A friend reminded me recently that back in distant November, I wrote in a passage about historical analogies: “But it did make me wonder about another, perhaps slightly less far-fetched analogy far closer to home. Could we be entering some strange modern version of the post-Reconstruction era when white-rule regimes took over the South? Are we now, in some altered context, about to live with the equivalent of a global white-rule regime?”
Incestuous as it may be to quote oneself, the issue of race and this administration barely ever makes it out of the domestic context — and the domestic “context” remains limited indeed as a comment by Anthony Barnett in a piece on the vigorous opendemocracy.net site he runs reminded me. In fact, it made me reconsider the whole Trent Lott train of events. In arguing against an Iraqi war (“From Vietnam to Iraq”) Barnett wrote that the attitude of those around the President toward non-Americans was at best one of “pity.”
“… Now their foreign policy threatens to institutionalise this prejudice on a world scale.
Take the example of Senate majority leader Trent Lott’s endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 call for racial segregation – at the happy occasion of the latter’s 100th birthday party. After a public row, he has apologised. But from the pictures of the event, it seems that the speech took place in the cheerful company of President Bush as well as Cheney. Did they refuse to applaud Lott’s speech? Did they lead the opposition to his callous nostalgia? Did they, hell.
What does this have to do with Iraq? Lott’s remarks drew upon an atmosphere that is not so much narrowly racist as injured triumphalism. US assumptions of supremacy abroad draw succour from the history of supremacism at home – and macho unilateralism with respect to the rest of the world rekindles latent beliefs of indigenous superiority.”:
To read more Barnett, click on his piece on the upper right of screen
In fact, the President may or may not have been there or may not have stayed for the shower of praise. There seems to be a photo of the President in attendance, though I haven’t seen it yet, but perhaps he left early. Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexion, informs me that the President sent “a warm greeting that was read aloud to Thurmond, saluting his ‘lifetime of service to South Carolina and the nation.’ And the news reports claimed also that the White House was throwing a party for Ole Strom the next day,” apparently closed to the press. (If so, no enterprising reporters broke down any doors to get that story.)
Take the example of Senate majority leader Trent Lott’s endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 call for racial segregation – at the happy occasion of the latter’s 100th birthday party. After a public row, he has apologised. But from the pictures of the event, it seems that the speech took place in the cheerful company of President Bush as well as Cheney. Did they refuse to applaud Lott’s speech? Did they lead the opposition to his callous nostalgia? Did they, hell.
What does this have to do with Iraq? Lott’s remarks drew upon an atmosphere that is not so much narrowly racist as injured triumphalism. US assumptions of supremacy abroad draw succour from the history of supremacism at home – and macho unilateralism with respect to the rest of the world rekindles latent beliefs of indigenous superiority.”:
To read more Barnett, click on his piece on the upper right of screen
In fact, the President may or may not have been there or may not have stayed for the shower of praise. There seems to be a photo of the President in attendance, though I haven’t seen it yet, but perhaps he left early. Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexion, informs me that the President sent “a warm greeting that was read aloud to Thurmond, saluting his ‘lifetime of service to South Carolina and the nation.’ And the news reports claimed also that the White House was throwing a party for Ole Strom the next day,” apparently closed to the press. (If so, no enterprising reporters broke down any doors to get that story.)
As a start, Barnett’s comments and those of the Boston Globe‘s lively columnist Derrick Z. Jackson below (picked up off the commondreams.org website) on the initial Democratic non-response to Lott’s comments made me realize how oddly the Lott debacle was reported. I realize the whole train of events seemed to take place in close-up, the camera barely ever, and then ever so reluctantly, pulling back from Lott’s face to those of his closest colleagues, then to the Democrats, and finally to the President, issuing a stern rebuke seven days later. But if we were to revisit the birthday party with a wider angle camera we would evidently note that most of the Washington establishment was there smiling and clapping, including perhaps the Vice-president. (It would be nice to see the guest list.) If we were then to pull back just a little farther, we would see that the media were there too — and none of the people in attendance thought to say anything at the time or report anything soon thereafter, including assumedly the President or any of his representatives. (Or did he quietly admonish Lott at the little private party to follow?) This was, of course, just normal life in Washington.
Pull back a little farther and you find many of these people getting ready to throw a triumphalist war party for the world, undoubtedly a far easier event to manage if in your heart you believe America supreme in every virtue, historically and in the present, and the rest of the world, lesser breeds in need of “liberation.” Tom
Daschle’s Role as Lott’s Enabler
By Derrick Z. Jackson
December 23, 2002
The Boston GlobeAS TRENT LOTT goes out the door as the Senate’s Republican leader, he can take Tom Daschle with him.
Fresh from the feckless performance in the midterm elections that delivered control of the Senate to the Republicans, the Democrats did not have a clue what to do initially about Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign.
Daschle, the Democratic leader in the Senate, initially bought the story of Lott, who honored Thurmond’s 100th birthday by saying if the nation had elected Thurmond, ”we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.”Lott said his remarks were part of a ”lighthearted celebration.” Daschle chose to give him cover. ”Senator Lott, in my conversations with him this morning, explained that that wasn’t how he meant them to be interpreted.