No, that’s not my version of early Easter tidings.
Maybe this is, though:
(apologies to neb & fury)
WASC == White Anglo-Saxon Capitalists
It’s a trendy slur in our era of global economic meltdown triggered by malfeasances committed in financial megacenters like New York and London. (We won’t bother to get into the other end of the spectrum of deceit and delusion just yet, such as the shady dealings that took place in sketchier corners of American slumburbia.)
If you’ve been checking out news/commentary programming outside of the U.S. mainstream media these days, such as the BBC, you’ll occasionally hear a few veiled and not-so-veiled incriminations against WASCs. Leftist Continental Europeans and others will sometimes carry on about how the delicate machinery of our global economy was tampered with and eventually wrecked by heartless “Anglo-Saxon” capitalists run amok.
A web search turns up a typical screed from a leftist heaping abuse on transatlantic Anglocentric Caucasian capitalists, sampled below:
“Just for the record, the portliness of most Americans is testimony to their malnutrition caused mainly by the ‘GDP-ization’ of every single possible activity including Motherhood by our White Anglo Saxon Capitalists. The end result of malnutrition is generally a degenerative disease –a more or less slow and painful death — of which most all cancers, heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s etc. are examples. (I believe but cannot prove, although the facts tend to support such, that beginning with Henry VIII’s barons takeover of the commons and the putting of their farmers on the road to make way for sheep and wool, leading to the British effort to run a navy on rum and salt pork which was only saved with the discovery of limes and proceeding to America’s unlimited faith in magic pills and medical intervention, that the ruling elite is committed to filling the hoi polloi with non-descript fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, all seasoned with sodium chloride — feaux [sic] food — with magic bullets to be supplied on the fly as they are found.) The only real solution is real, unadulterated food.”
—some liberal named “Lee” on some conservative website
—some liberal named “Lee” on some conservative website
(While I agree with some of this food-fixated fool’s basic sentiments, this “Lee” person’s leaps in logic make you wonder whether he/she maybe needs to start hitting some “non-descript” carbohydrates after all, before his/her blood sugar runs down too low and deprives his/her brain of all coherent cognition. I oughta know, after all.)
I was reminded of the surge in anti-WASCism when I heard a French journalist mention this lament on NPR’s “All Thing’s Considered” on Thursday evening during a segment covering the G20 summit.
And then I noticed Hardman’s post on his campaign blog on Thursday evening, where he mentions the wane of WASPs (among many other things).
For those of you who aren’t avid loco Moco politics hags, Hardman is from Aspen Hill and is running as a Democrat for the District 4 County Council seat. (The seat was left vacant when well-respected civic activist and sitting District 4 Councilman Don Praisner died suddenly in January, following the passing of his predecessor, his own wife Marilyn — another tireless veteran county leader — by less than a year.)
The District 4 special election has turned out to be a pretty lively race with a rather broad array of candidates.
In his recent post, Hardman takes issue with a local politician’s statement endorsing the front-runner in the District 4 Council seat special election.
The sitting councilmember who extended the endorsement, the cherub-faced Mr. George Leventhal, is a Democrat holding an at-large seat on the council. Leventhal resides in Takoma Park, an historic aging streetcar suburb in the far southeastern corner of the county that has a lot of verve and character.
For those of you unfamiliar with the county, Takoma Park is a very liberal enclave that extends into the District (somewhat like Chevy Chase). Some Takoma Parkers even label their city the “Berkeley of the east” because of its liberal atmosphere. (If they can make that ridiculous claim, let’s just call nouveau Silver Spring the “SF of suburban Maryland” and Wheaton can be MoCo’s own “Little Oakland” to round things out.)
Leventhal is endorsing a school board member who has unprecedented resources (seasoned campaign staff and funding) compared to most contenders in the District 4 field. The majority of the county’s solidly left solidarists (who wield the lion’s share of the power in east-county politics) have effectively anointed the school board’s candidate as the new council member.
Leventhal included this appeal in his endorsement:
“We must do more to understand the needs and concerns of working and lower-income families, our younger population, and our Latino and African American population. Although they represent the future of Montgomery County, they are badly underrepresented in our county’s political dialogue.”
To me this sounded like tired old rhetoric pushing the usual bromides of patronizing liberal tokenist tolerance, barely worthy of a yawn or a ho-hum. But it elicited this pointed response by Hardman on Maryland Politics Watch:
“So, according to Mr Leventhal, Ms Navarro's most important qualification is her ethnicity?
Wow.
There's nothing left to say.”
Wow.
There's nothing left to say.”
Now, I grew up nestled pretty comfortably in the lap of luxe-liberalism here in MoCo, so I sometimes still find it difficult to turn a dispassionately critical eye on any local group of sympathetic solidarists.
However, Leventhal’s description is a very clumsy demographic caricature of the “future” of this county, which is genuinely diverse in many different aspects.
If I identified as latino/hispanic or African American, I might actually take offense at being singled out in this way, hastily categorized in the same breath as “working[-class]” and “lower-income” residents ripe for representative political affirmative action.
There are plenty of middle-class and affluent residents of Latin American and African American heritage thriving in this county. They are busy creating prosperity for themselves and their children, with or without special ethnically targeted assistance from county government, business, and non-profit leaders.
(Of course these folks may or may not wince at this Democratic party rhetoric as much as I do. Maybe they really do hunger for these sorts of statements; I’ll have to leave it to them to express their individual reactions to this treatment.)
But there’s also the inevitable exclusion by omission that underlies Leventhal’s appeal. I don’t mean to pick on Leventhal personally; after all, his statement is a very typical expression of current Democratic Party outreach agendas. Hardman points out the inevitable exclusion in this cherry-picking endorsement, demanding:
“If that's the plan, where do the wealthy professionals fit in? How about wealthy Asian-Americans? Wealthy Indian-Americans? What about Arab-Americans of whatever level of education or income? What about the this-or-that-ethnicity? Or, maybe since there aren't all that many of them, they don't need a voice?”
He pretty much nails it here. I would go on to mention Caribbean Americans (whether they identify as hispanic or not), African immigrants (west, central, and east), eastern and central European immigrants, and so on. And of course the middle class, including the rising middle class. But this proliferation of diversity is too bewildering for many liberal Democratic party liners to wrap their heads around; they’d rather focus on the simpler demographic pigeonholing they’re used to.
I think it’s pretty clear that many liberals would prefer to analyze and court a very few massive ethnocentric voting blocs rather than embrace a broader array of diversity. By that I mean an expansionary diversity that would be more international in scope and that also draws from various defining qualities beyond the obvious divisions of race/ethnicity/culture and gender.
These other facets might include, for instance:
• income level, educational background, socioeconomic class and level of mobility, trade/industry/profession
• age group, generational identity
• culture/continent of origin, immigrant generation
• political, philosophical, or spiritual orientation
• lifestyle arrangements (marital/partnership/relationship status/orientation, household size & features)
“Another ideal for which we fought was ‘equal justice for all.’ Somehow the history books in Country schools will tell you that the majority of the victorious Union army was ‘poor newly arrived immigrants’ but they don't tell you much more. But college-level history texts, especially those written right near the time of the conflict, will tell you that the majority of those ‘immigrants’ were fresh off the boat from the Germanies, and some of those history books will flatly declare that the slaves of the Confederacy were freed by the point of German-American bayonets. And for this, we don't get to be part of the future. Now that's gratitude for ya.
Another ideal for which we fought was the ‘separation of church and state’ and ‘freedom of religion.’ Oh yes, Mr Leventhal. Not just for the Amish and Mennonites and Methodists and Lutherans, but for the Catholics and Jews as well. But, hey, we're dinosaurs, we aren't the future of Montgomery County. And when at last we're gone, who will be left to fight for your religious freedom? Nancy Navarro? Can you even say ‘religious freedom’ in Spanish?”
Another ideal for which we fought was the ‘separation of church and state’ and ‘freedom of religion.’ Oh yes, Mr Leventhal. Not just for the Amish and Mennonites and Methodists and Lutherans, but for the Catholics and Jews as well. But, hey, we're dinosaurs, we aren't the future of Montgomery County. And when at last we're gone, who will be left to fight for your religious freedom? Nancy Navarro? Can you even say ‘religious freedom’ in Spanish?”
I don’t know about the Councilman, but I think I know how to say “religious freedom” in Spanish, thanks to the county’s above-average public school system. (That would be libertad religiosa, or something to that effect.)
It’s somewhat ironic that a number of young adults whose parents brought them to the United States illegally end up signing up for military service in order to secure U.S. citizenship, often after many frustrating years of living dual lives.
If we still engaged in wars that impressed the majority of Americans as urgent and imperative, wars that young people didn’t feel so deeply conflicted or apathetic about, then this might not be so tragically absurd.
And as far as the talk of “dinosaurs” and “extinction” goes, this recalls unsettling dichotomies of “winners”-vs-“losers,” “new”-vs-“old,” “vigorous”-vs-“weak,” “prolific procreators”-vs-“others” and the like.
These dynamics and the reactions they provoke get at the heart of the politics of population growth, rapid demographic change, and mass immigration. All of this is very treacherous territory for Democrats, whether they admit it or not.
With the accelerating liberalization and democratization of public education throughout the United States, many children who attended public schools after the 1970s experienced very different visions of America and the world than the lessons and narratives presented to previous generations.
For instance, in suburban Maryland public schools, I learned a great deal about the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Olmecs, and the Incas.
I hardly learned anything about the Cherokees, the Navajos, the Chippewas, or the Sioux.
Over and over again during human history, those in power have found it expedient to marginalize or even eradicate cultures and subcultures under the mantle of political, economic, or social “progress.”
It’s also a bit quirky how Leventhal channels his inner Lloyd Bentsen at the beginning of his statement of support of Nancy Navarro:
“Much has been said about how best to carry on Marilyn Praisner’s legacy on the County Council. I served with Marilyn Praisner. I knew Marilyn Praisner. Marilyn Praisner was a friend of mine.”
You half expect him to conclude this little progression with, “Delegate Kramer, you’re no Marilyn Praisner.”
(For those of you who don’t/can’t remember the late-’80s, this is lifted from the 1988 vice presidential debate where Senator Bentsen memorably dissed Dan Quayle for comparing himself (Quayle) to JFK.)
Alright, enough of all this rehashing of neoliberal identity politicking and precarious exercises in multi-culti tightrope-walking.
I’ll leave the “progressive” pissing contests to the pundits of MPW and MoCo’s coterie of bright-eyed MySpace/Facebook/Twitter Young Democrats.
For now, I’ll just throw my moral support behind the gutsy underdog politicos east of I-270 who still venture to be honest and open about the divisive leftist strategies and policies that contribute to chronic fragmentation and anomie in our suburban ’hoods.
Maybe I should start a new, unofficial pro-diversity PAC called Montgomery County Citizens for Left-handed Radical Centrist Pagan Tree-hugging Scientific Agnostics.
Here’s a stab at a campaign slogan:
“It takes a Hardman to tenderize so many soft-touch Democrats.”
(This goofiness is styled after the ’80s & ’90s ad campaign that featured Maryland’s poultry dynasty, the Perdues.)
Here in lower slumburbia we’ve had quite a few mom-and-pop poultry entrepreneurs who’ve launched their own ambitious chicken husbandry ventures from their humble slices of suburban gothic. It got so crazy around here circa 2005 - 2007, that I really should’ve made a low-budget horror film about this phenomenon, titled something like Enter: The Conquering Chicken*, The Eggs-orcist, or Poultry-geist, of course.
Actually, it appears that some wise guys penned a script for an obscure indie horror film project called Poultrygeist: Attack of the Chicken Zombies as early as 2002, so it looks like that chicken has already flown the coop.
Whoa, Nelly...
Wow.... Longest... and Most Discursive... Post... Ever!
