You know though I’ll never get how groups use the bible to justify their racist attitudes. Moses’ wife was from what is now Ethiopia and was black, when Aaron’s wife made comments about the colour of her skin God gave her leprosy, methinks the old boy needs to get back to work. I think he made it pretty plain with that how he felt about our infighting. So where does the justification come from? *mutters*

And anti-black racism dominates in white communities throughout the US, not just in the South. Indeed, white people throughout the world tend to be quite racist.

What is the difference between the marxist conception of the petty bourgeoisie (small business owners and professionals who do not exercise independent control over the means of production) and the idea of a coordinator class?

I’m guessing you are cool to parecon and hate the idea of balanced job complexes.

I admit I got a little offended when someone said “stupidity fueled by racism.” How do you know my stupidity isn’t fueled by bigotry? Can you read minds? If you were Americans, you wouldn’t have separate “issues.” You would mind your own business and I would mind my own business. But I think you mean by “issues,” you want somebody else’s money.

Vote for Ron Paul.

I came to this site (I think it was this one) to check on an anti-war rally and the first thing I saw was “Certain People,” and of course, I knew what it was about, because it’s about the 7th such article I’ve read today.

Mr. Uhler wrote an article “Blaming all Americans for Debacle in Iraq?” He was offended; he nursed his hurt feelings, and told how many times he had “gone on record. . .” but not once did James Dobbins call him cattle: “humans, especially when viewed contemptuously in a mob.” One little article and the only thing Mr. Uhler could find insulting to him was that he was lumped in with other Americans. Mr. Uhler couldn’t use the work “cattle” then, because, well, because it involved other Americans. So he has to write an article about cattle.

Mr. Uhler, you seem not to have much experience at this. I’m a woman, but I believe in this department, I’m more of a man than you, because I hear this all day long. Like this, for instance: “self-righteous, gun-totin’, military-lovin’, sister-marryin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport-ownin’ rednecks.” The only thing I was puzzled at was the non-passport-ownin’. Is that an insult? Yes and no.

Believe it or not, that’s like a measure of their “virtue,” I guess. Another article had Dubya whining “I may not not where [some country] is, but I know what I believe.” It was said about Dubya’s father that he worked like a common laborer with men who didn’t know where Connecticut was.

Can you believe what little things they use to, I guess, prove their superiority to each other? Places on a map and what’s on their passport. Wow! These are huge big things. I believe I’ll just graze in taller grass.

How do you know when a person feels himself inferior? When he constantly has to assert his “equality.” How does a man make himself feel superior? He calls other people names thinking he is demonizing them, and so he is , but not to them. But it has to be The Certain People, because anyone else would kick his ass. We don’t care. The entire election map of the country is red, but he dare not call anyone but the South cattle. We are his inferiors. Ho-hum.

So what do I know about Mr. Uhler without having met him? Well, he’s better than cattle. (And he sort of whines when he gets “offended.”)

In another article, he says he hardly talks about the South at all. (Ahem) That’s just about all he talks about, ignorant rednecks. And, I see this a lot, something about maps and passports. Ah, the true measure of a man.

So he uses the word “South” 815 times, “Christian” 567 times, and “racist” 96 times. Why are you so obsessed with us? We are only cattle. And don’t you think that having not gotten much of a response, (I know you try to provoke with your elitism.)

The first thing you’ve got to do when you want to illegally attack a country is dehumanize and demonize the people there. What worries me is that the neo-cons have found a country, and they are bloodthirsty. Victor Davis Hanson said take ‘em all, men, women and children. What if the Iran deal falls through, and you’ve got a nation out for blood? Well, you’ve got a section of the country that you have demonized and made less than human. (Not just you, but everyone who seems so obsessed with us. I don’t get it, because I don’t think of Yankees at all.)

Remember after the 2004 election when someone cried havoc! and let slip the dogs of war, and the hatred and viciousness toward the South lasted for days. It got worse and worse, and I thought this kind of hatred will turn into violence. And like I said, you went after just the South, even though clearly the map was red from sea to shining sea. But – we are the demonized enemy. You can’t treat other people like that, it would be unthinkable. Is that what you are doing? Because the viciousness seems to have gotten worse. Is this your plan?

It it is, you are only hurting yourself. I know we don’t deserve to live, although we have bothered no one, but, well, we do, and maybe this time there will be violence. If something happened to us, what would you think about all day? What would you write about? Who could you insult with such abandon to make you feel superior? No one. So, why not knock it off just until the neocons have had time to get the bloodlust out of their system, then get back to writing about us day after day? (I was kind of flattered, but then I thought: he admits he is nothing more than cattle.)

And I take it the thundering herds of cattle are not welcome at your march? Because unlike you, I don’t go where I’m not wanted, or force others to. (The real reason is, well, calling people animals is so rude.)

And Bob Herbert talking about states rights! Does he not know that they were talking about states rights while writing the Constitution and long after? It was to be a check on the power of the federal government. Believe it or not, it had nothing to do with you. A lot of things don’t!

I can’t believe the size of your ego! To think we sit around and plot and plan and scheme all day long with our states rights and all – if he only knew he could be at peace! We (Southern white folks) think of you, well, never. But you have an obsession. You’re special, you’re grieved. Oh, well. I believe you were last year and the year before that and the year before that. Try to rein in that ego and you and your little white man friend have some fun. Repeat after me: White folks don’t think of me as much as I thought they did. Well, never.

If anyone feels like saying the magic word “slavery!”, we got over that a long time ago, and if you’d like to read what Abe really thought about it, read his first inaugural address. Sit down. Be strong! http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

The whole idea that racism is a “poor Southern white” problem is absurd. Many poor/working class Southern whites are racist, and the left should struggle against such racism at every turn, but to view them as the root of the problem is disastrous for anyone who wants to end racism. Frederick Douglass, no stranger to the horrors of slavery and racism and the struggle against them, wrote that:

“The slaveholders…by encouraging the enmity of the poor, laboring white man against the Blacks, succeeded in making the said white man almost as much a slave as the Black himself…Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers.”

The 17th century United States saw poor whites, indentured servants, and black slaves unite against the ruling class in the South. Being too small to hold power through sheer force, the planters used their control of the law, the preachers and the papers to divide their class enemy, the toiling masses. Slavery was not a result of racism; racism was a result of the ruling class need for slaves.

Today, it’s difficult to turn on the television or radio, go to the movies, read a magazine, go online, or even look out the window without seeing leaders in positions of legal, political, and cultural authority spouting vile racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. This is the dominant tone of the mainstream media, but it is not this way because of the demand created by working-class bigots (in fact, people are beginning to stand up to it, considering the Don Imus storm). The mainstream media is owned by a small number of unfathomably rich people whose interests are aligned with the rest of the ruling class that would much rather see working class people fighting one another across lines of race, religion, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation than uniting to fight for their class interests by turning their anger on the people at the top.

Karl Marx wrote that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” They wouldn’t be the ruling class if they did not have control over the central organs of society, including systems of education and media distribution. This is the primary source of bigotry among working class people, which can and must be overcome in order for the working class to win its emancipation. The working class is the vast majority; the bulk of any group that is a victim of oppression will be found within it. So in order to liberate the targets of oppression, one must seek to liberate the working class.

Those on the left who seek to eliminate oppression and bigotry should struggle against it whenever possible, but at the end of the day the focus should be on the true source of this filth: the ruling class. They will never be won to ideas of equality because their very existence depends on the opposite. Working class people can be won away from prejudiced ideas, because it is necessary to overcome them in order to achieve the unity that is required to struggle for a better life. You won’t get very far by ridiculing them for their “sorry lives.”

I can understand someone not liking this Uhler piece. But if you also don’t like Albert, then I don’t have any clue what it is you do like. I’m crusty, cynical, and jaded, but I feel positive about parecon. What makes you feel positive? “Great books?” Like what? You mean literature, like “The Grapes of Wrath” or something? I like literature quite a bit.

But saying to people, “Let’s look here in the Great Books, students,” doesn’t feel much different to me than what Uhler is doing. I thought you were a working-class stiff who wandered in here and Uhler’s piece made you angry. Now I think you’re an English professor who’s angry about something else.

UHLER: Certain Americans chose a president no smarter than themselves, an illiterate who, in the seventh year of his presidency, still mangles the English language with such sentences as “Childrens do learn.”

PATTON: If I were working class – and I am – this would scream to me, “Working people are stupid.” I’ve seen this sentiment expressed too often on the left – and too often by the coordinator class wherever I encounter them – to take it any other way. We on the left seem to understand the sensitivity women and blacks feel toward sexism and racism. Classism is no different, except the left doesn’t understand it, at least in my experience. Even though many lefties genuinely do mean well, the left in my experience does not really understand what working class people deal with from the coordinator class. Even if Uhler doesn’t mean “Working people are stupid,” that’s how his words will be received by a working person. Either Uhler needs to confront his classism, or he needs to rephrase.

UHLER: Many [Southern whites] are poorly educated and possess a stupidity fueled by racism.

PATTON: While Uhler doesn’t explicitly say “working-class Southern whites” here, by dropping the phrase “poorly educated,” it seems pretty clear he’s talking about working people. (If he’s not, he desperately needs to rephrase.) Yes, many working people – including Southern ones – are racist. But why are they racist? Is it because they’re stupid? Or might there be other reasons? To take it from a different angle: Are the doctors, lawyers, managers, and engineers (and other intellectuals) who comprise the coordinator class classist because they’re stupid, or might there be other reasons? If you can’t even see or understand the existence of the coordinator class, are you stupid? No. Are you ignorant? Yes. Are you classist? You might be. But whether you are or not, you shouldn’t be lecturing working people about their own faults when you have plenty on your own plate.

UHLER: I saw certain Americans during my jury duty two days ago. It wasn’t pretty. Yet, I took great delight in listening to Judge Defino call them to account for their sorry-ass lives.

PATTON: I might think this is satire, until I see…

UHLER: Worst of all was the questionnaire submitted by a middle-aged white male, whose distended beer gut threatened to explode from his faded Iron Maiden t-shirt. After scanning the questionnaire, Judge Defino said, “I don’t have the time to waste on you. Get out of my courtroom. And think seriously about trying to get your life in order.”

PATTON: This is horrible. Is Uhler serious? If this is satire, I confess to not being able to see it. Ignoring the fact that this “distended beer gut” man might actually be a good father to his children, does Uhler even have the slightest idea how capitalism works? Is Uhler not aware that, in a capitalist economy, you are guaranteed to have many losers (by which I mean economic ones)? If a woman gets raped, do we blame her for it? So when do we start blaming poor people for their condition? Again, this is how capitalism operates. The reason Bill Gates and others have lots is because many many many more have next to nothing. It’s how capitalist economies operate. How can any one purporting to be a lefty in nearly 2008 not understand this? On the other hand, if Uhler doesn’t mean what he says the way it reads, then he BADLY needs to rephrase.

P.S.: Gerald, my advice to you is to buy and read Michael Albert’s “Parecon: Life After Capitalism” (Verso Press, 2003). Then read every other book by Albert you can get your hands on. It’ll help take the bad taste out of your mouth. No one is in the corner of the working class like Albert is, and Albert’s mind is insanely powerful.

They can learn Spanish from their fellow grunts and earn college credits for a life of the mind at a later date should they survive.

If I were to consider shooting, I would aim high – possibly at some lawyer suit from Hahvid of Yale with every hair in its proper place. Professsional ethics for all tortured souls of all classes.

A person of stature, intellect, and proper training who dispenses valuable legal rights to the poor and downtrodden.

Well dressed representation for all before the honorable court for a fee.

I know that many of the best suits are Italian, and does that bum me out.

And no, Eric, Uhler is not talking about blue-collar-god-bless-’Mericans. By all means, do get some coffee and actually read the text of the article. Hint: he’s also not talking about the god-bless-’Merican-soldiers.

His attack on Southern whites is particularly ironic, considering their disproportionate representation in the military. He enjoys seeing them taken to account because of their “sorry-ass lives,” but I can think of little that is sorrier than the life of a man who publicly insults the people who risk life and limb wielding the weapons he buys. Perhaps that is how one justifies a life as a lackey for murderous ruling class thugs: by blaming the horrific injustice they mastermind on its domestic victims.

Would Uhler be willing to clarify a bit? Uhler should read the recent article on DV by Susan Rosenthal, “Machismo at Work: False Consciousness or Self Defense.”