Tomorrow Is In Our Hands.

Tomorrow Is In Our Hands.

While we can attempt to deny the past and avoid its implications; we can neither evade its impact nor erase its existence; this history will not permit.

Explaining tragic events in the history of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow beings does not excuse those events in a mere historic acknowledgement and stoic acceptance of them.

That recognition carries with it the inherent responsibility of correction and redress.

Thus it is that nation is faced anew with the ugly stain of racist history, faced with the ongoing task of righting, wiping out a terrible wrong and if there is room for any animus it should be directed at those who would in misdirection hatred, openly under the banner of free speech and thought, advocate the legitimacy of racial hatred and subjugation.

The most intellectually able among the bigots of this nation, apparently troubled Xenophobes silently harbor the unspoken roots of their hateful advocacy, guilt and fear, guilt that they would sweep under the historical rug with convenient racial excitation, and fear at what the future holds as the white race passes from demographic dominance, for they know what they have done and they know what they would do if confronted with the oppression that they have authored for so long.

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies, was arrested on Thursday at his Cambridge home for disorderly conduct, according to a Cambridge Police Department report.

I have no doubt that the police acted with an attitude of superior thuggery, and likewise, I have no illusions that Mr. Gates did not react with a vigorous verbal out pouring of indignation and accusation. The former is inexcusable, the latter is understandable.

Once it was established that Mr. Gates was merely attempting to gain access to his own home law enforcement officers should simply have walked away leaving Mr. Gates to vent to the cool night air. That did not happen because too many policing bodies in this nation have inherent macho attitudes far removed from professional and common sense.

What Mr. Gates was white? Would we be having this discussion at all? I think not. And who among us accosted belligerently by the police in the same situation would not have some modicum of rage? If this were a white on white situation it might have even ended with an onsite apology, some levity and even assistance at entry. It would have gone away.

After the President’s Press conference I issued a “Bravo” because he spoke with sincerity and integrity. He spoke with the weight of history behind him, that history that can neither be evaded nor excused and denied.

I suppose there are many who would hold that Mr. Gates should have acted in submissive slave-like manner and straightened everything out at the police station. And perhaps that would all have been possible if one simply wants to accept that in these situations that folks should continue to bow to the inherent racial under tow.

That is not acceptable.

Much to do has been over the election of Barack Obama as our first Afr0-American President and the possibility that it signals a great moment of change in this nation’s psyche. I am afraid not. The 12% Bradley effect in the voting populous that many of us watched and pollster finally designed models to identify tell the tale that the script has not changed. Data analysis would tell us that the hardcore racist vote we were watching was reduced to a 6% figure. But interpret that figure as a paradigm shift in America would be a falsehood.

Volumes will be written analyzing that election, volumes that will dissect every piece of numerical data. They will not be without merit. They may. However, be of little import to anyone but campaign aficionados and experts. If I may be permitted to offer up as the most salient factors the following: (1) A Brilliant Campaign, (2) A Republican ticket that was reduced to absurdity, (3) several issues that, in the end became only tangential to the Carville dictum: “It’s The Economy Stupid”, (4) Racists that read the hand writing on the wall and who chose not to vote (maybe they were out buying a new gun) and (5) A younger electorate who turned out looking as they have been for the last two Presidential elections, for “The Kennedy Of Their Times”.

In the years ahead we will assuredly be able to bring the real story right down to the precincts of America. In short those forces that drove that election overwhelmed the Conservative Right, single issue voters and racist extremists to the point where the 12% were rendered impotent and any attempt to steal the election was impossible. The consequences of such an act would have been revolution.

But now we have all the race cards on the table in daily media view. It is an ugly scene.

The noxious political mix to which we bear daily witness is only complicated by the witches brew concocted by the extreme right, neocon followers, corporate military industrial complex interests, unregulated financial institutions corrupted to point of sponsoring world economic collapse, a Congress that is mediocre at best, more concerned with its electoral survival than with the statesmanship necessary to rebuild the world and the piranha feeding frenzied corporate media more concerned with the destruction of this administration than it is with the new future that must be fashioned. They are dedicated to the survival of their right to spew any lie, any hatred without any legal consequences for any action they might excite or ignite.

No right held by an American is an absolute right. There are limits covered by the phrase: “That you have a right so long as it does not infringe upon the right of another.” The classic example is: “You do not have the right to cry fire in crowded darkened theater when there is no fire.” The Chaplinsky doctrine “The Fighting Words Doctrine” establishes that there is speech that can be expected to provoke violent response. We have the right to Freedom of Religion, but I suggest that you do not go out into your backyard, build a pyramid, declare yourself an Aztec and begin tossing virgins off the top as sacrifice. If you would like to retort that the last example is argument by aburdia; I would not fight you, but I have to ask everyone to consider what is happening around us every day.

We are a nation that has lived in fear for eight years, a nation governed by fear, sedated by fear while the very foundations of our liberties and the world’s economy have been ravaged and we have been sent reeling to the ropes. When the media clearly, passionately opposed hate crimes legislation because it might hold them responsible, accountable for their exercise of speech and their exhortation to hate, is it not time to question exactly what their motives are and exactly what type of nation desire to have in place in this land. The answers are hideous.

We do not seem to be able to wipe away all the filth that has brought the world to its knees. So many in this nation are staggering around like the boxer bouncing from rope to rope in purely survival instinct; hit so hard and often that if they strike a next blow it will not from instinct, not a calculated jab but a desperate round house designed to end it all. That is pure danger.

If the forces of bigotry and hatred are to have their way and we are all to subjects a lesser nation emerging from collapse, is it not time that we simply say enough is enough. Is it not time for everyone to simply strike and bring this nation to a standstill until our government or it successor is ready to respond to our will our needs?

The new world that will be fashioned from the current rubble cannot be allowed to be built with the old broken recycled bricks of the past. It must be fashioned anew. The cost will be immense but that is not an acceptable argument against the demolition and rebuilding.

Tomorrow will not be fashioned on the Quixote daily little battles of special interests. It will and must forged from an new set of American priorities and performance demands. Regulation cannot be demonized as those who lived the good life without restraints have shattered all our lives. We can create a new playing field; new rules and we can stamp out the open market place of hate and bigotry. We can declare them contemptible and we can close their market place. There are serious questions everyone must ask themselves, not the least of which is “Do you want to live in your secure home in a manner of your choosing or do you want to live a slave rental with the land lords rule of every aspect of your diminished miserable life.