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Books by Wilson
Jeremiah Moses
Golden Age of Black Nationalism,
1850-1925 (1988) /
The Wings of Ethiopia
(1990)
Alexander
Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent
(1992) /
Destiny & Race: Selected Writings, 1840-1898
(1992)
Black
Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary
Manipulations of a Religious Myth (1993)
Liberian Dreams: Back-to-Africa
Narratives from the 1850s
/
Afrotopia: The Roots of African American
Popular History
(2002)
Creative Conflict in African American Thought (2004)
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What Can Be Done?
By Wilson J. Moses
Monday, March 2, 2009
Old
Marxist historians used to say
the Nazis inflamed the fears of incoherent multitudes;
activated the paranoia of amorphous masses, who did not
understand their own material class interests. Those
old scrappers tried to illuminate the economic basis of
Nazism, but it was difficult for them to do so. That
history is treated in such understandably emotional
terms. I once read an editorial that mentioned, in
passing, that Hitler was a vegetarian. Almost
overnight, a letter to the editor responded, "No, he was
not; Hitler was an anti-Semite."
That Hitler was an anti-Semite is
obvious, and the fact that he and his stinking Nazis
were responsible for the holocaust is beyond
question. These facts, however, should not keep us
from analyzing Nazism as a cynical response to material
conditions. The economic crisis of the Weimar Republic
made it possible for the Nazis to exploit vulgar
populism.
The hyper-nationalism of the
Third
Reich is similar to, although hardly identical to, the
Anglo-American impulse to achieve hegemony from the
Bosporus to the Hindu Kush. It is true that all such
adventures arise from desires to achieve economic
goals. It might have been in the interest of the
United States to have cooperated with the Russian puppet
government in
Kabul, just as it was once in our interest
to cooperate with Stalin to defeat Hitler. Of course,
neither Reagan, nor the Soviets could have had
sufficient imagination to see any convergence of
Soviet-American interests in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan
and Afghanistan, where many problems arose out of
conflicts between the
Ottoman and the
British
empires.
Political imagination is important, and it most
certainly matters what some of us think. Even if no one
is asking our opinions, it is worthwhile for us to exert
the efforts of formulating and communicating our
thoughts. Communication through a blog is worthwhile,
but more important is simply formulating our thoughts in
writing. There are connections between the health of
the mind, the health of the body, and the health of the
society in which we must eat and drink and breathe.
All people have "class" interests. The "power elite"
understand their class interests automatically, as
Adam
Smith noted. The exploited classes do not understand
their class interests unless they are educated and
organized. But education and organization are
difficult tasks, since the majority of educational
institutions are dedicated to resisting, even the
rotation of elites, much less the amelioration of mass
ignorance. The idea of a truly democratic
university—dedicated to the joy of knowledge and
creativity for their own sakes—is impossible, until the
day when the entire world becomes a university.
Many people seek to major in
business in order to become class-exploiters, but not
all of them. Many people study engineering from a
simple instinctive desire, to understand what makes
things tick. Some study medicine from altruistic
motives. A few study classics, mathematics, or
comparative literature for the simple joy of learning.
A few students describe themselves
as liberal; they volunteer to work with disadvantaged
kids; they run solitary marathons; they practice Yoga;
they master languages; they attend Quaker, Unitarian, or
Reform meetings; study art; write haiku; eat müssli;
watch birds; and keep their fingers crossed for Obama.
Alas, too many students are just good kids, who simply
don't think too much, and are easily swayed by the
"conservative" propaganda machine that has dominated
American universities and think tanks for the past
thirty years. They attend college in the foolish belief
that a college degree based on inflated grades will
guarantee them a comfortable economic future.
Penn State University is a major
employer in Centre County PA, where
Rush Limbaugh has a
substantial audience among government employees, working
either for the University or the Prison. For the
present, most prisons remain in the public sector,
although there are concerted efforts towards
privatization of American prisons—a growth "industry"
in the United States. It is interesting, but not
surprising that Rush Limbaugh's rantings about the evils
of the state find an audience among state employees,
including buildings and grounds keepers at this
University, local bus drivers, prison workers, and other
workers in the tax-supported sector.
A similar audience hearkens to
Lou
Dobbs' ranting over Mexicans getting drivers' license.
Mexicans don't come here to get drivers' licenses; they
come at the behest of hypocritical church-going
capitalists, who bring them here to work for low wages,
without benefits or health insurance. The best way to
solve the migrant worker problem would be to pass and
enforce good minimum wage laws—then give the Mexicans
Social Security and national health insurance. We
would see far fewer undocumented aliens!
Warren Buffet seems to be admitting his mistakes these
days, as
Alan Greenspan cries crocodile tears. Both
remind me of former Secretary of Defense,
Robert S.
McNamara, who waited thirty years to admit, that he
knew all along that the
Vietnam War was wrong. He knew
that it was unnecessary to send more than 60,000
Americans to their deaths, not to mention those who were
castrated, blinded, maimed, or driven mad. And one must
never mention the countless civilian dead: South
Vietnamese 1,581,000; Cambodians 700,000; Laotian
50,000; North Vietnamese 3,000,000, and all the other
Asians who were crippled and disfigured!
If many of my students regard me as out of tune or
irrelevant, a few seem happy I am here. Some regard me
with a kindly tolerance—one or two even with
affection. I am not alone, there are obviously many
other people who feel that it does matter what we think,
Quixotic though we may be. I don't know what people
like the Clintons think. They've made a few commendable
gestures, but also aggravated and perpetuated many
aspects of
Reaganism.
Al Gore
seems to be oblivious to the fact that his
commitment to economies based on the fallacy of
Limitless Growth are inconsistent with his
Environmentalism. Unfortunately Obama has some of the
same flaws, but he may be able to enact some features of
a mixed economy, with some sensitivity to
environmentalism. I hope he can turn back the
Reagan
revolution and get us back to square-one by
reinstituting the
Roosevelt reforms. That would at
least place us on a launch pad from which a little
progress might begin.
Let us hope so.
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Other Commentary
Wars, Endless
Wars—Bob Herbert—Even as the U.S. begins plans to
reduce troop commitments in Iraq, it is sending
thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan. The
strategic purpose of this escalation, as Defense
Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged, is not at all
clear. . . . Lyndon Johnson, despite a booming economy,
lost his Great Society to the Vietnam War. He knew what
he was risking. He would later tell Doris Kearns
Goodwin, “If I left the woman I really loved — the Great
Society — in order to get involved with that bitch of a
war on the other side of the world, then I would lose
everything at home. All my programs... All my dreams...”
The United States is on its knees economically. As
President Obama fights for his myriad domestic programs
and his dream of an economic recovery, he might benefit
from a look over his shoulder at the link between
Vietnam and the still-smoldering ruins of Johnson’s
presidency.
NYTimes
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Malcolm X
A Life of Reinvention
By
Manning Marable
Years
in the making-the definitive biography of
the legendary black activist.
Of the great figure in twentieth-century
American history perhaps none is more
complex and controversial than Malcolm X.
Constantly rewriting his own story, he
became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and
an icon, all before being felled by
assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine.
Through his tireless work and countless
speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands
of black Americans to create better lives
and stronger communities while establishing
the template for the self-actualized,
independent African American man. In death
he became a broad symbol of both resistance
and reconciliation for millions around the
world. |
Manning Marable's
new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement.
Filled with new information and shocking revelations
that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a
sweeping story of race and class in America, from the
rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the
struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties
and sixties.
Reaching into
Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his
parents' activism through his own engagement with the
Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the
world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the
never-before-told true story of his assassination.
Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of
the most singular forces for social change, capturing
with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in
the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 3 March 2009
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