Op ED Commentary
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the 1997 British film The Full Monty we have six unemployed men, four of them laid off steelworkers, earning money by putting on a show advertising that they would striptease for an audience of women. The term ' Full Monty ' meant that at the end of their performance they would strip naked. The inner meaning of this film was of course to study the economic conditions in Sheffield, England where the steel industry was in deep recession at that time. Good, decent work was hard to come by for these men and thousands of others. Stripping naked had thus the double meaning of baring oneself both physically and spiritually.
Sometimes stripping oneself naked figuratively can reveal the inner truth about a person. ' Letting it all hang out' as they say can allow others to see what is churning deep inside a person. Let's take the Trump phenomena as I call it. Why did he get so much support from so many people with so little invested... meaning low and low middle income folks? Forget about the upper middle class and wealthier others who supported Trump. They have and will always support platforms of politicians that cater to their stock portfolios and investments. Yet, those Trump supporters without a ' pot to piss in' still believe that he and his administration are going to ' Drain the Swamp ' of the phony elites and corrupt DC snakes. They carry banners on their cars and pickup trucks of ' Make America Great Again' while most of the jobs being created are low end and ' Dead End ' ( and of course NON UNION) mostly part time crap. Well, what the latter and former groupings of white Trump supporters do have in common is pure and simple racism. Oh, they can hide it through phrases like entitlements , affirmative action and building a wall, along with the old favorite phrase used by angry white people: Welfare Queens. Trump supporters of all economic classes also rail repeatedly against ' Big Government ' , not realizing that it is this ' Big Government ' that takes half of their federal tax money and distributes it to the Military Industrial Empire, among other giveaways to the corporate world. Simply put, and heard inside private parties and media free conversations is to ' Keep those Niggers and Spics in their place'!
A little over a year ago Mr. Trump viewed the tapes of the scuffles by white supremacists and the Antifa ( Anti Fascists) demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia. He then, after having time to ponder on it all , stated that " There were some very fine people on both sides ". Of course, he failed to mention or condemn the fact that those same marchers had worn those KKK style pointed hats and carried the KKK and Nazi like torches the night before while chanting over and over " Jews won't replace us! " Can one imagine the lack of national outrage that not only Trump but all Americans should have felt? Where was the outrage by Jewish Trump supporters for his lack of feeling on this? Where was the lack of outrage by the Israeli government? They rail at the ( false ) charges of Anti Semitism towards British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and not much at Trump for his lack of passion on this issue. All this did and still does is give silent license to it all.
Clueless DeSantis: Is he really a conscious racist, or just another Republican oaf?
Yesterday Congressman (from MY district) Ron DeSantis, running now for Governor, made another gaffe that many folks make who never do ' The Full Monty '. During a description of his Democratic Party opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, whereupon he first lauded Gillum's polish and style, DeSantis remarked that voters should "Not MONKEY up by electing.... " Of course, Gillum is a black man, and for so long most white people know that derogatory words to describe blacks have always been Monkeys, Apes and Coons. Does one think that DeSantis used that phrase willingly and with venom? I don't know, but that is not the point of it all. It came out of him because it just may happen to be a part of his psyche! This writer remembers an airplane flight he took to Phoenix in 1988. It was a long flight, embarking from NYC, and I was stretching my legs a bit. I encountered a man, perhaps late 30s, who said he was an Israeli engineer visiting the US. I asked him his take on the whole Palestinian problem at that time. His answer astounded me. With a calm and highly professional demeanor, the guy told me how he thought most Israelis felt on this issue. " You have to understand that we Israelis view the Palestinians as you do your Southern Blacks. They breed like rabbits, and if we don't do something soon, they will overpopulate us to death. Sad as it is, the only recourse we have is to drive them into the sea before they overwhelm us. "
As my dear anti war and civil rights activist, 89 year old Walt DeYoung would say: Nuff said!
—PA Farruggio
August 30th 2018
The Russian Peace Threat examines Russophobia, American Exceptionalism and other urgent topics
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Nice job Phil. WIth these Republicans, the civil rights movement never happened.
We have received a note from Ms Beverly Rice saying she’s having trouble posting her comments on TGP. We are therefore publishing her comments here using the main editorial window. —P. Greanville, Editor. BY BEVERLY RICE “I have made racist thoughts myself from time to time. It goes back to our upbringing” Should I or anyone call you a racist because of these thoughts? If someone says you made a racist statement years ago, should this disqualify you from political office, or just from holding a position in an office cubicle farm? If there was a Phil Farruggio Company, should… Read more »
THE AUTHOR (PHIL FARRUGGIO) REPLIES: I don’t agree on the idea that, to you, Trump is a racist. Most white people are and many do not realize that. I have made racist thoughts myself from time to time. It goes back to our upbringing. Trump is ‘ an enabler of racism’ which is in fact then ‘ Racism’. Regardless of what went on in Charlottesville, and we can both agree that it was this empire which made sure that the march became violent, to serve their agenda. Agent provocateurs inside of Antifa, and having the cops stand down was to… Read more »
The Empire has made a mess of political labels and positions and now few people can keep up with the contortions. The age of strange bedfellows is upon us. A “leftist” (read centrist liberal in the US) is now doing the work of many rightwingers by pushing for war and support for the putschist intel services, FBI, etc. Not to mention stifling dissent. It was and remains a project of the Democrats. So go figure. For a people not exactly well educated in politics, the situation has become truly incomprehensible, so they instnctively stick to their habitual sources of “news.”… Read more »