in the USA under the GOP banner.  If ever there was an idea entirely at odds with the American system of democratic process, the idea of a one-party state is tantamount to Totalitarianism.  Our country is currently going through massive cultural, economic and political spasms of dysfunction on nearly every level as a direct result of Bush’s carte blanche in the aftermath of 9/11 and the party that is at the heart of that dysfunction wants to rewrite things even more.

The Rich should be above the law.

Whether we’re talking about “Too Big to Fail” or the ”affluenza” defense, across the board we’re already at the point where a double-standard exists between those who can afford to buy leniency from the justice system and those who can’t.   It’s one of the hallmarks of the old Feudal system of the aptly-named Dark Ages that the wealthy exist at a level of liberty that is deliberately denied to everybody else. Regressives not only think this is just fine, they want to expand it further.  Another GOP Presidential candidate, the hoping-for-inheritance Jeb Bush also claimed as a hero a policy writer who would rather a single wealthy person dictate policy rather than the entire electorate. 

It’s ironic that Regressive circles who claim to champion the rights of the average person almost always fail to put their money where their mouths are when this issue is concerned, particularly when it comes to the rights of employees vs the privileges of employers.  This by itself is an existential threat to our nation’s way of life.

Christian Fundamentalists are the only ones who can dictate policy.

Just take a look at this clip from GOP Presidential Front Runner Mike Huckabee.  This is what the Regressive party has endorsed.

Meanwhile, we’re also supposed to turn a blind eye to the rampant hypocrisy that these holier-than-thou Fundamentalists engage in on a daily basis.  This sort of privilege is, again, completely counter to everything this nation was Constitutionally set up to be.  Just one look at the wagon-circling Regressives have done around one of their high powered “family values” lobbyists who’s once again in court on rape and incest charges demonstrates my point.

War is the only business government should conduct.

I find it very telling that the one area that Regressives are unwilling to cut is our defense budget.  Despite the fact that we outspend every other country on Earth when it comes to the military, they’re always for upping it, even while in the same breath they decry our national spendthrift ways.  Also, the proof is in the pudding that when they had a monopoly on power in the early 2000’s, the so-called “fiscal responsibility” party acted like spoiled teenagers with a stolen credit card, putting not only one major war, but two on the books without a single provision to pay for it.

In every other sector of domestic spending, be it for public infrastructure, jobless relief, sick care or schools, the usual cry of the Regressives is “we can’t afford it”, yet when the Regressives shut down the Federal government, which branch do you think was least affected? 

Money and power are more important than people’s lives.

This goes right along with the idea that the Rich should be above the law.  It doesn’t matter what topic is being discussed:  Climate Change, Poverty or Unions, Regressives unfailingly take the position that profit margins should take priority over the necessary steps to preserve life.  Hell, they shut down the Constitutional government twice to try and take away Health Insurance from those who needed it the most.  One notices again that the military and intelligence branch was relatively unaffected.

Ethnic minorities should have no rights.

Again, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the inevitable Regressive “reverse-racism” call when it comes to police brutality or the endless attempts to disenfranchise legal voters or hatred of immigrants from Mexico, Regressive policies invariably take on some form of repression of ethnic minorities as a basis for white Christian male privilege.  No wonder they can’t stand Obama, only non-white President in our history.

Women shouldn’t be treated like people.

Between the constant and self-conflicting attacks on abortion and on contraceptive birth control, it’s pretty obvious that Regressives don’t want women to have any say over what happens to their own bodies.  Add in the endless attempt to justify paying women less in the workplace, and essentially you’ve got a party that wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

After decades of women fighting for the right to vote, the right to work for equal pay and the right to be treated as people, this is nothing short of an attempt to turn back the clock.

The poor and downtrodden deserve less than what they get.

This goes right along with all the others, and is usually justified by an Ayn Rand quote.  “Right-to-work” laws invariably end up meaning “right to work for poverty wages”.  When combined with all the other attempts at gutting of public education, poverty relief and the rabid attacks when challenged, we’re left with a party that wants to crush the weakest among us underfoot.   Where the great statesman Solon once claimed that the most perfect popular government was “that where the least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution”, the Regressives are absolutely out to ensure that popular government is anything but popular.

In the end, the entire Regressive agenda is bad for our nation, both materially and spiritually.  I can understand why the unelected powers of the economic engines to which our national security is so closely tied would support it – after all, they benefit the most from this agenda – but I find it sickening that so many people whose lives are directly and negatively impacted by this agenda are so easily duped into supporting it.  

Our very nation's existence hangs in balance -- we cannot let its enemies on the inside destroy it.

Off of the Sidelines

I had the most enlightening experience this week with the NYCLU’s Lobby Day in my old hometown of Albany, NY.  We were going in to lobby support from State Assemblymen and Senators for a bill that would increase funding to Public Defenders across the State.

The bill was the result of a successful lawsuit by the ACLU against 5 counties in NYS, where those who couldn't ordinarily afford an attorney were given substandard defense in court.  In NYS, the individual counties are responsible for funding Constitutionally-guaranteed Public Defenders for those defendants who can’t afford an attorney otherwise.  The problem is that demand far outstrips supply when it comes to Public Defense, so these Public Defenders often have such a huge caseload on their desks that they barely have time to review the cases they’re defending, or even answer the messages on their overloaded voicemail, let alone to do the necessary investigation to mount an effective defense for their assigned clients.  They’re given the bare minimum of resources to pay for such investigations or to support a staff to do the necessary work.  So, the clients are often put into a position where they have to plead guilty to crimes they often didn't even commit.  Innocent people are sent to prison, or bankrupted by exorbitant fines.  Their lives are often ruined because they have no effective defense against a system that, instead of presuming their innocence, makes a large private profit off of assuming their guilt.  

ACLU's lawsuit established the idea that the State is mandated to make appropriate resources available to the individual counties, and while it has begun to do so for the 5 counties listed in the lawsuit, it has not done so for all 62.  We were there to push for a bill that would require it do so immediately.

After a strong rally in front of the State Capitol building, which featured speeches by several State Assembly members, we divided up into teams to start meeting.  I was assigned to go to one of the speakers, who listened very patiently to my fellow team-mates’ stories and happily signed the Pledge to support the bill that we were passing around.  He admitted that there was a lot of opposition to our bill -- particularly from the Republicans -- and that the system was so broken that no single bill would be adequate to fixing the problem by itself.  I got the feeling that we were preaching to the choir in his case, but was told by other teams that other members weren't nearly so easy a sell.

With the Honorable Luis R. Sepulveda of NYS District 87

I brought up my concerns to the NYCLU staff, who were running the event, and suggested that our time and resources would be better spent convincing the opposition rather than preaching to those already on our side of the issue.  Taking this initiative paid off.  

Since I had only been assigned to one Assemblyman and, because I’d made my own travel arrangements rather than join the throngs on the chartered bus (I had gone up the night before and stayed in my childhood home), I was invited to tag along on the NYCLU’s most important meeting of the day – with the staff of the Interim Speaker of the Assembly and Senate leadership.  The meeting was run by the top leaders of the NYCLU and I was presented as an NYCLU member.  I got to be a fly on the wall for the real nuts and bolts of State politics, as concerns of financial feasibility and rhetorical spin were haggled over.  We came away hopeful that we'd potentially gained an ally, or at very least had one or two fewer power-brokers against us.  

I got to see first-hand how complex even the simple matter of issuing a statement can be, and how, the further up the food-chain one goes in government, the more complex and delicate the process becomes.  It was a sharp lesson for me in the difference between philosophy and reality.

But the “eureka!” moment for me actually came earlier in the day, during the rally outside.  As our public employees addressed us, we were accosted by a homeless man.  This man illustrated perfectly how completely the system has failed as he, in his simple eloquence, called us out with the voice of the very desperation our system exacerbates and feeds upon.  Everybody instinctively avoided or ignored this man, not listening to what he was saying.  It’s a shame that happened, as he was highlighting the very issues we were there to address.   As the rally was wrapping up, I approached him alone and pointed out that the issues he was talking about were correct and that my group was at the Capitol that day specifically to address them.  I handed him a $20 bill and received a tearful hug in return.  It was a true moment of humanity, odor and all.

Speaking truth to power rarely works.  Leveraging power works most of the time.  Directing power towards the greater good is of utmost importance.  But at the end of the day, we who fight for real positive change can’t afford to lose sight of the human beings that we’re trying to help, the way entrenched power already has.

Rights vs Privilege

Frequently in the last few weeks, I’ve been drawn into "special privilege" arguments about double-standards, as it pertains to race relations in this country.   The people I’ve discussed this with have been -- like me -- white men. 

They bemoaned the double-standard that they see in favor of women and minorities when it comes to speech.  There are certain words minorities are allowed to say, jokes women are allowed to make, that white men simply are not permitted to say or do without being attacked as “racist” or “sexist” or some other label.  Political correctness – or what I'd simply call common courtesy, for simplicity’s sake – has essentially left these men feeling like they lost some basic rights.  They feel cheated that they have no “white pride” parades, no “white history month” and no sanction to revel in their ethnicity the way they see minorities can. 

In short, these men feel that everybody else is getting special treatment and “free passes” that white men are being denied.  What they fail to realize is that, because the system’s already skewed in their favor, white men don’t need the compensatory legitimacy that such focused endeavors provide.

Sadly, what these men have done is confuse privileges with rights.  Our basic civil and human rights, as defined by the Constitution, its Amendments, and International Law, allow each of us our say, our day in court and our liberty to pursue whatever dreams we see fit, so long as nobody else is harmed in the pursuit.  At least, that’s how it looks on paper.  Traditionally, the reality is and has been very different.

For most of the history of the USA, oftentimes as much as half the population was denied those basic rights that the average white man took – and still takes – for granted.  This means that white men had a whole slew of privileges that others were denied.

Systemically, legally, physically and psychologically, this denial of other’s rights formed the basis for a double-standard of privilege, based largely, if not solely, on the pigmentation of a person’s skin.  White men could do many things that women or non-white people were legally barred from doing.  Things such as voting, working certain jobs, owning property, speaking one’s mind, even reading were solely in the white master’s domain for much of our history.  In fact, it’s pretty easy to argue that the sole basis for white men’s privilege in this country was the denial of black men their equally-due rights.  This skewed dis-equity affects our society to this day.

In time, that skewing of privilege has begun to balance out, which means that women and minorities have gained the opportunity to speak out and compensate for their long-standing second-class status with speech, if little else more material, thus far.  Affirmative action was implemented by law in the economic sphere to attempt to compensate for the artificial advantages that white men had for so long enjoyed, so that those who'd been left behind would have the opportunity to catch up.  This trend of equalization threatens the feeling of privilege that white men have so long taken for granted that now, many feel that they have lost rights long taken for granted, when in fact all they are losing are first-class privileges so that those around them could gain real rights at long last. 

The most visible response of “white pride” is violent, traditionally manifesting in and forever identifying itself with rampant murder and terrorism, most commonly wrapped in a white sheet.  To this day, such “White Pride” groups still advocate violent repression of women and minorities, closely emulating the style of groups this country is has been or is currently at war with (Nazi Germany and ISIS being the two best examples).  This is a defense of privilege, not right.

Yes, folks, the Nazis were and still are the ENEMY

What these men fail to consider is that while those skewed privileges have indeed in recent years been somewhat scaled back in many areas of our national life, they do still exist both subtly and overtly in force across the nation.

The numbers don't lie.

Today, white men occupy 75-85% of the positions of power in the economic, social and political spheres in this country as they have for 400 years by systemically-skewed extra-legal privileges across the board.  We make more than the women doing the same jobs beside us.  We have more political power than our minority counterparts and have much easier access to the levers of that political power.  When you factor in the rampant abuse of minorities by the justice system, the Eurocentric curriculum in public schools when it comes to teaching history and the various educational and economic disparities that continue to skew opportunities towards white men, affirmative action, realistically, is little more than a tiny band-aid on a gaping national wound. 

Every day is white men’s day.  Every month is white history month.  It has been this way for so long that it’s taken entirely for granted.

Now, before the usual detractors start freaking out about hating one’s ethnicity or “reverse-racism”, let me be absolutely clear – my point is not about hating white people.  I consider myself extremely fortunate that, by the sheer accident of the circumstances of my birth, I have directly benefitted from a skewed system.  All I’m saying is that all my fellow citizens, regardless of skin color, gender or country of origin deserve the same as I got.

It is never tantamount to calling white people “evil” to point out that a whole swath of my fellow citizens got massively short-ended by that same skewed system.  Nor is it “reverse-racist” to insist that such short-ending be curbed. It is a taking-on of the historical burden of responsibility that comes with my privileged position.

The so-called “White Pride Movement” would do well to remember that with the pride it seeks to revel comes an historical burden to bear. In this case, that burden manifests as putting up with a very minor "double-standard" when it comes to discourse.  This burden is the natural price of the privileges we currently enjoy.

Ultimately, it is the fear of being on the receiving end of the second-class status that is being a minority in this country is what scares so many white folks into the ranks of Regressivism.  As I’ve argued in a previous blog post , the era of white supremacy in this country based solely on demographic numbers is ending. The most recent Census data confirms this.  This means that for the first time since the end of the Indian Wars, white people will officially be a minority ethnicity on this continent.  If we are to avoid a repetition of history in the reverse, it’s incumbent on those of us who've benefitted from this skewed system to lay down our privileges gracefully and to support all efforts to balance the scales rather than deride those efforts.   If we don’t lead the way towards a more equitable system, we will in the end be squashed when it finally does come about.

If, at the end of the day, the only thing I can do is to make every effort to show common courtesy, and help rebalance things by enduring harmless jokes, or the occasional chip on another’s shoulder, or the occasional pride parade, the worst I’ve lost is the privilege of being a bully about it.  I don’t lose a single legal right by giving up that privilege.  I will not lose any rights if ALL of my fellow citizens finally are allowed to use theirs.  The worst I'll have to give up in the service of justice is the demand for extra-legal privileges denied to my fellow citizens.

 

I can live with that.