Monthly Archive for March, 2010

Metaphors for Racism in 2010 America

Published on March 25, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: the metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man (Jorge Ortega y Gasset)

in the news: Walmart announcer tells black people to leave store; Racial slurs hurled at lawmakers during health reform protests

definitions from Oxford concise dictionary: metaphor, a symbol of an abstraction; racist, one who believes in the superiority of a particular race; bigot, one who has an obstinate and intolerant belief in an idea

in perspective: America broke the global racial barrier on power with its 2008 election. Its new half-black president has wisely chosen to focus on the national crises that got him elected when white strategies no longer worked. A year into the new administration, however, racism screamed to be addressed.

No doubt the shock of the racial breakthrough combined with the sensitivity of the issue prevented direct address. A possible solution would be for the media to approach the subject through the indirectness of the metaphor.

The first step would be to break down the vast block of those opposed to the policies mandated by the election for the creation of a more global and compassionate America. That would be the conservative half of the population having unabashedly declared its commitment to saying no to any progressive proposal.

Breaking down that domestic block to progress calls for differentiating the categories making up the conservative element in 2010 America as represented by the Tea Party movement. That includes true conservatives clinging to past values and ideals, elitists holding to pyramidal models of societetal entitlements, racists seeing the present reality of non-white American leadership as an anomaly rather than progress, and downright bigots deserving of no more notice than to be ignored since they’re not open to reasoning.

Once identified, the concerns and needs of each group could be targeted directly. To true conservatives still of the view that the United States can unilaterally impose its will on other countries, the global nature of the modern world and economy could be pointed out. Elitists would be reminded of the shooting-star nature of celebrity and wealth today while racists of every stripe would be bombarded with facts about how blockages to freedom, opportunity and merit are challenged everywhere. Finally, bigots would be left to die out in the discourse about true conservative concerns.

Bolstering those messages with the aid of metaphor would be the second step in garnering support for the agenda America mandated with its 2008 election. The metaphors would concretize today’s reality of just how backward was conservativism in a global world.

For true conservatives holding onto old ways, metaphors would focus on the futility of renewing the worn-out old. Pouring money into a dilapidated house, patching threadbare clothes or resoling outworn shoes would serve as starting images.

Elitists may be swayed by metaphors about the evanescence of status in the media-driven age of Sarah Palins, movie stars and “celebutards,” as the New York Post coins it. By contrast, the lasting influence of those committed to global progress could be stressed, particularly activisists of notable visility such as Bono and Sean Penn.

For racists, metaphors would center on the evidence of history and how bizarre old attitudes about human differences appear in a modern context. Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” about United States involvement in the Philippines during 1899 could serve as a template for an image today of a “Non-white’s Challenge” in a world where China holds the purse strings of the United States.

On the question of racial superiority, the image behind the metaphors would be the Biblical reversal of the first becoming last and the last becoming first in the absence of an attitude shift. Inversely, agreement on equality could turn the global scenario into an endless series of championship play-offs where everyone has a serial shot at coming out the winner.

History bears witness to the futility of movements centered on obstreperousness, elitism and racism. It exposes the glaring reality. Bigots are primitive dinosaurs in the human journey towards progress.

American media has an opportunity to impact on a rapidly changing world in 2010 as the Tea Party movement gets nasty and violent. The challenge calls for innovation and for an update of old journalistic rubrics.

Coverage of hard news today calls for creativity. It also calls for the violation of the sacred American taboo against intellectualism.

A literary device such as the metaphor can make the bitter pill of transition more palatable to the American common man exemplified by the political football who came to light in the 2008 election. “Joe the Plumber” may not like the rest of the world or see any use for it. But without that broader context, he’s nothing more than a laboratory rat caught in a maze.

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Just Say "Yes" to Conservative "No" in 2010 America

Published on March 10, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

quote to tickle thought: Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come (Victor Hugo)

in the news: (American conservative) Rush Limbaugh will move to Costa Rica if health reform passes (in US); (US NY representative) Massa flirts with the right, but (conservative talk show host) Beck isn’t tickled

in perspective: America voted for radical change in the 2008 election. The new president has come under fire for being overly conciliatory with the conservative establishment.

Media reports indicated that independent voters in particular were disillusioned with the new President Obama over his inability to bring about more robust change. But perhaps that inability was less the president’s fault than that of the American public, which has allowed itself since the election to be diluted in its “yes, we can” rallying cry as the conservatives gathered steam with their “no” on the agenda for change.

The pendulum swing was predictable enough. After a historic step forward, the country as a whole took a half step back as the conservative element knocked the country off its victorious feet.

Columnist Frank Rich on Sunday March 7, 2010 was among those questioning President Obama’s ability to lead. The internet that week buzzed with gossip about White House power struggles.

Yet the half-white man who’d won America’s faith in 2008, and with that skill led the country to overturn global history, was not likely to be slow on the draw. That was true regardless of how resoundingly and unprecedently behind the eight-ball he was.

Health care reform was the signature legislative priority of the new administration, no doubt because no other issue cut as sharply into questions about economic, social and racial divides in America. The resolution of no other issue could so decisively determine whether America would go with the agenda chosen in the 2008 election or let the conservative “no” take over and return the country to the simplistic mentality that had led to the global economic crisis that left the country no choice but to vote for radical change.

However watered down and imperfect, passage of the health care plan would be a signal for the new President Obama to continue implementing the 2008 mandate for a more humane United States in a global world where it was reeling. Enemies such as terrorists and how to deal with them remained on the forefront. But of equal concern for the country and its economic future were competitors such as the European Union, Russia and China.

Dissatisfied as President Obama’s constituents may have been in 2010, there was no mistaking the change in the country’s tenor since the last days of the previous conservative administration. Through actions such as stabilizing the global economy and instituting its own financial reforms, creating jobs and changing policy on issues such as climate and energy, the new America in 2010 had become a world-friendly participant in a global world instead of a pariah.

That big step forward was accomplished in just one short year and acheiving it was crucial for the country regardless of conservative clamor for continuing to harp on the rubric of America’s greatness devoid of acknowleging global neighbors. As economists and diplomats well know regardless of the American public being slow to be informed by its mainstream media, the growth of the American economy in the 2010 global world depended on the behavior of 200 other countries.

If all that could be accomplished by America’s new President Obama despite the heels-dug-in position of “no” to change among America’s conservatives, progressives could take heart. The bigger picture showed that they needed only to send up a resoundingly united “yes” to change so as to prove out the wisdom of their 2008 choice and enable the new President Obama to be the intermediary between the old and new America in the role for which America had elected him to be.

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The Battle for an American Identity in a 2010 Global World

Published on March 2, 2010 in Global Communication, Global Politics and Politics. 0 Comments

quote to tickle thought: divide and rule (ancient political maxim cited by Machiavelli)

in the headlines: energized conservatives pound on Democrats at CPAC; lawyers cleared over 9/11 memos (condoning torture); majority say Obama hasn’t accomplished much in first year; anti-government groups show surge, watchdog warns

in perspective: Coverage of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)in Washington ended on February 20 with the message that the conservative spirit in America had rallied. A contrast was drawn between this year’s optimism and the demoralization of last year a month after the inauguration of the western industrialized world’s first non-white leader. The 800 pound gorilla in 2010 America that nobody seemed able to address was a realistic sense of the forces driving the conservatism.

A year into the new administration, tea partiers bickered among themselves and fought for a rebel identity separate from mainstream Republicans. Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center on March 2 said it counted 512 militia-related groups in the country in 2009, up from 149 the previous year. The common element between all these groups was the word “no” to the 2008 election mandate, with the “divide and rule” tactic reenforcing it.

Seemingly forgotten was the mandate itself. That mandate was to bring radical change into a great country that had brought on a global economic crisis with eight years of a greed-driven, unregulated conservative policy. Licence for indulging a strategy of denial about that mandate was a product of the “divide and conquer” tactic practiced by conservatives upon the country’s progressives.

A year into the new administration, conservative euphoria over expected gains in 2010 midterm elections was fueled by falling support for the new President’s policies. Public opinion polls indicated that blame for failure to achieve the promised electoral campaign change was leveled at the new president for his inability to break an increasingly fierce Washington gridlock between conservatives and progressives.

Independents were said to be most disillusioned with the new president’s performance, perhaps in a demonstration of just how impatient were the country’s progressives to get the country onto the global highway where cooperation was the operative word rather than the flexing of muscle to achieve aims. In the 2010 global world of 200 countries all interconnected through travel, communication and trade, alliances created the basis for power, not the single factor of military or economic primacy.

The 2008 election showed that America’s progressives were well aware of the global shift in which emerging countries from South America to Africa and from China to India were intent on gaining an equal say in how the world was run. America’s conservatives, on the other hand, held onto old rubrics about the value of America remaining the world’s schoolyard bully.

Personal experience can serve to show that change is a complex and frightening process before a breakthrough occurs. That personal experience can be extrapolated to the local, national and global levels.

By contrast, the harping of a single note to hold onto old virtues based on past successes is a message that is simple, loud and clear. In 2010 America, a year into its new progressive administration, that conservative message was dividing and conquering the progressive agenda mandated by the 2008 election.

The cure for the tyranny of the conservative stranglehold of “no” to American progress in the 2010 global world was for progressives to take the advice of Benjamin Franklin. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, that great forefather said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Independents may be disappointed by the performance of America’s new leader as he negotiates the slippery slope of instituting change by relying on those adept at working the system to help him in that task. But with America’s identity in a global world at stake, progressives of every bent would best serve their country by resisting the conservative tactic of allowing themselves to be divided and ruled.

Imperialists and colonialists throughout the world’s history had practiced and perfected the tactic of divide and rule. As the beacon of democracy for the 2010 global world, America was eminently positioned to overthrow that policy, not only for the global good but also for its own.

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