My Thoughts on the 1988-1997 TV Show Roseanne

I love TV shows, although only about 40% of what I watch is from the last two decades. My top six favorite shows are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, The Big Bang Theory, Supergirl, Roseanne, and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. There’s a more complete list of shows I like under the “Movies” part of my profile. This is going to be about Roseanne.

I’ll offer a brief summary of the show and highlight some aspects of it but you can also read that wikipedia page.

This show ran from late 1988 until early 1997 and had ten seasons. I don’t think I’ve seen a single episode of the 10th season and I have probably only seen half of the 9th season. I probably have seen 80% of the episodes, an average of 2.5 times and on average about 15 years ago (I watched most of it as it was originally broadcast and watched a lot of re-runs between 2000 and 2010). I recently got a ridiculously good deal on the entire series on DVD and am going to go through it episode-by-episode.

It’s a hilarious 30 minute (with commercials) sitcom about a working-class liberal-progressive white family in what I think is a large town something like an hour away from Chicago (my brief, non-philosophical definition of liberal is someone to the left of Bill Clinton and to the right of Senator Elizabeth Warren; more details are here).

Some of the things that I like about it:

1) It’s progressive economically. There is pro-union stuff and although they get rich from the lottery in the 9th season, they use some of their wealth to help their former co-workers at a factory BUY the factory. There are a few seasons where Dan or Roseanne are small business-owners, but they have practically zero employees and treat them well.

2) It’s anti-racist. Of the very minor characters, about 1/10 are people of color, which kind of sucks, but there’s good anti-racist material. There’s one episode where they address the genocide of American Indians and slavery. Although there’s a small bit that’s pro-prisons, one of the 1-3 episodes that touch on that is also pro-affirmative action. There’s one episode where the Conners confront racism in their family and themselves.

3) It’s anti-homophobic. In an average episode, of the main, recurring and guest characters, about 6-8% are gay (one isn’t identified as gay until towards the end of the series).

4) The recurring character Mark Healy was played by an Irish actor, although he used an American accent because the character is American.

I have placed the Roseanne collection with the other DVDs that I am watching and will be doing reviews of the political issues raised in each episode. I won’t mention those episodes that have nothing political in them.

Motherfuckin' Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola (My Thoughts on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit)

("Fin" is played by Ice-T)

I love TV shows, although only about 40% of what I watch is from the last two decades. My top six favorite shows are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, The Big Bang Theory, Supergirl, Roseanne, and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. There’s a more complete list of shows I like under the “Movies” part of my profile. This is going to be about Law and Order: SVU.

I’m going to assume you are at least sort of familiar with the show, and if you’re not, you can read that wikipedia page.

I have seen every episode (with one exception where I couldn’t fix the disc and Netflix sent another disc that also had the same problem) up to season 18 and in about a month I’ll be done with season 19. I have 6 seasons on DVD in my collection, most of which I got at thrift stores.

Besides the obvious (it’s opposition to sex crimes and child abuse/kidnapping and sexism and misogyny) which is pretty awesome, there’s a lot of other things I like about L&W: SVU.

1) It’s incredibly anti-racist. Not 100% because it is, of course, a little soft on cops. But in general there's a lot of anti-racism. On average, in any episode, something like 25% of the main and recurring characters have been people of color. Of course the population of NYC is much more diverse, but we are talking about the NYPD and I think that 25% is probably a reflection of how diverse the NYPD is, or an appropriately mild exaggeration of how diverse it is. My memory of specific examples is a little fuzzy, but there are a lot of times when the anti-racism gets a little sharper than that.

There is one episode involving a hispanic SVU detective who might qualify as a person of color in a bad fatal  shooting that I think the show could have dealt with more critically- I remember thinking that it was too pro-cop. But there is another episode on almost the same topic that is, overall, much better. Some white non-SVU cops, while helping SVU, fire about 15-30 bullets into an unarmed black man. The (main character) Assistant DA who works with SVU insists on prosecuting the cops and I think the last we hear about that is that he gets an indictment from the Grand Jury. The head of SVU disagrees with him but they don’t have a heated argument and there is no falling out and for about 2 seasons after that episode that character is still the Assistant DA for SVU, and I think it would be totally unrealistic if all the SVU members agreed with the Assistant DA. Unfortunately it DOES end on a fairly racist note. There’s a notice about the fatal shooting of a cop, which is kind of a lame ending for what otherwise is a very good episode. I mean, it’s even worse than saying “All Lives Matter” in response to the statement “Black Lives Matter.” It’s responding with “Police Lives Matter.”

As I mention below, Ice-T has played a main character since season 2 and there are now 21 seasons.

I think that the % of defendants that are people of color is probably a lot less than the % of NYC’s population that is people of color, and I’m almost certain it’s not more.

2) It’s incredibly anti-homophobic. Other than the idea that the Assistant DA in seasons 15-19 is gay (there is a lot of speculation but it’s apparently all wrong and he's actually straight (but played by a bi-sexual man)), I can only think of two examples. First, when an off-duty cop witnesses a sex-related crime (while on a date with another man) and notifies SVU, SVU offers to keep his name out of it to avoid outing him to the “brass” of NYPD. Also, the son of the character played by Ice-T is gay.

3) It’s incredibly anti-transphobic. In one episode, for example, a woman transitioning from being male kills her boyfriend when he sees a penis. I can’t remember exactly what SVU does, but I don’t think they prosecute her or they go easy on her or something. I DO remember the Assistant DA saying that in that situation, when a man learns his girlfriend has a penis or used to be male, he simply kills her. In general it highlights violence against transgender people.

4) It’s pro-immigrant. For example, there’s a two-parter about a witness who is gay and an undocumented immigrant from Syria who will be killed if he is deported. SVU tries to keep ICE from deporting him but fail. It’s as damning of our immigration policy as an innocent person being executed would be damning of the death penalty.

5) There are miscellaneous other liberal-progressive elements like OCCASIONAL negative portrayals of the military or corporations.

6) Since the second season there’s been a character, detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola, played by Ice-T. In the near future I’ll do a post about why I greatly admire Ice-T, but his long-time presence on this show is one reason I like him and his presence on the show is one reason I like the show so much.

7) They intermittently go after other cops.


One thing that I would largely put in the very small negative column is the five or so cross-over episodes with the TV show “Chicago PD.” The main thing is that the senior officer on that show is comfortable with things that at least come close to torture. But it’s not as damning of the creative people behind the show L&O: SVU as you might think because in one of those episodes, the head of SVU criticizes that officer for that, although she focuses exclusively on the impact it’ll have on getting a conviction. It’d be better if she was more principled about it, but A) I think she figured the pragmatic appeal would work better, and B) if I’m wrong about that and she’s not principled about it, that’s disappointing but realistic, and C) it’s better than nothing.

I’ll soon start going through these episodes for the second time and doing “reviews” on this blog of the ones that have something that politically goes beyond the liberal feminism and basic anti-racist stuff that’s dominates the political dimension of the show (when I say “dominates” I mean there are minority tendencies, some progressive and some moderate). (You could say that I'll focus exclusively on highlighting the issues raised that are NOT sex crimes, because of course they have material about that, but they also have stuff about, for example, homophobia or marijuana or homelessness or abortion)

(Mariska Hargitay, who has been on the show since day one (and whose character has been head of SVU for about 6 seasons) and has been a director and producer on L&O: SVU since 2014, founded the Joyful Heart Foundation)

Law and Order

I also watch the original, homicide-focused show. It is overall less liberal-progressive (I think the cops and Assistant DAs are a little more flexible ethically than their SVU counterparts are as far as how they figure out who to arrest and/or get convictions). In an average episode I think that about 25% of the main or recurring characters are women, which isn’t too good considering that of the six main characters, only three are cops. But in an average episode, about 25% are people of color, which isn’t too bad considering that it should be either a reflection of reality or a little more diverse than reality, in my opinion (it’s about the NYPD and the Manhattan DA’s office) (I think that the % of defendants that are people of color is probably a lot less than the % of NYC’s population that is people of color, and I’m almost certain it’s not more). There are some progressive elements here and there, some anti-racism, some anti-homophobia, some stuff where a corporation is the bad guy, etc. (they intermittently go after other cops). At some point in about 2-10 years at the rate I’m going I’ll do the same sort of reviews I mentioned above.


Corporations on both shows

From what I remember, the last thing these shows do is criticize capitalism or express more than intermittent support for labor, but the episodes about corporate people are better than the old TV show Cops which focused exclusively on poor people. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more likely to feature rich criminals than other cop shows, although I wouldn’t know for sure because outside the L&O franchise, I’ve probably watched a total of 30 episodes of cop shows since I became an adult and a socialist (at 18) (I’m 44).

(I should offer my very brief, non-philosophical definition of “liberal.” It’s someone to the left of Bill Clinton and to the right of Senator Elizabeth Warren. More details are here) 

 

(UPDATE 3/18/21 about 1-3 times each episode I am not crazy about some of their tactics when it comes to figuring out who's guilty and when it comes to getting a conviction, but that's only about 10-20% of the time; the rest of the time I am fine with what they do to get someone convicted; I'm not going to make a note about this every time it comes up- in fact I might not ever comment on these small disagreements at all)

 

ALL THE POSTS WITH THESE REVIEWS CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THE "L&OSVU" LABEL AND THE "LAW & ORDER" LABEL

Trump Doesn't Understand the Need for Widespread Testing

This focus exclusively on health workers when it comes to testing and masks is ridiculous. Yes, I am concerned about them. But testing them and giving them masks is not going to slow the spread of COVID-19. And they'll be safer if we slow the spread, by testing everyone at least once a week and doing whatever is needed to get everyone to effectively cover their mouth and nose. What we needed 1-2 months ago was for Trump to use the Defense Production Act like a sledgehammer and get tons and tons of what we need made. It sounds like he's still dragging his feet on that, for the most part.

Testing just those who are sick is ridiculous. Before they get tested, before the are symptomatic, they can spread it. Trump seems to think that a test is an inoculation, but days after you get tested you could get it.

Also, read this, about the failure of Trump's idea of a treatment for COVID-19. He is finished.

There are Confederate flags at anti-lockdown/pro-Trump protests. I found several articles that briefly refer to it, but since it's such a small part of the articles, I'm not going to link to them. Do a search and you'll find them. I AM going to link to this, because it de-bunks a claim that a photo of a protester with that flag was doctored. Also, two such examples were in Wisconsin and Michigan, states that weren't in the Confederacy.

*****IMPORTANT*******

There is more evidence that Trump is a fascist. Read this. They aren't planning on replacing the entire Federal workforce with Trump loyalists for just 4-8 years. This is supposed to be permanent. Someone should ask them if they believe that every time someone moves into the White House, the entire Federal workforce should be replaced.

As Michael Farrell (the popular Irish civil rights/civil liberties lawyer) said, a characteristic of fascism is "the total identification of party and state."

UPDATE 4/22/20 I just wrote most of the following to a friend who thinks that fascist is the wrong word:

**He is supported by a right-wing populist movement. This thing with the federal workforce is, as I said, wanting to make the State an extension of the Party. He is bigoted, believes in an INCREIBLY imperial presidency, is thuggish (in 2016 he had his supporters assault protesters at his rallies), and is slightly imperialistic and militaristic. And there is a cult of personality involved.**

See this and this as examples of his recent, BROAD assertion of the President having more authority than he has. Also, see this as far as him purging Inspectors Generals in a way that is worrying not just Dems but GOPers as well. And he doesn't believe in an independent judiciary. First, at some point at least once he said that judges he appointed should side with his administration, and there's also this about how he thinks that judges who don't like him should recuse themselves from cases involving his administration.

 
UPDATE 4/23/20 Bearing in mind that criminal "justice" reform is a issue of racism, see this.

With the unavoidable depression and the lack of funding for local and state governments (which will happen if we don't start taxing the rich and maybe corporations more than they are taxed now) we will see economic insecurity skyrocket. And the Republicans, especially the hard-core Trump fans who are right-wing populists, will not blame capitalism for this increased economic insecurity, they will blame people of color. That is my solid prediction.

**************

That's Michael Farrell, the Irish activist not the actor. As I wrote elsewhere:

Michael Farrell is one of my top political heroes. He wrote an amazing book “Northern Ireland: The Orange State.” It’s a great book- it’s fairly introductory at the beginning and is a history of N. Ireland ending at some point in the 1970s depending on which edition you read. It’s also almost a labor history of N. Ireland, offers a lot of analysis, exposes the sectarian, brutal and near-authoritarian nature of the Northern state. It highlights the contributions made by Protestants and leftists to the struggles for justice, equality, and freedom. It exposes the role that capital played in creating and maintaining N. Ireland and the ways that capital benefited from the partition of Ireland and Orange rule in N. Ireland. Farrell was a leading member of People’s Democracy whose politics and activities I describe in the first half of this post (starting in the very early 1970s they expressed support for the Provisional IRA).

According to his wikipedia page:

After moving to Dublin and becoming a solicitor, Farrell was co-chairperson of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties from 1995 to 2001. He was appointed a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission in 2001 and reappointed in October 2006, serving until 2011. In 2005 he was appointed to the Steering Committee of the National Action Plan Against Racism [according to his ECRI page, it was 2001-2003- TS]. He is currently working for Free Legal Advice Centres, Dublin, and has brought cases to the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. In 2011 he was appointed to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and in 2012 he was appointed to the Irish Council of State by President Michael D. Higgins.

I can confirm pretty much all of it (including the Council of State part), and there’s also the fact that people who were (between 1970 and 1990) very vocal and active Northern supporters of the Provisional IRA are not appointed to the Council of State (by a mainstream Labour politician) 20 years later without being (for example) a ridiculously well respected human rights/civil liberties lawyer.

Some Thoughts About the Republican Party, COVID-19 and Democracy

When it comes to a few voting reforms like vote-by-mail, they claim there is potential for the almost non-existent problem of voting fraud (that they believe is common) to get worse. Apparently there is a little more than almost zero potential for fraud with voting-by-mail, but in at least in some states it is so tiny. There is also a history of mail-in ballots being challenged more often than regular ballots.

READ THIS AS FAR AS WHY VOTE-BY-MAIL MIGHT BE A BAD IDEA.

But there is apparently even less possibility of fraud or challenges with early voting (perhaps no more than voting in person on election day) and the GOP hates that as well.

The thing that vote by mail and early voting do is reduce lines on election day outside polling places in precincts that don’t have enough stations (I just looked it up to be sure and a station is sometimes defined as "A place where one performs a task" and I wasn't sure if "machine" is the right word because I think that sometimes there is no machine involved). So many people in such precincts end up leaving the line because, (and this is more common with working-class people), they have to go to sleep so they can get up and go to work. And if they’re people of color they’re more likely to have a boss who will penalize them for being late for work than if they’re white. (UPDATE 11/5/20 There's also a class dimension as self-employed and professional people often have more control over their schedule than everyone else does and can make arrangements to sleep late the day after the election in case they're in line to vote late at night)

With COVID-19 early voting is also an important option, and one that can be set up pretty easily, easier than setting up vote-by-mail. If there’s early voting about 8 hours a day (everyday and on work days, 12-8 PM or something like that) for 1-2 months before the election, we’ll have plenty of time to vote, we can do it a small number at a time (depending on how big the room is, so we can be six feet apart). If you go there one day a month before election day and there’s a line stretching around the block because of social-distancing, just come back another day.

(For all I know it *MIGHT* be necessary for a county to have greater security (including cameras?) where the ballots are stored, but that would only be for 1-2 months’ and it wouldn’t be a lot of extra security. I haven’t heard of any problems with the accumulation of ballots due to vote-by-mail and/or early voting, although this would be different and MIGHT require new arrangements like extra security)

It’s not absolutely perfect, I was thinking as I typed the paragraph about security, but I think it might be best, especially with COVID-19, if we have both vote-by-mail as available as possible, and also have extensive early voting. We are rapidly approaching a point where it will be too late for Congress to effectively mandate vote-by-mail for everyone in every state (that has to be mandated soon, so states can have all the materials needed printed, which takes a long time) and last I heard, the GOP is totally against that. There might be a massive number of challenges in the event of universal vote-by-mail, which would seriously delay the results, maybe for months.

Fuck George W. Bush: Three New Poems

Below are three more poems. For an explanation of how I write my poems, see this. The last one is based on lyrics I agree with, the others are NOT.

For the rest of the lyrics, click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom.

1. Smash the Klan II. What you think it's about.
2. From Out of the Ashes. The birth of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland.
3. Surf the Euphrates. About the Iraq War.

“Smash the Klan II” based on “Aryan Pride” by Final War. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about slightly militant opposition to the KKK among white people. It’s sort of inspired by the time that I joined around 100-300 people in 1995 protesting a “rally” by the Klan in Boulder. At the end we surrounded the building they had rallied in front of and trapped them there for about an hour or two until the police tried something sneaky that involved getting them out in an ambulance.
2. Instead of “crossing the border,” many Mexican-Americans are partly or totally descended from Mexicans who lived in what was Mexico until it became CA, NV and the South-West of the US (and TX).
3. The 54th Mass was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the segregated Black unit that fought in the American Civil War and whose story is told, accurately or otherwise, in the movie “Glory.”
4. Racists have a greatly exaggerated sense of how much anti-white bigotry there is. In a paragraph more than half-way from the top of this post that starts with “Even without that…” I explain why I think anti-white bigotry is a very small problem.
5. I exaggerate how easy it is for white people to get a job, although if we focus on times when it’s a white person and a person of color, it IS pretty easy for the white person to get the job. Affirmative Action helps a lot, but “Hispanics” and Blacks still have an unemployment rate fairly close to twice that of white people (it’s a bit higher for Blacks than for “Hispanics” and the gap fluctuates a bit, but it’s around twice; see this). Racists think that white people are discriminated against and have more trouble getting a job. Of course, that’s probably because they think that the natural order of things should involve full employment in good jobs for white people and see anything else as unfair.
6. My thoughts about the white identity and European-American ethnic identities are in the first 2/5 of this (you should also read the conclusion, which is the second to last section) (I realize that BEFORE they read that many anti-Klan white people might not like what I say, but I think that after they read it, they will).
7. The St. Patrick Battalion was a group of American soldiers, most Irish and almost all Catholics, who deserted the US Army during the US-Mexico War and joined the Mexican Army. I’m sure it varied from individual to individual, but to one degree or another they thought that what the US was doing to Mexico was unjust (they were also alienated by anti-Catholic bigotry in the US Army (and of course Catholics *used to be* on the Klan’s list as well)).
8. After I started altering stuff, I switched the first verse with the chorus. Also, there were only three verses in the original, and the fourth verse is totally mine.
9. **70% of this poem is me, 30% is the original. I don’t know if the 3rd line of the second verse in the original lyrics I found on-line is what was actually written by the original lyricist.

Many people hate the Klan for spreading prejudice
Gay people, Muslims, and Jews are on their fucking list
Black people aren’t criminals like you see on your TV
The border crossed Mexican-Americans, its a fact of history

Chorus
Brothers and sisters, join together as one.
We’ve got the fucking KKK totally on the run
in memory of the brave 54th Mass soldiers who died
Fuck the Nazis, and fuck the Klan and fuck Aryan Pride!

Racists cry “Black man, yeah Black man full of hate”
Widespread anti-White bigotry is the bullshit story they narrate
Its fucked up how white people can secure any job by race
It’s funny how the Klan deny that that’s totally the case.

Chorus

Our solidarity won't be broken, and we won’t hide from an affray
We will keep on working until we asphyxiate the KKK
Our message will be spread. Our voices loud and clear
Inform the youth, of the truth, the Klan’s greatest fear.

Chorus

We’ll never be proud of being white, it’s an artificial identity
It’s totally steeped in privilege, hate and inequality
We’re proud of being Irish, Scottish and German, Greek, Polish and Italian
We’re in solidarity with the oppressed, just like the St. Pat’s Battalion

*********

“From Out of the Ashes” based on “After the Fire” by Skrewdriver. original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the aftermath of the anti-Catholic pogrom in the Lower Falls Nationalist/Republican area of Belfast in Aug. of 1969 (it wasn’t INCREDIBLY Republican BEFORE that month, but not long afterwards it certainly was). In July, August, and September, and mostly during a period of 2-3 days, in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). In one night alone 650 families were burnt, or at least forced, out of their homes.
2. The DUBLIN-BASED LEADERSHIP OF THE IRA had demilitarized it in the years before Aug. 1969 and only a few IRA weapons were available to help defend the area, a defense that was largely unsuccessful.
3. The Civil Rights Movement that started in mid- and late 1968 was overwhelmingly committed to non-violence and had hoped to democratize N. Ireland.
4. Provos refers to what we call in recent decades Sinn Fein and the IRA. They broke off from SF and the IRA (what became known as Official SF and Official IRA) partly because of the leadership’s decision to demilitarize the IRA.
6. Initially the British Army kind of saved the Catholics from police-led loyalist mobs and were welcomed for about 9 months, but they became increasingly like the notorious Black and Tans unit of the British Army that served in Ireland during the War of Independence 1919-1921.
7. Squaddie is a term for British soldier.
8. On the night of June 27th 1970, the Church of an isolated Catholic enclave in East Belfast was attacked by a loyalist mob. The British Army wouldn’t defend the area but members of the PIRA did. It was their first major action.
9. I like calling The Troubles the Second Anglo-Irish War, the first being the War of Independence.
10. There is or was a T-Shirt designed by either SF or their old American support organization Irish Northern Aid, that said: “From Out Of The Ashes Arose The Provisionals.” It was referring to the ashes of Aug. 1969 and those of the mythical bird, the Phoenix (actually, I just realized that the first ashes might be those of the IRA they split off from, but there were some good people in the Officials, so I prefer to think it’s the ashes of the burned out homes).
11. Skrewdriver were British and supported the British and Unionist causes in Northern Ireland.
12. Based on a fairly scientific look, only .3% of the PIRA’s operations resulted in civilian death.
13. **62% of this poem is me, 38% is the original.

The fires burned for hours, it was a time of terror.
Dublin had ordered the IRA disarmed but they were totally in error
Those nights there were burnt out homes, our community was battered
Non-violence had been our people’s hope, but now that hope was shattered

Chorus
After the fire, the ruins there did lay.
After the Provo victory there will come a brand new day.

The Falls stood in misery, and initially welcomed the British Army Man
But increasingly the Squaddies acted just like the old Black and Tans
Then, on the night of June 27th, it was known the Provos had come alive-
Seeds of resistance once sown, now had grown, new life that would not die.

Chorus

The new Anglo-Irish War is approaching, and with the Provos we shall be.
They rose from the ashes of August ’69 and they will fight for you and me.

*************

“Surf the Euphrates” based on “Surf Nicaragua” by Sacred Reich (despite their name, their politics are very progressive- I'm fairly familiar with all of their music and at least some of it is more or less socially liberal and it's also economically progressive and it's anti-war). Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about the Occupation of Iraq.
2. The Euphrates is a major river going through Iraq.
3. One of the MANY reasons Bush had for invading Iraq was that it has a lot of oil.
4. A major argument in favor of invading was that Iraq was connected to Al-Qaeda. In fact, shortly after the war began a poll found that about 70-75% of Americans thought Iraq was responsible for 9/11. It was such bullshit that Tony Blair didn’t use that argument when trying to convince the British people and Parliament to invade. It’s also been strongly suggested that the % of the anti-US forces that were foreign Islamists was very tiny.
5. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction found, and that was predictable based on what the UN weapons inspectors were saying just before the invasion and what former Marine and former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter said around 2000.
6. Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense.
7. Based on multiple pieces of anecdotal evidence and the existence of Iraq Veterans Against the War (now, About Face), and how unpopular Bush became shortly after the 2004 election, I imagine a lot of American soldiers who voted for Bush in 2000 or 2004 wished they hadn’t after they did one or more tours there.
8. I think another reason for invading Iraq is that it provided multiple opportunities to give money to corporations. Besides arms contractors and those doing privatized work for the military, corporations getting money for reconstruction spent about half of what they got doing actual reconstruction (often a contractor would keep half and give the rest to a subcontractor and sometimes THAT corporation would keep half and give the rest to another subcontractor).
9. This poem is not pro-insurgency. It was reasonable and natural that a large majority of Iraqis wanted the US out, but my favorite slogan of the anti-war movement was “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home.” Also, some group at some point, and they may have been anti-war, was raising money to send men and women serving there body armor, and I would have supported that (it’s different than giving them extra ammunition with which to kill Iraqi civilians). (it’s also not pro-Saddam- it would be great if Saddam had been pushed out of power in a better way, but the methods that the US and UK used were bad)
10. Besides the insurgency, there was other instability caused by the invasion and occupation- Al-Qaeda attacks on Shiite neighborhoods, ethnic cleansing by Shiites and possibly some by Sunnis, and tension between some of the Shiite population and the Occupation forces. At one point it came close to a full-blown Sunni-Shiite Civil War.
11. The Surge was a brief but dramatic increase in the number of soldiers and Marines in Iraq.
12. Between 1991 and 2003 Iraq was frequently bombed by the US and UK.
13. I think that Bush supporters enjoyed the political dimension of the war, where they tangled with anti-war groups. We were in a time of a “New McCarthyism,” where disagreeing with Bush was seen by a lot of people as politically taboo. As I said, at the beginning of the war, the vast majority of Americans blamed Iraq for 9/11.
14. As far as Bush’s reasons for invading Iraq, here is something I included in two posts about anti-Semitism:

Bush's reasons for invading Iraq were many, Israel was a small part of it. There was the opportunity to give lots of money to corporations in multiple ways, the strong desire for using the US military that most GOPers have, the desire to teach the world a lesson in terms of what the US will do to them if they piss off D.C., the desire for oil, the idea of democratizing the Middle-East. I also heard something about it being connected to countering the growing strength of the Euro. It's possible they half believed that stuff about WMDs and Al-Qaeda. Israel was a small part of it.

15. Bush liked the idea of being a popular war-time president the people would rally around.
16. **46% of this version is me, 54% is the original.
17. In a post here I describe what I did to oppose the invasion.

I know a place Where you're all going to go
They'll pay you to kill for oil If You're eighteen years old
First You'll need a haircut And then some new clothes
They'll stick you in Baghdad To play G.I. Joe

CHORUS:
You think you’re fighting Al Qaeda and that you’ll find WMD
But it’s total bullshit, concocted by Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
But now it's too late You're entering Iraq
You voted for Bush, you’ll soon wish you could take it back

What is this we're fighting for and What are our goals
To create a cash cow for US corporations and improve Bush’s polls
Instability  and Sunni resistance grow deeper everyday
The situation worsens, the Surge is on it's the way

CHORUS:

Lessons we have learned Are easy to forget
Hints of Vietnam How soon we all forget
First we used sanctions and bombs, now go in the troops
Another chance for the Right to slander anti-war groups

What Trump Was Told and When He Was Told It (COVID-19 (Coronavirus))

You should read an article here. It's largely an expose of the fact that Trump was warned about the seriousness of COVID-19 in January and February. Very soon I'll add a couple more relevant links.

UPDATE Another relevant article.

One thing that the first article touches on reminds me of something else. When people say we lose a similar number of people each year from the flu, they're ignoring a couple things. First, early on there was plenty of evidence that COVID-19 is VERY communicable and more likely to result in death than the flu. Second, COVID-19 deaths are IN ADDITION to earlier flu deaths in the 2019/2020 flu season.

A Response to Lawyers of Rape Defendants AND MY THOUGHTS ON THE READE/BIDEN ALLEGATIONS

This is a very brief post considering there is no link to an article that I’m commenting on, and it’s not about COVID-19. But I’ve been wanting to get this out there for a while.

Often the lawyer(s) for rape defendants, if the woman is or might be promiscuous, want to (try to, used to (I’m not familiar with the rape shield law)) suggest that that means she must have consented. I guess the bullshit argument is that she is insatiable and never says “no” (or maybe that she must been playing a game when she said “no” (I don’t know)), and/or that she is morally compromised. In any case, it’s ridiculous. In addition to all the other reasons to believe a rape survivor unless you have a REALLY, REALLY good reason not to, when it comes to a woman who is or might be promiscuous there’s this- why would a woman who likes frequent casual sex with men she doesn’t know (or is promiscuous to a lesser degree) falsely accuse a man of raping her? If it were more or less proven that she was lying, she would get a reputation and it would seriously lessen the odds of men propositioning her or agreeing to have sex with her.

Besides the fact that such a defense is offensive and probably coming from a lawyer with a guilty client, it just doesn’t make any sense.

(UPDATE 4/17/20 The more I think about it, even when the rape shield law doesn't work, this might not be an appropriate argument to make in court, but in arguments outside court, I still think this can be effective when some people don't believe a survivor who is or might be promiscuous.

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UPDATE 4/23/20 ALLEGATIONS AGAINST BIDEN

(UPDATE 5/25/20 A few weeks ago Biden did deny it personally. See this)

You should read this. It's about an allegation that Biden sexually assaulted a woman. An update with new evidence is here. More evidence is mentioned here.

**UPDATE 5/32/20 A lot of Biden supporters have been saying things that they normally wouldn't say about women who claim they were assaulted. These Biden supporters think that they can limit those comments to the Reade/Biden situation. But there are immature and/or just sexist men hearing and reading these comments, and they are influenced by them, and the next time they're asked to believe a survivor, they won't believe her **

I posted the following comment:

I don't know if this has already been said. I read the article but not the comments. We need to believe women who make these allegations and Dem politicians should not be seen as innocent because of how bad their oppoents are. I'm terrified of Trump winning- he is a fascist, as i explain at- https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/…/trump-doesnt-un… . But the way to defeat him isn't to throw sexual assault survivors under the bus. Metoo and others should launch a MAJOR campaign focusing on TRUMP assaulting women, and the other ways that Trump is a sexist and a campaign on how even though it's very likely Biden did something very bad (I need a good reason to not believe a woman who makes these allegations), he is in a lot of ways, a feminist to one degree or another.

WE CAN DEFEAT TRUMP WITHOUT THROWING SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS UNDER THE BUS!

(One thing I didn't address is the thorny issue of how this should be resolved. I simply refuse to throw this woman under the bus- if she's telling truth, he didn't [do something like] just touch her breast, he PENETRATED her. Maybe she and Biden can agree that if he admits it and apologizes, she won't press charges. I mean, she seems like a liberal-progressive dem, she must want Trump defeated as much as the rest of us)

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UPDATE 4/26/20

If Biden is no longer a viable candidate, he should step aside for Warren.

1. If Bernie gets the nomination in a bizarre way, a LOT of Biden supporters will not do anything more than vote for him and many won't do that. He is too radical to get their support unless he had earned the nomination by winning primaries.
2. Many women will probably feel betrayed that the DP almost nominated an alleged or actual rapist.
3. She can more effectively attack Trump over COVID-19 because her brother (who did multiple tours in Vietnam) died from it recently.
4. She's progressive enough to get most of the Bernie supporters, but not so progressive that she'll scare off more than a few Biden supporters.
5. With a misogynist like Trump as the alternative, women will proabably vote for her in unprecedented numbers.
6. If Trump calls her "Pocahontas" and tries to pose as the anti-racist in the contest, that will back-fire massively- it will bring more attention than usual to his record on race. And he WILL call her Pocahontas.
7. She came to prominence by being placed in charge of overseeing Obama's response to the recession that started in 2008. She'd be perfect for guiding efforts to get the economy going after COVID-19 is over and we're in a depression.

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UPDATE 4/30/20 Some more comments I left on Politico.

People need to watch some Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. There's not some category of man that is not capable of assault. What about accusations of racism of one sort of another directed towards white allies? Some white allies have made serious mistakes, and some have not admitted it. What about the Southern Poverty Law Center (which I generally like)? They have made some mistakes. And what about assault that falls short of rape? What Biden allegedly did isn't TONS worse than grabbing a boob- it'e very possible a politically feminist man could do that. And in the last week a fair amount of evidence has emegered that she IS telling the truth. What about believing a woman who makes such allegations unless you have a good reason to think she's lying? Do you know how difficult it must be for women to come forward about this? Maybe that's why she initailly didn't mention the assault. It must be easeir to to tell people you were inappropriately touched than it is to tell people you were penetrated. And as far as the amount of time that has passed, that happens too and you die-hard Biden supporters know that.

And what effect will this refusal to believe her have on other women who want to and need to come forward with allegations agaist powerful Dems or progressives?

And what about this lie about the NY Times clearing Biden? That's suspicious. They're desperate and that's probably because it's true. Also, his refusal to say it isn't true, that's also suspicious.


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UPDATE 5/2/20 When someone criticized me for leaning on a TV show, I wrote:
"This is almost as simplistic as what I said in that first comment above, but SVU is INCREDIBLY popular and Hargitay is incredibly popular, and what SVU says about sexual assault makes sense to me. And I love Ice-T for a lot of reasons. I have known some women who have been assaulted. I was exposed a little bit to Women's Studies. More of my thoughts about SVU are [here].


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**(UPDATE 5/27/20 Facebook recently decided that many of my comments on Politico are spam, apparently because I was including the URL for this blog. So they are now visible only to me, although I am appealing and hopefully they'll be restored. I have thus deleted the names of the people I responded to and what they said. Think of the statements I am responding to as representative of what critics of Reade say)**

UPDATE 5/2/20 in a discussion below an article here, I had the following exchange, partly about my belief that Biden should stand aside for Warren 

"Biden won because he got the most votes. He shouldn't be replaced by one of the losers. We've heard Reade's shifting stories. She's lying."

Tom Shelley There is good reason to believe she is telling the truth. Why would her mom call in to Larry King if Reade wasn't VERY upset and why would she be VERY upset if she was just touched inappropriately? It was recently reported that she DID tell some people years ago. Her story changed, I assume, because it must be difficult to say that you were assaulted.

These allegations wil drag down Biden's campaign. Trump supporters don't give a shit about sexual assault. Dems and progressives do.

Tom

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UPDATE 5/9/20 There's an article here about how this is hurting other Dems.

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UPDATE 5/9/20 

**(UPDATE 5/27/20 Facebook recently decided that many of my comments on Politico are spam, apparently because I was including the URL for this blog. So they are now visible only to me, although I am appealing and hopefully they'll be restored. I have thus deleted the names of the people I responded to and what they said. Think of the statements I am responding to as representative of what critics of Reade say)**

Below an article here, I had the following exchange (that article also includes some more evidence that Reade is telling the truth). Based on the silhouette for his Facebook account, ***** is apparently male. (within minutes of updating this, there was another reply for me to reply to, by someone named ******)



Tom Shelley
I don't know how biden's campaign says that she's being inconsistent by adding details. That happens. She said, accoridng to the article "I wasn’t scared of him, that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn’t that kind of vibe." How is that in conflict with what she said earlier? More of my thoughts are at- https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/.../a-response... after the first few paragraphs.

Tom Shelley
https://theblackandthegreen2.blogspot.com/


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"She said one thing and then added more"


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Tom Shelley
Saying publicly that you were sexually assaulted cannot be easy for a woman in our society. It's easier to say you were harrassed. That would explain why she initially just reported the harrassment. But, if she's telling the truth, she then got the courage to report the assault.

Why would she lie? She's a progressive and wants Trump defeated. If she was a tool of the GOP, why has she refused offers to be interviewed on Fox?

Tom Shelley

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"She is doing this because she supports Bernie Sanders"


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Tom Shelley
Bernie supporters want Trump defeated. Bernie has endorsed Biden. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that she wouldn't harm Biden just because he defeated Bernie. If she's a die-hard Bernie supporter and she wasn't assaulted, she would follow Bernie's lead and endorse Biden. She is saying this stuff because it's true.

Tom

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"At one point she said she wasn't scared of him and at another point she said she was scared to file a sexual harassment complaint"

*          *          *

There's a difference between being scared for your physical safety and scared about political/vocational/personal retaliation for reporting a sexual assault

Tom

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UPDATE 5/21/20      As far as the reports that she is incredibly unethical. Although (if they're true) it makes me a little open-minded that she is lying, consider this- A: unethical women get assaulted, just like ethical women do and B: maybe her experience being assaulted affected her behavior. Do people think that rapists do psychological profiles of their victims and only rape the ethical ones? IF they do such profiles, they would only rape the unethical ones because a lot of ass-holes like a lot of Biden supporters won't believe the woman.

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UPDATE 6/20/20 As I said above, it's possible for an otherwise feminist man to do something stupid and bad and what Biden allegedly did is not as bad as rape. I just watched a Season 20 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit called "Hell's Kitchen." It's partly about an Assistant DA assigned to sex crimes who has a good reputation, but tried to rape a girl in High School and as an ADA covers for a friend of his who rapes women. Obviously that ADA character is not a mirror image of the kind of man Reade says Biden is, but still, it's possible for otherwise feminist men to do something stupid and bad.

Masks and Social Distancing and Test, Test, Test For a Long Time

I posted most of this comment on Politico.

Why the hell did NO ONE at the beginning talk about wearing masks for EVERYONE who had one? Other countries did that and some of them are among the most successful at responding to COVID-19. Why were we only worrying about medical people getting them? Why weren't we keeping people from getting sick in the first place by preventing others from spreading it by having everyone wear SOMETHING, ideally the same kind of mask that doctors wear!

People act like we're the Brits in WWII and all we have to do is do the COVID-19 equivelent of going into a bomb shelter- social-distance and stay at home for a brief period of time. We will have to social distance and wear masks and test, test, test, for a long time. (COVID-19 isn't becoming less communicable and the curve is flattening because of social distancing, not because COVID-19 is going away)

WHY DIDN'T WE WEAR MASKS?

Trump didn't like the election year optics of Americans wearing masks, and is an idiot and a racist (see below).

That applies to a lot of others.

The Dems who weren't worried about election-year optics? They're idiots and kind of racists in this case- they were thinking, "ASIANS wear masks, and we're not Asians. We'd look silly, like Asians look silly when they wear masks."

Jewish Skinhead Army: A New Poem

Here's a new poem. For various reasons I'm doing it now instead of waiting for 2 more to be ready. You can read about how I write my poems here. This one is about anti-racist skinheads and general notes for that kind of poem are here.

You can find all the other lyrics by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom. The other SHARP/RASH poems are here.

 “Jewish Skinhead Army” based on “European Skinhead Army” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about Jewish-American skinheads. I’m not sure how many of them are members of anti-racist skinhead crews (a skinhead gang but, with non-Nazi skinheads, it doesn’t mean what you think), but I’m sure some of them are.
2. The first 1/3 of a post here is relevant to this.
3. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews in Nazi Germany of their citizenship and contributed to the creation of a kind of Apartheid for German Jews.
4. Normally I wouldn’t encourage White people to brag about being white, but Nazis don’t think that Jews are White like, for example, Irish-Americans are (of course there are Jewish Irish-Americans).
5. “Bourgeoisie” is a term for the upper-class. Anti-racist skinheads are overwhelmingly working-class and proud of it. Very few are socialists or anarchists, but some are and I’M writing the poem (if that implies I’m a skinhead, I’m not).
6. “Sunwheel banner” is a term for the Swastika.
7. ZOB is the Polish acronym for the Jewish Combat Organization, the group that carried out the rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII.
8. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
9. In the movie “Uprising” a member of the ZOB dressed in a German Army uniform jokingly says “Heil Shitler!”
10. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it's a place where warriors go after they die, although there seems to be some debate about exactly who gets in- only people who die in combat? Anyway, the fascists love it and have sort of taken over the concept, but a friend told me that he likes the idea of the left claiming it and specifically said that if such a place exists, Che and others like him are probably there. (Do I believe in Valhalla? You could say I’m sort of an agnostic on that question and am sort of solidly a Christian. The way I see it, this is pretty flexible, don't take it too seriously, and one way to think about it is that if you believe in Heaven and would rather these people went there instead of Valhalla, maybe they can do both, spend some time in Valhalla and some time in Heaven; but my friend and I do like the idea of reclaiming it from the fash).
11. Oi! is music that most skinheads (and some other fans of what you might call the kind of music that inspires moshing) listen to. I’m not sure how to describe it musically, although it resembles punk. I think it’s sort of defined by lyrics about violence and the working-class and being skinheads and the hair cut of most people in Oi! bands.
12. Hallah is a kind of Jewish bread.
13. **65% of this poem is me and 35% is the original.

On the Nazi boneheads we’re gonna go medieval
We're shaving our heads because it's good against evil
We've got the music, we've got the bands,
We never lose, we play the winning hand

Chorus:
Jewish Skinhead Army,
We stand together in the anti-fascist cause,
Jewish Skinhead Army,
We smash those who admire the Nuremberg Laws

We're on the streets, every night,
We’re of the working-class and we’re also White,
Smash the bourgeoisie, socialize their manors!
We raise our middle fingers to the sunwheel banner

We remember the ZOB, and fuck Shitler,
the Nazi bonehead is a class traitor,
If we fall in battle and go to Valhalla,
We’ll listen to oi! and eat some Hallah

CODVID-19 (Coronavirus) Thoughts

I'll post some more COVID-19 thoughts, but you should read a post by Juan Cole of Informed Comment here. It's about when to re-open the country, about how earlier social-distancing/stay-at-home orders could have saved lives and how Dr. Fauci might be fired soon.

1. Blaming China for COVID-19 and Racism

Although I get the impression that China DID do some bad things in respect to their response to COVID-19, a focus on China could just encourage hostility towards Asian and Asian-American people here. There WERE attacks on Asian people wearing masks a month ago and Trump was persuaded to stop referring to its as “the Chinese virus” because of this. But just about 15 days ago Secretary of State Pompeo was insisting to the Group of 7 industrialized nations that COVID-19 be officially labelled the “Wuhan Virus.”

UPDATE 10/24/20 An article about an increase in anti-Asian-American racism in connection with COVID-19 is here. Also, Trump has been saying that Biden called Trump's partial China travel ban xenophobic. Apparently, within an hour or so of Trump announcing the ban Biden called him xenophobic but Biden wasn't aware of the travel ban at the time- he hadn't heard of it yet when he called Trump xenophobic. There's plenty of things Trump has done that were xenophobic but the travel ban was not one of them.

UPDATE 2/16/21 A CNN video story about anti-Asian-American racism is here.

2. In response to an article here, I wrote the following:

"I think a big part of this is that we have a health-care system set up for a lot less than the entire population. If we had something resembling what they have in other countries (like Canada) and properly funded it, our hospitals wouldn't be as overwhlemed as they are. We should have done social distancing earlier. I don't think this is said with hind-sight- I think if in some alternate reality, we had social-distanced starting in early March and after a week or two it was SORT of a fale alarm, people would have been okay with that. At the very least, WITH hind-sight it makes sense. I mean, if history is a guide, something that could become a pandemic will happen maybe once every 4-5 years or something. We can live a little differently for 1-2 weeks. At the first sign of a pandemic, Trump should have used the Defense Production Act to make more medical supplies like masks and whatever would be likely needed for testing. Our economy would survive if, in a similarly alternate reality, we produced a bunch of stuff for a week and then it turned out okay and we had to wait as production was switched back. And if we taxed the rich (not neccessarily corporations) more, A) they would survive and B) we could afford compensating corporations for making a bunch of medical supplies we end up not needing right away (we could use them and briefly cut back on production so overall supplies can go back down to normal).

We also need to stick with past plans and stuff as the article says. As far as when the alarm should have been raised, 4 days after Trump called it a hoax, his buddy Netanyahu called it a Pandemic."

3. After reading an article here, I wrote the following comment:

"I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but I could swear (and the article kind of says this) that one of the things the Dems want is for Affirmative Action to be a factor in support to small businesses. I generally support AA and think this is a good idea. in about a week there will be a post on my blog supporting AA."

That post is here.

4. I read an article here. There is valid concern that people of color are dying disproportionately from COVID-19. That’s partly just the correlation between race and class and also capitalist healthcare. Trump is also a racist. There's Charlottesville, and there's this, and this, and this. UPDATE 4/23/20 Bearing in mind that criminal "justice" reform is a issue of racism, see this.

5. I read a an article here and left the following comment:

"This thing where you have to say nice things about Trump to get supplies is horrible. I was hoping that this would end months before the election and those governors who, rightfully, want to criticize Trump could do so and he woud lose the election, but he is messing up so bad, who knows when this will end, and governors will have to keep saying nice stuff about him to get supplies. They might take a chance shortly before the election and try to get him kicked out of the White House, but if they try that and he wins (probably in an unfair election), they're in trouble. Liberal and progressive media and activists unconnected to governors need to spread the word about what a bad job Trump is doing. GREAT JOB POLITICO!!"

Affirmative Action and the Working-Class

In a recent post I criticized the more extreme white progressives for taking up the cause of Mumia Abu Jamal instead of supporting Affirmative Action. I touched on it briefly in the main part of the essay, saying that AA is more popular with people of color than Mumia is. In an addendum at the bottom of that post I went into more detail. In this post I will explain why AA is good and not in conflict with revolutionary politics.

(the addendum links to a Gallup poll which found that in 2018 72% of Blacks supported AA for poeple of color and 66% of Hispanics supported it for people of color (that figure for Hispanics might be higher if white Hispanics were excluded) (the first paragraph of a report here indicates strong support for race-based AA among Asian-Americans around 2000, and says nothing about more recent surveys which are apparently uncommon) (I haven’t heard anything about American Indians being unsupportive of race-based AA and about 1/3 of my major in college was American Indian Studies) (according to the first poll I link to, in 2018 69% of women supported AA for women)) (I’m willing to be bet that about 1/3 of those people of color who don’t support AA are middle-class Republicans, and something similar might be true about women)

(UPDATE 4/16/20 I think the frequent exclusion of Asian-Americans from polls about Affirmative Action might be because of the Model Minority Myth (and to enhance that myth) and because people like implying that Asian-Americans don’t support Affirmative Action and because they want to give as many Asian-Americans as possible the idea that their community doesn’t support it and create a wedge between Asian-Americans and other people of color) (UPDATE 11/4/20 A 2020 opinion survey of voters found that 35% of Asians in CA supported a ballot issue to legalize AA in CA and 42% opposed it,  and 23% weren't sure (in the same survey, Blacks were 53% in favor, 17% against and 30% not sure; Hispanics were 42% in favor, 18% against, and 40% not sure))

I can imagine a lot of the more extreme white progressives, and maybe some of the ones that aren’t white, saying that Affirmative Action is just for the benefit of the middle-class and it’s placing a bandage on Capitalism when we should let it bleed. To one degree or another, that’s largely untrue and AA shouldn’t be seen as obstructing the revolution.

In general AA negates institutional tendencies to replicate themselves- companies where all the people involved with hiring and/or promotions are white and/or male might only hire or promote people who are white and/or male. There’s also the fact that, often (not always of course, but often) people who are female and/or persons of color “bring something different to the table.” Even in a non-professional job that’s sort of relevant. I wouldn’t be surprised if (for example), when, in a moderately diverse area, a person of color finds themselves dining in a restaurant and all the viewable staff people are white, it would be a less enjoyable experience for them than if there were some people of color working outside the kitchen. And such a workforce in such an area could be evidence of discrimination and it also raises the question, what are the racial attitudes of these white employees working at a restaurant where the only people of color are in the kitchen? (I’d say something similar about gender)

There are three kinds of AA:

1. Outreach. Making sure that job openings are well known to those who are female and/or persons of color.
2. Preferences. This is where, for example, if there is a man and a woman who meet the minimum qualifications and the workforce is mostly male, the woman gets the job, even if in some ways the man is better qualified.
3. Quotas for Universities and Colleges, which I’ll get to soon.

Government contracts to companies owned by women and/or people of color

A lot of extreme progressives would say this is just for the middle-class. But working-class people benefit from it as well. As far as people of color go, such employers are (to put it mildly) less likely to discriminate in hiring, pay, and promotions. Some would say the promotions part is bourgeois, but consider this- although it’s a band-aid treatment for poverty among people of color, we want everyone have a middle-class standard of living (or at least lower middle-class, when there is a redistribution of wealth and no one gets more than about 20 times the minimum wage (I’ll go into more detail about my vision for socialism some other time)), and this is a good start. Also, every institution should involve equality- I’m not a fan of the military, but I believe there should be equality in it for people of color, LGBTQ people, and women. Also, today (and after the revolution) there is (might still be) discrimination in the public sector and possibly the employee-owned sector in promotions and maybe hiring as well. Also, a company owned by a person of color is less likely (to put it mildly) to tolerate a racially hostile atmosphere for people of color.

To one very large degree or another, everything I say above applies to AA for women.

Hiring and promotions by businesses owned by white men

Pretty much what I say above, more or less. For Blacks, “Hispanics,” and American Indians it would lessen the unemployment their communities disproportionately experience, and result in the non-white under-class getting better paying jobs (who will do the low-paying jobs? Ideally they would pay better, but that workforce should reflect the nation’s demographics).

(UPDATE 4/23/20 I just remembered that there is greater poverty among women and there's unequal pay for women, so what I said sort of applies to them as well)

Quotas for universities and colleges

This and the contracts and hiring stuff, involve a few more things I haven’t said yet. Diversity. There’s not a bad chance that if it weren’t for AA for people of color, our society would be even more (informally) segregated than it is, and there would be more white people with little or no contact with people of color. And as far as the middle-class nature of most of the third level educated population, A) they’re not all middle-class when they go to college, and B) as far as those who are, they might, in one way or another, interact with working-class people in a significant way. When it’s white working-class people, they might, to one degree or another, discourage the racism that probably a large majority of such people are afflicted by. If it’s working-class people of color, they’re more likely to treat them with respect than they would if they went to a college or university with very few people of color.

I’m not sure to what degree this applies to AA for women, but there’s probably a fair number of white people out there who need to be convinced that people of color can graduate from institutions above the level of community colleges and can do jobs that require a lot of intelligence and/or skill, and/or business skills, etc. (I can imagine a lot of racists dismissing degrees received form Historically Black Colleges and Universities- they shouldn’t, but they do, and without quotas at the rest of the universities and colleges, more Black people would go to them)

(Universities and colleges also do outreach and preferences)

Some of what I say above applies to AA for women.

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In general, I think that white extreme progressives who oppose AA are saying that people of color and women are just fucked until the revolution happens, and don’t understand that AFTER the revolution, there will probably still be racist and sexist tendencies in our society. According to this, although Castro was incredibly anti-racist and outlawed racist discrimination, he admitted that racism continued in revolutionary Cuba. And for those anarchists who say that their alternative to capitalism will be racism-free, I say “what about the existence of ORGANIZED National Anarchists, who seem to be tolerated by the rest of the anarchists?” (I have read twice about anarchist book fairs (a popular and major event for anarchists) including a table for National Anarchists). What about the fact that most anarchists think that Federal intervention in the Civil Rights conflict in the American South was a bad thing? What about anarchists who are much less than enthusiastic when they talk about the Union cause in the American Civil War?

I am sort of a Marxist in the sense that about 1/2 of the political books I’ve read are by Marxists and I have a weak grasp of Marxist theory. But I’m also a left-wing social-democrat and I believe that 99% of the time reforms are good. First, I used to nominate myself as the least intellectual socialist by using a term I invented: “building blocks socialism.” I don’t put it that way anymore, but I believe that the accumulation of reforms, especially if they include relatively revolutionary reforms (i.e. empowering unions or shortening the work week with the same amount of pay, or reversing partial or local gov't privitization or a public health insurance option available to anyone who wants it (there was some talk about including that in Obamacare)) would add up to something approaching socialism and then it would be a small step to actual socialism. I believe that AA is one of those blocks.

Here is why I believe in most reforms:

1. As I said, they can be “building blocks” towards socialism.
2. They can alleviate suffering, etc.
3. Sometimes they are empowering.
4. Oppressed people can get a sense of the power they have when they successfully demand reforms, and that will possibly or likely encourage them to demand more.

On a related note, when I think about how we will rid this society of racism, I think one thing that will help is when vocally anti-racist progressives achieve more and more reforms or “revolutionary reforms” that benefit the working-class. Also, unionization will help with that (union households are more likely to vote Democratic than non-union households, and many of the organizers and staff in the labor movement are people of color and most of the whites are anti-racist and most union supporters are people of color or anti-racist whites).

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UPDATE 4/15/20

Some more thoughts about unions and racism.
1. In 2000 in a discussion on the email list of the Young Democratic Socialists (now YDSA) a member who was organizing workers in Indiana said that his competition was the Klan (UPDATE 1/26/22 That is, competition for the hearts and minds of the workers).
2. Eammon McCann is a socialist and anti-Unionist activist in Northern Ireland. He was one of the main leaders of the N. Ireland Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s (he was one of the speakers at the rally/march that was attacked by the British Army on Bloody Sunday in 1972, and he was an organizer of the second Civil Rights march, the one in Derry in Oct. of 1968). He has held several different senior and very senior positions in the Northern Irish TRADE-union movement in the last 40 years. In 2016 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly and in 2017 he would have been but they reduced the number of seats returned from each constituency form 6 to 5 so he was basically runner-up. As far as I can tell, in the last 40 years at any given time two mainstream or professional news publication have been publishing his columns. In a column written in the 1980s or 1990s and included in the 1998 anthology of his columns “McCann: War and Peace in Northern Ireland” he wrote:

The trade union movement is better placed than any other to purge the politics of this island of sectarianism. No other institution brings Catholic and Protestant workers together on a regular basis in pursuit of a common purpose which is antipathetic to sectarianism

I think you could easily say the same thing about racism in this country.


Two more thoughts about AA and the working-class
1. In the mid-1990s when I did a lot of activity and writing about AA, I often said that I thought attacks on AA are conservative and right-wing capitalists blaming AA and liberals and people of color for the economic problems their policies cause for working-class white people. It’s scapegoating.
2. It’s true that anti-discrimination measures in a capitalist society mean fewer jobs for white people. Which is why when we defend AA we need to simultaneously advocate for polices that create full employment.  

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In conclusion, AA is a good thing.

(I was not consistent in acknowledging this above, but I know that there are women of color)

(I sometimes think that sexual inequality of the sort this post addresses is a fraction of what it was decades ago, but (among other evidence that I’m wrong) in 2016 close to a majority of voters voted in such a way that the Electoral College placed in the White House a man who made several sexist comments, including one that could be interpreted as bragging about sexually assaulting women)

Irish Unity: Three New Poems

Three more poems. For info about how I write my poems, see this. 2-3 of these poems are based on lyrics I find offensive, see the next paragraph. The last poem is about anti-racist skinheads. There are notes for those poems in general here.

I have until recently been very unsure about whether or not “Sweet Home Alabama” is a racist song. But, if wikipedia is not totally full of shite, I lean very heavily towards saying that it’s racist. That’s based partly on the song’s wikipedia page. I looked at the interview with the back-up singer, and I looked at the page with the statement by Ed King. Also, although Neil Young says they were right to be angry about his song “Alabama,” “Sweet Home” refers to the Neil Young song “Southern Man,“ which he doesn’t apologize for and which is (lyrically) a fairly-very good anti-racist song. I also found an article in The Atlantic that  makes it pretty clear they were racists when the song was written (the confederate flag has always been a symbol of racism).

You can find the rest of the lyrics, about ten pages of them, here.

1. "General Maurice Rose" About the Allies in WWII and specifically about Jewish-American soldiers who fought Nazi Germany.
2. "The North." N. Ireland. (A BLACK AND GREEN POEM)
3. "Skinhead Unity." Anti-racist skinheads.

“General Maurice Rose” based on “European Skinhead Army” by No Remorse. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is a little complicated. It started out as a poem about the US Army IN GENERAL in the European part of WWII. But then I needed something that rhymed with “Valhalla” (see below) and I found a kind of Jewish bread. Then I remembered about General Maurice Rose (see below) and made it PARTLY about Jewish-American soldiers in that theater (it's not from General Rose's perspective, and I imagine a lot of Jewish-American veterans might not know what to think about the part about Odin, but I explain that below (for whatever it's worth, the reference to Odin was already there)).
2. A medical center in Denver is named after the late General Maurice Rose. On their site they say the following about a point in 1945:

“It was around this time that news broke that General Maurice Rose, a Denver son and the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the U.S. Army during World War II, had been killed in combat. Rose was known for his aggressive style of leadership, directing his units from the front rather than a rear command post. When he and his staff, surrounded by German troops, were attempting to surrender, a panicked young German tank soldier fired one shot to Rose’s head, killing him instantly. His death caused an uproar: demands were made by congressmen for an investigation, and it was front-page news. Suddenly, the committee knew they could achieve two goals—create the new Jewish hospital and memorialize a fallen Jewish hometown hero.”

3. The Waffen-SS was the tactically-elite military, as opposed to paramilitary, part of the ideologically-based SS.
3. The Rhineland was a strategically important part of western Germany with a lot of industry.
4. FDR was the President of the US during almost all of WWII, until he died about a month before Nazi Germany was defeated.
5. Nazis made Jews wear a yellow star armband.
6. Although it’s true that the WESTERN Allies rarely carried out night assaults A) The Soviets frequently did, B) it rhymes, and C) sometimes they DID- see this and this.
7. The Wehrmacht was the German military, although it’s unclear if the Waffen-SS was part off the Wehrmacht.
8. The “sunwheel banner” is a term for the Swastika flag.
9. Odin is the god of Valhalla. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it's a place where warriors go after they die, although there seems to be some debate about exactly who gets in- only people who die in combat? Anyway, the fascists love it and have sort of taken over the concept, but a friend told me that he likes the idea of the left claiming it and specifically said that if such a place exists, Che and others like him are probably there. (Do I believe in Valhalla? You could say I’m sort of an agnostic on that question and am sort of solidly a Christian. The way I see it, this is pretty flexible, don't take it too seriously, and one way to think about it is that if you believe in Heaven and would rather these people went there instead of Valhalla, maybe they can do both, spend some time in Valhalla and some time in Heaven; but my friend and I do like the idea of reclaiming it from the fash). I MADE A POINT OF REFERRING TO ALL U.S. SOLDIERS IN THAT THEATER NOT JUST THE JEWISH ONES, TO LESSEN THE DEGREE TO WHICH I AM SAYING THAT GENERAL ROSE (SPECIFCALLLY) WENT TO VALHALLA. (also I’ve done six other poems where I imply that people who don’t believe in Valhalla go there, and one of them was about Allied soldiers in the Western European theater (the other five references to Valhalla were largely but not exclusively about Irish Republicans)
10. After Germany was defeated, a process was started that resulted in a democracy being created in what would be West Germany. Although some would point out that it was done through military occupation and an effort called “de-Nazification”, I think the entrenched nature of Nazism in Germany meant that there was no other way to create a democracy there. If it weren’t for a lot of Allied soldiers, de-Nazification would have been impossible to enforce, and the German Army would have reconstituted itself.
11. The second to last line. It’s meant to refer to members of the Waffen-SS. They were responsible for massacres of civilians (even in the West), the execution (in ONE incident) of American POWs, and some of them were concentration camp guards. Such people, IF soldiers in general go to Valhalla (see above), don’t go to Valhalla, in my opinion.
12. Hallah is a kind of Jewish bread.
13. You have to emphasize the “er”s in “banner” and “shatter” to make them rhyme.
14. **73% of this poem is me, 27% is the original.

On the Waffen-SS, we’re gonna go medieval
The Allies have teamed up and it's good against evil,
We've got the tanks, we’re heading for the Rhineland
We won’t lose, we’ll play the winning hand

Chorus:
United States Army,
We fight together, commanded by FDR
United States Army,
We fight for the people who wear the yellow star

We're advancing day and night,
Behind the front our air support takes flight
Smash the Wehrmacht, make it shatter
We raise our middle fingers to the sunwheel banner

many U.S. soldiers will meet Odin, unlike Hitler,
After we take Berlin, a democracy we’ll configure
When we kill Nazis in battle, they won’t go to Valhalla
After the war, we’ll celebrate with some Hallah

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“The North” based on “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Original lyrics are here.

1. See my thoughts above about whether or not the original is a racist song.
2. This is set around 1990.
3. I assume that BA units were flown into the North instead of traveling by sea.
4. “The Six” is short for the Six-Counties, a republican term for N. Ireland (I say “the Six” not because republicans say that (they don't) but because it rhymes).
5. In 1983 the very popular British Nazi skinhead band Skrewdriver did a song called “Smash the IRA” and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of young, working-class, conservative and patriotic BA soldiers were fans. Skrewdriver’s vocalist and lyricist Ian Stuart Donaldosn started, in the late 1980s, a side project called The Klansmen, which was about the American South.
6. Margaret Thatcher’s constituency was Finchley.
7. “Tiocfaidh ar la” is a republican slogan coined by Bobby Sands and means “Our Day Will Come.”
8. There’s a theory, which must be embraced by N. Ireland anti-Catholic bigots, that Catholics aren’t real Christians.
9. Bangor is a medium-sized city (in the NI context, if Belfast is a large city, and Derry is also a medium-sized city) that’s almost entirely Unionist.
10. In my version the boos are coming from Nationalists and republicans.
11. The Provos is an earlier term for the movement made up of what we now call simply Sinn Fein and the IRA. I explain here how they had, 1981-1997 a comprehensive strategy for getting the British out and helping their community.
12. “The Falls Rd. Curfew” was a major turning point in the very first year of The Troubles. In Aug. 1969 there were massive anti-Catholic pogroms in Belfast which were destructively and lethally successful. Because of this, the British Army, who sort of saved the Catholics, was welcomed by a decreasing number of Catholics in the first several months after the BA came onto the streets of N. Ireland. On June 27th there was a major and partly armed, attack by loyalists on the isolated Catholic enclave of the Short Strand in East Belfast. The British Army wouldn’t help but about four members of the Provisional IRA successfully defended the area and killed five armed loyalists. 9 days earlier a British general election had been won by the Conservatives. The Unionists were furious about the PIRA action in the Short Strand and demanded action. The following is from the Conflict Archive on the InterNet:

********

Friday 3 July 1970
Falls Road Curfew
Beginning in the afternoon, the British Army carried out extensive house searches in the Falls Road area of Belfast for members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and IRA arms. A military curfew was imposed on the area for a period of 34 hours with movement of people heavily restricted. The house searches lasted for two days and involved considerable destruction to many houses and their contents. During the searches the army uncovered a lot of illegal arms and explosives. However the manner in which the searches were conducted broke any remaining goodwill between the Catholic community and the British Army. During the period of the curfew there were gun battles between both wings of the IRA and the Army. Two people were killed by the British Army during the violence; one of them deliberately run over by an Army vehicle. Another person was shot and mortally wounded by the Army and died on 10 July 1970.

Saturday 4 July 1970
 The Falls Road curfew continued throughout the day. A man was killed by the British Army.

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(I should clarify something- I don’t think there was any inter-republican fighting, but both the Provos and the Officials, separately, fought the British during the Curfew; also, although the official record doesn’t totally reflect this, a Polish-British photojournalist was killed by the BA, bringing the total to 4 civilians killed; one of the two local men shot was 62 years old)

13. The red, white, and blue are the colors of the British flag.
14. The Civil Rights Movement in N. Ireland in the late 1960s and the early 1970s was inspired by its counterpart in America, and at the very end, a delegation from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference attended the Bloody Sunday funerals.
15. **77% of this version is me, 23% is the original.

Jet turbines keep on turnin’
Carrying British soldiers to the Six
Singin' songs about the Southland
Occupying northeast Ireland because of Tory politics

Well I heard Mrs. Thatcher say the North is
as British as Finchley
Well, that’s nonsense and won’t stop us from
creating a border in the Irish sea

Chorus
Tiocfaidh ar la Derry
Where the skies are so blue
Tiocfaidh ar la West Belfast
Where Catholics believe in the Lord, too

In Bangor they love the Queen, (Boo! Boo! Boo!)
Now the Provos are doing all that they can do
The Falls Rd. Curfew angered me
An atrocity carried out under the red, white and blue

Now Southern Blacks had “We Shall Overcome”
And they overthrew segregation
They inspired us to march for our rights
And it turned into a struggle for liberation

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“Skinhead Unity” based on “European Unity” by Brutal Attack. Original lyrics are here.

1. This is about anti-racist skinheads. Although there might not be any left in America, they used to exist, so I’m going to occasionally do poems about them.
2. I get the impression that when Nazi skinheads became part of the skinhead scene, non-racist and anti-racist skinheads initially didn’t do much to stop them.
3. D-Day was the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII.
4. Skinhead was started in connection with Jamaican immigrants in England. Nazi skinheads claim it isn’t true.
5. Most anti-racist skinheads are patriotic.
6. Anti-racist skinheads are frustrated by those skinheads who are more or less neutral.
7. Ska is a kind of Black music that a lot of non-racist and anti-racist skinheads (as well as others of course) listen to.
8. As far as I can tell in the 1980s and 1990s a LOT of anti-racist skinheads were homophobic, but I have reason to believe that, as homophobia became less common among youth in the last 20-30 years, it became less common among anti-racist skinheads.
9. Although anti-racist skinheads occasionally used guns, Nazis love guns. And there was a similar gap when it came to knives.
10. A mask is sometimes defined as a PROTECTIVE covering. So, they’re not hiding their reasons for being more or less neutral. I wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t handle the kind of beating that Nazis give anti-racists.
11. **50% of this is me, 50% is the original.
12. I just added "great" to the 4th line. It makes more sense, I forgot I'm not writing 10 years ago, when I wrote most of my poems.
13. Bonehead is an anti-racist term for Nazi skinhead.
14. UPDATE 4/14/20 I just changed "from" to "of" in the last line of the chorus.

You know our scene’s been taken over by fools
Mis-using their strength, inspired by the Nazi tools
Some of us are to blame for not stopping them right away
But now we’re fighting the fash like our great-grandfathers did on D-Day

Chorus
Skinhead unity
friendship, class pride, a diverse community
Skinhead unity
Our culture free of the Nazis

Our skinhead forefathers were Black English people you see
But that’s not what the boneheads would have you believe
So how come our scene’s been overrun?
By alien ideologies, the fascist atrocities, with the knife and the gun

So listen skinheads, listen very carefully
It’s time to wake up, time to make a stand you see
United we'll win, come here our call
If we stick together nothing’s gonna make us fall
It wont be easy it'll be a long hard task
And there are those fools who hide behind the neutrality mask
But we'll pull through, ‘cos ska wins in the end
To anti-Semitism and homophobia we will never bend