The Stars and Bars

(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)

This is about the left, (what I call) the populist far right, the Confederate Flag, Nazi skinheads, and the Civil War (I actually worked in a very small N. Ireland connection, and could have added one more but decided not to). But first I need to spend 2 paragraphs explaining some relevant things.

UPDATE 2/28/09 I just realized that when I say militia, it might be more appropriate to say Patriot movement.

I do a lot of thinking, and often think about things from my past. There's one thing I've been thinking about that came up in the period 1999-2001 when I was doing left-wing activism (at the time I wasn't doing hardly any N. Ireland activism). The big thing about the Confederate flag and this skinhead woman I'll refer to towards the end I only learned recently, but the rest I basically knew at the time. Unlike 10-15 other times in the last 15 or so years, I don't think my failure to say this stuff at the time involved my brain freezing, I think that after the first time it came up (and I did some research into it at that point), it only came up one other time with the student group I'll refer to, and it was kind of questionable whether or not I should have said anything. There were two other times when it came up and I said something, plus I sent an email to some people, plus one more time it came up and it would have been maybe a little inappropriate for me to say something (this thing where my brain freezes and I don't say stuff I need to probably happened more with me than it does for most people, but it only happened something like 1-10% of the time depending on how you look at it, and I think there's a good chance now that it's gone, since I'm more aware of it).

As you'll see, part of this post is about 9 years too late, but it's probably still relevant, and I like telling stories about my activism, even when it involves me admitting that I was significantly less than 100% (of my organizing abilities) (for the most part I was probably about 50%-75%, depending on how you look at it).On average, my N. Ireland stuff had about 25 people at each event, my non-NI stuff was about 175 on average each event (that figure is ignoring several events I did, for example, in Denver or the dorms) and in some other ways I was often mildly-very successful with my activism) (also, there have been several things which weren't my fault that held me back here and there) (this is all about the period 1994-2004 and in 2003 I organized an event where 1,500 showed up) (I was about 50-100% responsible for about 30 events total during that time, plus about 10 more I was about 25%-50% responsible for).

Anyway, here's the background. In the late 1990s until about early 2001, there was a very large successful student organization at the University of Colorado at Boulder, called WAAKE-UP, World Awareness and Action Koalition of Equal United Progressives. I think the main organizations involved were Stop Hate On Campus (an independent CU-Boulder group), the CU-Boulder Student Environmental Action Coalition, and CU-Boulder Amnesty International (I think I might be missing 1-2 main or semi-main organizations). Although we were a very tiny part of it, my group Students for Justice in N. Ireland, I THINK was officially a member in 1998-1999. In 1999 until the coalition faded, my other group, the CU-Boulder Young Democratic Socialists were a small but not tiny part of it, I went to a few meetings and did some minor stuff. WAAKE-UP was founded by Scott Silber (who was the main figure the first two years), an amazing activist. WAAKE-UP did a LOT of very good work, the information on that wikipedia page seems pretty complete and accurate, although I believe they also did some anti-racist work, and even considered adding a bunch of diversity related demands to their sweatshop campaign but decided not to, probably because the sweatshop campaign was going to be enough work (which it was, it required a huge amount of effort). They probably did some other social justice stuff here and there too.

On April 15th 2000, in connection with the A16 activities worldwide in protest of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, WAAKE-UP had a major demonstration. They had me give a 5 minute speech as a rep of YDS-CU and the CO Democratic Socialists of America. Another DSAer told me that at some point a WAAKE-UP member mentioned various groups that were there in support, and mentioned a group called the Tyranny Response Team, the local chapter (well, I think they were mostly from outside Boulder, primarily as far as I can tell, a nearby city called Longmont which is pretty awesome, and overall almost as liberal as Boulder, but I'm not surprised that there would be a TRT chapter there). This other DSAer had heard about them, and what he said prompted me to do some research.

I looked at the national web-site of the TRT, which had links to local chapter web-sites (or different parts of the national web-site, I can't remember). I got the impression that, aside from the web-site, there was no national structure, and if there was, it was VERY decentralized. But if they share a national web-site and a common name, they have to take some small degree of responsibility for what the other groups are doing, and it's safe to assume that the politics of the other groups and the politics of the national web-site were more or less reflected in the local group.

The TRT are more or less in the militia tradition, although probably different from most groups that were militias. At one point, in Longmont they showed up at a pro-gun control meeting (it was not a public event, it was a planning meeting) to videotape and intimidate people. On the web-site, it talked about a TRT chapter in New England, it was almost definitely VT or NH, that was protesting some move towards gay marriage. Another TRT chapter in the South (and you can bet that all the Southern chapters did the same thing) was demonstrating in favor of the Confederate flag, which I'll get back to in a second. I remember other stuff indicating opposition to Affirmative Action.

Although this guy might not have been with the TRT, I wouldn't be surprised if he was. Around 1996 there was a guy who was more or less militia in Boulder whose politics I'd like to describe. One night when I was volunteering at a left-wing bookstore, he came by because he wanted to know what the lefties were saying about some significant curbing of civil liberties at the time. At one point he said that the unions were collaborating with the corporations to force multi-culturalism on America. Another time, at a rally in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, he indicated that he thought supporting Mumia was ridiculous.

More generally, I get the impression that the militia types and this probably goes for the TRT, are more or less capitalist in the sense that they believe strongly in private enterprise and oppose regulation and taxes, and are also anti-union. What attracts some of them to progressives and some progressives to them (there was another time when a leading member of WAAKE-UP indicated she liked TRT)? It's possible the local TRT had some tendencies uncommon for that movement (I heard that one of them had earlier been involved in some progressive movement), but I'm pretty sure it's these two things- anti-globalization, and hostility towards government (at that point, probably somewhere around half of WAAKE-UP would have been anarchists).

Although I didn't say anything to WAAKE-UP directly, and I think I only mentioned their name in connection with this problem once (it's not just WAAKE-UP on the left that flirts/flirted with the less offensive parts of what I call the populist far-right), if it had come up more substantially I would have said something directly to them, even if it was a day late, as it might have been. But in any case, the left should not be working with those organizations. Organizationally (talking with them as individuals is a very good idea), the best approach is isolating them (winning support from people in that community, not giving them legitimacy (through, for example, welcoming them at your events), MAYBE trying to prevent them from holding meetings, etc.). After that, it might be appropriate to smash them organizationally. This could take the form of a law-suit, or getting the police to investigate criminal activities by the group and/or it’s members, or something else similar. (UPDATE 2/4/12 I having been meaning to further develop my thoughts about isolating and smashing, but for now this paragraph is what I believe)

(UPDATE 5/5/10- I just remembered that once (or twice) I DID say something to WAAKE-UP people that was critical of the TRT) (UPDATE 6/30/11 Of course I also recently remembered that the WAAKE-UPer (in response to me) said something even more offensive than his initial comment, and I failed to respond!!!)

So, in general, we shouldn't work with them. But now I want to come back to the Confederate flag, and why the association of the TRT with that flag and support for that flag in general is major problem.

First, I'm okay with it in certain areas- museums, plays/movies/etc. Civil War re-creations, and Civil War battlefields, I'm pretty sure that's it. I'm not okay with it as part of state flags or being flown at state capitols or anything like that, and when people display it at their homes or on their cars, or at rallies in support of it in general, including rallies that are not explicitly white supremacist. The thing is, that flag is drenched in white supremacy and slavery, and I'm not just saying that because the white supremacists have been using it. Although there were other factors with the Civil War, it's no coincidence that the South (and the vast majority of the slave states) broke off after the election of someone who was close to being an abolitionist. Also, towards the end of the war, the Confederacy considered ending slavery because it might improve their odds of winning, since it would affect European opinion in their favor. They decided not to, evidence that preserving slavery was more important to them than being independent of Washington D.C. (UPDATE 7/8/15 There's more about what the Confederacy was really about here)

So that flag is steeped in white supremacy and racism. We also know that, to one degree or another, people who display that flag (with the exceptions that I mentioned above and probably a hand-full of individual cases) are racists.

Here's another reason why it's not a good idea to legitimize the general use of that flag. In the Winter 2007 issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's publication, it talked about a woman who was a Nazi skinhead for about three years until she had a falling out and they almost killed her. The relevant part is where the article explains what led her to become a Nazi skinhead. It seems that very shortly before she became a Nazi skinhead, there was an incident at her school that the article strongly implies contributed to her becoming a Nazi, although clearly she was already mildly racist. Her school was 76% Hispanic and there were Mexican flags all over the place. She placed a Confederate battle flag pin on her back-pack and was reprimanded by school officials. She felt persecuted- all the Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans could display their flag, why couldn't she display the Confederate flag? She'd been given the impression that it was a legitimate symbol, and the article didn't say anything about her parents being racist, so the odds are that to one degree or another she got that idea from people who, to one degree or another, weren't racist. I mean, in the 2000 Republican Primaries John McCain (and probably most of the other candidates) expressed support for the Confederate flag, although he later retracted that. There is probably some small number of people who aren't racist but who support that flag. And in at least one case, it lead to someone becoming a Nazi skinhead- although based on the article, this woman didn't do anything horrible, but at the very least she gave comfort and encouragement to those who did, she probably spread hatred, and she may have recruited people.

I'm not saying Mexico is above criticism, and it's possible that if the Confederacy had lasted hundreds of years like Mexico, the history associated with that flag might have been less than 100% bad (slavery might have ended after a couple generations), but all we have is five years during which the Confederacy fought to (almost) the death (when I said "almost," I was acknowledging that they did surrender, not every rebel solider or sailor fought to the death) to defend slavery, and singled out Black Union troops captured for hanging. The Mexican flag is not at all comparable to the Confederate flag.

The Confederate flag stands for something about 90% as bad as what the Nazi swastika stands for. And no one says that the Swastika is an appropriate symbol for the German people, even though it represents a larger chunk of German history, and on average, things for non-Jewish Germans during those years were probably better than things were for White Southerners during the five years of the Confederacy. But even with those two things, no one argues that the Nazi flag is an appropriate symbol for people to use. That is, overall it would make as much sense to use the Nazi flag as it would to use the Confederate flag- so if people think it's very inappropriate to use the former, why do they think it's so okay to use the latter?

UPDATE 12/10/15 I found an important article (via a link from the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center) about why so many Americans have a messed up opinion of the Confederacy. It's here. 



Which leads me to the last point I want to make. In about 2002 or 2003, I was at some rally, I think it was anti-war. One speaker said something about how the Civil War was the one good war America fought (I'd add WWII, and to a small degree Yugoslavia in the 90s, maybe the Revolution and I guess the War of 1812, to a small degree the original invasion of Afghanistan (I've believed since about 2003 that we should get out) I'm pretty sure that's about it). Someone in the audience booed. The odds that the person was anywhere near being a White Supremacist are very low. Much more likely he was an idiot. The likelihood is that his opposition to war and/or government is greater than his opposition to slavery and racism. The odds are that slavery was going to continue for at least a couple more generations in the Confederacy if they had been allowed to secede, and it might have possibly continued for a similar amount of time in the Border states that did not secede if the issue hadn't been forced by the Civil War. Early in the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation resulted in what turned out to be permanent freedom for thousands of slaves immediately, with more freed every day as Confederate territory was taken by the Union Army. There was reason to believe that this would happen, based on Lincoln's' attitude towards slavery which went right up to the point of being an abolitionist (without actually being one), and the fact that after the 1860 election, the leader of the Republicans in the House, which had a large Republican majority, was a Radical. In fact, in July 1862, something similar to emancipation was passed by the Congress and signed by Lincoln. Anyway, with hindsight, the Civil War ended slavery and that makes it a good war, although as I often make clear, even "good" wars are still horrible, but some things are worth horrible things.

UPDATE 2/23/09 I found a national web-site for the TRT, odds are it's newer than the one I looked at 9 years ago (I actually found 2, but they seem to be the same group of people). On chapter sites, I found the following links:
1. Free Republic. A very conservative/right-wing web-site.
2. Those Shirts. I provide a link because the shirts are interesting and it provides some idea of the TRT's politics (it's kind of a right-wing version of snorg-tees, and last time I checked, most of their shirts were pretty cool). About Those Shirts:
A: About 1/3 are only mildly-moderately offensive (1/2 aren't offensive, just right-wing), but they indicate politics that the Left should not be working with.
B: The one about the Buerau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is kind of funny, even though I have roughly zero interest in those three things.
C: One shirt contains a quote from Ann Coulter right after 9/11 in which she said,. about Muslims "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to christianity."
D: Another shirt says "I'd rather be waterboarding."
E: Another shirt shows 5 days of weather, at the top it says Mecca Weather Forecast. The last day's weather forecast shows a mushroom cloud, and at the bottom it says "Partial Sunnis, Scattered Shiites."
F: Another shirt has a list of slogans for the US military abraod. The first one is "We don't like collateral damage, but it helps to stay the @#$% out of our way."
G: There's a few other shirts with material roughly as offensive as those four.