I was motivated to this post by the speech by Khzir Khan at the Democratic Party Convention yesterday. He was eloquently highlighting the quality of a very unattractive element of American discourse that I first became aware of in the 1960's, intolerance and discrimination. I was visiting a friend in an American airbase in Scotland in 1963 and I had brought a bundle of long playing records for him to listen to. I was with my girl friend and was waiting at a table in the airman's club for my friend when four African American airmen came into the club and sat at the next table to us. I went up to the bar for a drink and one of the African Americans asked my girl friend if he could look through the records we had in front of us. She readily agreed and the gentleman began to look through my record collection. Immediately two air force policemen appeared who ordered the African Americans out of the club for speaking to a white girl. When my girl friend spoke up in defence of the airmen telling the police that they were nothing but gentlemanly towards her, she was warned that she would be ejected from the club and barred as a trouble maker. When I returned to the table I was also threatened when I came to my girl friend's and the airmen's defence as they had done absolutely nothing wrong. It was a salutary experience. My American friend later warned me never to challenge an American law official as they are very different from the British.
I have never been racist and have never understood racism. As I trust you will understand if you read this blog, my objection is to ideas, not people. When I was young almost all of my heroes at that time were African Americans. I was a massive fan of the Harlem Globetrotters and had seen them on seven occasions on visits to Britain. My great musical heroes were Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, the Platters amongst others. I have always loved Johnny Mathis whom I had the privilege of seeing in Blackpool in 1966. Thus, I was appalled and disturbed by my experience of American discrimination.
I have told you that my blog name comes from a song. It was just following this experience that I first heard Bob Dylan singing Motorpsycho Nightmare. Dylan has a good claim to be one of America's foremost philosophers, and it was through Motorpsycho Nightmare that I began to understand the white middle American worldview that is finding its realisation in Donald Trump as so eloquently expressed by Khzir Khan.
Seeking shelter and a bed for the night, Dylan approaches a farmer and gets permission to sleep for the night under the stove on the condition that he keeps away from the farmer's daughter and milks his cows in the morning because he tells the farmer that he is a doctor and has been to college. So, that's OK. However, the daughter takes a shine to Dylan and wakens him, asking him if he wants to take a shower. Dylan immediately realises he had better get away for his own safety, but needs to get the farmer to chase him off, so, he shouts out that he likes Fidel Castro and likes his beard. The farmer rushes down with his gun and calls Dylan an unpatriotic rotten doctor Commie rat. Thus, by simply expressing an admiration for Fidel Castro, Dylan gets branded as unpatriotic and a communist. The point is that Dylan knew what the farmer's reaction would be. As he is exiting the farmhouse, the farmer throws a Readers Digest at him, highlighting the reactionary views of the mainstream American media at that time, which, it would appear, have not changed much. Dylan ends the song by contemplating the fact that if it wasn't for freedom of speech he would probably be in the swamp of the American prison system because the farmer spends his time waiting for him to return so he can turn him in to the FBI. A very perceptive and honest young man.
Except for the aforementioned air police, I have never personally met an American who has not been polite, courteous and friendly to me. This includes Americans of different races and ethnic groups. I despair when I hear people like Trump pandering to the America that we see in documentaries about the Klan and the white supremacists, because we are witnessing a similar phenomenon in the UK from the right-wing of the Tory Party and UKIP. This has had the result of the Brexit vote and the almost certain outcome of Scottish Independence, thus exploiting division, hatred and the scapegoating of minorities. The Trumps, Farages, and Boris the Spider's of this world, all the self-promoting political psychopaths offer nothing but destruction, division and hatred. Theirs is a vision of a dystopian future. They, and the loathsome message they promote, must be rejected and cast into the political wilderness. I also despair when I hear Republicans banging on about American values because as Marx tells us, what they are talking about are the values of the American ruling white class. It is a truism that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, and it is as true for America as it is for Britain, and what are British values? Inequality, pandering to a dysfunctional royal family, hatred of immigrants and foreigners etc. etc. You can keep them as they are not my values, and I'm as British as you can be. I would be offended to be classed as a Christian, I mean, how can people like Trump and Boris the Spider tell us they are Christians with a straight face? Imagine dying and going to heaven to live for eternity with Mad Tony? However, despite that, the only sane voice that I can identify with in this world today is the Pope. He strikes me as a good man, and you cannot say that about too many Popes, but if he is a real Christian, what does that make our psycho friends? As Dylan warns us, don't follow leaders and watch for parking meters. You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
No comments:
Post a Comment