The Tea Party--No, Not Racist At All!!!

The Tennessee Tea Party has a few minor demands for new history standards in the state:

The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”

Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.

“The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” said Rounds

Ah yes--the made up history about Native Americans. I mean, what possible evidence is there that whites committed depredations toward Native Americans? And slaves, I mean, don't we know that they were all so contented, eating watermelons and playing banjos and such. Clearly, they were asking to be raped by their masters!

And the piece about making sure that things that actually happened to minorities, or whatever they believe actually happened (which could be quite different from reality), not get in the way of talking about how awesome George Washington is, well, that's just fantastic. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive.  But in the zero-sum game minds of the Tea Party members any discussion of brown people means that we are destroying liberty or something.

So, no, the Tea Party is not racist at all.....

Humane Society Priorities

As I've said a few times here, I'm as horrified by the firefighters letting the Tennessee house burn down as much as anyone. However, it's hard for me to really accept the Humane Society approach as very helpful:

The Humane Society of the United States is issuing the following statement in response to the heartbreaking news that four animals died in an Obion County, Tenn., fire because the homeowner didn’t pay a service fee, and firefighters were told they could not extinguish the blaze:

“It is inexcusable that three dogs and a cat would have to die in such a horrible way, with firefighters ordered to not intervene, because of an unpaid $75 service fee. Putting out fires is a matter of life and death for people and animals, and South Fulton city officials should quickly reconsider their emergency response policies before others are put at risk,” said Leighann McCollum, Tennessee state director for The HSUS.

OK--I don't disagree with any of this. But shouldn't we be focusing on the human effects? This seems minor, but it goes back to my strongly held belief that unless environmentalism becomes about people, it is doomed. If we save the house and the human possessions, we save the dogs and cats. I'm all for saving the dogs and cats.  But I'm even more determined to save human society from disintegration because if that goes, animal rights go with it.

Your American Future

I just can't wait until I'm old and this sort of thing represents the standard of American social services:

Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won’t respond, then watches it burn. That’s exactly what happened to a local family tonight. A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.

The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning. Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay. The mayor said if homeowners don’t pay, they’re out of luck. [...]

We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception. “Anybody that’s not in the city of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer, either they accept it or they don’t,” Mayor David Crocker said.

I think the Republicans have a new campaign theme--that South Fulton, Tennessee is a model of correct government. 

Historical Image of the Day

19th century log cabin, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee. Cades Cove is the most popular part of the Smokies, and possibly the most crowded road in the National Park system. It's supposed to represent the ways of the mountain people and provide a sort of 19th century fantasy for visitors. It is however quite a bit of a fantasy. When the National Park Service took it over, they got rid of all the evidence that people used the valley for anything other than subsistence farming, when in fact it had been a resort community as well.

Right-Wing Violence

A couple of weeks ago, a writer for a British magazine interviewed me about the potential of right-wing assassination attempts against President Obama. He had read a piece I wrote for Global Comment about the rise of right-wing terrorism in the U.S.

I told him that I thought a successful assassination of Obama was highly unlikely because of the Secret Service's effectiveness. Rather, I said that localized political murders seemed more plausible. Members of Congress are quite vulnerable, as are local politicians, judges, etc. And of course, there's always the possibility of a crazy right-winger just seeing a Democrat and losing it.

Such as what happened in Tennessee the other day. Near Nashville, a man picked up his 10 year old daughter from school and was driving home when he was rammed by a crazed minivan driver. Why did the guy lose it? The car had an Obama bumper sticker. No was was hurt and police charged the lunatic with reckless endangerment, but this is precisely the kind of localized violence right-wing radio and now even Republican congressional leaders have legitimized. It's only a matter of time before someone dies.

Historical Image of the Day

After a lengthy hiatus, historical images are returning.

This week, images of tobacco in American history.

Tennessee tobacco fields, 1860s

Historical Image of the Day

Coke ovens owned by Sewanee Fuel & Iron Company, Grundy County, Tennessee, 1928.

Stimulus Saves Jobs, Tennessee Higher Education

Thanks in part to pressure applied by the United Campus Workers (a union of University of Tennessee employees), Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen is using the state's share of stimulus money to eliminate all planned cuts in higher education. This not only saves hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs, but also goes a long way to ensuring decent education for Tennessee's citizens.

This is a great example both of how Obama's stimulus plan is making positive improvements in the country and of the necessity of unions as a force for good in public life. As the union itself said in a press release:

Since last fall UCW-CWA has been clear: the Governor must use any available federal assistance, the rainy day fund and other available resources as a bridge to better economic times instead of implementing the steep budget cuts proposed for higher education. During a time of economic recession the state's public colleges and universities are the last place we should look to for budget reductions. Instead, higher education is one of the best job creation programs our state has; public higher education is an economic engine that benefits all residents of Tennessee.

While many of our colleagues enjoyed the winter break, our members actively reached out to the Tennessee Congressional delegation asking for federal aid for higher education. During the week of Christmas our leadership continued to plan our legislative campaign. While many around us descended into hopelessness and the ere of inevitability, our members rallied in support of federal aid and pressured Congress to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with its State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. When many talked of pink slips soon to be arriving in the mailboxes of campus employees we, at points by ourselves, boldly spoke up that these cuts would not have to take place now given the aid on its way to states. Our members spent Spring Breaks lobbying our elected leaders in Nashville, many of them using their annual leave in order to attend.

Last night this work finally began to come to fruition. In his Budget Address to a joint session of the Tennessee General Assembly Governor Bredesen announced that due to the federal economic stimulus bill's State Fiscal Stabilization Fund higher education, "not only won't have to make cuts [this year], but cuts they have already taken here in Tennessee have been restored."

It is important that our coworkers, our colleagues, and our communities know that these sorts of developments do not simply drop from the sky. Average people can make positive change in our own lives, these development are proof positives of this fact. The struggles to see our jobs respected and secure, higher education well funded and positioned for the future, and our state, national and world economies back on track are all far from over. But good news is always welcome news.

Indeed.

Historical Image of the Day

Grocery store workers, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1945

Revisiting Republican Repsonsibility for Hate Crimes

Last June, I discussed the horrible murders of two Knoxville, Tennessee parishioners of a Unitarian church. I lived in Knoxville for 3 years and know members of that church. The killer attacked the church because of its liberal views. Inspired by Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Savage, O'Reilly, and the other right-wing hate-filled gasbags, he took their views to their logical extreme and acted. The result was tragedy, as well as the predictable right-wing silence.

Sara Robinson notes that the killer has been sentenced to life behind bars. Upon his sentencing, he released a rambling message discussing his actions. Robinson excerpts part of it:

"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

"I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals."

Again, this is Republican eliminationism at its highest levels. None of this man's inspirations went on the air to apologize for their words. None condemned his man or his ideas. With all the hate they spew, some people are going to act. Listening to the radio or watching Fox News is not going to be an outlet for them, it's going to be an inspiration for action. Limbaugh and his ilk have a lot of blood on them, not just in Iraq but at home too.

Nashville Rejects Hate

Yesterday, Nashville rejected a ballot measure that would have made English the official language of business in the city and outlawed the city paying for translation services. The proposal only won 43% of the vote.

This is a really big deal. It may mark the turning of the tide of anti-immigrant sentiment in this country. Nashville is far from the most progressive city in the nation, though if you included the suburbs, I wouldn't be surprised if it passed. The blatant hypocrisy of the measure's proponents certainly helped--they claimed this was about saving taxpayer money and then forced the city to spend $350,000 on the election. Nonetheless, it is a very good sign. Given the large proportion of Nashville that is African-American, it also suggests that the supposed tensions between Latinos and African-Americans is overrated.

Incidentally, reading about this measure taught me that Nashville has the largest Kurdish population in the United States. Who knew?

Tennessee Republicans Get Screwed

Having lived in Tennessee for three years, I can tell you that the state Republican Party is batshit insane. Tennessee is one of the only states trending more Republican and for the first time in 40 years, they won the state House. Ready to elect a true wingnut to the speakership, the Democrats, down a mere one seat, struck back. They nominated the single moderate Republican to the speakership. This is a guy who has been threatened by other state Republicans for his belief. That he comes from a very conservative part of the state (Carter County, in the far east) makes me surprised that he has held his ground and continues to win elections. Anyway, much to the chagrin of Republicans, the guy went ahead and voted for himself, essentially defecting to the Democrats and giving them control of the House.

I have never seen a more hilarious newscast of Republican fuckuppery than this.

Hat tip to Brian. Wonkette also has more.

NOTE: It seems that the video is no longer playing. Too bad. You can hear the Republicans freak out as this all goes down. It's freaking hilarious.

Merry Christmas--From the Coal Industry!

Oh coal. What wonderful things don't you give Appalachia?

An estimated 500 million gallons of coal-ash sludge are seeping along the I-40 Knoxville-Nashville corridor in eastern Tennessee, after an earthen wall gave way on Dec. 22 at the TVA Harriman coal-fired plant. While no casualties were reported, the coal-ash spill -- the refuse left over after the plant burns the coal -- should be a terrifying toxic wake-up call about the thousands of coal-fired plants and refuse-pile accidents waiting to happen across the county.

I again state that for all the evil industries in the world (timber and oil, I'm looking at you), coal might be the most diabolical. Destroying our mountains. Changing our climate. Dumping coal ash in our rivers and soil. Awesome.

It'd also be nice if TVA actually cared about these problems or were at all accountable to the public. TVA may be the worst of the New Deal agencies and turning it into a corporation did not help matters.

Historical Image of the Day

School, Hohenwald, Tennessee.

I don't have a date on this but I would guess 1870s or 1880s. However, in backwaters like this, basing a guess on clothing can be tricky, so it could be later.

Historical Image of the Day

Ku Klux Klan rider, Tennessee, 1868.

Note that he is not wearing a white costume. This was a phenomenon of the 2nd KKK of the 1920s. Early Klansmen often wore garish costumes intended to scare their targets.

From Estelle Frantz Parsons' very interesting Journal of American History article, "Midnight Rangers: Costume and Performance in the Reconstruction-Era Ku Klux Klan."

Race and Immigration

I have said repeatedly that anti-immigration activists don't care one whit about the legality of immigrants. They care strictly about their race.

To replace deported Mexicans and Central Americans in meatpacking plants, employers have turned to legal African immigrants, particularly Somalis.

Via Rick Perlstein, the response is predictably racist, at least in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

The Tyson plant where the Somalis and other Muslims work decided to give the workers a Muslim religious holiday off instead of Labor Day. People in central Tennessee went berserk. Quite ironic given the anti-union attitude so prevalent in that part of the South.

If you really want to see how race trumps legal status in immigration debates, read the comment thread to the original newspaper story. But I warn you, the extreme racism is vomit-inducing.

We Will Now Sacrifice Tennessee to the Gods of Driving

Tom Philpott has an excellent article showing just much corn is going into fuel.

We have doubled the amount of corn we turn into ethanol since 2006. This year, 4.1 billion bushels of corn will go into fuel. How much corn is that? The fields for that corn equal the size of Tennessee. That is a Tennessee-sized portion of the United States sacrificed for our car addiction. This is also 13% of the entire world's corn supply. With recent subsidies from the government, this is likely only to rise.

This is a huge problem. It is bad for the land, bad for food prices, bad for the world. It also strengthens the stranglehold that farm state politicians have over the rest of the nation. Perhaps the only benefit is that it lowers the price of fuel slightly since we rely on less oil, but only a bit. Ethanol adds a lot of polluting gases to our skies, gives incentives to turn more forested, mixed-use, and stream bordering land into intensive industrial production, destroying bird populations and overall diversity. It also does nothing to help us kick our habit of cars.

Ethanol also is a huge contributor to climate changing greenhouse gases. Philipott writes:

Let's think about fertilizer use now. Nitrogen fertilizer is a huge emiter of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 310 times more potent than carbon. Corn, in turn, is a huge user of nitrogen fertilizer. This USDA report [PDF] tells us that in 2005, U.S. farmers used about 12 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer, and that "42 percent of total nitrogen used during the period was attributed to production of corn."

So that tells us that in a typical year, the corn crop takes up about 5.2 million tons of nitrogen. If we use a third of that crop for ethanol, we're using 1.7 million tons of nitrogen. That's actually a low estimate for 2008, because a) farmers devoted more land to corn this year than they did in 2005; and b) the June floods washed away untold amounts of fertilizers, forcing many farmers to reapply.

Anyone out there have any idea of the greenhouse gas implications of 1.7 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer?

For the love of all things holy, will someone stop the corn-based ethanol insanity?

The Knoxville Tragedy and Republican Responsibility

I was deeply shocked by the shooting at the Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee. I used to live in Knoxville and knew people who went to that church. I did not know either of the people who died, though I do know one of the church spokespeople quoted in the report.

Actually, let me rephrase. I am shocked, but not surprised by the shooting. The shooter targeted the Unitarian church because of their acceptance of gays, liberals, and other people hated in Knoxville.

Let's change the scenario a bit. Let's say it was a young kid who did the shooting. He was a disturbed child but didn't have any particular hatred for gays or liberals. And let's say he shot up a Baptist church rather than a Unitarian church. Can't you already hear the Republican talk radio blathering on about the "culture" that allows such things to happen? They would blame heavy metal or television or comic books or some other cultural phenomenon that had nothing to do with the killing but is easy to scapegoat. They would also talk about how liberals hate Christianity and that their secularism made churches a target for attack.

Well, now I am going to engage in some damn scapegoating of my own. I blame the religious right, right-wing media, and the entire Republican Party for the shooting in Knoxville. They have said horrible things about gays and liberals for years. They have painted gays as child-abusing perverted sadists. They have made the word "liberal" into a perjorative. They have said that gays and liberals (and feminists and radicals and abortionists, etc) are going to hell and that we will deserve all the suffering we get. In east Tennessee, I would guess that at least 2/3 of the churches preach this kind of hatred. The Unitarians are a strong exception to this rule. Thus, they became a target for a disturbed person. But this disturbed person was spurred on by the atmosphere of hate one entire political party has used for its own purposes over the past 40 years.

The right covering up its own hate is not an isolated incidient either. If you've visited the Oklahoma City Memorial, you might have noticed a gaping silence over context and responsibility for the bombing. It is interpreted as the act of a couple of loonies. But there is nothing on the relationships between the militias and the Republican Party. There are mentions of Ruby Ridge and Waco but nothing on how the right built on those events to spur a climate of hate against Bill Clinton and the federal government as a whole and nothing on how Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and the Republican leadership fanned the hatred for their own purposes, hatred that created a climate allowing Timothy McVeigh to act.

What do you see at Oklahoma City? Well, you actually get more discussion of so-called environmental "terrorism" as you do of the connections between militias and the rise of the right. Every little incident of some hippies burning an SUV is highlighted to show that terrorism is a real threat to America. Well, terrorism may be a threat to America but I don't think it is from hippie monkeywrenching groups. As far as domestic terrorism goes, the real threat is from right-wing hate groups that have ties to powerful Republicans.

Perhaps I am being unfair by saying that the entire right-wing establishment has a share of responsibility for the Knoxville shootings. There is certainly not any direct connection between Rush Limbaugh and the killer. But I can say this for certain. I am being a lot less unfair than Republicans who make threadbare connections between killers and heavy metal. At least I can legitimately say that a man acted on the hate spawned by the Republican Party and its supporters in a direct way. That hate has taken the lives of two innocent people. The Republican Party, the hate preachers, and right-wing radio demagogues have blood on their hands.

Historical Image of the Day

Claudine Penn, the first female African-American police officer in Memphis. Hired as a meter maid in 1963, commissioned as an officer in 1968.

Communes

I have written before on my deeply mixed feelings about communes. Jim Windolf's new Vanity Fair article on The Farm, a commune in the woods of Tennessee, gives me another chance to discuss this issue.

The Farm is a bit legendary among Tennessee progressives, although for reasons I never could quite understand. To be fair, any commune that's been around 35 years has beaten the odds. Windolf gives a pretty fair view of what is happening there. Although I have some respect for the sentiment going into such activities, I can't help but thinking that what they are doing is ultimately pointless. I simply believe that when people withdraw from society, they become worthless to society. They may be trying to live their own City Upon a Hill or they may just want to get away from everything, but unless they actively make connections between their own activities and the world at large, they are doing nothing of value. Windolf talks about some of the environmental technologies Farm members are working on, but it's hard to care. I mean it's interesting and all to grow bamboo in part from people urinating on it (which bamboo likes) but I'm not sure how this is applicable to much of anything.

On a more personal note, I used to know someone who grew up on The Farm. My interactions with her made me laugh at the mention of the school out there. This was one of the most dogmatic and uneducated people I have ever met. She knew the U.S. government was doing bad things and she could speak passionately about it in a shrill sort of way. But she couldn't spell even the most basic words, she knew no details about much of anything, and God forbid you try to engage her in a real conversation. I personally remember with not too much fondness discussing the whole Native American/Indian naming thing with her. She insisted it must always be Native American. I mentioned that I knew lots of Indians who preferred that title to the more recent one. It became stunningly clear that she didn't actually know any Native Americans, yet she insisted on her point of view. Not surprisingly, she was also a Maoist.