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Its too easy for the right wing to blow off claims that they are Fascists by saying its just
old liberal nonsense. Well, here's a frame that they will hate and struggle to avoid,
but its so true.
The Bush Administration: Angry White Guys Pay Homage to the Watts Riots
by arendt
"I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie."
- H. Rap Brown, Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party
"I ask every citizen to reject the blind violence that has taken Dr. King."
- President Lyndon Johnson
Race riots, along with anti-war demonstrations, were a constant background noise of the 1960s.
They began in Watts in 1965, catching everyone off-guard. Ghettoized blacks rebelled against the
paramilitary LAPD and trashed mostly their own neighborhood. The 1968 assassination of Dr. King touched
off riots in 100 cities. By then, armed Black Panthers were roaming the streets, encouraging chants of
"Black Power". The riots, initially met with puzzlement, began to face increasingly harsh repression, and
eventually became arguments against the legitimate grievances of the Civil Rights Movement(CRM).
Throughout the 90s, the fundamentalist right and their sock puppet, the GOP, cynically cloaked their
legal and political maneuverings in what they had formerly derided as the CRM's "language of
victimhood". It may have been cynical posturing to the Washington elites, but the Angry White Guys truly
felt themselves to be victims. Victims of godless liberals, gay perverts, college professors, feminazis,
water fluoridation, whatever. Enter, stage far right, George Bush.
Imagine the Watts Riots if, somehow, H. Rap Brown had been Mayor of Los Angeles when Dr. King
was killed. Imagine if, instead of trying to calm emotions, he called out the LAPD to find King's killer,
imposing a curfew on the white parts of town. Except that he looked the other way when looters
found their way over to that part of town.
Well that's what H. Rap Bush is doing. He has taken the honest economic problems that globalization
has created for working Americans and whipped the fundamentalists up into a riot, by waving flags and
posturing in uniforms at every turn. Ghoulishly exploiting 911 with as many crocodile tears as the violent
Mr. Brown shed over the non-violent Dr. King's death, Bush has put anyone to the left of Jerry Falwell
under surveillance, and encouraged his radical right mob to bully anyone who crossed him, from pop
singers to politicians to French Fries. He smirked while street thug GOP broadcasters labeled the dissidents
the Angry White Guy equivalent of "oreo" or "Uncle Tom", such as "Volvo-driving, sushi-eating, French-loving,
surrender monkeys". Then he went looking for the 911 killers under the light of the nearest oil well. Mel
Brooks couldn't write such a farce.
Under Bush's mis-administration, a culture of corruption has devolved into the open looting of a
government the fundamentalists have been taught to hate. Just like ghetto victims who cheered,
"Burn, baby, burn", the fundies cheer as Bush burns down their national home. Too bad its
the crooks at the top who get the good loot, while the suckers trash the liquor store. They're grabbing
all the faith-based, Intelligent Design hootch they can, which will just that make them even crazier and
stupider than they already are.
After four years, it finally seems that the rest of City Hall is getting tired of breathing smoke and
shooting at ever more brazen looters. There are rumblings that, finally, someone is going to rein in the
lawlessness, which has gotten to the level of H. Rap Bush himself, who now says the law is what he says
it is - and the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper". In the sixties, Chairman Mao said "Power
comes from the barrel of a gun." Is there a difference?
If City Hall USA manages to chuck out H. Rap, and if they manage to get the rioters back under
control, then we can finally turn our attention to the future. Like the residents of Watts, we will find
our already-bleak, Hubbard's Peak prospects even more sadly diminished. We have run down our
oil-addicted infrastructure, bankrupted our small businesses with big-boxes, emptied our already
miniscule bank accounts, and earned the disrespect and fear of the less crazy parts of the world.
There will be little in the way of new loans to rescue our ruined consumer economy and replace the
industries that were gleefully shipped overseas as the private booty of the Walton family and Dick
Cheney's Haliburton.
And, the saner part of the U.S., the folks who were for dialogue and compromise, will say to these White
Panthers: thanks for nothing. You've ruined our good name, our good credit, our neighborhood.
You have turned into that which you feared: lawless, rioting racists who besmirch their cause
and their country; and you have tarred us with the same brush. In spite of that, if you can find it
in you to admit your disgrace, ask forgiveness, and come back to the faith in democracy
that you have denied, you can be accepted. Democracy is a strong enough church to welcome back
a prodigal son.
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