Jack Burgess: “Neoconfederates” Try Again to Shut Down Democracy: Fort Sumter Back in the News

"...If they win, these Rebels, they crank back the universe..."

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burgessbytes October, 2013

“Neoconfederates” Try Again to Shut Down Democracy: Fort Sumter Back in the News

“Neoconfederate”? It’s not my term…it was coined by a Republican—writer and former G.O.P. staffer, Michael Lofgren, whose book The Party is Over, tells about the takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing “insurrectionists” based in the South.

He’s not alone in that view…Bruce Bartlett, former senior policy analyst for President Reagan, says that there has been a takeover of the Republican Party by “the South.”  For those of us who remember our history, it was Nixon and then Reagan who followed a “Southern strategy” to victory, exploiting discontent over the Civil Rights acts of the 1960’s, authored by Democratic Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

And of course, a little further back, there was a walkout of Southern delegates at the Democratic National Convention of 1948 over a strong civil rights platform authored by Hubert Humphrey.  The walkout was led by Strom Thurmond, who then led many segregationist Democrats into the Republican Party.  He and his “Dixiecrats” managed to keep the President of the United States, Harry Truman of Missouri, off the fall ballot in the eleven states of the old Confederacy! Truman, who was hated as much or more than Clinton and Obama by the Old Guard, managed to win the election anyway.

Now, we have a Federal government shutdown emanating mostly from the South, aimed at our first Black President and at what they perceive as progressive Federal legislation in the Affordable Health Care Act, known as Obamacare.

Ft. Sumter Back in the News:

In an ironic twist, businessmen in the Charleston, S.C. area, were complaining today that Ft. Sumter was closed as a result of the Republican shutdown of the Federal Government and they were losing business because they couldn’t take tourists to visit the old fort in the bay—where the Civil War began when the original Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War, angry because President Lincoln refused to recognize their government and refused to turn over Federal property to them.  That war, of course, was fought because the Federal government, led by Lincoln, refused to agree to the expansion of slavery into other states, and the Confederates refused to agree to restrict that “peculiar institution” to the slave states of the South. 

And if you’re feeling squeamish about comparing today’s Republicans to the slavers of old, remember, it’s Republicans who have used the term “Neoconfederates.”  It’s also reactionary Republicans such as Rush Limbaugh who have compared forcing people to have health care—Obamacare—to slavery, or the Fugitive Slave Act.  Of course, most Republicans of today are not as uncaring and repressive as the Tea Party leadership—just as most white folks in the Old South didn’t own slaves---but they tolerate the inherent racism of the current actions aimed at destroying much-needed health care law and at tearing down the President and our national government.

                                                                                                                       

For the South wants the North, and though

Marse Robert was driven back

and driven down, still they come

forevermore.  “Vengeance!” they shout,

pouring up through the green meadows

of Maryland, ghosts, powered by their revenge.

But this is not a mere romance.

If they win, these Rebels,

They crank back the universe

to their time, the time of the lash.

Get out your long skirts, women,

to hide your shame, and my brown brothers,

stay where you are, this is the end of the line.

…

It’s always Gettysburg.

Jack Burgess

Jack Burgess: Food Stamps, Yes!

“It always amazes me how rich men, given so much by their families and their circumstances, believe assistance will hurt other people.”

a burgess bulletin – september, 2013

Food Stamps, Yes!

A column appearing in Ohio newspapers

by Jack Burgess

If you’re reading this column, you probably don’t participate in a government program such as SNAP, to help provide food for your family.  If you can afford to have a newspaper delivered to your home, or if you have a computer and an internet connection so you can read online, you may have more than enough money for food. But millions of good Americans, many in Ohio, don’t have enough to feed their families, and without the assistance of folks like us, they’d starve, or turn to looting for food.

Unfortunately, some of us don’t want to help those who need it.  We believe—or say we believe—folks who are poor brought it on themselves.  Say they’re lazy, or substance addicted, or don’t handle their money wisely.  Mostly, that’s not true.  Some of that thinking is based on the old survival of the fittest mentality, which says if you can’t make it, tough.  It’s your own fault.  Some of it is convoluted Christianity, that those who are successful are God’s chosen, that they’re being rewarded in this life, that the poor are being punished.  Far be it from me to tell anyone what to believe, but Jesus was about “feeding the multitudes,” and caring for children--half of the people on food assistance programs are children.  They can’t work.  They go to bed hungry, wake up hungry, and go to school hungry.  Thankfully, we still have school breakfast and lunch programs, or some of these kids would rarely get a good meal.

This is the United States of America we’re talking about—the richest nation in the history of the world.  We can afford to feed the children, and the disabled and the aged who make up most of the rest of the recipients of government assistance.  And let’s not forget that many of those receiving assistance are working, but their jobs don’t pay enough to feed a family.

Some in the Congress, and in Ohio’s government, want to end food assistance, or cut it way back.  Of course, none of them need assistance.  We pay them well and most of them come from privileged homes.  Many of them got more from government than they will own up to. Republican Congressional leader Ryan, for instance, received Social Security assistance as a young man, which helped him toward his own prosperity.  Some of the political rhetoric on this harks back to President Reagan’s words, “Government is the problem.”  But even Reagan, who benefited from government in many ways, spoke about the need to maintain “a social safety net.”  He didn’t really believe in starving people or eliminating government.  And he raised taxes when needed.

It always amazes me that rich men, given so much by their families and their circumstances, believe assistance will hurt other people. The evidence is mostly to the contrary. Millions who have had help in dealing with poverty have turned their lives around.  And it’s good economics, as every $1spent on food assistance generates $1.80 in economic activity, benefiting everyone.

If we really wanted to get people off food assistance, we’d start by raising the minimum wage to a point where people could earn enough by working to feed a family.  We’d give more honest counseling to young people regarding birth control---as sex is here to stay and today’s young people, like our generations, will mostly not practice abstinence.  We’d also strengthen our schools by cutting back on the massive waste of the standardized testing nonsense and invest in counseling, after school programs, and school to work programs.  We’d ask our corporations to do more, as they do in some other countries, to train workers on the job.  Sending every young person to college will not solve the problem.  Income levels, adjusted for inflation, have mostly been falling since the 1970’s, and more college degrees might mean more underpaid or unemployed college graduates.

Where will the money come from?  It will have to come from where it’s gone.  The super wealthy of this nation have seen their wealth expand by leaps and bounds, and it’s time for them to give back in small measure to the nation that has rewarded them so well.

Jack Burgess is a retired teacher of American & Global Studies. He’s also served as board president of the Godman Guild Settlement House in Columbus.