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No, the United States needs Truth and Reconciliation

Edward G Nilges — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 05:53:33 -0700

No, the United States needs a new, or radically revised Constitution or Basic Law, and a racial Truth and Reconciliation commission on the model of South Africa.

Ever since the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, well-meaning and well-intentioned white people in the US have been saying "racial reconciliation cannot be legislated". As a result, in my view, we have got the re-installation of Jim Crow as a result of economic inequality, "The Bell Curve", and a systematic attack on Affirmative Action, weakened precisely by the view that "law" is no use.

We have white people at the last Mardi Gras, which may be the LAST Mardi Gras, saying "I don't live in New Orleans because I'se white". We have New Orleans police arresting people for giving money to bums.

As it happens, however, the United States is a government of law, not of men (tyrants or the mob), nor of Confucian tradition and the Tao of Heaven, nor of Volkische tradition.

Feelings, hearts, follow the law. We feel as Americans about America because some men, with many lawyers (or men trained in law in the manner of the 18th century) sat down and wrote the law.

Lincoln saw this. Precisely because our hearts are own business, we cannot "dedicate", we cannot "consecrate", we cannot speak so loosely and with such insane hypocrisy as does Bush about holy things, eternal things, best kept in a zone, sub specie aeternatis, above and beyond a mortal Republic.

Instead, Lincoln felt that the best a statesman can do would be to enforce the law, not with "zero tolerance" (a complete mischief that destroys a thousand years of judicial equity and mercy) but with malice towards none and charity towards all.

clarification

Phil Bennett — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 03:08:20 -0700

When I say ex-yank, I probably should have said expat, but the fact is that I haven't lived there in some time now. You're quite right, it is the lack of cash that kept those people in New Orleans, but race is *definitely* a factor at play. What will become of all these people now, US citizens, and not refugees as I see them called in the press? A new constitution... this is a problem that comes from within and no piece of paper, however well intentioned, will sort out the mess in people's hearts and minds. I hope your son is okay, by the way.

All the same...

Edward G Nilges — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:33:34 -0700

I lost my temper at a Norwegian friend who rejoiced that America has been so laid low by Katrina. I said, thousands of people are dead and they are my fellow countrymen, black and white makes no difference.

I added some choice words about his King looking like what the Australians call a Pox Doctor's Clerk (a man dressed in shabby finery) or gracing the tops of sardine tins.

I am livid at what Bush has done to my country but I cannot call myself an ex-Yank. My uncle, Edward Joseph Nilges, saw what happened to a country (Italy) when you let loudmouths and bullies run the show, and he led Nisei who transferred their samurai loyalty, lock, stock and barrel, to the United States. He gave his life for a country that he would now find "the abode of demons", being a good Catholic who would, I think, be appalled at Bush's complete lack of charity.

However, my country needs to get rid of racism once and for all, and if this takes a new or radically revised Constitution, so be it. The present Constitution is both a document of Enlightenment as the first written Basic Law, AND "a covenant with hell" in the words of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, for it gave too much power to a permanent class of permanently wealthy white people.

There were whites in the hellhole of the Superdome: tourists being robbed, longterm New Orleans residents, and winos in withdrawal. The common element was almost, but not quite race. The TRUE common element was lack of access to cash money.

My experiences when penniless while writing Build Your Own .Net Language and Compiler taught me that a permanent white overclass calls the shots in my country in a way that would not be allowed elsewhere. I do NOT mean successful and hard working people like the folks at Apress or Desaware, or even Bill Gates, who hasn't missed a day of work in thirty years, although I do think the size of his fortune is out of scale.

I mean instead something that is almost an abstraction, in which we partake as a negative political sacrament whenever we pass someone on the street clearly in need, and don't help out. Class and inequality is something in our hearts and we need a new Constitution to get rid of it.

Too right

Phil Bennett — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 13:25:27 -0700

I'm a ex-yank living in Europe, and I have always told people where I work that the US is patently *not* all about Disney World and the suntanned beauties of Bay watch, and that the US poor are just as badly off as the poor in any third world country. The other night the usual round of yankee bashing rose to a fever pitch. It just seems that Bush & co will quite happily sit there and watch a load of poor black folks suffer and starve to death in appalling conditions. Its fucking sick, pure and simple. The scale of the devastation in one report was likened to the equivalent of an F4 tornado that stretched from New York city to Cleveland. Do you think there would be thousands of people stranded for nearly a week if the same storm hit the New England coastline, say someplace like Kennebunkport?

Keep up the writing my friend, some of its amazing stuff.

This is Obscene

Edward G Nilges — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 18:31:47 -0700

But what's truly obscene is the situation in New Orleans, in which poor and black people have once again learned their place in Amerikkkan society (and, I use that spelling advisedly).