I also believe that it is no coincidence that the rise of the current version of the Republican Party is rooted in the rubble of the myth of the MIWASP, for there was no way that the Democratic Party would ever again be deemed trustworthy after performing such a vile and dastardly act as the American Dolchstoßlegende. How DARE American politicians stab the victors of Normandy and Iwo Jima in the back by giving equal rights and political power to obvious inferiors! It was just this separation between the middle-class workers and the government that gave them prosperity through legal rights to organize that the Party of Plutocracy needed to make their move.
The Gilded Age of our history was the Nirvana — nay, the Valhalla! — of the wealthy class. Northern money had recently gained dominance over their former peers and rivals of the South once the basis of Southern economic, and thus political, power was destroyed. Without unpaid slave labor, the South had no power, and Northern money saw to it that Southern faces were rubbed in the muck of that fact every chance they got.
Unable to fight back, the South turned to weaker groups to extract a measure of revenge and to reclaim their delusions of superiority. They again used religion to justify their excesses just as they had prior to their military defeat, and no woman, child, or non-white was ever going to look down upon them again. We'll ignore for now the exclusion of the Northern wealthy class from this list.
Such hubris wasn't the exclusive property of the South, however. The victorious Northern interests began to consider themselves invincible, and practiced similar kinds of Social Darwinism upon the society-at-large as well as among themselves. For example, Thomas Edison used the economic power stemming from the patents awarded for the creation of the light bulb to crush any competition he couldn't purchase through the selective application of the law and the courts. His cutthroat legal strategies were adopted by the railroad and steel magnates, whose large workforces emulated the large slave populations of the South and inspired similar control practices.
These titans of industry were further empowered when awarded the patents and properties of the German aniline dye industry by the Versailles Treaty, which they then abused to create the first truly consumer-driven society during the 1920s. They became SO rich they HAD to be smart, and nothing they did was seen as inappropriate or unwise. "Anything goes" went the saying, and did — until it didn't anymore.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Doug Hunter
Another childish name calling hate filled racist rant by a leftist. It's sad that this is all you got.
2 - roger nowosielski
I don't know what's going on, Doug. It's the second article within a couple of days when a white male is under attack. A trend of some kind or just a sign of the times.
Political correctness is having a field day.
3 - Doug Hunter
Ah well, better to spend my time on other things. This line of propaganda won't go away because it works. This nation is far and away a majority of minorities and if you can bind them all together with hatred against a common enemy that is power.
In the last election these guys got 90+% of the black vote and made good inroads in other poor oppressed victim groups. That's not a sign of diversity or freedom, that's a sign of fear and groupthink which this tool is trying (successfully) to engender.
It'll run it's course in due time. Then we'll be, much like Ruvy and Jonathan, arguing wich victim group has the most cred.
My poor victim minority group got beat up by your poor victim minority group?.... is this really what we've sunk to.
4 - roger nowosielski
What happened to the good old American spirit, we're all in this together? You're right in that this whole idea of "victimization" has gone too far. We're no longer a nation but much like spoiled brats fighting for the toy.
5 - roger nowosielski
I think you're making some good points, there, Realist. I'm not certain to what extent you want to go with this "MI" acronym. Kind of broad, I'd say. Perhaps an oversimplification. Certainly not a sufficient cause of our present condition.
But I'll have to give it a closer read. We'll talk later.
6 - Joanne Huspek
Makes me wonder about all the other races and genders who showed up at the tea parties. These are interesting theories, but grassroots unrest transcends the so called "white" male.
Coming into work today, I heard two local black news commentators on WDTK dressing down Obama like you wouldn't believe. If those words had come out of a "white" male's mouth, liberals would be all over it calling them racists.
7 - roger nowosielski
grassroots unrest transcends the so called "white" male.
This is stereotyping, Joanne, just like any other.
8 - Clavos
grassroots unrest transcends the so called "white" male.
This is stereotyping, Joanne, just like any other.
WTF???
9 - roger nowosielski
WTF. Is that a code for what I think it is? Well, let me explain then. It cuts a certain picture of "white male," doesn't it? Joe Six-Pack, Football Joe, Joe the Plumber, whatever. I take all those as stereotypes, don't you?
10 - Clavos
"White male" also includes Bill Clinton, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Bill Ayers, Ward Churchill, the Pope, Nicolas Sarkozy, Vladimir Putin, Clavos, Dave, etc., so what's your point?
It wasn't Joanne who first used the term in this thread; in fact, among others, you used it before she did (#2).
11 - roger nowosielski
Right, and I was being facetious - trying to see, perhaps, how far some people are willing to take it. But Joanne does seem to use it with a straight face when she suggests that so-called "grass movement" (or political involvement) are above the comprehension or the interest of "white males." And this I view as stereotyping.
12 - roger nowosielski
Well, perhaps there's another meaning there as well, as I look it at it now - to transcend, meaning "to be bigger than," "to include and go beyond," etc.
It's still a rather unclear statement TO ME, as it stands, so perhaps she'll be kind enough to clarify it later.
13 - M a rk
But Joanne does seem to use it with a straight face when she suggests that so-called "grass movement" (or political involvement) are above the comprehension or the interest of "white males." And this I view as stereotyping.
That's not how I read her comment, Rog. What I got out of it was that more than just white males participate in grassroots movements.
14 - M a rk
(note to self: update comments before posting.)
15 - roger nowosielski
Read my #12 where I make that concession, unless you just have a vested interest in being contrary. Still, I have questions, if that's OK with you.
16 - roger nowosielski
Besides, if you're a good Marxist as you present yourself to be, you should be familiar with Heidegger and Sartre as well: I have a right to question what may possibly be "inauthentic speech."
17 - Irene Wagner
Why don't someone just ask Joanne Huspek to clarify #6?
Sorry, I'd do it myself, but I'm too busy right now--taking care of a MIWASP's :
Masculine Intelligent White and Sensitive Protestant.
18 - Irene Wagner
A MIWASP's what, you may ask.
It was a typo.
19 - Baronius
transcends the white male: "transcend" in the sense of extending beyond the white male, into other race/sex combinations. Not "transcend" in the sense of existing beyond the capacity of the white male to understand.
20 - M ark
(I fear that bourgeois ideology has rendered me a hopeless individualist - hardly a good Marxist.)
Joanne's comment seemed pretty clear to me given its context.
21 - Arch Conservative
"Another childish name calling hate filled racist rant by a leftist. It's sad that this is all you got."
Did you catch Jeneanne Garofalo's little rant on Keith Olbermann Doug? She claimed the tea parties were attended by racist rednecks who can't stand to see a black man in the white house.
I guess the 67 people watching Olbermann's show must have loved hearing that but every else would be appalled if they even took [her] seriously [Gratuitous vulgarity deleted by Comments Editor]!
22 - Clavos
A MIWASP's what, you may ask.
It was a typo.
Hmm.
Not a Freudian slip?
:>)
23 - roger nowosielski
Well, there are those two meanings, Baronius; and I do thank you for having been the only one thus far (except for you, thank goodness) to have pointed this out. Hence, my the intent of my original comment to hold Joanne's comment "in suspense."
I am kind of surprised, however, why so many commenters here seem this intent on shoving their preferred meanings down my throat. I didn't know that we were all aiming to establish on this here BC side any kind of dictatorship as regards to thinking. Tell me it ain't so.
PS: Joanne's comment may well be perfectly harmless and innocuous. I still have a right to dig deeper if I so choose. So I think it would be more prudent not to evaluate my remarks in the most simplistic way possible and then fault them for my lack of understanding (especially when the commenter is not exactly aware of my intention(s). I should say, and this is on the record, that one-on-one, person-to-person dialogue is more important to me than the absolute truth or untruth of any given statement. The latter issue may eventually be resolved, but not before a certain level of communication between the participants is established. But of course, if one doesn't subscribe to this policy and is intent instead on the truth value itself, irrespective of the value of the dialogue itself, that I'm afraid I can't help. To each his own, I guess.
24 - Clavos
Joanne's comment seemed pretty clear to me given its context.
Moi aussi.
Which was the reason for my #8.
25 - roger nowosielski
Then you're a simpleton for thinking I must subscribe to your preferred meanings and sense of clarity.
Right, now you're going to shove the argument(everybody except you, Roger) down my arse.