Horseshoe Watch
Immoderates on a Losing Streak
A little early for the champagne, but the trend is good … at least on this side of the Atlantic
Several items in the news this week indicate that the fever might be starting to break on the left side of the horseshoe. This first from a progressive columnist in the SF Chronicle:
I’m not Republican, but I am moderate and Justin Phillips (the author) is absolutely correct that the “talking points” on this side contain kernels of truth. Avocado pit sized ones.
The two better known cities in the Bay Area (SF and Oakland) have been run into the ground by corrupt and incompetent local elected officials, all of whom from the blue-black heel of the horseshoe.
In that same issue of the Chronicle, there’s a multi-page exposé, providing some context for the FBI raid on the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao. Detailing her circle of sleaze: friends, family and cronies who play the usual long con of riling up the rabble in order to line their own pockets.
Phillips’s column suggests the populace may be on to the scam and ready for a change of management, and (one can hope) ideology.
Today brings this encouraging headline:
Only one quibble, namely labeling the Bowman/Squad types as progressives. They may like to call themselves that … at least when on mike/camera. But don’t be fooled. That’s like MAGA types calling themselves the real democrats. The animating spirit of AOC et al has nothing to do with the principles of the Progressive Era in our history.
Their heroes aren’t Teddy Roosevelt and John Stuart Mill. They’re Marx & Engels … or Castro & Guevara.
And bonus that the right heel’s Dear Leader’s iron grip on the GOP might be loosening as well. A little hard to get too enthused over Mormonstan opting for its version of traditional conservatism, that said.
And further detail on Bowman and what it means for the blue-black heels:
Also in the feed, on a related topic, this bit of anti-racist racialism:
Whenever you see “White People”, turn up your baloney filter. I don’t know this author, and her piece is mostly to highlight the Mother Jones project “40 Acres and a Lie”. Reparations is a serious topic, as I wrote earlier this year. Trying to close the debate this prematurely is the bug.
Getting to a Tranquil Union meeting of the minds is not helped by the sort of reverse reasoning and name-calling in the polemic above. Just mindlessly repeating the tropes “the USA was built on slavery”, “we’ve earned our reparations”, “white people who don’t support reparations are just racists”, etc… isn’t going to work.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
The Latina in the (histrionic) headline simply pointed out that 55% of the population of California is Hispanic or Asian, almost none of whom had ancestors in the state prior to June 19, 1865. (Never mind that slavery was never legal in the state and that we fought on the Union side.)
Asking those more recent arrivals to pick up the staggering tab being proposed is neither coherent nor fair … a sort of collective guilt atonement for the sins of a) the Ghanaian/Dahomey/Senegalese/etc… enslavers, subsequently b) the European middlemen slave traders/shippers and then c) the Dixie/CSA purchasers and exploiters of the enslaved Africans.
Since accidental irony is never far behind when extremists self-styled as progressives (= woke) give vent to their indignation/rage, if you want to talk about ignorance of history, let’s linger over “40 Acres and a Mule”.
I suspect most Americans think that was an actual promise made by, say, President Lincoln or the full Congress … maybe around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, or the XIIIth Amendment, or Reconstruction.
Not so. The 40 Acres part came from unilateral war-time Special Orders by Major General Sherman during his famous March to the Sea through Georgia, applying to only 18,000 or so newly freed enslaved persons.
The word ‘mule’ does not appear in the text of the Special Orders.
“40 Acres and a Mule” does make a great bumper sticker, I’ll give it that.
