It’s about a history not told from the perspective of slaveholders

Biden was in Europe this past week talking to leaders of the top democracies and of NATO. Today he talked to Vlad Putin (no discussion of that today). After four years of the nasty guy how are world leaders looking at Biden? Laura Rozen, who reports on foreign policy, tweeted that our allies have doubts, though Biden did pull us out of the pandemic. Sarah Kendzior quoted Rozen, then tweeted:

What message does it send when a govt won’t investigate an attack on its own Capitol by seditionists who now announce their plans for a sequel unimpeded? Or that the former POTUS was a known career criminal who pardoned the criminals who aided him? Who would trust that country? Refusing to enforce accountability isn’t strength. It’s dangerous denial that hurts not only Americans but anyone who deals with the US. Yes, actions speak louder than words — and when it comes to elite criminal impunity and compromised institutions, there’s been little action. Trump and his lackeys treated NATO like a protection racket, threatened foreign officials with violence, blackmailed others, backed the enemies of our allies and the allies of our enemies...and walked free. Why would you trust a successor admin that won’t enforce accountability? The Trump admin was a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government. A bunch of its lackeys are still in office. Others are roaming free with state secrets that could be used to hurt allies. If I were a foreign leader, I’d ask Biden about that ongoing nat sec threat.

Walter Shaub, formerly of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted:

Lots of folks in the White House & Congress think it's enough to behave better than Tump. They've moved on from worrying about democracy and are spending all their political capital on fixing the roads and pipes. So what can you do? Lose the hero worship and start pounding them.

Republicans are trying to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. Of course, none of them can define CRT. Or care to understand that CRT is college level stuff. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote the real goal is to keep education racist. Clawson included a tweet from Philip Lewis that includes a couple paragraphs from a textbook approved for 8th grade history. The excerpt talks about a family with 120 slaves. After the war they “lost all their property in slaves” and now had to do field work using freed people who demanded “high wages.” Clawson wrote:

It’s pushback against this kind of history—in which the concerns of a wealthy slaveholder are presented sympathetically while enslaved people are the source of “justified fear” and problematic demands for “high wages”—that Republicans are so worked up about. ... But some teachers say that their colleagues are intimidated by the laws, and that the attacks on “critical race theory,” which no one is actually teaching at the elementary, middle, or high school levels, will have an effect on the teaching of anything about race—exactly as Republicans intend.

Clawson told the story of a teacher who presented Alice Walker, but got so much pushback she won’t next year. Clawson concluded:

That’s the game. It’s not about the legal academic school of critical race theory. It’s about Alice Walker. Or a history not told from the perspective of slaveholders. It’s about keeping white people on top in the teaching of history and literature, and intimidating anyone who would teach anything else.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported several progressive senators are now telling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, sure, go ahead and try for your bipartisan bill (and good luck with that), but we’re not voting for it unless there is a companion bill that does all the other stuff we need to do, especially climate stuff, that happens without the filibuster. Sen. Tina Smith said the two bills need to be “chained together with a lock that cannot be broken. Alas, since there is a 10 day holiday break in early July and recess through August and half of September, this combination may not be approved before Fall. Though there are calls to cancel recess. Katie Hobbs is the Secretary of State in Arizona. Of the four top statewide offices she’s the only Democrat. She’s been battling the GOP recount and fraudit craziness since November. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported Hobbs has had quite enough of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post (naming Sinema directly). She wants help from Sinema and the rest of Congress to pass voting rights bills as fast as possible. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, has a couple quotes worth repeating. From Tim Miller of Bulwark. Miller said the fraudit in Arizona will conclude soon and it will create a storm. I add that storm will bolster the nasty guy’s claim he will be reinstated in August. And when he isn’t it will bolster the reasons for another government attack. Dworkin quoted Ezra Klein of the New York Times:

What the Rich Don’t Want to Admit About the Poor The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.

They way I’ve heard it (and probably wrote a time or two): Unless you are poor you are complicit in oppressing the poor. Ending with a pretty picture here. Click on the photo to see the whole thing.