Intolerance over the Ages

It is time for me to take a sabbatical again as the preparation and timing of these posts take an inordinate amount of time away from other projects that interest me.

But before I do so, I feel I need to do at least one more post on the subject, which forms the title of this post.

What particularly prompts me to focus on this subject now, is that I watched, for at least the second time, the movie “Gentlemen’s Agreement”. For those who are not privy to the movie, or have long since forgotten it, it was released in 1947, or some 67 years ago. At the time it was considered a groundbreaker, for it dealt with a taboo subject – Anti-Semitism. Those who are much younger than I will not be aware just how rampant it was, and those who are old enough, may no longer remember. But for example, Representative John Rankin (Dem–Miss.) on June 5, 1941 rose on the floor of the House of Representatives and declared “Wall Street bankers and international Jews”  were dragging the country into war. 

Long after the film was released, five years later to be exact, as late as 1952, Rankin said on the House floor:

“They whine about discrimination. Do you know who is being discriminated against? The white Christian people of America, the ones who created this nation… I am talking about the white Christian people of the North as well as the South.” 

Doesn’t that sound familiar - only now it is African-Americans. And it is no longer the Democratic Party; Now it is the Republican Party. After all these years, Jews still have very little prominence in the Republican Party.

Strangely, the producer of the film Darryl Zanuck, who was not Jewish, was prompted to produce the film after being refused membership in the Los Angeles Country Club, because it was assumed incorrectly that he was Jewish. Equally interesting “Before filming commenced, Samuel Goldwyn and other Jewish film executives approached Darryl Zanuck and asked him not to make the film, fearing it would "stir up trouble". 

But the above is merely background material for my reaction to the film, for from my vantage point, almost 70 years later, what I noted was its inherent prejudices.

One couldn’t miss its sexism, as when, for example, the female lead, after having accepted a marriage proposal exclaims: “I want to feel how it sounds to be Mrs. Phillip Green”. Now looking at the movie from a vantage point more than 60 years later, when so many women, including my daughter, decline to take their husbands' last names, it seems almost incredible that a women would so completely give up her identity as to surrender, not only her last name, but her first name as well.

But much more striking is the total absence in the movie of a face of color. When I say absence I mean we don’t even see a face of color in the role of a maid. They simply don’t exist. There is also the element of class, for we look in vain for even a small glimpse of people who are not part of “polite society”.

But possibly what comes across to me most of all is the change of the face of the parties. Rankin, was a Democrat, as were the many Southern segregationists of the time. Governor Wallace the outspoken segregationist from Alabama, who later ran for President, was a Democrat. Strom Thurmond, the racist Senator from South Carolina, who also later ran for President was a Democrat.

We don’t find people like that in the Democratic Party any more. The first African-American to occupy the White House is a Democrat.

The first women to occupy the White House is also, more likely than not, to be a Democrat.

To be sure we have one prominent African-American Republican as a Presidential candidate, Ben Carson. But it is interesting to note the make-up of the Congressional delegations of the two parties when it comes to Jews, African Americans and women.

Here is the scorecard:

There are a total of 10 (ten) Jews in the US Senate. They are all Democrats. See here.

There are a total of 19 (nineteen) Jews in the House of Representatives. One (1) is a Republican; 18 (eighteen) are Democrats.

There is only one Jewish Governor in the US. He is a Democrat.

There are 9 (nine) Jewish mayors of major cities in the USA. None are Republican. Eight (8) of them are Democrats and one is an Independent. 

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There are a total of 43 (forty-three) African-Americans in the House of Representatives. 43 are Democrats and none are Republicans.

There are two African-Americansin the US Senate. They are Tim Scott of South Carolina and Cory Booker of New Jersey. One is a Republican and one a Democrat. 

There is only one African-American Governor in the US. He is Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. He is a Democrat.

The hoopla about Carson is window-dressing.

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There are 20 women in the US Senate. 14 are Democrats; 6 are Republican.

There are 84 women in the House of Representatives. 62 are Democrats; 22 are Republican. 

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There are Twenty-Nine (29) Latino-Americans in the House of Representatives. Seven (7) are Republican; 22 are Democrats.

How many of these Hispanic House member are Cuban it is not possible to tell. This is crucially important because there is a vast ethnic and political difference between the “Hispanics” from South of the border and from Puerto Rico, and Spanish speaking peoples who hailed from Cuba or from Spain.

There are three (3) Hispanics in the Senate. Two are Republican; One is a Democrat. All are of Cuban descent.

All the so called Republican “Hispanics” vying for the Republican Presidential nomination are of Cuban descent. The media distorts and misrepresents when they put such disparate groups into the same definition on the basis of a common language.

I think that these statistics tell us a great deal.

Neither Jews, nor African-Americans, nor women, have a home in the Republican party of today. It is for good reason that the Republican Party of today has been described as the party of old, Christian, White men.

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Even though it is unrelated, I have to share with my readers a letter I wrote to the New York Times, which I have no doubt will not be published.

To the Editor:

 As a long time reader and subscriber to the NY Times I am appalled at the discriminatory coverage by the Times of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

 Clinton launched her Presidential campaign yesterday, on June 13, 2015, in New York, on Roosevelt Island.

 The TV networks and web outlets gave it prominent and instant coverage. The NJ Newspaper, the Record, covered it on its front page in its Sunday edition.

 The Washington Post gave it gave it front page coverage with the headline: Democracy not ‘just for billionaires,’ Hillary Clinton tells crowd in N.Y. Even the Times of Israel ran the headline: “At first major rally, Clinton touts foreign policy chops”

 But the New York newspaper, The NY Times relegates it to page 14 of its Sunday edition.

 What does that tell us about the paper?

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Reality Check (Further Discussion)

On February 7th I posted "Reality Check!! (Discussion)" to my blog and it was distributed to subscribers that evening. In that post I first set forth my exchange on that topic with Albert Nekimken PhD of Vienna, Virginia, but in the second portion presented an exchange with Mike Cerrato Esq. of Westville, New Jersey. That exchange continued, but was not posted promptly because I felt the need to address "The President’s Second Inaugural Address." Both posts can easily be accesses by double clicking on their titles shown in bold above.

Now I would like to share with my readers the concluding portions of my discussion with Mike Cerrato. Mike wrote:

OOOH, you are making me think about this stuff. That hurts! 

I guess we are going in the same direction, but from slightly differing directions. Of course, I cannot disagree that the reality of what I will call capitalistic opportunism does not in any way come close to the horrors of slavery, I don't believe the mindsets of the opportunists are all that different than the slaveholders. The only difference is, I fear, degree. Only a little over a century separate us from the days when the chains were all too real to today, when they consist of those created by self-appointed masters of the universe who have constructed their more-figurative chains through the crony capitalist-supporting legal and economic systems which enable them to grab most of the pie while forcing the rest of us to fight over the scraps they allow to fall off the table. I cannot help but believe that, had today's robber barons been born in 1860 below the Mason-Dixon line, they would have been all too happy to own a few other human beings. 

I wholeheartedly agree with you, however, about the need to "balance the system."

My response is set forth below:

Thanks, for that compliment. If I can make my readers think, that is far more important than having them agree.

It is second only to giving them facts that they did not possess, and if in the process I slay a few myths, then I am having a very good day.

I am afraid that you are decrying the nature of the beast. Man, or should I say Homo Sapiens, to make sure the female is not overlooked, is and always has been a selfish species. It is the argument against Democracy, which is often referred to as the rule of the mob. It is why our founders created a Republic, and not a Democracy. They were a bunch of aristocrats, who didn't trust the people. That is why the President was to be chosen by electors, rather than the people. Why Senators to be chosen by state legislators and not by direct suffrage. The vote restricted to male property owners and not to others.

Over time we became a Democracy. Still an imperfect one, but a Democracy nevertheless. Many on the Right would like us to return to the Republic of our forefathers. Would our plutocrats of today enslave us if they could? I don't know? Certainly some would! Most I think not. It is irrelevant.

Homo Sapiens are what he/she are, and we have no control over that. It is only what system we employ that we can control.

You appear to be attacking the Capitalist system in all its forms. To that I say the same as I say about Democracy. About that I quote Winston Churchill, "It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

I have to say the same about Capitalism. It too is the worst form of an economic system except for all the others that have been tried.

Today every country that has any kind of successful economic system has a free enterprise system including, "Communist" China. The only variations are the degree to which the system is regulated and the extent to which the state has a hand on the tiller. Where socialist systems have been tried they have failed. We don't have to look at the usual straw men systems such as the Soviet Union to see that. The Labor Party in Britain kept nationalizing the economy every time they came to power. It didn't work. They gave it up.

There are very few instances of managed economies left in the world and they are all failing their people. Venezuela is a prime example. Well meaning, but a disaster. Uganda? Cuba? Well we can make excuses for Cuba because of our economic boycott, but the rest of the world trades with them. I don't think their failures, and I recognize they have some successes, such as good health care, can be blamed entirely on the US.

I am a lawyer like you, only I practiced on the international scene. I remember when India was a Socialist country anxious to keep out foreign capital. It didn't work.

What makes Capitalism work is the very fact that people are essentially selfish. We can't change that! We can only devise a system that takes advantage of that inherent trait.

Like sports, it depends on competition. Like sports, it needs rules, so that mere muscle and unrestrained power does not carry the day. Like sports it needs referees to see that the rules are enforced. Without these rules and the referees it becomes a fixed sport known as crony capitalism.

That is where the battle lies. We fight about the rules and their enforcement and leveling the playing field. To make, as I have said, false equivalencies about good and evil, and the inherent greed of homo sapiens, brings us no nearer to a juster society (and I will not speak of a just society, because there is no such thing). We strive, and the struggle endures; it never ceases. That is what it is all about!

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.