The White Male Oppressor Speaks

As you may recall, I did a spot called “Gandhi The Ugly Truth” in which I explored the unfortunate elitist and racist side of Gandhi. Well, needless to say, that post brought little in the way of a warm response, which I expected being as people see him as almost God-like. But what I didn’t expect was to get retort arguments such as “George Washington owned slaves” and “Our founding fathers were slave owning racists and they did good” as well as a couple that were rather strongly worded with four letter insults and something to do with a duck and a hose. I did not know that was possible, but okay… It turns out that there are a lot of things that you can do with a duck and a hose using a little lard and some bobby pins… but I digress.

So rather than give credence to those that just felt like ranting and looking foolish in an email calling me names I will focus on the founding fathers’ arguments. The difference between the founding fathers’ slave ownership and Gandhi’s Elitist racism are many and varying. While yes it is true that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves they were also fervent abolitionists.

I know that may sound hypocritical but in order to understand that point we need to look at the economic climate of the mid 18th through the mid 19th century. When George Washington owned slaves, slavery was one of the cornerstones of this fledgling nation’s economy. If, in the formation of this country, they had pushed forward their abolitionist views the country would have never formed because the colonies of the North and South would have never ratified or agreed on anything and we would still be eating baked beans on toast. George Washington said “I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.” And Thomas Jefferson is quoted on the subject as saying “Do not mistake me. I am not advocating slavery. I am not justifying the wrongs we have committed on a foreign people… On the contrary, there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity.”

The reason they did not push their abolitionist views is because they knew that with the unrest and uncertainty of this fledgling nation, if they brought about the end of slavery it would have been the end of this experiment we call America. In the constitution where it says in Article 1 Section 2 Clause 3. “three fifths of all other Persons” referring to the black slaves and the census is because at that time black slaves outnumbered the whites by a good margin in the South, so in order to ensure that there would be an ability to enact the abolition of slavery in the future they needed to count the slaves as three fifths a person because if they did not that would have given the Southern states a far greater representation in Congress that could stop any abolitionist push and they feared that if that was to happen their hope of abolition would never come to be.

So as you can see the argument of using Thomas Jefferson and George Washington as arguments to somehow vindicate Gandhi is moot. So now onto Gandhi.

While some have tried to use the argument above to somehow lesson the atrocity that was Gandhi, it is important to realize that unlike the founding fathers Gandhi was okay with slavery of the Kaffirs as he called them and was not shy throughout his entire life of letting that be known. He was a noted Imperialist, classist and racist. He saw value not in blacks or even members of the lower classes of Indians but only in his own merchant class. In fact if you read his writings in his own publication, “The Indian Opinion”, you will see the level of disdain that he had for the blacks and the lower casts.

Gandhi did not work for the betterment of anyone else except his cast of Indians and the British interests in South Africa and used the excuse of working for a better life for all to subvert criticism and divert attention away from his intentions, which apparently has worked.

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Here is a gem from Reuters. A court ruled that a Russian man must pay more than $100,000 rubles ($3,330) for medical bills and damages to the parents of a 7 year old girl who he hit when he jumped from the 9th story window of his apartment building in a suicide attempt.

This poor 7-year-old girl was in the hospital for months after this “brainiac” fell on her after jumping from his apartment window during an argument with his ex-wife. The court in the Siberian city of Omsk has decided that a $100,000 ruble fine should be levied against the man. Well isn’t that nice the little girl who this douche fell on because he had an argument with this ex wife gets a pittance for her pain and suffering and this guy gets off scott free.

That is a travesty. This little girl got hurt severely because he was feeling butt hurt. Fine I think that the Russian court should have gone further. Not only should he have to pay the cost of the girls medical expenses but since he was trying to kill himself I think that the court should oblige him in his desire. If this guy is that stupid and suicidal let him, nay, help him achieve that goal. The Court should have the police cordon of a block around the tallest building in Moscow and take this guy to the top and give him a choice: complete your task or we will do it for you. After he pays the family of the girl of course.

Somehow I do not think that the gene pool would be that bad off in the end.

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Welcome to the first of the next series that yours truly is doing on political ideologies. Over the next few posts I will be exploring the the backgrounds and practices of the major political ideas that are practiced. I will specifically be exploring: Progressivism, Conservatism, Socialism, and Marxism. And believe me they are each quite different from the other. The reason for this series is so that you my loyal reader will have an inform people and maybe teach them what these different ideologies stand for in idea and practice because I am sick of seeing idiots wearing Che t-shirts and thinking he was just a freedom fighter and a good person (I will be addressing him in a future post) or identifying themselves by one of these ideologies based on bumper sticker slogans and sideways rhetoric or as is more common, especially with cause heads and sudo-hippies because it is cool at the time.

I will start with Progressivism. This is probably one of the most widely claimed yet least understood ideologies on the scene today. So what are progressives and what do they believe? We have heard President Obama repeatedly call himself a progressive not a democrat. We have heard our secretary of state Ms. Clinton call herself a modern progressive. We have heard correlations between Liberals and Progressives but are they really the same? I hope to answer all these questions so you my lovely reader will truly know what those who say they are progressives really stand for. While progressives are more often then not associated with the democratic party you will see why that really is not the case and how the (R) and the (D) behind someones name means even less when it comes to Progressivism.

The term progressive has been adopted by people who are actually liberals which is misguided at best and foolish at worst. Let us start with what the dictionary defines Liberals and Progressives as. Dictionary.com defines Liberal as “favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.” And now the most truthful of the definitions for progressive as it pertains to political ideology would be once again from Dictionary.com: “going forward or onward; passing successively from one member of a series to the next; proceeding step by step.” I know that definition may sound a bit vague but as you will see it is right on the money. One of the main differences between classical Liberalism and Progressivism is that while classic liberals are for maximum individual freedom the progressive is for maximum government control at the cost of personal freedom. You will see why when someone refers to democrats as progressives they are not only stunningly wrong but also misguided as to the actual progressive movement.

When did progressivism really start? The progressives of today look back to the progressive era of the early 20th century and is closely akin but different enough from Socialism to be mistaken for it. Progressivism as a term was really put into use in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and gained popularity during the evolution of industrialization. It was sought to be an almost midway point between traditional conservative views on economic and social issues and the radical ideologies of Socialism and Marxism.

Progressives, as their actions dictate, stand for the betterment of society regardless of personal liberty. For example the Prohibitionist movement of the early twentieth century in America which while that movement was its own, it was firmly backed by progressives and progressive ideology. The prohibition movement was a multi-political background effort that even had a presidential candidate, Joshua Levering in 1896. (NY Times article July 28th 1896) eventually through political intimidation ultimately caused the creation of the 18th amemdment to the constitution that was in a wonderful blow for personal liberty overturned in 1933 by the 21st Amendment to the Constition.

Progressivism gained a lot of ground in the political arena with the formation of the progressive party in 1912 by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt and to this day was the most successful third party in American Politics. Other progressive presidents included Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Let’s take a look at the two worst progressive presidents shall we and in this humble moderators opinion those were Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

What made these presidents progressivists? Well let’s start with President Roosevelt shall we. President Roosevelt held ideas of large government control and anti-capitalist ideologies. But he was a Republican right? Yes he was in name only, not in ideology; for example let’s look at a couple of quotes. “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” or how about “Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.” and last but not least  in his Speech at Osawatomie, August 31, 1910 “Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.” In other words you only own your property as long as it is not decided by the government that your property should be used for a purpose that they decide is for the betterment of society. This idea is held today and is law in one way or another in every state. You may have heard of it, this little demon of government power is called “Eminent Domain”.  This is a very progressive idea that you own only that which is not needed by the collective society.

Now for Woodrow Wilson (D) who most progressives consider one of the greatest presidents of all time, but to those who value those few words “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” consider him one of the most damaging of progressive presidents. In the official polls he is considered number 4 in the list of top ten presidents behind Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I will show you why he should be next to the bottom and not the top and you will see how dangerous progressivism can be. Good ole Woodrow created the first official United states propaganda ministry which was called the “Committee on Public Information.” If you think that is Orwellian just wait it gets better. And remember this is common practice by Progressives. President Wilson, using the Justice Department, created an organization called the American Protective League that employed 250,000 badge-carrying government employees who were allowed to beat people up in the street, perform mass arrests, break into peoples homes and search without warrants, spy on American citizens, and do government background checks. Hmmm, they had a similar thing in another country… Oh yeah the secret police in USSR. But it doesn’t stop there it gets better.

This Progressive Fascist of a President also was one of the most detrimental to the 1st amendment as well. At the urging of Wilson he along with the justice department passed the Sedition Act of 1918 which forbade Americans from criticizing the government in a time of war. Citizens could not “utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government or the military. This act also gave the Postmaster General authority to revoke the mailing privileges of those who disobeyed by his discretion. About 75 periodicals were were shut down by the government with this section of the act and many others were given warnings. Yeah who needs free speech right? the government knows best don’t they…

Now this is just the tip of the iceberg when you look at progressivism it is more closely related to Marxism than liberalism and so I will stop short of showing you the parallels between then and now any farther because this post as the ones coming up are meant for information not so much political rhetoric that will come later.

Up Next Marxism.

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