Author Archives: G.S. Griffin

On Clinton

Posted on by under Politics

Michelle Alexander wrote a scathing article in The Nation entitled “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.”

The author of The New Jim Crow writes Bill Clinton’s crime bill and welfare reform, which Hillary Clinton enthusiastically supported, “decimated black America.”

Bill Clinton took Reagan’s war on crime and drugs and “escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible,” bringing the American incarceration rate to the highest in the world.

“He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine,” which willfully targeted black drug users, as well as other policies that contributed to the massively disproportionate imprisonment of blacks:

Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983.      

Alexander argues that in her support for the 1994 crime bill, Hillary Clinton

…used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

She also writes Hillary Clinton “ardently supported then and characterized as a success as recently as 2008” Bill Clinton’s welfare “reform,” which eliminated the federal safety net, placed strict limitations on state welfare programs, and slashed billions from public welfare spending. This increased American poverty, doubling extreme poverty.

In addition, financial aid to college students with drug convictions, and to inmates working on a degree in prison, ended. The Clinton administration enacted “a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense.”

Perhaps most alarming, [Bill] Clinton also made it easier for public-housing agencies to deny shelter to anyone with any sort of criminal history (even an arrest without conviction) and championed the “one strike and you’re out” initiative, which meant that families could be evicted from public housing because one member (or a guest) had committed even a minor offense. People released from prison with no money, no job, and nowhere to go could no longer return home to their loved ones living in federally assisted housing without placing the entire family at risk of eviction.

This is why Hillary Clinton not only does not deserve the black vote, she does not deserve the vote of any person helping decide the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.

Saying “this was Bill Clinton’s doing, not Hillary’s” is thoughtless, a standard never applied to others: do you not condemn a Republican who supports discriminatory legislation even if he or she was not the one to propose, write, vote on, or sign it?

Adding to Alexander’s condemnation is far from difficult. In terms of race, during the 2008 campaign against Barack Obama, Clinton attempted to lock in the white vote by portraying Obama as un-American and flirting with racial stereotypes, as James Rucker documents. She also currently accepts money from private prison lobbyists, which profit off mass incarceration, while promising to end mass incarceration.

Regarding gay rights issues, a liberal should denounce Clinton’s support for anti-gay rights legislation such as the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the 1990s, and her opposition to gay marriage until 2013.

Then there’s her ties to Wall Street and corporate power. She spent 6 years on the Walmart board of directors, where she went along with union busting to protect the corporation. Jacobin Magazine writes that

as Clinton left her secretary post in January 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek commented that “Clinton turned the State Department into a machine for promoting U.S. business.” She sought “to install herself as the government’s highest-ranking business lobbyist,” directly negotiating lucrative overseas contracts for US corporations like Boeing, Lockheed, and General Electric. Not surprisingly, “Clinton’s corporate cheerleading has won praise from business groups.”

Indeed, “her State Department collaborated with subcontractors for Hanes, Levi’s, and Fruit of the Loom to oppose a minimum-wage increase for Haitian workers.”

Clinton is mainly funded today by Wall Street banks and corporations:

Clinton’s top 10 cumulative donors between between 1999 and 2016 were, in descending order, Citigroup ($782,327), Goldman Sachs ($711,490), DLA Piper ($628,030), JPMorgan Chase ($620,919), EMILY’s List ($605,174) Morgan Stanley ($543,065), Time Warner ($411,296), Skadden Arps ($406,640), Lehman Brothers ($362,853) and Cablevision Systems ($336,288).

In a recent debate, Clinton promised to take on this entities, and challenged anyone to “name one” time Wall Street and corporations influenced her political positions. Yet this is something U.S. senators talked about openly while Clinton was a senator.

Elizabeth Warren said in a 2004 interview that Clinton, as first lady, helped her defeat a bill that would tighten bankruptcy laws that would “disproportionately hurt single mothers.” But after receiving money from interest groups that supported similar legislation, Clinton, as a senator, also supported it.

Greenpeace, criticizing the millions the fossil fuel industry poured into Super PACs backing Clinton, lists examples of Clinton’s cozy relationship with corporate America, such as:

3 Enbridge lobbyists contributed to HRC’s campaign. While she was Secretary of State, Clinton signed off on the Enbridge pipeline.

Hess lobbyists from Forbes-Tate (Daniel Tate, Jeffrey Forbes, George Cooper and Rachel Miller) all gave maximum allowable contributions to HRC’s campaign. The firm lobbied on behalf of the Hess Corporation, on crude by rail and crude exports. Hess owns rail cars that came off the tracks and caught fire after a BNSF train derailed in North Dakota in early May, 2015. Hess is the third largest oil producer in North Dakota. Lynn Helms, a former Hess executive served as ND’s top oil and gas regulator at the Department of Mineral Resources between 2005 and 2013. When Clinton came out in opposition to KXL she started talking about how fixing train tracks would create jobs.

Fracking company and gas industry trade association lobbyists have also contributed to Clinton’s campaign, including Former Rep. Martin Frost (D-TX), who lobbied for the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, and Martin Durbin of the American Natural Gas Association (now merged and part of the American Petroleum Institute – API), the nephew of Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL).  Another donor is Elizabeth Gore, a lobbyist for WPX energy (fracking).  A lobbyist for FTI Consulting, creator of an industry front group called Energy In Depth, also contributed to Clinton;s campaign. Although Clinton has said she would require FERC to consider climate change before granting any new gas pipeline permits, she recently told activists she would not ban fracking as president, and has a pro-fracking track record which has been well-documented by numerous groups, including pro-Clinton Super PAC Correct the Record.

Greenpeace also wondered if Clinton could fully support an investigation into Exxon while taking money from their lobbyists:

Although Clinton has said she supports an investigation into Exxon’s early concealment of what it knew about the risks of climate change and subsequent financing of climate denier front groups, her campaign has taken contributions from at least 7 lobbyists working for Exxon, including one in-house lobbyist – Theresa Fariello – who has bundled and additional $21,200 for the campaign.

The Huffington Post in July 2015 ran a piece entitled, “Hillary Clinton’s Biggest Campaign Contributors Are Fossil Fuel Lobbyists.”

Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon lobbied the State Department and donated millions to the Clinton Foundation in the year before a decision was made on the Alberta Clipper pipeline. The State Department, to no one’s surprise, approved a permit for it. Clinton supported fracking around the globe.

As Secretary of State, Clinton also supported government policies that benefited pharmaceutical, energy, and telecommunication companies, who later contributed huge sums to the Clinton Foundation. See for example “Hillary Clinton Acted on Concerns of Bill Clinton’s Foundation Donors.”

After Secretary Clinton helped sign over 20% of uranium production capacity in the U.S. to Russia by approving the Russian takeover of the company Uranium One, the company donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, as reported by The New York Times. The Foundation did not disclose these donations–like many others. But as the Huffington Post reports, “According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public and foundation disclosures, at least sixty companies that lobbied the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation.”

An International Business Times investigation found that:

Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation…nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration.

After her efforts at health care reform were defeated in the 1990s, Clinton sunk deep into the pockets of the health insurance giants, including those she previously stood against. In the 2005-2006 election cycle, Clinton received over $854,000 from the healthcare industry, more than any other political candidate save one. Much of the money came from the same firms that once battled her. See The New York Times’ “Once an Enemy, Health Industry Warms to Clinton.”

In the first 3 months of 2007, she earned nearly $849,000 from the healthcare industry, more than any other candidate. For backing off health care reform, Clinton was rewarded, and praised by her former corporate enemies as “extremely knowledgeable” and a “leader” on the health care issue.

In 2015, Clinton took a stand for insurance companies when she condemned single-payer health care, a system in which taxes cover citizen medical costs, cutting out the need for insurance giants.

Then there’s Clinton’s disastrous foreign policy positions.

She strongly supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, led the charge for military intervention in Libya, pledged to expand the U.S. military presence surrounding Iran, supported increased American involvement in Afghanistan and Syria, called for more arms to Israel, supported Obama’s brutal drone warfare in the Middle East and Africa that kills far more innocent people than terror suspects, vowed to expand the war against ISIS, and refused to pressure the Honduran military to restore the country’s democratically-elected president to power after a coup (which led to domestic terrorism, widespread poverty, drug trafficking, and a right-wing dictatorship, which she later supported).

Again, she apologized for mistakes like Iraq. Yet how many people have to die before a person who supported deadly policies is disqualified from the White House? Clinton wishes to continue the endless war that has killed over a million people since 2001 and only worked to breed new terror groups and hugely increase terror attacks worldwide. Ralph Nader rightly called Clinton “a corporatist and a militarist.”

Finally, Clinton’s scandals speak of either her utter incompetence or a startling willingness to lie.

Leave aside controversies such as the young woman in 2008 who claimed Clinton’s campaign forced her into offering a planted question at an event, or the Whitewater Scandal of old (Clinton and her husband were part owners of a sketchy real estate development firm that saw its other owners, including a couple judges and a governor, jailed for fraud and taking bribes; accusations of the same against the Clintons went nowhere).

Focus on what we know of Clinton, and don’t reject these concerns because Republicans and conservatives also raise them. Do you believe there’s never been a corrupt Democratic politician? You haven’t read enough American history.  

It is known that the State Department edited CIA reports by deleting mentions of warnings of terrorist threats to Benghazi. Clinton, the head of the State Department, denied knowledge of the warnings.

Clinton also denied knowing of the State Department order for U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. officials in 2010.

Clinton claimed there was “no classified material” on her private email server, a claim almost surely a lie. She claims top secret information was only labeled as such after she handled it; the FBI is investigating. Clinton also destroyed tens of thousands of “personal” emails before they could be brought to light through investigations, while at the same time saying she was trying to be as “transparent” as possible.   

When Clinton was senator of New York, according to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, two veterans were “subjected to illegal drug experimentation by employees of the Stratton Veterans Affairs Center in Albany” and Clinton’s “personal knowledge did not translate into action…she did nothing about the systematic abuse and murder of veterans…” This was Clinton’s “pattern of studious avoidance of principled action in the face of serious government misconduct.”

These things indicate either Clinton cannot effectively oversee the governmental bodies she is supposed to, or isn’t afraid to deceive the citizenry. Scott Pelley of CBS asked Clinton, “Have you always told the truth?” She replied, “I’ve always tried to. Always.”

Clinton frequently changes her position on important issues like immigration, gay marriage, NAFTA, the TPP, mass incarceration, gun control, oil drilling, and so on, allegedly based on new information. Yet, as a Politico correspondent wondered, “What was the new information?” He rightly mocks the notion these issues were turned on their heads by “shocking new findings,” noting opponents of Clinton’s (conservative-leaning) stances had the information available to them, so why wouldn’t someone with “some of the best researchers at her disposal—a private staff, a campaign staff, the wizards at the State Department staff, a senatorial staff, the busy beavers from the Congressional Research Service and the White House staff.” In literally the same breath Clinton speaks of absorbing new knowledge and changing her view accordingly, she insists she has “been very consistent” and “held to the same values and principles” her “entire life,” a blatant contradiction.

Clinton even called herself a “moderate and center” politician, both before and after calling herself a “progressive.”  

A liberal–or even a moderate–has little business voting for a candidate such as this.

[Update, 11/2/2017: According to Donna Brazile, Democratic National Committee chair, Clinton loaned a broke DNC millions in exchange for “control” over it almost a year before her nomination (the DNC is supposed to be neutral until after the nomination). According to Brazile, Clinton had control over DNC strategy, money, staff, communications, mailing, and so forth. This would have allowed Clinton to avoid donation limits to campaigns (instead fundraising through the party and then laundering it to her campaign, just as the Sanders campaign said) and influence the DNC’s work in each state in a way that favored her and hurt Sanders. This would explain DNC efforts to elevate Clinton over her rival. Brazile is actually the one who leaked debate questions to Clinton during the campaign. 

The next day, NBC News published the agreement Brazile referred to, supporting her claim while adding some clarifications. “The arrangement pertained to only the general election, not the primary season, and it left open the possibility that it would sign similar agreements with other candidates. Still, it clearly allowed the Clinton campaign to influence DNC decisions made during an active primary, even if intended for preparations later [for the general election].” During the primary season, the Clinton campaign appeared to have “oversight over how its money was spent” (“joint authority,” to quote the agreement), and the DNC agreed to find a communications director “acceptable to HFA [Hillary For America]” by September 2015, long before Clinton was nominated.]

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Race, Hollywood, and the Boycott

Posted on by under Race Relations

With film industry icons like Will Smith, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Spike Lee, and Michael Moore boycotting the 2016 Academy Awards at the end of this month due to lack of nominations for black professionals, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided in late January to broaden racial and gender diversity in Academy membership.

Its board of governors has committed “to doubling the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020.” Further, older members that are no longer active in the film industry will be phased out.

Spike Lee summed up the sentiment of Oscar protesters, who connect their discussions on social media using #OscarsSoWhite, when he said:

[H]ow is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let’s not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all.

While the 2015 and 2016 Oscars were and are characterized by a lack of diversity in acting roles, in 2014 Lupita Nyong’o won best supporting actress for 12 Years a Slave. She became the fourteenth black woman or man to win an Oscar in the Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, or Supporting Actress categories in the 88-year history of the Awards.

Over that same span of time, three black directors were nominated for Best Director, but none won. Steve McQueen became the first black producer to win Best Picture in 2013, for 12 Years a Slave.  

The whiteness of the past two years is troubling to many, as it was partly built on films Academy voters used to praise white professionals while ignoring the black professionals who worked on the same projects. Creed had a black star and black director, but only its white actor earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Straight Outta Compton had a black cast, director, and producer, but its white screenwriters were nominated for Best Screenplay. Many consider black acting performances in Beasts of No Nation, Concussion, and last year’s Selma unjustly ignored (Selma was nominated for best picture, but its black actors and black director received no nominations).

However, The Economist, looking at the Oscar wins since 2000, says, “The number of black actors winning Oscars in this century has been pretty much in line with the size of America’s overall black population.”

Blacks are 12.6% of the American population, and 10% of Oscar nominations since 2000 have gone to black actors… But blacks are under-represented in the roles that count for the Oscars, getting just 9% of the top [acting] roles since 2000… [But] once up for top roles, black actors do well, converting 9% of top roles into 10% of best-actor nominations and 15% of the coveted golden statuettes, a bit above their share of the general population.

The Economist concludes that the lack of diversity starts in drama schools and casting offices, putting blacks at a disadvantage in the competition for the Oscar wins (for example, black male directors are nowhere near the black population percentage, and black women directors are “nearly nonexistent”). It also notes Hispanics and Asians receive even less representation than blacks. Yet black underrepresentation is slight and confined to landing top roles in films, and by extension nominations, but then disappearing when the Academy votes on its winners.

So while there is work to be done to increase black representation in film roles, and to correct widespread conscious and subconscious anti-black biases that research undeniably demonstrates exists, it is pleasing to note African Americans are not underrepresented among Academy Award winners in recent history.

Yet it is perhaps beneficial that #OscarsSoWhite launched a discussion on Academy voting methods, as what’s truly lacking isn’t so much diversity among the victors, it’s diversity among the Academy voters, as well as a more democratic process of voting.

The Oscar nominees and winners are chosen by the 6,000 Academy members, a voting group about 94% white and 76% male. It’s only about 2% black.

To become a member, certain qualifications must be met; for example, qualifications for an actor include:

(a) have a minimum of three theatrical feature film credits, in all of which the roles played were scripted roles, one of which was released in the past five years, and all of which are of a caliber that reflect the high standards of the Academy,

and/or

(b)  have been nominated for an Academy Award in one of the acting categories

Once qualifications are met, “each candidate must receive the favorable endorsement of the appropriate Branch Executive Committee before his or her name is submitted to the Board of Governors for final approval.”

So while there are only slight disadvantages for blacks in film roles and nominations, the board of governors clearly needs to enact the reforms #OscarsSoWhite inspired. With 9% of top film roles, 10% of Oscar nominations, and 15% of the wins all going to blacks, either the Academy has been slow to admit blacks to membership or simply does not admit enough of them to offset the large number of old and new white members. As the Los Angeles Times wrote this month,

The academy has invited 452 people to join its ranks over the last two years, an unusually high number even though 20 of them were non-voting slots. By accepting more members, the academy hoped to bring more women and minorities into the organization.

Although the two new classes are noticeably more diverse than in past years, they failed to change the face of the academy in a material way because new members make up such a small percentage of the entire constituency, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.

Since membership is controlled by the board of governors, there’s no democratic way to broaden diversity in the Academy. That power rests with the few. If the board does not take purposeful action, as it has decided to do, the demographics of the Oscar voters largely remain static.   

And by extension, if the voting body does not become more diverse, Oscar nominees and winners could tend to look the same year to year. So if a group is underrepresented at any point during the lifetime of the Academy, whether blacks, or Asians (underrepresented in nominations and wins compared to top roles and national population), or Hispanics (underrepresented in wins compared to nominations, top roles, and the national population), etc., there is no democratic, bottom-up, grassroots way to correct this.

This is quite different from a selection process like a popular vote. A meme went around the Internet recently about the NBA All-Star lineup being dominated by black players, to mock the #OscarsSoWhite boycott. It read: “2016 NBA All-Star Game has zero white players selected. Boycott for more diversity. #NBASoBlack.”

Yet the All-Stars are selected by a popular vote that is open to anyone–so not quite an adequate comparison. If white NBA fans (about 40% of viewers) felt there weren’t enough white players, they could theoretically “get out the vote” and see change, even if the 45% of NBA viewers who are black preferred to vote for black players. They could theoretically expand the pool of voters. Change the voter base, change the outcome.

The same mechanism isn’t in place for the Academy. Ordinary Americans can’t vote for nominees and winners. It’s just several thousand voters whose numbers and demographics remain unchanged except by a decree from the board of governors.  

Considering the Academy is never going to switch to a popular vote, the changes #OscarsSoWhite sparked are necessary to raise the 2% of black Academy voters to a percentage more equitable to their population in both the film industry and the country.

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My Path to Atheism

Posted on by under Religion

When you grow up in a conservative Christian household, and believe for a quarter-century in God’s existence and the resurrection of and salvation through Jesus Christ, you never suppose atheism might be in your future.

Atheism is an idea, a thought: “It seems more likely God is fictional than real.”

I never expected this thought to come along, because, after all, how can you predict your next thought? Or contain it? And after you’ve thought it, how can you “unthink” it?

Christians, my former self included, tend to believe people leave faith behind either A) because something horrible happened to them and they can’t understand why a loving God would allow that or B) because they wish to live a life of “sin”–usually meaning enjoy sex, drugs, or alcohol–without eternal consequences.

A third option is less comfortable and is largely ignored: that someone might simply conclude the arguments for disbelief are more convincing, more reasonable, than religious arguments.

A great deal of thought and reading comes before that conclusion. Obviously, you have to investigate and consider specifically why atheists suppose there is no God–you may have to read some books that will make your pastor go ballistic. This process, for me and I’m sure many others, was long–it took years. This is unlike A or B above, which can likely happen quickly by comparison.

Note that in all three scenarios Christians point to lack of faith as the principal cause. If you’d trusted God’s plan, you wouldn’t have abandoned faith when your spouse died. If you’d been a stronger Christian, you wouldn’t have traded God for sex. Sometimes friends tell me I must not have been a true believer if I was convinced by atheistic arguments.

Considering under that premise there’s no way to prove you were a true believer before any of those things occurred except by not becoming an atheist (and preventing such a conversation from ever taking place), there is little one can say in response. Telling people about the nonbelievers I tried to bring to Christ in my youth, or my study of Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, C.S. Lewis, Paul Little, etc., doesn’t convince them of my former piety.     

Before one decides it’s more likely man created God, rather than the other way around, there has to be a moment where one changes in some way, becomes open to change.

I don’t mean to insult people whose road to atheism started in a different way than mine. There surely are many who, after losing a loved one or deciding they didn’t want to live by the moral codes of primitive Middle Eastern tribes, started investigating the arguments for disbelief seriously. But in my case, it was a simple crumb of knowledge that started me on a journey.

I was in graduate school at the time. I remember the book, and the two short sentences presented in such a causal, side-note sort of way, that heralded a metamorphosis. It was The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, a famous evolutionary biologist, though the book explored how racism affected scientific findings of the past few centuries.

Gould was, for whatever reason, discussing archaeology in Egypt:

The tombs also contained blacks and Caucasians. [Samuel George] Morton dated the beaching of Noah’s Ark on Ararat at 4,179 years before his time, and the Egyptian tombs at just 1,000 years after that–clearly not enough time for the sons of Noah to differentiate into races.  

Something in my mind clicked.

It was as if a gear, never used and covered in dust, began turning. I remember frowning, not in discomfort but in amazement, and I began to ponder.

Could one family incest its way to multiple races in a millennium? Wouldn’t that take longer? Maybe Christian teachings are wrong and the human race isn’t 6,000 years old, as scholars mapped out using bible characters beginning with Adam. Maybe the flood occurred 10,000 years ago. Would that give Noah’s sons enough time?               

And worse: If there isn’t any flexibility with the age of the human race, did the flood even happen?

Conflict had struck. Were the human race so young, different ethnicities seemed unlikely to me. That would require procreation and evolution at a rate that would make Darwin laugh in your face (there are actually Christian scholars with Ph.D.s that still argue this is exactly what happened; their writings are…unconvincing).

I decided something was likely off. But if one story was wrong, which one? Was the human race so young and the flood story false? Or was the human race older and the flood story true? (My conclusion later in life, that the human race was much older and the flood story false, was still not an option.)

I’ll let you wonder which one I settled on. That’s not the important part of the tale. In that moment, I did something I’d never done: I allowed a new idea to (ever-so-slightly) modify my religious beliefs. Generally, you’re not supposed to do this. Pastors like to say doubt is a good thing (“Even King David wrestled with doubt!”), but what they usually mean is doubt is a good thing if you end up right where you started. If your views don’t change.

It was possible Gould was lying or misinformed. Perhaps there never were multiple races discovered in Egyptian tombs; perhaps dating methods were (are) flawed and those mummies were enshrined much later in human history. Yet I imagined with enough serious investigation I would determine he was right.

In other words, I believed Gould. I found his view more convincing. He persuaded me not to take the flood story so seriously–to question it.

Atheism often begins not with despair or rebellion, but with questioning and critical thinking.

When I put down The Mismeasure of Man, I wasn’t an atheist. I honestly didn’t think that much of this event, instead comfortably absorbing a new idea, opening my mind to a new possibility, and then going about my business. I remained a believer in God for a couple years. But something was different, as a seed of thought was planted: Perhaps I’m wrong.

That thought–such a simple idea–couldn’t have been predicted. Afterwards it could not be unthought. Inherent within it was the dismissal of blind faith. When you experience that (experience it seriously, not just saying “Hey, I might be wrong” as some Christians do who are completely closed to the possibility), you can’t “just have faith” anymore. Not when you suddenly realize you’re possibly–likely–wrong.

That’s the how. Why I became an atheist would include this tale of doubt and a million others, encompassing a multitude of later ideas: that if the horrific actions of God in the bible were attributed to Allah, Zeus, or Shiva, Christians would call that deity a monster; that many bible stories, such as the virgin birth of deities, are found in cultures that existed long before the Jews; that the story of Jesus, like many in holy texts around the world, could simply be a manmade myth; that “the existence, immensity, and complexity of the universe can only be explained by a designer” argument is weak because said designer, if he created the universe, would have to be even more immense and complex than the universe, and how is his existence explained?

Perhaps the two most significant ones would be, as any reading of history–no matter how subjective–would tell you, that human beings love to invent gods. Further, they love to attribute divine powers to religious leaders after said leaders die. These kinds of thoughts form the foundation of atheism: perhaps it’s more likely God is fictional, like so many millions of other gods.

It could well be that I’m wrong. Perhaps God does exist. As much as I doubt it, I remain open to the possibility. 

Yet after reading the most thoughtful Christian apologetics and most thoughtful atheistic arguments, one stood out as more reasonable to me. That’s why I’m an atheist. Most Christians claim to understand atheistic arguments, and reject them, without ever reading a book, an article, even a single sentence by an atheist. Who’s to say you won’t find a book by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, or Dan Barker (a former pastor) in your hands someday? And find their arguments better? Even before that, who’s to say something won’t click for you, that new information won’t make you rethink long-held ideas?  

Like me, you never know what your next thought will be.

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The Black Panthers

Posted on by under Race Relations

Beyoncé and her dancers, clad in black leather and black berets, their hair Afroed, reminded the world as it watched Super Bowl 50 of the Black Panthers, a radical leftist organization birthed in the 1960s by white American oppression.

Beyoncé and her dancers stood together on the football field and raised their fists in the traditional radical symbol “power to the people,” a sign of both solidarity with allies pushing for positive social change and defiance against oppressors.

After the performance, a group of dancers raised their fists once more. One unfolded a piece of paper inscribed with “Justice 4 Mario Woods.” Woods, reportedly armed with a knife, was shot to death in a heated confrontation with both black and white San Francisco police in December. Super Bowl 50 was held in San Francisco.

The performers also posed for a similar photo hailing Black Power off the field after the show.

The halftime performance came one day after Beyoncé’s music video “Formation” came out, which drew fire from angry whites for its “anti-police” message. In the video, Beyoncé sits atop a sinking police cruiser, a black child dances in front of a line of policemen in riot gear, who eventually raise their hands, graffiti on a wall demands police “Stop Shooting Us,” etc. “Formation” was one of the songs performed during the Super Bowl.    

The Black Panther Party, founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, was largely inspired by the ideology of Islamic minister Malcolm X (Beyoncé and her women formed an “X” at one point, likely a reference to him). Malcolm X summed up his view on violence, in accordance with his faith and belief in self-defense, when he said in 1963, “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” 

Formed in 1966, the year after Malcolm X’s assassination, the Panthers aimed to promote self-defense against police abuse and white vigilantes, to unify workers against capitalist exploitation, to embrace black pride, to make African Americans politically powerful and economically self-sufficient, to end illiteracy, hunger, and poverty in black communities, and to fight and die at any time for freedom.

Marxist ideas of transferring power to the common people–giving black people the economic, social, and political power to control their own destinies–attracted many. So did the idea of revolution, violent conflict, as a way to achieve basic human rights.

It was, after all, a time of virulent racism (it should be obvious to all that blacks faced far more severe and deadly oppression than the American colonists who rose up in revolution against the British).

White employers refused to pay blacks the same wages as whites, or hire them for more skilled, higher wage positions; white banks refused to provide home loans to blacks; school districts gerrymandered attendance zones to keep black and white schools distinct; white businesses fled from budding areas of black commerce; white producers charged black stores more for goods.

White residents fled from black neighbors; white real estate agents steered blacks away from nicer homes in white areas; white city councils, city planners, and developers refused to invest and build in black areas; white voters rejected tax increases that would benefit black schools and neighborhoods; white landlords refused to properly maintain property inhabited by black families.

White policemen beat and abused blacks suspected of committing crimes against whites, but ignored black on black crime in the ghettos; white judges and juries handed black criminals longer prison sentences and more frequent executions; white terrorists shot, hung, beat, mutilated and bombed innocent African Americans to keep them out of stores, schools, public facilities, neighborhoods, voting booths, and political positions.

Peaceful protesters exercising First Amendment rights were attacked and killed by police and vigilantes alike. The Black Panther Party and its message of self-protection appealed to those who saw Dr. King’s pacifism as inadequate (while respecting and upholding Dr. King’s belief in socialism).

So the Panthers made use of their Second Amendment rights: they armed themselves against a government that failed–for centuries–to protect their human rights, and in fact frequently worked to destroy said rights. They decided to defend themselves, especially against abusive policemen, whom they called “pigs.”

The Panthers used (what else?) the Declaration of Independence to justify revolution against the State. In their Ten-Point Program, which outlined their demands (the first being “We Want Freedom”), the Panthers reminded blacks and whites alike:

…governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government…

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations…evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Yet the Party was more than organizing for self-defense and revolution. Nationally, the Party was renowned for organizing dozens of community programs such as free clothing, shoes, food, education, legal representation, and health clinics for communities of color. They worked with welfare organizations, churches, and local businesses (some white) to ease black poverty.

They organized black history classes, including some that introduced whites to the horrors of slavery and oppression; this glimpse of true history left many whites terrified, tearful, and angry enough to join the fight for civil rights. They held rallies, marches, and strikes to push for black equality.

And although Panther women faced frequent sexual pressure and advances from the men, and sexism in general, the Party aimed to liberate women and promote equality—it was “empowering,” a “source of pride” and “strength,” in the words of one female Black Panther leader.

By the early 1980s, the Black Panther Party was destroyed. From the outset, the U.S. government and local authorities worked to undermine and eliminate it.

The FBI, which has a long history of working to destroy leftist and civil rights organizations (the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, etc.), installed spies, helped assassinate Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago, forged letters to create disunity, illegally imprisoned activists, destroyed property like food meant for distribution to the poor, and attempted to discredit the Party through propaganda. The FBI authorized municipal police to terrorize members at home, at meetings, and at protests.

When Bobby Seale was arrested for protesting at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, he was not allowed to choose his own lawyer—he was gagged and bound in the courtroom. Many Party leaders were forced to flee the United States to avoid death or imprisonment.

The Panthers’ deadly clashes with police also lost them support from more moderate black civil rights groups and more affluent blacks, and of course progress in civil rights legislation also convinced some their promised revolution was no longer necessary.

(See Reynaldo Anderson, On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities Across America; Gaidi Faraj, Unearthing the Underground: A Study of Radical Activism in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army; Paul Alkebulan, Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party.)

Today, with the rise of more radical movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, Beyoncé’s homage to the Panthers should come as no surprise. It is a time of immense anger toward the State and white-dominant society.

Research shows nearly all whites hold subconscious anti-black biases, and a solid majority consciously believe racist myths about blacks (whites in simulations are much quicker to shoot both armed and unarmed blacks). Black job applicants with identical resumes as white applicants are still less likely to be called back for an interview, and blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care at the same facilities than blacks with identical diagnoses and medical histories.  

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are consistently twice as likely to be black than white.

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What Conservatives Will Love About Socialism

Posted on by under Socialism

Believe it or not, there are aspects of socialism, that is, democratic socialism, that conservatives might actually support and enjoy.

Socialism is the belief in worker (“social,” “democratic”) ownership of all businesses and citizen power to decide all public policy. Supporters of such an economic and political structure existed alongside, and fiercely opposed, State socialism (also called authoritarian socialism or Communism).

Democratic socialism is not about a totalitarian government owning all businesses as under Communism, nor the State determining your career, nor eliminating possessions, the private ownership of homes, or civil liberties; rather, it aims to bring democracy into the workplace and local and national government.    

True, if you are a conservative who understands democratic socialism, there are likely many things about it you oppose.

For example, socialistic organization of a firm is, obviously, anti-capitalist. This means that capitalistic ownership, where one person (or a small group) owns a business, holds all decision-making power, and enriches him- or herself with the wealth created by the workers who directly create the good or provide the service, will be obsolete. That is an authoritarian structure, closely resembling a dictatorship, and leads to severe economic inequality, as (predictably) owners often award themselves millions while paying workers abysmal wages. 

(Side note: no one here is advocating the State force business owners to restructure; successful worker cooperatives, where each worker is an owner, votes on company decisions, and takes an equal share of profits, already exist around the world because some people chose democracy. The transformation to a nation of democratic workplaces will take centuries, but it should be voluntary.)

Capitalism is the few growing rich off the labor of the many, and some conservatives support that, particularly if they envision themselves as future business owners.

Any why not view it positively? Business owners start from nothing. Don’t they deserve their millions?

Well, in the beginning the founder creates the good or provides the service (creating the wealth), but without workers he or she cannot produce on a scale larger than him- or herself. Would Bill Gates be where he is today without employees?

The founder must hire workers and become a manager, leaving the workers as the direct creators of wealth. The sale of each good or service then must cover the cost of production, the cost of labor (worker compensation), and a little extra: profit the owner uses as he or she chooses. Therefore workers are not paid the full value of what they produce, which socialists call “exploitation” and correct through democratic ownership: founders share ownership, control, and profit equally with each worker added.

Even though that’s more democratic, increases prosperity for more people, and eliminates exploitation, conservatives (and even moderate or liberal business owners) may not like it. They might prefer holding onto decision-making power and enriching themselves while paying workers far less.

Likewise, they may hate socialists’ anti-war sentiments, or desires to see tax dollars used for universal healthcare, higher education, and work for the unemployed. But there are three things conservatives may appreciate about socialism.

The End of Unions

When workers own their workplaces, will there be a need for unions?

Unions are organizations of workers that join together to push for better working conditions, higher pay, and so on. They engage in negotiation, or direct action like strikes or sit-downs, to force employers to make concessions that will improve their standard of living and working–and that of their descendants (winning for us the 8 hour work day and the weekend, for example).

This is a central conflict of capitalism. As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations, “The workmen desire to get as much as possible, the masters to give as little as possible.”

But when workers own the businesses in which they work, this long conflict between workers and owners will come to a close. Decisions on hours, pay, schedule, and everything else will be made by discussion and vote. The workmen will become the masters, and unions will have no purpose.

The Abolition of Welfare

Worker ownership is not a cure-all. Cooperatives take on more workers because, although it further divides power and profits, more workers can expand production and increase profits. Yet there surely will be times when more people are looking for work than cooperatives are looking to hire, just like in our present economy.

So socialists envision using tax dollars to fund local public work projects. Taxes will cover a basic salary to workers to rebuild our inner cities and slums, clean streets, tutor struggling students, plant new trees, paint murals on buildings—any productive task that betters society. This has been accomplished successfully in the past, such as during the Great Depression. Some American and Canadian cities are already paying homeless men and women to do similar work, helping them crawl out of extreme poverty.

Such work need not be permanent (though governments could theoretically help workers organize into new, self-sustaining worker co-ops if there exists a consumer base for their mission), nor organized by the federal government. Federal tax dollars can be distributed to city councils based on annual unemployment levels, and cities can decide what projects they need to focus on to improve their communities.

Between worker cooperatives, guaranteed employment, and a strong minimum wage (which has been shown to actually increase employment and have only a marginal affect on prices), poverty will be abolished, alongside welfare.

Guarantee citizens a job with a decent wage, and food stamps, child tax credits, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other forms of welfare (except those for the elderly, sick, and disabled) can be eliminated. Unemployment compensation will disappear–paying someone for 99 weeks without work in return is extremely wasteful. Under socialism, men and women will be paid to work.

The Death of Bureaucracy

If you are a conservative, you are likely often concerned (rightly) about State power–big government encroaching on your personal life and civil liberties. You may also be concerned that the State is not curbing personal freedom enough–allowing things like gay marriage, flag burning, abortion. Or not going to war when you think America should.

Well, how would you like to have a say–a direct say–in public policy? How would you like decision-making power? Perhaps it’s time for pure democracy.

Socialism is the simple belief that the people, not the wealthy, the corporate owners, or politicians who can be bought, should control the government and write the laws, through direct democracy.

Instead of voting once every four or eight years, concerned citizens will vote many times a year…on national policy. The people will vote on education standards, the protection of the planet, whether to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, whether to go to war, everything.

Citizens would have initiative rights for municipal, state, and national policy, that is, the ability to petition for a law or law change and have it put to the people for a vote. Direct democracy already exists in Switzerland.

This is common at the local and state level already. How do you think Colorado legalized marijuana in 2012? It was put on the ballot, the people voted, and it was done. No corrupt politicians in the way, swayed this way and that by lobbyists and their bribes. No bureaucracy, no unelected officials making decisions for the common people.

Under socialism, politicians like congressmen would be elected only to carry out the policies approved by the (perhaps two-thirds) majority of Americans, with elected Supreme Court members and the president preserving a system of checks and balances. Power to the people, as the old radical leftist saying goes. The people would be the politicians.

Short term limits and the threat of immediate recall vote (even of the president) would keep officials in line with the desires of voters. If, say, 60% of Americans felt the president wrongly vetoed a measure passed by the people, he or she could be overruled by national vote. If the president (or any politician) refused to enforce laws, a 60% majority vote could remove him or her from office immediately.

Karl Marx, in The Communist Manifesto, wrote that the common people must become the ruling class, to “win the battle of democracy.”

He wasn’t just talking about liberals and socialists.

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