Politics

American Identity Politics: Pluribus v. Unum

Culture, History, Politics / By

decried.  “The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.” The issue girding identity politics in Roosevelt’s time was foreign immigration.  Immigrants had been washing over America’s shores by the millions for 35 years when TR gave his speech at a Knights of Columbus meeting in New York City, to an audience comprised mostly of Irish immigrants no less.  But identity politics in American history go back much further than that. Historians, though they don’t necessarily use the term in this context, are keenly aware that Andrew Jackson’s rise to the presidency came as he rode a wave of unprecedented identity politics.  Although their candidate was a wealthy land speculator who owned a cotton plantation nearly two square miles in size and over 150 slaves, Jackson’s campaign presented him as an every man.  They starkly contrasted him against and even mocked the well-heeled, blue blood elitism of his main rival, John Quincy Adams.

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American Values in the Streets of Egypt

Guest authors, Politics / By

By Guest Blogger Kimberly Katz subcommittee, the latter as the ranking member on the Armed Services committee.  Accordingly, Americans should be astounded that only now do these senators publicly recognize the repressive nature of the Mubarak regime, which has benefitted tremendously from $1.3 billion in annual military aid as a result of its 1979 peace treaty with Israel. The Kerry-McCain resolution should give pause to Americans as the history of U.S. foreign policy has been ugly across the globe, from Cuba to the Philippines, from Honduras to Guatemala, from Iran to Iraq to Tunisia to Egypt and elsewhere, from the end of the 19th century to the present.  U.S. foreign policy has actively supported known dictators, providing them with the funding and military aid that they need to brutally repress their populations at home, with commercial and strategic benefits accruing to the United States in return.

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Poverty School

Culture, Politics / By

when the school hired a detective to follow the girls.  However, Williams-Bolar did not meekly pull her children out, as most parents do when exposed.  Instead, she stuck to her story.  The school district then had her prosecuted on a grand theft felony charge, claiming that since she did not pay the local property taxes that funded the district’s schools, her actions were tantamount to stealing $40,000 worth of services.  She was convicted and ended up serving nine days in jail.

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Bachmann Bullshit Overdrive

Politics / By

city of Baltimore, Democrats govern without external competition; Abraham Lincoln himself couldn’t get elected to a municipal office here.  And of course Democrats face the same intractable obstacles in Republican dominated areas.  In such circumstances, loggerhead bickering and ineffectiveness are replaced by calcified political operations rife with cronyism and corruption. So while I don’t support many of the Tea Party ideas, on some level I do want to see them succeed.  At this point, almost any viable alternative sounds good.  However, I want and even expect new political movements, either from the right or the left, to do better than the status quo.  I did not see that last night from Bachmann.  Instead I saw more of the same.

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On Twain, Gribben, and “Nigger”

Culture, Politics / By

documents it must grudgingly release because of a Freedom of Information Act request.  Gribben is not a state actor, and he is not prohibiting or even discouraging people from acquiring the original versions of these books.  Simply put, his actions are not censorious; they are editorial.  And those are not the same thing.  Indeed, to prevent Gribben and his publisher from issuing his edition, that would be censorship.

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