Stuff to Read/Upcoming Anniversaries

I’m feeling a tad under the weather, so here’s some stuff to tide you over.

And what do the phrases “under the weather” and “tide you over” really mean? They make no sense.

Well, anyhoo — couple of big anniversaries this week. Tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. That’s seven score and ten years ago if you want to be formal about it.

And, of course, Friday is the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. Get ready for a Kennedy Assassination Truther Festival.

A couple of articles — see “America’s angriest white men: Up close with racism, rage and Southern supremacy” by Michael Kimmel. It’s mostly what you all already know, but the author makes one point that is intriguing —

In the United States, class is often a proxy for race. When politicians speak of the “urban poor,” we know it’s a code for black people. When they talk about “welfare queens,” we know the race of that woman driving the late-model Cadillac. In polite society, racism remains hidden behind a screen spelled CLASS.

On the extreme Right, by contrast, race is a proxy for class. Among the white supremacists, when they speak of race consciousness, defending white people, protesting for equal rights for white people, they actually don’t mean all white people. They don’t mean Wall Street bankers and lawyers, though they are pretty much entirely white and male. They don’t mean white male doctors, or lawyers, or architects, or even engineers. They don’t mean the legions of young white hipster guys, or computer geeks flocking to the Silicon Valley, or the legions of white preppies in their boat shoes and seersucker jackets “interning” at white-shoe law firms in major cities. Not at all. They mean middle-and working-class white people. Race consciousness is actually class consciousness without actually having to “see” class. “Race blindness” leads working-class people to turn right; if they did see class, they’d turn left and make common cause with different races in the same economic class.

Finally, see “How We Got Obamacare to Work.” In short, states have shown us that the ACA works just fine if right-wing nutjobs just get out of the way and let it work.