May I just say that the stupidest, most despicable, most self-defeating political “tactic” in our present hyper-partisan climate is the accusation that victims of today’s horrific wildfires, floods, and such are getting what they deserved because of their political views.
Tribalism, alas, has always been a fixture in American political life. It started back in the Jamestown colony, when the bone-headed spoiled English brats who thought that they would find the ground littered with gold nuggets put on airs and refused to grant full citizenship to the hard-working Polish craftsmen recruited by Captain John Smith. After the Poles went on strike for higher wages, better working conditions and R-E-S-P-E-C-T, the slime-bucket English birdbrains jumped at the opportunity to buy African slaves. Yes, that's how slavery got started in Virginia. It all happened in 1619. Slaves imported as scabs to serve the "lads". Err, lazy louts.
How very loaded a simple word becomes where politics are involved. A tribe is nothing more than the oldest type of human society, formed for the survival of the group and because of the deep human need for the company of others. Tribes were everywhere in prehistoric times, including all over Europe. (Can you say "Neanderthal"?) The terms "superstitious" and "uncivilized" are imposing our modern standards on our ancestors. A tribe is now any community of people who share the same interests and values, and attach themselves for a sense of belonging, even if it's only on the internet. So, "tribalism" is indeed an apt description, and the orange faces are apparently just a dig at a certain tribal chief. Please, fellow lowdowners, keep it simple.
Look at his reply to me. It gets worse--and justifies my critique.
No, it isn't just a simple word. For the reasons I listed. I also have a degree in American History--I have read how ideas like "uncivilized and superstitious" were used. How such attitudes justified colonialism and racism and genocide. Nor merely by the ignorant lower classes; read the words used by respected Ivy League professors of the early 1900s. Same of Woodrow Wilson, BTW. They considered their own prejudice merely to be learned truth.
Think about what you're implying, whether or not you meant it that way. Neanderthal = tribal = POC. Even though we now know Neanderthals weren't hulking brutes, they were portrayed that way for 2 centuries.
Why is there no specific term for the behavior of Euro and Euro North Americans of the 19th and 20th centuries? Why revert to "tribal," meaning primitive, when these acts--empires, world wars, the Anthropocene--are very much products of western civilization and rational technology?
That's without considering the whole point of Jim's post was NOT to condemn either side, whether flooded Appalachia (Trump voters) or wildfires (LA Dem voters.) Yet Porter dd exactly that. It's therefore NOT "well put" for that reason alone.
Point taken, and made with great care. We still deplore the fact that terms like "tribe" are so loaded by today's politics that we lose sight of what they originally meant, as well as what Jim was really addressing. Thanks for the stimulating discourse, Rafi!
PLEASE QUIT USING "TRIBAL/ISM" as a handy pejorative! So what that it's currently a Euro and Euro-North American intellectual fad. The term is not neutral.
Consider to whom it has been applied historically. To sub-Saharan Africans. Natives of the Americas. Indigenous Australians. You know... Primitive. Superstitious. Uncivilized. Dark skinned. Whereas Europeans (western ones, anyway) and their descendants are advanced. Rational. Civilized. Light skinned. Ethnicities, not inferior "tribes."
Also consider the history of Euro/American behavior. Especially the 19th and 20th Centuries. Tell me whose actions most deserves condemnation. Then come up with a term to use as a fitting descriptor, one that encapsulates the sense of entitlement, the casual viciousness, the lack of knowledge about the local environment where they live, the acceptance of science and technology used for war and exploitation. Whose groups come off as not so admirable? Own your own history; it's not just the legacy of a few long gone.
Not that you alone are guilty, Mr. Porter--as I said, this use of "tribal" by would-be superiors is everywhere--and anywhere I see it, I call it out. But you used a couple of handy words: "disrespectful" and "lazy." That's exactly what it is.
PS--Yes, of course I know contemporary Native Americans use the word. It's necessary because it's in the treaties. Treaties, BTW, which recognize Indigenes to be legally defined as nations.
"Tribalism" is a perfectly apt description of a clan of people who are superstitious and uncivilized spoiled brats. And every person I've ever met has orange-colored skin. Not red, not yellow, not green, not blue, not indigo and certainly neither white nor black. Some are a tad darker shade of orange. Others more pale. This trouble all started when the Powhatan people's border patrol failed to fend off and deport the illegal immigrants who came from England and invaded their homeland.
Are you characterizing all Trump voters as all the same as their orange-skinned leader? If so, that's bigotry--the very definition of which is to consider any member of a group as all the same. As equally bad, inferior, dangerous, whatever, as racists do.
"...a perfectly apt description of people who are superstitious and uncivilized spoiled brats." So you're the god-like judge of who is and who isn't? You know what's in the hearts of everyone you so cavalierly condemn? Go read my reply to Norman Weston about the D party of the last 4 decades and lack of response to the working class and Appalachia. Hardly "spoiled." And you must think Jim is wrong, too, for not wanting to decide who's deserving, but rather to help all Americans in need.
Worse yet, you have given yourself carte blanche (pun intended) to use the very terms ("superstitious and uncivilized") that people of African descent and Native Americans have been hit by for centuries. Lest you think that was only by the great unwashed masses, read the descriptions of early 1900s Ivy League professors. Are you incapable of understanding how this feels to people of color?
You didn't specifically use we or us, but your thinking is very much us versus them. Either/or. Good/bad. With us/against us. Outmoded in a world post-Einstein (relativity) and post-Heisenberg (uncertainty.)
Which also reminds me of a joke that went around in the '60s. Including on the reservation where I heard it. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by what appear to be hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger says: "we have to fight them, Tonto." Tonto replies: "what's this WE, white man?" Exactly.
If you read the details about the Jamestown colony's founding, you will discover that most of the first colonists were adventurous spoiled brats - the younger sons of English aristocrats who were totally unused to manual labor. They came in search of resources to plunder. They were such dunces that they spent one winter carting quantities of iron pyrite ("fool's gold") to load aboard ships to send back to England because they thought they had found gold. They were so clumsy that they set their own village on fire. Now not everyone was so pig-headed. John Smith, the only experienced military man, who had fought as a mercenary in central and eastern European conflicts with the Turks, had recruited artisans from Poland, primarily, to provide skilled tradesmen who could actually build things, including setting up the first glass factory. And he was the one who single-handedly corralled the frat-boy jocks and made it clear that if they didn't work, they wouldn't eat. (Let's leave the Pocahontas story out of this -- Disney has propagandized this beyond belief.)
As to Trump voters, I think many of them have simply fallen under Trump's spell. He is a master huckster. And they are enthralled. Hoodwinked. Hopefully, Trump's supporters will begin to recognize him for the fraud that he is. Many of them are deluded into thinking that they are somehow members of some special, privileged group. They act as if they were members of a cult, with spellbinder Trump as their great and wonderful leader.
The notion that people can be arbitrarily classified into groups based upon characteristics that they cannot change is an abomination. You cannot change where you where born, or who were your parents. And social constructs such as "race" are meaningless; we are all human beings. But if a group of people consciously decide to act in certain ways, that's a different story. Trump's supporters chose to idolize him. They can just as easily decide that he is cheating them (which I hope is what some will finally see). So I regard them as a group based solely on their words and deeds, not their upbringing or family background.
Many of the Trump voters are just plain desperate. In the late '70s, the D party was usurped by neolibs. (Not pol term, econ one meaning in favor of the current econopathy.) They dumped the New Deal and abandoned the majority working class.
As I've posted ad nauseam, the Ds did FOR the unemployed, suffering working class people of the Rust Belt/Appalachia same as they did TO the Wall St. vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! Wall St. was bailed out. For the millions who lost jobs, pensions, homes? NOTHING! No wonder the RB/A leads in 'deaths of despair.'
Les Leopold is the author of the 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.)// Why are there mass layoffs and millions of workers hit? Because it's done to finance stock buybacks that benefit only CEOs and banksters. Actions once limited to 2% of profits; now at least 65%. By corporations who were bailed out or have govt contracts--public $. He begged the Ds to use this issue. The response? NOTHING!
The book consists of years of in-depth research and robust stats. Among them showing that as mass layoffs in a county go up, the number of D votes goes down. And here's the kicker--at the same time, these working class whites became more and more progressive on social issues (BIPOC, LGBT, etc.) What would you do if the party that was once yours ignored you for decades?
I'm not saying Trump isn't a bigot and that many of his true believers aren't racists; clearly they are. Only that there is much more to the story. If the Ds ever want to win again, they'd best learn to listen. And learn how to organize for real populism instead of relying on top down elitism.
PS--I didn't know about the Jamestown colony, etc. You make a very good case, thanks for the info. A joke you might enjoy told to me by an "Ozzie:" Why did America get all the religious fanatics while Australia got all the criminals? Australia had first pick!
We The People need to take our country back. As a first step, we need to find a way to get the money out of our politics. The plutocrats have taken over and have shut the rest of us out. So we must give our support only to politicians who can credibly demonstrate a workable plan to make the rich people poorer, the poor people richer, the strong people weaker and the weak people stronger. That's what I tell politicians who want my support.
The oldest tactic in the book,divide and conquer which is why Jim is so correct in saying we have to get back to "live and let live" , "do unto others as you would be done by" and all the other basic common sense attitudes that always come out in times of trouble. Why does it take a disaster to remind people of that?
I agree with your important points, but as you know, FEMA was unable to help a significant number of people after the floods in North Carolina because they threatened to shoot any FEMA worker who stepped onto their property, after watching too much right-wing social media. Sorry, but no FEMA workers, who already risk their lives in disaster work, should waste one minute helping people like that.
It occurs to me that those miserable taunts toward the people suffering from the recent flooding in Appalachia might be the work of Russia in its ongoing efforts to divide our nation.
Not one shred of evidence for that. Besides, the educated professional elite who run the D party and are the loyal voters to whom it caters have made it clear what they think. They abandoned the New Deal and its pro-labor orientation 4 decades ago. Glass-Steagall, regulation passed because of the reckless behavior of Wall St. and the banksters that caused the 1929 Crash, was repealed by the Clinton admin. So then we got the Recession of 2008.
The Ds did FOR the suffering unemployed people of Rust Belt/Appalachia same as they did TO the Wall vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! The Wall St. manipulators were bailed out. The working class millions (BTW, the U.S. majority class) who lost jobs, pensions, homes? {*crickets*} Is it a mere coincidence the RB/A area leads in what are called 'deaths of despair'? But who cares about these economic losers? They're as Hillary Clinton described: "a basket of deplorables."
Being a compassionate,caring humane being is within everyone's reach especially if you're a professed Christian.Stand above the fray and be a decent person...no more no less.
Wow. Talk about ugly Americans. We need to stop insulting each other, and direct our wrath at the people who created this mess. Russians peddling disinformation, leaders taking advantage of grievances to create scapegoats and justify all sorts of retribution.
What you say may be the most humane response but perhaps mass misery and the lack of a competent response by the Trump administration is the only way that people will realize that it matters who they vote for and to pay attention next time.
"lack of response" has been characteristics of the D party since the neolibs usurped the D party in the '70s. "Neolib" is not a political term--it means supporting the inequitable and destructive trickle up econ system. The D party elite ditched the New Deal and their own base--the majority working class. What would you do if the party that was once yours refused to listen for 40 years?
The Ds did FOR the unemployed, suffering workers of the Rust Belt/Appalachia same as they did TO the Wall St. manipulators who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! Then Wall St. was bailed out. For the people who lost jobs, pensions, homes? NOTHING!
How about the many mass layoffs affecting millions since 1996? Why were they done? To finance stock buybacks benefitting only CEOs and banksters. How is this legal? Same reason that '08 happened. New Deal regulations that prevented such reckless and antisocial behavior were repealed...by Democrats!
Now that's "mass misery."
BTW, it's also the main reason there are so many non-voters. It's a way of saying NO!
Tribalism, alas, has always been a fixture in American political life. It started back in the Jamestown colony, when the bone-headed spoiled English brats who thought that they would find the ground littered with gold nuggets put on airs and refused to grant full citizenship to the hard-working Polish craftsmen recruited by Captain John Smith. After the Poles went on strike for higher wages, better working conditions and R-E-S-P-E-C-T, the slime-bucket English birdbrains jumped at the opportunity to buy African slaves. Yes, that's how slavery got started in Virginia. It all happened in 1619. Slaves imported as scabs to serve the "lads". Err, lazy louts.
Very well put! The descendants of those "lads" still like to think they are entitled to rule. Bah, humbug!
His general idea may have been good, but it was not "very well put." See my reply.
How very loaded a simple word becomes where politics are involved. A tribe is nothing more than the oldest type of human society, formed for the survival of the group and because of the deep human need for the company of others. Tribes were everywhere in prehistoric times, including all over Europe. (Can you say "Neanderthal"?) The terms "superstitious" and "uncivilized" are imposing our modern standards on our ancestors. A tribe is now any community of people who share the same interests and values, and attach themselves for a sense of belonging, even if it's only on the internet. So, "tribalism" is indeed an apt description, and the orange faces are apparently just a dig at a certain tribal chief. Please, fellow lowdowners, keep it simple.
Look at his reply to me. It gets worse--and justifies my critique.
No, it isn't just a simple word. For the reasons I listed. I also have a degree in American History--I have read how ideas like "uncivilized and superstitious" were used. How such attitudes justified colonialism and racism and genocide. Nor merely by the ignorant lower classes; read the words used by respected Ivy League professors of the early 1900s. Same of Woodrow Wilson, BTW. They considered their own prejudice merely to be learned truth.
Think about what you're implying, whether or not you meant it that way. Neanderthal = tribal = POC. Even though we now know Neanderthals weren't hulking brutes, they were portrayed that way for 2 centuries.
Why is there no specific term for the behavior of Euro and Euro North Americans of the 19th and 20th centuries? Why revert to "tribal," meaning primitive, when these acts--empires, world wars, the Anthropocene--are very much products of western civilization and rational technology?
That's without considering the whole point of Jim's post was NOT to condemn either side, whether flooded Appalachia (Trump voters) or wildfires (LA Dem voters.) Yet Porter dd exactly that. It's therefore NOT "well put" for that reason alone.
Point taken, and made with great care. We still deplore the fact that terms like "tribe" are so loaded by today's politics that we lose sight of what they originally meant, as well as what Jim was really addressing. Thanks for the stimulating discourse, Rafi!
And thank you! Clearly you are good hearted and you listen. Plus you make me think as well.
PLEASE QUIT USING "TRIBAL/ISM" as a handy pejorative! So what that it's currently a Euro and Euro-North American intellectual fad. The term is not neutral.
Consider to whom it has been applied historically. To sub-Saharan Africans. Natives of the Americas. Indigenous Australians. You know... Primitive. Superstitious. Uncivilized. Dark skinned. Whereas Europeans (western ones, anyway) and their descendants are advanced. Rational. Civilized. Light skinned. Ethnicities, not inferior "tribes."
Also consider the history of Euro/American behavior. Especially the 19th and 20th Centuries. Tell me whose actions most deserves condemnation. Then come up with a term to use as a fitting descriptor, one that encapsulates the sense of entitlement, the casual viciousness, the lack of knowledge about the local environment where they live, the acceptance of science and technology used for war and exploitation. Whose groups come off as not so admirable? Own your own history; it's not just the legacy of a few long gone.
Not that you alone are guilty, Mr. Porter--as I said, this use of "tribal" by would-be superiors is everywhere--and anywhere I see it, I call it out. But you used a couple of handy words: "disrespectful" and "lazy." That's exactly what it is.
PS--Yes, of course I know contemporary Native Americans use the word. It's necessary because it's in the treaties. Treaties, BTW, which recognize Indigenes to be legally defined as nations.
"Tribalism" is a perfectly apt description of a clan of people who are superstitious and uncivilized spoiled brats. And every person I've ever met has orange-colored skin. Not red, not yellow, not green, not blue, not indigo and certainly neither white nor black. Some are a tad darker shade of orange. Others more pale. This trouble all started when the Powhatan people's border patrol failed to fend off and deport the illegal immigrants who came from England and invaded their homeland.
Every earthling is a unique individual until they join a large group of stupid people
Are you characterizing all Trump voters as all the same as their orange-skinned leader? If so, that's bigotry--the very definition of which is to consider any member of a group as all the same. As equally bad, inferior, dangerous, whatever, as racists do.
"...a perfectly apt description of people who are superstitious and uncivilized spoiled brats." So you're the god-like judge of who is and who isn't? You know what's in the hearts of everyone you so cavalierly condemn? Go read my reply to Norman Weston about the D party of the last 4 decades and lack of response to the working class and Appalachia. Hardly "spoiled." And you must think Jim is wrong, too, for not wanting to decide who's deserving, but rather to help all Americans in need.
Worse yet, you have given yourself carte blanche (pun intended) to use the very terms ("superstitious and uncivilized") that people of African descent and Native Americans have been hit by for centuries. Lest you think that was only by the great unwashed masses, read the descriptions of early 1900s Ivy League professors. Are you incapable of understanding how this feels to people of color?
You didn't specifically use we or us, but your thinking is very much us versus them. Either/or. Good/bad. With us/against us. Outmoded in a world post-Einstein (relativity) and post-Heisenberg (uncertainty.)
Which also reminds me of a joke that went around in the '60s. Including on the reservation where I heard it. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by what appear to be hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger says: "we have to fight them, Tonto." Tonto replies: "what's this WE, white man?" Exactly.
If you read the details about the Jamestown colony's founding, you will discover that most of the first colonists were adventurous spoiled brats - the younger sons of English aristocrats who were totally unused to manual labor. They came in search of resources to plunder. They were such dunces that they spent one winter carting quantities of iron pyrite ("fool's gold") to load aboard ships to send back to England because they thought they had found gold. They were so clumsy that they set their own village on fire. Now not everyone was so pig-headed. John Smith, the only experienced military man, who had fought as a mercenary in central and eastern European conflicts with the Turks, had recruited artisans from Poland, primarily, to provide skilled tradesmen who could actually build things, including setting up the first glass factory. And he was the one who single-handedly corralled the frat-boy jocks and made it clear that if they didn't work, they wouldn't eat. (Let's leave the Pocahontas story out of this -- Disney has propagandized this beyond belief.)
As to Trump voters, I think many of them have simply fallen under Trump's spell. He is a master huckster. And they are enthralled. Hoodwinked. Hopefully, Trump's supporters will begin to recognize him for the fraud that he is. Many of them are deluded into thinking that they are somehow members of some special, privileged group. They act as if they were members of a cult, with spellbinder Trump as their great and wonderful leader.
The notion that people can be arbitrarily classified into groups based upon characteristics that they cannot change is an abomination. You cannot change where you where born, or who were your parents. And social constructs such as "race" are meaningless; we are all human beings. But if a group of people consciously decide to act in certain ways, that's a different story. Trump's supporters chose to idolize him. They can just as easily decide that he is cheating them (which I hope is what some will finally see). So I regard them as a group based solely on their words and deeds, not their upbringing or family background.
Many of the Trump voters are just plain desperate. In the late '70s, the D party was usurped by neolibs. (Not pol term, econ one meaning in favor of the current econopathy.) They dumped the New Deal and abandoned the majority working class.
As I've posted ad nauseam, the Ds did FOR the unemployed, suffering working class people of the Rust Belt/Appalachia same as they did TO the Wall St. vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! Wall St. was bailed out. For the millions who lost jobs, pensions, homes? NOTHING! No wonder the RB/A leads in 'deaths of despair.'
Les Leopold is the author of the 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.)// Why are there mass layoffs and millions of workers hit? Because it's done to finance stock buybacks that benefit only CEOs and banksters. Actions once limited to 2% of profits; now at least 65%. By corporations who were bailed out or have govt contracts--public $. He begged the Ds to use this issue. The response? NOTHING!
The book consists of years of in-depth research and robust stats. Among them showing that as mass layoffs in a county go up, the number of D votes goes down. And here's the kicker--at the same time, these working class whites became more and more progressive on social issues (BIPOC, LGBT, etc.) What would you do if the party that was once yours ignored you for decades?
I'm not saying Trump isn't a bigot and that many of his true believers aren't racists; clearly they are. Only that there is much more to the story. If the Ds ever want to win again, they'd best learn to listen. And learn how to organize for real populism instead of relying on top down elitism.
PS--I didn't know about the Jamestown colony, etc. You make a very good case, thanks for the info. A joke you might enjoy told to me by an "Ozzie:" Why did America get all the religious fanatics while Australia got all the criminals? Australia had first pick!
We The People need to take our country back. As a first step, we need to find a way to get the money out of our politics. The plutocrats have taken over and have shut the rest of us out. So we must give our support only to politicians who can credibly demonstrate a workable plan to make the rich people poorer, the poor people richer, the strong people weaker and the weak people stronger. That's what I tell politicians who want my support.
The oldest tactic in the book,divide and conquer which is why Jim is so correct in saying we have to get back to "live and let live" , "do unto others as you would be done by" and all the other basic common sense attitudes that always come out in times of trouble. Why does it take a disaster to remind people of that?
I agree with your important points, but as you know, FEMA was unable to help a significant number of people after the floods in North Carolina because they threatened to shoot any FEMA worker who stepped onto their property, after watching too much right-wing social media. Sorry, but no FEMA workers, who already risk their lives in disaster work, should waste one minute helping people like that.
AMEN, clothe the naked, house the homeless, feed the hungry etc. let us progress for humanity!
It occurs to me that those miserable taunts toward the people suffering from the recent flooding in Appalachia might be the work of Russia in its ongoing efforts to divide our nation.
Not one shred of evidence for that. Besides, the educated professional elite who run the D party and are the loyal voters to whom it caters have made it clear what they think. They abandoned the New Deal and its pro-labor orientation 4 decades ago. Glass-Steagall, regulation passed because of the reckless behavior of Wall St. and the banksters that caused the 1929 Crash, was repealed by the Clinton admin. So then we got the Recession of 2008.
The Ds did FOR the suffering unemployed people of Rust Belt/Appalachia same as they did TO the Wall vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! The Wall St. manipulators were bailed out. The working class millions (BTW, the U.S. majority class) who lost jobs, pensions, homes? {*crickets*} Is it a mere coincidence the RB/A area leads in what are called 'deaths of despair'? But who cares about these economic losers? They're as Hillary Clinton described: "a basket of deplorables."
I'm glad that I stopped to read this today. A nice dollop of human kindness, compassion, and empathy. Thanks Jim!
Amen to that! I was so impressed and grateful that the Cajun Navy came to Houston’s aid, as well as others from various states.
Being a compassionate,caring humane being is within everyone's reach especially if you're a professed Christian.Stand above the fray and be a decent person...no more no less.
Wow. Talk about ugly Americans. We need to stop insulting each other, and direct our wrath at the people who created this mess. Russians peddling disinformation, leaders taking advantage of grievances to create scapegoats and justify all sorts of retribution.
Thank you Hightower. This needed to be said and it needs to be said often. I have yet to see abandonment and humiliation change anyone’s mind.
Humanity....Can you say "Sudan"?
Deserving tragedy? Well, that's just plain ignorant, nasty, and hateful.
You couldn't be more correct, it's the working folk that mobilize and get going while many in Big Govt bicker or get twisted in red tape.
What you say may be the most humane response but perhaps mass misery and the lack of a competent response by the Trump administration is the only way that people will realize that it matters who they vote for and to pay attention next time.
And what if it doesn't matter for whom you vote?
"lack of response" has been characteristics of the D party since the neolibs usurped the D party in the '70s. "Neolib" is not a political term--it means supporting the inequitable and destructive trickle up econ system. The D party elite ditched the New Deal and their own base--the majority working class. What would you do if the party that was once yours refused to listen for 40 years?
The Ds did FOR the unemployed, suffering workers of the Rust Belt/Appalachia same as they did TO the Wall St. manipulators who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! Then Wall St. was bailed out. For the people who lost jobs, pensions, homes? NOTHING!
How about the many mass layoffs affecting millions since 1996? Why were they done? To finance stock buybacks benefitting only CEOs and banksters. How is this legal? Same reason that '08 happened. New Deal regulations that prevented such reckless and antisocial behavior were repealed...by Democrats!
Now that's "mass misery."
BTW, it's also the main reason there are so many non-voters. It's a way of saying NO!
That was a much needed rant against disgraceful inhumanity
Yes, you may say that ... and thank you for doing so.