SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
The campaign to bring White nationalism, the
founding ideology of the United States, fully out of the closet, kicks
into a higher gear on the Right's anti-holiday, April 15. Newt Gingrich
and the various tribes of White Rightists unveil their "Contract From America," a scaled-down version
of the manifesto the Republicans rallied around to win control of the
U.S. House of Representatives, in 1994. The 2010 "contract" is leaner, built for mass
Caucasian consumption. It is written largely in code, the language of
obfuscation that American racists speak in an attempt to hide their
white supremacist beliefs from others - and, in many cases, from
themselves. Indeed, much of American mass political speech is conducted
in code, allowing white people to identify each other through terms like
"middle class," "family values," "taxpayers," "patriots," "law-abiding"
- terms which, although literally applicable to people of every
ethnicity, are understood to mean "good white American citizens."
Corporate media almost universally describe
the Tea Partyers as "anti-government" - which is nonsense. They oppose
the government providing assistance - economic, legal, educational, real
or imagined - to those that are "undeserving," which in their world
consists mostly of folks that can be defined by race, language or
religion (using code words, when required by polite society). Naturally,
the average Tea Partyer - when sober - will deny having "a racist bone"
in his body, but any group whose unifying characteristic is daily
engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist.
Anyone who tries to tell you different, is far too tolerant of bigoted
behavior, assumptions and speech to be anything but a closet racist,
himself.
Tea Partyers live in a world of throbbing
hatreds that render them damn near incoherent.They shout and hoot and holler
in fevered support of political statements with which they cannot
possibly agree. For example, the highly popular "Limited Government"
plank of The Contract states:
"The purpose of our government is to exercise
only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the
people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by
administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising
inside or outside our country's sovereign borders."
That means, the government should provide
only police, criminal justice and public safety services, and a national
defense. No public schools or publicly supported colleges, no tax
breaks for homeowners, none of the public supports that "middle class,"
"law-abiding," "patriotic," "taxpayers" with strong "family values" have
been demanding for themselves for the last 65 years. ("And don't you
dare touch my Medicare!")
Any "movement" that actually believed in as
shrunken a government as The Contract describes would be either very
rich, or very tiny. The plank only begins to make sense when understood
as a kind of scatter-shot code talk for restricting government
assistance to "worthy" Americans, and cutting the flotsam and jetsam
people loose.
What the Tea Partiers really oppose is a
social contract among all the resident peoples of the United States. In
this, they are indeed the direct political progeny of the Founding
Fathers and the great mass of white settlers, who found the very concept
of full U.S. citizenship for Africans and Native Americans monstrously
repugnant, a devaluation of their superior white selves. Racism in the
national womb prevented the United States from forging a genuine social
contract between whites and Others. More to the point, white people rejected any
relationship that did not recognize and maintain white supremacy. This
was to be forever a White Man's country, expanding as far as might and
money could take it - but white, white, white.
The white nationalists want their white
nation back. But they can't have it. And, since there can be no
bargaining on that issue, there is no reason whatsoever for Blacks and
browns and people of good will to engage or humor the Tea Party's white
nationalists. There is nothing to concede to them, and nothing they can
offer us to which we are not already entitled.
Prominent peace activists are eager to engage the Tea Party, in search of common ground in
opposition to government waste through war. It is true that Tea Party
darling Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican and former
presidential candidate, fights as hard as anyone on The Hill against
bloated military budgets. But the anti-war movement will soon discover
that all but a sliver of the Tea Party crowd are belligerent hawks, as
racist in their global worldview as in their domestic outlook. Just as
they reject a national social contract with non-whites, they reject any
compact with other peoples of the world, particularly the non-white
ones. White American nationalism is warlike, expansionist, and proud of
it - a grave danger to the survival of humanity.
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
The campaign to bring White nationalism, the
founding ideology of the United States, fully out of the closet, kicks
into a higher gear on the Right's anti-holiday, April 15. Newt Gingrich
and the various tribes of White Rightists unveil their "Contract From America," a scaled-down version
of the manifesto the Republicans rallied around to win control of the
U.S. House of Representatives, in 1994. The 2010 "contract" is leaner, built for mass
Caucasian consumption. It is written largely in code, the language of
obfuscation that American racists speak in an attempt to hide their
white supremacist beliefs from others - and, in many cases, from
themselves. Indeed, much of American mass political speech is conducted
in code, allowing white people to identify each other through terms like
"middle class," "family values," "taxpayers," "patriots," "law-abiding"
- terms which, although literally applicable to people of every
ethnicity, are understood to mean "good white American citizens."
Corporate media almost universally describe
the Tea Partyers as "anti-government" - which is nonsense. They oppose
the government providing assistance - economic, legal, educational, real
or imagined - to those that are "undeserving," which in their world
consists mostly of folks that can be defined by race, language or
religion (using code words, when required by polite society). Naturally,
the average Tea Partyer - when sober - will deny having "a racist bone"
in his body, but any group whose unifying characteristic is daily
engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist.
Anyone who tries to tell you different, is far too tolerant of bigoted
behavior, assumptions and speech to be anything but a closet racist,
himself.
Tea Partyers live in a world of throbbing
hatreds that render them damn near incoherent.They shout and hoot and holler
in fevered support of political statements with which they cannot
possibly agree. For example, the highly popular "Limited Government"
plank of The Contract states:
"The purpose of our government is to exercise
only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the
people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by
administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising
inside or outside our country's sovereign borders."
That means, the government should provide
only police, criminal justice and public safety services, and a national
defense. No public schools or publicly supported colleges, no tax
breaks for homeowners, none of the public supports that "middle class,"
"law-abiding," "patriotic," "taxpayers" with strong "family values" have
been demanding for themselves for the last 65 years. ("And don't you
dare touch my Medicare!")
Any "movement" that actually believed in as
shrunken a government as The Contract describes would be either very
rich, or very tiny. The plank only begins to make sense when understood
as a kind of scatter-shot code talk for restricting government
assistance to "worthy" Americans, and cutting the flotsam and jetsam
people loose.
What the Tea Partiers really oppose is a
social contract among all the resident peoples of the United States. In
this, they are indeed the direct political progeny of the Founding
Fathers and the great mass of white settlers, who found the very concept
of full U.S. citizenship for Africans and Native Americans monstrously
repugnant, a devaluation of their superior white selves. Racism in the
national womb prevented the United States from forging a genuine social
contract between whites and Others. More to the point, white people rejected any
relationship that did not recognize and maintain white supremacy. This
was to be forever a White Man's country, expanding as far as might and
money could take it - but white, white, white.
The white nationalists want their white
nation back. But they can't have it. And, since there can be no
bargaining on that issue, there is no reason whatsoever for Blacks and
browns and people of good will to engage or humor the Tea Party's white
nationalists. There is nothing to concede to them, and nothing they can
offer us to which we are not already entitled.
Prominent peace activists are eager to engage the Tea Party, in search of common ground in
opposition to government waste through war. It is true that Tea Party
darling Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican and former
presidential candidate, fights as hard as anyone on The Hill against
bloated military budgets. But the anti-war movement will soon discover
that all but a sliver of the Tea Party crowd are belligerent hawks, as
racist in their global worldview as in their domestic outlook. Just as
they reject a national social contract with non-whites, they reject any
compact with other peoples of the world, particularly the non-white
ones. White American nationalism is warlike, expansionist, and proud of
it - a grave danger to the survival of humanity.
The campaign to bring White nationalism, the
founding ideology of the United States, fully out of the closet, kicks
into a higher gear on the Right's anti-holiday, April 15. Newt Gingrich
and the various tribes of White Rightists unveil their "Contract From America," a scaled-down version
of the manifesto the Republicans rallied around to win control of the
U.S. House of Representatives, in 1994. The 2010 "contract" is leaner, built for mass
Caucasian consumption. It is written largely in code, the language of
obfuscation that American racists speak in an attempt to hide their
white supremacist beliefs from others - and, in many cases, from
themselves. Indeed, much of American mass political speech is conducted
in code, allowing white people to identify each other through terms like
"middle class," "family values," "taxpayers," "patriots," "law-abiding"
- terms which, although literally applicable to people of every
ethnicity, are understood to mean "good white American citizens."
Corporate media almost universally describe
the Tea Partyers as "anti-government" - which is nonsense. They oppose
the government providing assistance - economic, legal, educational, real
or imagined - to those that are "undeserving," which in their world
consists mostly of folks that can be defined by race, language or
religion (using code words, when required by polite society). Naturally,
the average Tea Partyer - when sober - will deny having "a racist bone"
in his body, but any group whose unifying characteristic is daily
engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist.
Anyone who tries to tell you different, is far too tolerant of bigoted
behavior, assumptions and speech to be anything but a closet racist,
himself.
Tea Partyers live in a world of throbbing
hatreds that render them damn near incoherent.They shout and hoot and holler
in fevered support of political statements with which they cannot
possibly agree. For example, the highly popular "Limited Government"
plank of The Contract states:
"The purpose of our government is to exercise
only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the
people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by
administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising
inside or outside our country's sovereign borders."
That means, the government should provide
only police, criminal justice and public safety services, and a national
defense. No public schools or publicly supported colleges, no tax
breaks for homeowners, none of the public supports that "middle class,"
"law-abiding," "patriotic," "taxpayers" with strong "family values" have
been demanding for themselves for the last 65 years. ("And don't you
dare touch my Medicare!")
Any "movement" that actually believed in as
shrunken a government as The Contract describes would be either very
rich, or very tiny. The plank only begins to make sense when understood
as a kind of scatter-shot code talk for restricting government
assistance to "worthy" Americans, and cutting the flotsam and jetsam
people loose.
What the Tea Partiers really oppose is a
social contract among all the resident peoples of the United States. In
this, they are indeed the direct political progeny of the Founding
Fathers and the great mass of white settlers, who found the very concept
of full U.S. citizenship for Africans and Native Americans monstrously
repugnant, a devaluation of their superior white selves. Racism in the
national womb prevented the United States from forging a genuine social
contract between whites and Others. More to the point, white people rejected any
relationship that did not recognize and maintain white supremacy. This
was to be forever a White Man's country, expanding as far as might and
money could take it - but white, white, white.
The white nationalists want their white
nation back. But they can't have it. And, since there can be no
bargaining on that issue, there is no reason whatsoever for Blacks and
browns and people of good will to engage or humor the Tea Party's white
nationalists. There is nothing to concede to them, and nothing they can
offer us to which we are not already entitled.
Prominent peace activists are eager to engage the Tea Party, in search of common ground in
opposition to government waste through war. It is true that Tea Party
darling Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican and former
presidential candidate, fights as hard as anyone on The Hill against
bloated military budgets. But the anti-war movement will soon discover
that all but a sliver of the Tea Party crowd are belligerent hawks, as
racist in their global worldview as in their domestic outlook. Just as
they reject a national social contract with non-whites, they reject any
compact with other peoples of the world, particularly the non-white
ones. White American nationalism is warlike, expansionist, and proud of
it - a grave danger to the survival of humanity.