I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with CaesarBilly Shakespeare
This essay is taboo, this essay speaks an awkward, uncomfortable truth. This essay is controversial. This essay speaks plainly of something that is not easily spoken about. This essay will contain more caveats than I have ever written!
Los Caveats: Please read before proceeding.
For I place this essay before you today not to condemn a subset of humanity, not to say that they are evil, not to call for their heads, and certainly not to condemn every person reading it who shares any of the characteristics of the subset in question. I share them myself.
If you are reading this and yet do share some of those characteristics…you have probably been fighting your whole life to defeat…..”it.” Yet, it will probably still sting. You may feel a sense of shame, but I say to you now, with all of the honesty I can muster after examining my heart and conscience, I do not write this to shame you. You may what I am about to write and you are about to read… ‘insensitive.’ You may even find it insulting. You may become angry. The words on this page may make you feel…..a certain way. Which is why they are taboo. But they are, to the best of my ability to perceive it, The Truth. And though I take full responsibility for writing them, I do not take responsibility for how they make you feel. I did not make this Truth. I just have the temerity to set it in print.
As the subset I am writing about often are heard to say….I apologize if what I say offends you in any way.
If you have read and understand these caveats, you may proceed below the fold.
I would NOT have the temerity to write this essay if not for the quote below. For I come to bury the White, Christian, Male power structure, not to praise it. Just as with Caesar, it has done good. But the “evil” it has done lives on. As a matter of fact it is the “evil” it has done …and is doing… that we who work for Progress in the world are fighting, in one of its iterations or another, every damn day.
Final (maybe) Caveat: being a White Christian Male does not Not NOT, a thousands time NOT, make you evil. The White Christian Male Power Structure was born long before you….the fact that it does exist does NOT make all White Christian Males part of it….nor does sharing any or all of the characteristics contained therein mean you support it, encourage it, or even (as in my case) mean you have even benefited from it much.
And as I say, if you are reading this YOU have probably spent much of your life and money fighting it, if not it directly, then certainly the effects of it upon the world.
Why do I feel the need to write about this taboo at this time? We will get to that after the quote, the quote that I would not dare to write about this without….for unless it had come from the horses mouth, it would, as it has for all of our past, be considered some “wild conspiracy theory” perpetrated out of “bitterness, envy and a desire for Class War”…or some such rationalizing, denial laden, Bullshite.
But here it is, straight from the horses asses mouth….
BILL O’REILLY: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I….
The context and attributions can be found here: Preserving the ‘white, Christian, male power structure.’
When you hear Republicans talk about REAL Americans…..this is what they are referring to.
So why do I feel the need to write about this taboo at this time? For virtually every reason we write about on the blogs.
Because on every issue we face as Progressives…those on the other side of that issue, the people trying to defeat us on that issue…virtually ALL share one key characteristic. They are all (even the few women) part of The White Christian Male Power Structure. And all of their efforts are in defense of The White Christian Male Power Structure.
It cannot be ignored. And we can no longer adhere to the taboo that has been put in place by The White Christian Male Power Structure….to protect itself.
The Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries that are fighting against Health Care are controlled by….The White Christian Male Power Structure.
The Banking and Financial Industries (unlike the stereotype they advance to protect their industry from criticism) that have plunged us into a worldwide financial crisis are controlled by….The White Christian Male Power Structure.
The Military Industrial Complex that needs War and armed conflict to profit and thrive and has far to much influence to achieve their aims in Congress is….The White Christian Male Power Structure.
The very Senate itself that rules and legislates on these issues, consistently and unsurprisingly in favor of the The White Christian Male Power Structure….is controlled by the The White Christian Male Power Structure.
And most damagingly of all…
The Oil, Energy and Auto Industries that are fighting all efforts to keep the only planet we have habitable in order to continue their short term profits at the expense of every human being and all of our descendants….is controlled by the The White Christian Male Power Structure.
And of course, the information that the general public receives regarding all of these efforts to preserve the status quo that SO favors the The White Christian Male Power Structure are being (unconsciously?) shaped and manipulated and framed in favor of the The White Christian Male Power Structure, by the Corporate Media which is controlled by? You guessed it….The White Christian Male Power Structure.
Bringing this all in to stark relief was the campaign of Barack Obama. And the forces that opposed it. (The White Christian Male Power Structure) And that are now pounding the table in order to smear, deride and defeat EVERY SINGLE EFFORT TOWARDS THE CHANGE WE ELECTED HIM TO MAKE.
Including the two big news items from yesterday….equal rights for another segment of America…and the appointment of a non white male to the Supreme Court. To the halls of power that have been controlled since the inception of America by…The White Christian Male Power Structure.
The People Spoke loud and clear in the election. WE want change. Who is opposing that change? The Republicans are the most identifiable and clear opponents of Change. We say Change. They say…..NO.
The Republican Party IS, indisputably now that they have given up even the most token effort to be inclusive, the party of The White Christian Male Power Structure.
The leaders of this Party are Dick Cheney, who is currently advocating torture.
Newt Gingrich who led the effort to impeach a Democrat for violating family Values while himself indulging in serial adultery and, though driven from office in disgrace himself, is calling for Speaker Pelosi to be driven from office for telling the truth about the torturers in the CIA.
And Rush Limbaugh, who is currently trying to protect the racist White Christian Male Power Structure from a ‘scary’ Hispanic Female being appointed to a place of power historically reserved for you know who ….by calling her a racist…
“Here you have a racist – you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist. The libs, of course, say that minorities cannot be racists because they don’t have the power to implement their racism. Well, those days are gone, because reverse racists certainly do have the power. … Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he’s appointed one.”
And of course because the The White Christian Male Power Structure must stick together and parrot the same meme at the same time to preserve their power, the rest of the The White Christian Male Power Structure is saying exactly the same thing…[Gingrich Tweets Sotomayor ‘Racist’–On Visit to Auschwitz! by Jeffrey Feldman
Rush says “Well, those days are gone, because reverse racists certainly do have the power.’
It is incredibly premature to say that minorities currently have “the power” to implement much of anything. Especially since virtually everything that the “reverse racist” President Obama is attempting to “implement”…….is currently being either defeated or watered down to meaninglessness by….
The White Christian Male Power Structure.
And even a segment of the Democratic Party is doing all that it can to defeat the change that Obama is doing his best to implement.
Why? People ask. Why would people in his own Party, people who are supposed to be on his side work to defeat or water down the Change that The People voted for? Why would people on OUR SIDE vote against the Change that we elected them, these “more Democrats” that we needed to effect change as we were told….why are they STILL not implementing change? And in many cases, actively blocking the Change that We The People demanded from out government in the last election?
Why?
Because they do NOT represent The People.
They do not, heh, even represent the majority of white Christian males.
Because the vast majority (like you) of white Christian males are NOT part of The White Christian Male Power Structure.
Which leads us to the raison d’etre and conclusion of this taboo essay:
The age of the The White Christian Male Power Structure is nearly over. Demographics dictate that. The demands of a changing world that has grown and evolved beyond the bounds of their very limited philosophy and archaic way of wielding power dictates that. The fact that we human beings, through the benefit of technology that ‘shrunk the world’ have made what we do as a nation the ‘business’ of the whole world dictates that.
Reality dictates that.
So why is it important to point out the fact that our opponents are not some faceless amorphous blob of power, but indeed an organized and coherent entity? Why is it important that we know and define our ‘enemy?’
Because it is indeed the representatives of The White Christian Male Power Structure on our side who are blocking Change.
And if we are going to defeat them we have to do two things. First, we have to let them know that we know WHY they are blocking change.
And second because all of us who are NOT part of The White Christian Male Power Structure will have to band together, to work together, to put aside our minor differences that divide us to come together to defeat their efforts to block the Will of The People.
Including, of course, all of us White Males and all of you Christians who are NOT part of The White Christian Male Power Structure. Even though we may have some of the same characteristics of them. Because even though we may have some of the same characteristics….we do NOT have the same interests.
ALL of us have a stake in the future. All Seven Billion of us. There is a VERY small group of people working against those interests. They are organized.
We are not.
If we want to defeat their efforts to promote war, to wage financial Class War, to block health care, and to make our planet uninhabitable, WE must join together and organize to defeat them.
And we need to know who they are, and we need to let THEM know we are on to them.
We of course do not have to refer to them as The White Christian Male Power Structure….even though that is how they identify themselves
BILL O’REILLY: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I….
…we can call them the Ruling Class or the Powers That Be or anything we want that is less inflammatory…if we want to.
But we DO have to…no matter what we call them…..call them OUT.
Or we will never defeat them.
And defeating them is not a luxury, it is an imperative.
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Evolution does, and as we as a planet evolve into one humanity ….THAT will be the Revolution we seek.
All about the power.
Fight the power.
ek hornbeck- white male (not so Christian anymore).
with whom I share two out of three traits with (play a game! figure out which is not one of my traits!) for my whole fracking life.
I will say they have become more of a problem during that time, do you think there is correlation?
..just to be precise. 😉
Great essay.
“White Man’s Disease” may not be curable, but let’s hope it’s treatable.
“What the heck is White Man’s Disease?”, you may be asking yourself right now. Heh. Tell you what, if you’re wondering what it is, post your best guess and let’s see what happens.
🙂
“…For I come to bury the White, Judeo-Christian, Male power structure…
-“Judeo-Christian” is a term with far less controversy attached to it
-“Christian” is sometimes used to specifically represent members of “non-denominational” churches that have become prevalent in the “born-again” movement.
-The “Are Catholics Christians?” and “Are Mormons Christians?” debates are avoided.
-“Judeo-Christian” includes the nation of Israel, who has been acting on behalf of Western interests for a long enough time to just toss them into the pile with all the other white males.
I do see where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure I like the approach. I’ve heard the argument the Gingrich was referring to about people of color not being able to be racist, and I also reject it, but not for the same reason. Why should the requirement of “power” be attached to the definition of racism, when it’s not to any other ideology? An ideology is a set of beliefs and values; you either subscribe to it in theory or not. I don’t think you are not a racist just because you have no power.
In any event, he’s also right that plenty of people of color do have the power to act on their racism in very real ways. Putting Obama aside for the moment, we can start with racist Latino gangs who have ethnically cleansed black people from neighborhoods like Highland Park in Los Angeles. If that ain’t “power” then what would be?
The “Christian” part is somewhat imprecise as well. As a Jew, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that Jewish participation in the seats of power in America goes way beyond our numbers in the population. The list of Jewish names and Jewish-run organizations that hold huge amounts of clout on Wall Street, in Washington, in Hollywood, the media, academia is very long, and, again, in no way approximates the 2% of the American population that is Jewish.
Maybe “White Judeo-Christian Male Power Structure”?
I also think the “demographic” and “small world” arguments are sometimes overstated. Blacks and Indians probably made up a larger percentage of the actual inhabitants of America circa 1800 than they do now. People of color were a huge demographic majority in apartheid South Africa and yet blacks as a minority in America got our civil rights long before our compatriots in S. Africa did. The whole race issue begins with the “shrinking” of the world brought about by European expansion and world trade 500 years ago, so that’s nothing new there either, not is there anything inherently threatening to the White, Male, Christian Power Structure about the increasing integration of the world, which to a large extent has in fact been encouraged, facilitate and profitted from by that same group.
You also have to delve into the question of what does it gain us to “name” our enemy in this fashion? You say it’s because some of “them” are on “our side”. I don’t quite understand that, as the notion of “them” and “our side” seem mutually exclusive, and it’s not as though you are saying that white, male, Christians cannot be on “our side”.
Without a crystal clear justification of the necessity of naming our enemy in terms of these identity categories, I’m not sure that it really moves the agenda forward. One of the backstories IMHO behind the latest resurgence of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement in general has been the de-emphasization of the kind of “identity politics” that so plagued us in the period between the late 1960’s and the early 1990’s.
Methinks that it may still be preferable to focus on articulating in increasingly detailed and vivid terms the kind of world that we’re looking to build, and identifying friends and enemies based on the degree to which they are helpful or hurtful in that effort. The reality is that the kind of world that we’re looking to build doesn’t include a White, Male, Christian Power Structure and to the extent that our activism in pursuit of our vision begins to bring about real changes in the status quo, those who are personally invested in said power structure will surely identify themselves as our enemies in short order.
insecure cowardly worthless feeling people in the world.
And they are absolutely, quaking in their boots, losing sleep, sweating bullets, terrified.
And dangerous, like cornered rabid animals. And they have lots of nukes…
am having a hard time putting my thoughts together on this. Re-reading.
So Bill’O’ self-refers to …WCM Power Structure. Fine. whatever. I dont care. I just don’t want to “buy in” that it has anything to do with racial.etc stuff, even though that description may be accurate, it is NOT the reason, the central reason, I oppose Them. At all.
The fact that They are that (and it does include a lot of women) is really irrelevant to me. It is relevant apparently to Them. However, it is not the essential thing. Its something They use to seduce and control their minions, their sheeples… but They Themselves are that and more, they’re about power.
So how do we fight Them? I dont want to say “fight” even, “defeat” is a little better. Or unseat, disarm, and remove Them from Power…
?
So when Bill’O or Rush or some of those twerps say stupid shit like that, I … mmmmm … brush it off.
I think the “fight” overall, for the long haul, has to be much more crafted and clever and jujitsu-ish than just taking them head-on on their stupidity. (Thats a .. lol .. very white male testosteroney reaction to go with!)
You don’t “win” by punching them back in the face. We have to kneecap ’em!! Sweep the leg!!!! ha ha, Im so not a martial arts person… sorry! but I saw The Karate Kid! 😉
So much power in the hands of a rabid and dangerous few.
power structure murdoch is a part of it white male or not.
warning, caveat, explanation and what seemed somewhat like ‘sorrow’ to have to say. But the right medicine.
if most white christian males aren’t part of it? How about “the power structure”? Of course, that’s the white male power structure that enacted the Civil Rights Act and passed a constitutional amendment for women to vote.
And of course, in this post Prop 8 world, let’s not lull ourselves into thinking that non-white christian males types are exactly going to stampede to win rights for other oppressed groups.
I’m grumpy as hell today.
why for art thou caveat? I kept waiting for you to get to the taboo part…heh. I generally agree. Good ol’ Bill, never one to mince words.
(that is, if they evolve)…, they won’t talk the same, act the same, think the same. .. But will they look the same? I hope not. I never want to look at Mitch McConnell, Orin Hatch and such ones ever, ever again.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on Evolution:
their disguise and see that they are just people. And that they act the way people act when they are stupid, or scared, or as in the case of the power structure-scheming to hang on to a good thing and keep your adversaries split up. As a white male, I detest this shit about how the power structure is set up for me. It is bullshit. I reject notions of white privelege as being as essentially meaningless as the notion of American privelege in the context of the world. I do NOT reject the notion that I am sometimes not treated as poorly as some others might be some of the time, but that does not equate into privelege any more than not getting beat up myself on the way home means I’m priveleged if someone else got beat up.
For me, as a late middle-aged white male, I’ve had mixed feelings about affirmative action, on the one hand I truly think everyone should have a chance based on themselves not as a person in a group-and I thought that before affirmative action ever aced me out of a position or a school or anything. But the awful fact that weighs on the other side is the long history of oppression, murder, subjugation that was visited upon those of color in this country. There was no way that that could be undone fairly, even if that was a criteria of the ruling elite-which it emphatically was not. When forced into moving to help African-Americans, and other minorities, the notion that the elite would give up their kids legacy entrances into the finest schools, would be taxed to provide truly decent education in the inner schools was never even truly considered.
Instead, in every possible way, the situation was exploited and used to divide and antagonise those at the bottom. I remember working in the factory at a time when there was actual danger in getting too close to someone of a different race. I gave a guy a ride home, regularly, and was warned about it by some very ignorant people. When he and I would go to a bar in his part of town, I had to be damn careful to stay with the guy that “vouched” for me until people had a chance to assess me. We were just a bunch of working stiffs that had nearly identical interests-which did not align with the power structure that considered us cannon-fodder and labor.
Enough of this, but I don’t see how we get on the same side with each other if we play this identity politics forever. We have a black president, a black atty general, we have black, hispanic, and women generals and captains of industry, they all have common interests with their white, male counterparts-not necessarily the same interests as you or me, black or white, male, female hispanic asian, bi or straight.
expunge every white christian male from the face of the earth, and various institutions created thereby, but if capitalism, global corporate neoliberalism remained the dominant order, every problem that exists today would be perpetuated.
Bravo to your temerity. The power of your essay is stunning.
“or why we forgot our fears and learned to love the bomb.”
The elites are happy at the end of movie, even though the earth is going to explode They have visions of surviving in mine shafts, each man provided with nine women, to aid in reproduction. They are still going to be in charge!
Sometimes rich, white, Christian males don’t have enough rights. see Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence. The appeal for rights is usually couched in language that makes everyone want to get into the act.
I’m not going to say too much, buhdy, but I think you’re right. This country was founded by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I think this is what the Republicans rely on in and effort to show their “superiority.” And, obviously, that notion would preclude others outside of the WASP status from any such superiority. Of course, it’s stupid as hell, since we say “. . . .all men are created equal. . . . ” So, the Repugs perpetrate their sense of superiority, a sense of entitlement, etc. ad nauseum on the rest of us. I haven’t read all the comments, merely scanned down through them, someone, I think, NPK, said that they still hold the power and the money. They really don’t have a leg to stand on, but it is definitely the money they have that “secures” their power. Take away the money and what?
We need to call them out to defeat them? I think you can call them out all day long and they’ll still hold all the board seats on all the oil, insurance, finance and arms corporations and not a damned thing will change.