Juneteenth Thoughts.

The Radical Reactionary Right as represented by horrible humans like pence and desantis are making a political issue about nine US Army forts that are having their names changed by order of the Biden administration.

The very idea that military facilities would be named after traitors to the United States in the first place is abhorrent. That they were named after virulent racists, grand marshalls of the kkk, and other white supremacist appurtenances only deepens the sin around the deed.

Around 1900, many cities, towns and states in the South began rewriting the history of the south. What was a traitorous rebelling against the country in support of the cause of white supremacy and black enslavement was rebranded. The insurrection became the "lost cause." Hatred of the other became an issue of States' Rights. The reflying of the confederate flag, and its incorporation in the state flags of the eleven traitorous states arose at the turn of last century for fear that Black people in the south were gaining too much political power. The commemoration of the south's heroes didn't happen for about four decades after the Civil War. It happened when the south felt powerful enough to rewrite the history of the war.

Fort Bragg, renamed Fort Liberty, was named after confederate general braxton bragg. ron desantis said, "It's an iconic name and iconic base, and we're not going to let political correctness run amok in North Carolina." Former vice president mike pence said, "We will end the political correctness in the hallways of the Pentagon, and North Carolina will once again be home to Fort Bragg."

Neither said who bragg was. As a general, Wikipedia says, "Bragg is generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War. Most of the battles he engaged in ended in defeat. Bragg was extremely unpopular with both the officers and ordinary men under his command, who criticized him for numerous perceived faults, including poor battlefield strategy, a quick temper, and overzealous discipline." As a human, he owned 105 other humans. According to "Duke Today," "Between the Mexican War and the Civil War, Braxton Bragg lived the life of a genteel planter on a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana where slaves put in back-breaking labor in unspeakable conditions to bring molasses to market and earn Bragg a profit. He met any Northern criticism of slavery with harsh criticism. After Lincoln’s election in 1860, he was a proponent of Southern secession....He was a slaveholder who fought against the U.S. Army in order to preserve the South’s 'peculiar institution.'

In all, there are eight U.S. Army bases, all located in Southern states, named after Confederate generals: Fort Bragg (NC), Fort Benning (GA), Fort Gordon (GA), Fort Polk (LA), Fort Hood (TX), Fort A.P. Hill (VA), Fort Lee (VA), and Fort Rucker (AL). In addition, several National Guard facilities, such as Fort Pickett (VA) and Camp Beauregard (LA), bear the names of Confederate generals.

If you're interested at all if why people like trump, desantis and pence and their followers--no matter their reasons for being followers--sicken me, let me recommend four books, or five. 

1. Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy. The 2021 Pulitzer-Prize winner. It's the true story of a duly-elected government in Wilmington, NC and the white supremacist-led coup which murdered the elected officials or drove them out of town. If it sounds like a more successful version of the January 6th insurrection, you get an A.

2. The West: A New History in Fourteen Lives by Naoíse Mac Sweeney. It brings a more-complete perspective to history than the Greco-Roman one so many of us--myself included--have been inculcated with. The West as heirs to the ancients paved the way for colonialism and white supremacy--and is yet another reason so many are so fearful of history as it is taught.

3. Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie. 2022's Pulitzer-winner and history and a book that explains how white supremacists believe that anything that impinges on their right to be white supremacists is government interference and must be resisted--completely and violently. Read with Mac Sweeney, above, you'll get a chilling understanding of the pathology of hate in America today.

4. Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street by Victor Luckerson. One story of the thousands that could be told of the hate and depredations perpetrated in "the land of the free and the home of the brave," against the unfree and the braver. 

Three and a half years ago, I urged my readers to read Neil Postman's 1985 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death." Now more than ever, I urge you again to read it. Read it with our current conditions in America in mind. Read it again.

I don't know of any better way to show respect for Juneteenth and for humanity itself than to read. Reading is a revolutionary act--spreading the word, is even more incendiary. 

Postman compares Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." It seems as of this moment in both the world and our industry, Huxley was the better prognosticator.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. 

What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. 

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. 

Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. 

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. 

Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. 

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. 

Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.