Global
The people of Durham , N.C., have the right idea. Not only have they taken down a Confederate war statue themselves, but they’ve lined up en masse to turn themselves in for that crime, overwhelming the so-called justice system.
The people of Wunsiedel, German, have the right idea. They’ve responded to Nazi marches by funding anti-Nazi groups for every Nazi marcher, and cheering on and thanking the marchers.
The people of Richardson, Texas, have the right idea. Members of a mosque intervened between anti-Muslim demonstrators and violent would-be defenders, and left the rally with the anti-Muslims to discuss their differences at a restaurant.
Every situation is different, and the same approach won’t work everywhere, or even necessarily work more than once in the same place. The bigger and less accountable the target — for example state or federal government instead of local — the tougher the challenge. But local actions and global communications can create momentum.
Ohio 2004 Case Study
In March 2004, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman published the article Diebold, Electronic Voting, and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy on freepress.org and onmotherjones.compredicting that Ohio would be the new Florida in the 2004 presidential election because of the partisan connections of George W. Bush to the private owners of the electronic voting machines and vote tabulation software. The key source for the article, Athan Gibbs, was an African American entrepreneur who had invented a voting machine that gave each voter a verified voting receipt. Approximately one week after the article ran, Gibbs was killed when his car was hit by a truck on an interstate highway.
· Due in part to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), like most of the rest of the country, the majority of Ohio’s 2004 registration records were managed electronically, and votes were cast and counted electronically.
Florida 2000 Case Study
In 2000, Democrat Al Gore, the incumbent Vice President, won the nationwide presidential vote tally by more than 500,000 votes. But for the first time since 1876, a Constitutional crisis arose over the alignment of the Electoral College. The final decision was thrown to the state of Florida (which had also been “in play” in 1876).
The Bush campaign was coordinated by Karl Rove. The Florida election was officially controlled by Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who openly supported Bush as the co-chair of his election campaign.
The GOP campaign employed a wide range of tactics reminiscent of the Jim Crow era to cut into the turnout among tens of thousands blacks and Hispanics, who favored Gore by as much as 9:1. Among other things, state police and other law enforcement agencies physically intimidated potential voters in predominantly black areas of Orlando and elsewhere.
As most everyone knows, white supremacists descended upon my city of Charlottesville, VA, this past weekend, and chaos, violence and tragedy ensued. I’ve been thinking since then about the concept of supremacy and how odious it is–as if one race were purer and better than another, as if one color of skin were of a higher virtue than another.
But it has also crossed my mind that most Americans are American supremacists, thinking that their country is the greatest in the world, believing that America has the wisdom and the right to decide the fate of every other nation in the world, and that those decisions should be based on American interests alone.
The idea of American supremacy is as odious to me as the idea as white supremacy. As American supremacists, we don’t even negotiate with other nations anymore. We impose sanctions and call that diplomacy. Sanctions are a form of force.
As American supremacists, we don’t try to see another country’s point of view. Our message is: Do it in the way that best supports American interests, or else we will crush you economically and militarily.
1. Let’s start with the obvious. Charlottesville, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, are actually two completely different places in the world. The flood of concern and good wishes for those of us here in Charlottesville is wonderful and much appreciated. That people can watch TV news about Charlottesville, remember that I live in Charlottesville, and send me their kind greetings addressed to the people of Charlotte is an indication of how common the confusion is. It’s not badly taken; I have nothing against Charlotte. It’s just a different place, seventeen times the size. Charlottesville is a small town with the University of Virginia, a pedestrian downtown street, and very few monuments. The three located right downtown are for Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Confederacy. Neither Lee nor Jackson had anything to do with Charlottesville, and their statues were put up in whites-only parks in the 1920s.
Campaigning for the presidency, Donald Trump argued that blacks and other people of color should vote for him.
Nine months after losing the presidency, the Democratic Party is in dire need of a course correction. Grass-roots enthusiasm for the party is far from robust. Despite incessant funding appeals and widespread revulsion for the Trump administration, the Democratic National Committee’s fundraising is notably weak. And the latest DNC chair, Tom Perez, sounds no more inspiring than his recent predecessors. When Perez speaks next to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, it’s a stark contrast between establishment cliches and progressive populism.
While a united front against the Trump regime would be ideal, mere unity behind timeworn Democratic leadership would hardly be auspicious. Breaking the Republican stranglehold at election time will require mobilizing the Democratic Party’s base on behalf of authentic populism. But the power structure of the DNC has other priorities.