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5A OPINIONS/ irtt ctarlstte $ot Thursday, December 29, 2005 American foreign policy and the new year Being the end of the year, everyone is writing columns about what to e:q)ect out of 2006 or what to think of what took place in 2005. I am doing neither; I am suggesting a call to "arms.” After recently giving a lecture concerning U.S. foreign policy, I was approached by someone in the audience. He looked at me, and was quite angry I thou^t that I had said something that had offended him. Instead, he said that he was really stirred up about U.S. foreign policy and how the U.S. treats the rest of the world. He wanted to know what he could do. I wish that I encountered nlore angry people like this individual. For 2006, we should aU make a collective commitment or promise to spend a few hours each week on a foieign policy matter. The stakes are too high- Consider for a moment: Bill Fletcher • The Bush administration continues to deny the signif icance of global warming. Most of the rest of the world is pleading for standards that will result in the decrease in the production of air pollutants. The Bush administration wants no such standards; • 2000-plus U.S. soldiers are dead in Iraq and at least 30,000 Iraqis are dead, all for an illegal and immoral war that has taken on more the form of piracy than any sort of human rights intervention or effort at stopping weapons of mass destruction (which were not there); • The people of Haiti languish under a repressive, coup regime that has the active support of the Bush adminis tration; • The Bush administration continues to threaten Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and virtually any other country or group that it believes to be an alleged threat to its interests and • Genocide continues in the Darfur region of the Sudan, as the government of Gmeral A1 Bashir continues to pros ecute its counter-insurgency via ethnic cleansing. All we get fix)m the Bush administration is rhetoric but insignifi cant support to the Afiican Union which has been tiTing to mediate a xx)litical solution. The list can go on and on. In other words, the world is very unsafe; each day it feels that it is getting less and less safe; and we live in a country that has a great deal to do with pushing the planet into this perilous situation. While there are those who believe that we have enough of our own problems right here at home, it is important to keep in mind that the policies being advanced by the Bush administration nationally and internationally are driven by the same philosophy of greed and ^obal domination. It should not surprise us, as I have said elsewhere, that the same administration that allowed the people of the Gulf Coast to suffer in the aftermath of Katrina and, in fact, took few steps to strengthen public safety in advance of the storm, is the same that has pressed to support its corpo rate fii^ids in ravaging post-invasion Iraq. Whether one is focused on domestic issues or interna tional issues, let us be dear that very little will change in the absence of oig;anized resistance. Despite, for instance, the outrage in the aftermath of the Katiina disaster, the Bush administration went forward undaimted and pushed its own pro-privatization approach for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region ignoring the views and concerns of the people of that region. This should not be surprising because outrage is not enough to stop anything. The arro gance of the administration must be met through oi^ani- zation and mobilizing The bottom line ia that each of us needs to make a com mitment to follow through, at the level that makes sense for each of us, to turn things around in this country We • Join with coalitions that are working on issues, such as United for Peace & Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org), a group protesting the Iraq war. • Join with organizations such as Black Voices for Peace (www.bv^.org) or the Black Radical Congress ('www.black- radicalcongress.oi^) that are involved in both domestic and international issues and • If you do not have time to work in an organization or coalition, you can make sure to write letters-to-the-editors in local newspapers or magazines expressing your concern, outrage as well as su^estions as to what the U.S.A. needs to be doing int^nationally You can also make sure to call into radio talk shows (the ri^t-wing does this all the time). We all need to cx»mmit ourselves to action in 2006. We cannot afford to sit back and hope that someone in elected office will come to the same pn^ressive conclusions that we have. BILL FELTCHER is president of TransAfrica Forum, oN educa tional and organizing center that raise awareness in the United Slates about Africa, the Caribbean and lutlin America. Historian holds a mirror to America John Hope Franklin’s memoir a telling dissection on race “Living in a world restricted by laws defining race, as well as cre ating obstacles, disadvantages, and even superstitions regarding race, challenged my capacities for survival. For ninety years I have witnessed countless men and women likewise meet this challenge. Some bested it; some did not; many had to settle for any accom modation they could. I became a student and eventually a scholai*. And it was armed with the tools of scholarship that I strove to dismantle those laws, level those obstacles and disadvantages, and replace supersti tions with humane dignity Along with much else, the habits of scholai'ship granted me something many of my similarly striving contemporaries did not have. I knew, or should say know, what we are up against.” So begins “Minx)r to America,” the extraordinary new autobiography by preeminent black historian John Hope Franklin. Franklin has written many other books, including “From Slavery to Freedom,” W' Marian Wright Edelman Franklin the definitive resource on Afiican-American history that has gone throu^ eight printings and sold 3.5 million copies since it was first published in 1947. But in “Miiror to America,” Franklin shares more details about his own extra ordinary pereonal history, and how he met the “chal lenge” of a world defined by race - and not only sur vived but thrived. The book follows him fium his childhood in a poor small black Oklahoma town to the height of his accomplishments as a Fisk- and Harvard-educated scholar, world-renown historian and university professor, and the I'edpient of hun dreds of honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s hipest civilian award. Along the way, as Franklin shares his experiences witnessing our nation’s dramatic racial tensions and transformations in the 2(}th century, his autobiography becomes its own history of race in America - and includes many of this histop^s ugly sides. Franklin was bom in Oklahoma in 1915, and when his father’s small law practice was destroyed during the TVilsa race riots of 1921, his family was separated for four years while his father struggled to rebuild a financial footing. That same year John Hope, his sister, and his mother were ejected fix)m a train in the middle of the woods and forced to walk several miles to get home after his mother refused to walk thixDU^ the train cars to the black section with two small children while the train was in motion. Franklin remembered that as the experience that taught him about race: “Just six years old, I was confused and scared. The uselessness of my mother’s reasonable refusal to endanger her children, the arbitrary iiyustice of the conductor’s behavior, the deal* pointlessness of any objection on our part, and' the acquies cence if not approval of the other passengers to our removal brou^t home to me at that young a^ the racial divide separating me fix)m white America.” Some later experiences were more terrifying. As a 19-year-old, while working on a research project about black farmers in the Mssissippi Delta the summer before his senior year at Fisk University Franklin found himself surrounded and threatened by a lynch mob as he tried to buy ice cream one hot summer night. Many other experiences were just more ordinary racism: being refused service while out on a date as a graduate student, or turned down for a home loan even though he was an established univ^^ity professor, or turned away fix)m five motel rooms in a row while traveling with his wife and small baby. Even on the night before he was to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, as Franklin was hosting a dinner for fiiends at a private Washington, D.C. club, a white guest singled him out, gave him her coat check, and asked him to bring her coat. Stories like these, which are common experiences for so many people of color, are all the more powerful woven throughout the larger story of Franklin’s uncommon and extraordinary life. But they help make “Mirror to America” a road map for just how Franklin was able to “level those obstacles and disadvantages” and achieve so much despite all the small sli^ts and large barriers that always threatened to stand in his way The lessons Franklin shares in this book - about self-confidence, dedication to excellence, commitment to hard work, dignity and grace — are ones all our children need. As Franklin celebrates his 91st birthday this January his readers are the ones who’ve received a gift. MARIAN WRIGHT EDEIMAN is president andfounder of the Children's Defense Fund. The lessons Franklin shares in this book - about self-confidence, dedication to excellence, commit ment to hard work, dignity and grace - are ones all our children need Why Christmas should be more commercial By Leonard Pcikoff SPEUAI. TO THE POST Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity capitalist pi'oductivity and tiie eryoyment of life Yet all of these are castigated as “materialistic”; the real meajiing of tlie holiday we are told, is assoiled Nativity talc^ and altimst iiyimc- tions (e.g., love thy neighbor) tliat no one takes seri ously In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it tcxlay is a 19tli- century American invention. The fieedom and pix>s- perity of post Civil Wai* America created tlie happiest nation in lustory The result was tlie desire to cele brate, to revel in the goods and pleasiues of life on earth. Christmas (wliich was not a federal holiday until 1870) became the leading American outlet for this feeling. Historically, people have always celebrated the win ter solstice as tlie time when the days begin to length en, indicating tlie earth’s return to life. Ancient Romans feasted and reveled during iJie festival of Saturnalia. EaiTy Christians condenmed these Roman celebrations—they were waiting for tlie end of the woild and had only scorn for eaitlily pleasures. By the foiuth century the pagans were woreliipping the god of the sim on December 25, and the Christians came to a decision: if you can’t stop ‘am, join ‘em. They claimed (contrary to known fact) that the date was Jesus’biithday and usiu-ped the solstice holiday for theii* Chui'ch. ' Even after the Christians stole Christmas, they were ambivalent about it. The holiday was inherent ly a pro-life festival of earthly renewal, but tlie Christians preached reniuicdation, sacrifice, and con cern for the next world, not this one. As Cotton Mather, an 18th-century clergyman, put it: “Can you in your consciences think that om* Holy Savior is hon- oied by miiih? .. Shall it be said tliat at the biilh of our Savior ... we take time ... to do actions that have much more of h^ than of heaven in tlieni?’ Then came the mqjor developments of 19th-century capitalism: industrialization, uibanization, the tii- umph of science—all of it leading to easy transporta tion, efficient mail delivery, the widespread publish ing of books and magazines, new inventions making life comforiable and exciting, and the rise of entre preneurs who understood that tlie way to make a profit was to produce sometliing good and scU it to a mass market. For the first time, the giving of gifts became a mty or feature of Christmas. Early Christians denomiced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Puritans called it diabolical. But Americans were not to be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, there was enough wealth to make gifts possible, a gi’eat productive appai'atus to advertise them and make them available cheaply, and a country so content that men wanted to reach out to their friends and express their eiyoyment of life. The whole coimtry took with glee to giving gifts on an xmprecedented scale. Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. There was a St. Nicholas long ago and a feeble holi day connected with him ("on December 5). In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit fium St. Nick. It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkere) who invented St. Nick’s physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a slei^ pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids’ stockings, then goes back to the North Pole. Of course, the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the back ground. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor, on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice— Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones. AU the best customs of Christmas, fix)m carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideais and practices. These customs were great ly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness. America’s tragedy is that its inteUectual leaders have typicaUy tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self-sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equiva lent. But the spiritual must start with recognizing reality IJCfJNARD PEIKOFF, is founder of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine. Calif.
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Dec. 29, 2005, edition 1
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