Battles over Symbols - and how to take back your vote!

First this quirky thing I heard... Has anyone else picked up rumors of hispanic Americans re-registering Republican, in order to vote against Donald Trump in primaries?  Anyone have a link? Or is it a rumor I just started?  ;-)  

Of course the tactic is silly at one level... none of the other GOP candidates are any better from the perspective of Latino Americans.

But at another level it makes plenty of sense.  And here I explain why anyone who lives in a Republican district should register Republican, even if they intend to vote for the democrat in the fall. And vice versa in heavily democratic districts, fair is fair. Except in California where we finally rendered that nonsense moot with sensible top-two primaries.

Seriously. Join the party OF your district!  It is the way to thwart radicals, get back a vote, promote local moderates, mess-up the PACs' calculations, and side-step the gerrymandering criminal theft of your franchise.

== It's never about substance ==

The debate over confederate symbols like the Battle Flag is just one front in our current “Phase Eight of the American Civil War.”  Nor can the New Confederacy complain, since their party made symbolism a locus of 21st Century aggression long before Blue America did — for example by insisting that U.S. aircraft carriers never be named after anyone disapproved by dixiecrats. 

Every phase of our ongoing civil war was demonstrably started aggressively by the same side.  

In fact, as a contrarian-militant-moderate, I will often turn around and offer up a yes-but. Hence, while I agree (yes-but) that the Confederacy was (and remains) a deeply vile treason without a scintilla of moral justification, at any level (especially not 'states rights)… I did stand up for one legitimately proud public use for the Battle Flag — at Civil War re-enactments.  Not only because its absence would be absurdly a-historical. But also because there was one trait of the Olde Confederacy that merited respect, even admiration by its enemies, like W.T. Sherman. (Whose prophetic words could not have been more spot-on.)

What was that one admirable confederate trait? The martial courage and resilience and ingenuity that southern men displayed on the battlefield. Completely independent of their “nation’s” absolutely uniform horrific moral standing was the staunchly brave way that they fought for it. I have no objections at all to southern white chests swelling with pride over great-great-grandpappy’s exploits at Chancellorsville or Chickamauga.

It seems that a transition is gaining momentum, as the Memphis City Council cast its final vote to remove a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest from a downtown park. The statue, and Forrest's remains, will be moved to Elmwood Cemetery where the Confederate general had originally been buried, according to his wishes, till Klan-associated activists took over a city park for this gesture, in 1905. Forrest was, without any doubt, one of the most brilliant battlefield commanders, not just of the Civil War but in all of history.  He also ordered the execution of 300 already-surrendered and unarmed negro U.S. troops, among other atrocities, and helped to found the Ku Kux Klan. See this passionate article by a Memphis woman who pleads for the South to separate itself, at last, from the Confederacy. And listen to this radio show suggesting a new plaque for the Forrest statue.

Which brings us to the latest skirmish, demands to modify the giant Confederate sculpture at Stone Mountain Georgia. The carving of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson spans three acres and is the largest high relief sculpture in the world — even larger (by surface)  than Mount Rushmore. Atlanta's city council this week urged Gov. Nathan Deal to study additions of famous Georgians such as Martin Luther King Jr. 

I’d go farther.  Keep Robert E. Lee!  Not only did he represent all those admirable martial qualities, but he did us all a service after Appomattox, by quashing any talk of guerrilla war. His actual generalship was just a bit over-rated (a topic for another time.) But this is fine. Stonewall? A truly awful person — a real piece of work, like Forresr — but admittedly a superb battlefield commander. Like Forrest.

But Davis has gotta go. Almost a perfect archetype of an oathbreaking traitor who just before the 1860 election was preaching loyalty to America “right or wrong.”  I propose (and this will happen someday, folks, as the wheel turns) re-carving his face to represent someone else. Proposals? (Not Forrest. Longstreet might do. But I favor repurposing it more broadly across time.  Put in Washington and...er, um. Patton? Yeah, he rode horses, too. Oh, but Patton was a Californian, so he won't do....)

== Big Brother and the Patriot Act ==

In this Wired article on cyber-surveillance, Caleb Garling writes, "In his book Skating on Stilts, former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker examines the numerous ways—air travel, biotech, the Internet—that America has left itself vulnerable to threats. Baker has been one of the most vocal proponents of the Patriot Act—especially section 215, the program to collect telephone records and other digital information. A litany of opponents, including everyone from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to Senator Rand Paul, consider the secretive program a gross invasion of privacy—on May 31, the program expired."

Alas, this is a case where all three "sides"… the defenders of government surveillance like Baker and their critics and especially so-called journalists like this one, are wedged beyond all belief, dangerously so.  Perhaps even lethally, for our civilization. All of them, from Rand Paul to Baker to almost every "sage pundit" buy into the notion of a zero sum game. A tradeoff wherein we swap some freedom for some added safety -- or vice versa -- a noxious and even nauseating notion that betrays every fundamental on which we built the world's first positive-sum society.

The astonishing thing is how easy it is to refute this nonsensically romantic notion. In all of human history, no people have ever been as safe as we are, and no people have ever been as free.  The two desiderata rise and fall together, in ways that both illustrate and prove the power of "positive sum."  Yet, driven by righteous dudgeon, it seems everyone cries out for one absolute necessity, at the cost of another.

In fact, let's suppose that the members of our Professional Protector Caste (PPC) do need vast powers of vision and correlation, in order to detect threats to our well-being.  Sure, those same powers could wind up being used against us. 

We are all children of George Orwell, worried about Big Brother. (Whether he might come from Government or plutocracy is the main feature of your fantasies, determining whether you are "left" or "right.") So? In that case, look for the essential thing that will prevent the PPC from becoming oppressors!

 That thing is not blindness. Crippling their ability to see will not make the NSA etc harmless, it will only make them less effective… and more likely to look anyway, in secret.

 What will prevent our watch dogs from turning into wolves? Supervision. Ensuring that we, the people can oversee.  By safeguarding whistleblowers and making the FISA Court truly adversarial and ending blanket gag orders, we are stepping gradually toward a world where PPC abuses will be discovered without interfering in legitimate uses of technology to scan the horizon for dangers.

    

Will these reforms be enough?  In no way! Far from complacent, I am militant that we must push supervision in many innovative and aggressive ways… that nevertheless also allow civil servants who are judicious and professional… and who genuinely deem themselves to be our servants… to do their jobs.

   

What I will not listen to, any longer, is so-called wise-men who tell me I must choose between safety for my children or their freedom. People who push that choice upon us only thus prove how deeply, deeply stupid they truly are. They can all -- and this includes most of you contemporary pundits and self-styled heroes of liberty out there -- go to hell.

== On Drone Strikes ==

There are legitimate concerns among liberals about drone strikes and targeted killing as a method of war. But for those on the right to call President Obama “feckless and ineffective” in the War on Terror is the most stunning of hypocrisies.

In fact, there have been far fewer successful terror attacks against US territory, nationals or interests under Obama than occurred under Bush.  And vastly more enemy figures – including Osama bin Laden – have met comeuppance under Obama than the very nearly zero who were tracked down – despite all his posturing and bleating – under George W. Bush. (Who helped every well-connected Saudi citizen flee the U.S. and FBI questioning, the day after 9/11.)

You Fox watchers, get out more.  Try paying attention to actual facts.  But then, if you did that, you wouldn’t watch Fox.

== Apocalypse yearners are not your friends ==

I've spoken of this before and will have a longer post soon.  But the ultimate symbolism junkies are those who so hate the scientific era that they yearn for an imminent end of days. I'll say plenty about the apocalypse junkies in America...

... but now catch a glimpse of how the very same idea propels ISIS and its ilk. "Apocalyptic fantasies are "a major part of the Islamic State's recruiting pitch," says the director of Brookings's Project on US-Islamic Relations.  Indeed the syndrome is eerily similar, with slight differences in the details of the narrative, between the Koran and the Book of Revelation, and especially each side labeling the other in the role of satanic servants.  (As both sides labeled each other in Napoleonic times, and our Civil War, and in the World Wars and so on.

Many of you may be unfamiliar with the BoR, which in fact is the core mythology clung to by a large minority of Americans and -- significantly -- a large fraction of Republican candidates for public office, who openly yearn for events that would violently torture most Americans and then consign them to perpetual hell, while ending forever all human ambition, accomplishment, democracy... and the United States of America.

See this cultural touchstone illustrated swiftly and easily here.  You need to know how deep it goes. 

== The Politics of Culture ==

Colorado gave away free (or near free) birth control to low-income women and teenage girls across the state for 6 years, funded by Warren Buffett's healthy charity. Results? Teen births fell by 40% and abortions fell by 35%, saving the state tens of millions in direct Medicaid costs and heaven knows how much in welfare costs over the next 20 years, but the program still can't get government funding to continue. Add it to the long tally of ways that our partisan divide is no longer about classic "left" or "right."  Rather, it is now about mixed-practical vs jibbering insane.

As I will reiterate, one side of this phase of the Civil War is about symbolism -- we've mentioned flags and Confederate statuary and naming aircraft carriers and loudly proclaiming moral virtue and that everything was better in the 1950s. Let's be fair, in that the other side contains some obnoxiously (PC) symbolism-obsessed fools, too.  Still, most blue americans are far more interested in outcomes.  

Like what actual methods actually reduce teen sex, teen pregnancies, STDs, domestic violence, abortion and so on. And what methods actually make capitalism work better? And which ones actually and scientifically improve the economy and national health?  

No wonder one side hates science, so.  Which brings us to....

In a fascinating Atlantic article, Eric Liu takes up the much-debated notion of “cultural literacy”… or whether the shared background of “dead white male” past facts, accomplishments, mistakes and arguments can have merit and pertinence in a nation and world of fast-changing technologies, ethnicities and styles.  “The more serious challenge, for Americans new and old, is to make a common culture that’s greater than the sum of our increasingly diverse parts. It’s not enough for the United States to be a neutral zone where a million little niches of identity might flourish; in order to make our diversity a true asset, Americans need those niches to be able to share a vocabulary. Americans need to be able to have a broad base of common knowledge so that diversity can be most fully activated.”

Of course this relates to my own longstanding emphasis on the “positive sum games” of modern civilization… the only civilization in which positive sum thinking was ever a strong contender for primacy in public and private thought.  

But heck, finishing up this post about symbolism.... This essay adds evidence to the firm rebuttal of every lie about the “cause” for which confederate states seceded.  It was about slavery, and had absolutely zilch to do with “states’ rights,” which they had been happy to trample under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1852, and during the 30 years that southern states controlled the White House.  See also my own essays about this here and here.

Here’s one for the “name an exception challenges.” There is one area where Red America scores better than Blue America. Cost of living.  A dollar goes farther!  And we should hope so, since Blue America sends so many to Red America as government expenditures, far more than the residents pay, in loathed taxes. 

And now... enough for a Monday posting.  Keep moving forward. And to all oversimplifying, symbol-obsessed dogmatists?  There, there.  We'll save the world despite you.