Hey Pat,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. And yes, I agree that using a left right spectrum to label people and pigeon-hole them and then judge them (as the media and pundits love to do) is not at all where I want to come down, especially if this is a conversation and not a debate. I also hold a variety of seemingly contradictory opinions and though I am pretty far left when it comes to many things I also consider myself somewhat of a social heretic and maybe find myself on some of the tangent lines here and there instead of the main trunk of any spectrum. I sometimes think that coffee table liberals manifest the “value gap” which is a concept coined by Eddie Glaude Jr., professor of African-American Studies at Princeton Univ. One example of the value gap is where a supposed liberal ally will celebrate MLK birthday, post the “I have a Dream” speech on their FB page, and then call it a day, still living a life of white privilege without realizing it. It is not a label of condemnation but an observation of where many “liberals” fail to walk the walk today. I also have an aversion to many of the new age liberal ideas that float around as justifications etc. Anyway, that’s all to say I agree with your ideas that humans are more complex and cannot be placed in one point on one line.I agree totally with your example of Goebbels as he is not only pegged at the fascism/white supremacy end of a spectrum, the fact that he poisoned his many children before he and his wife committed suicide puts him in a satellite somewhere on a weird tangent off the end, maybe near Jim Jones, etc. only having affected millions more lives. Anyway that puts us probably very close together on any line! Interesting how some of his techniques of propaganda are evident today.
As far as American racial politics goes, it also manifests opinions all over place, but I have studied and read widely over the years, as far back as the late 1960s when, as a student at the University of Washington, campuses were in turmoil for both political and racial events, very similar to now in many ways: John & Bobby Kennedy were killed, and also Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and many others. J Edgar Hoover was running his secret Cointelpro. Anyway I took a class in African-American History back then, and also several classes on the History of England, I was always curious about the roots of what was growing in that present. When I graduated in spring of 1970, I drove up the Alcan to Alaska as some of my friends were marching in the streets facing the police Tach squads as they closed down I-5, the major freeway in Seattle, troops killed 4 students in Kent State. So I was more of a back-to-nature hippie than a political radical but we were all breathing in that atmosphere of turmoil.
It seems to me that we have the same atmosphere now in America, but today I am reading and studying James Baldwin (again), Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kiese Laymon, Eddie Glaude, Hanif Abdurraqib and other black voices. Herman Cain, who died of Covid, was in an extreme minority of blacks, as a supporter of Trump and in his administration. As a CEO of Godfather Pizza for 10 years and a long background in business and finance, he had a stake in Wall Street and its values. My reading of Damon Young’s short post is that he offers condolences for Cain’s death but also commented on what he did with his life as far as supporting powerful white supremacists. But I can see how his “shock jock” stance could be offensive. Anyway, I don’t mean to go on and on but just want to respond to the points you make in your post in as thoughtful a way as I can. What I understand as the gist of black & racial politics is an attempt not only to end the way blacks are treated in many police encounters, but to educate the public on what has been the dark and untaught underbelly of the American dream and the creation of American wealth. Our country would not be as wealthy if its commercial roots of capitalism were not built on the backs of slaves. One makes more money with free labor. That is only a tiny piece of the puzzle that starts the conversation. Most students in America are not taught real history but are taught the American Myth.
Anyway I am offering this link to a debate in 1965 between James Baldwin and William Buckley at Cambridge University, about the topic: “Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro.” It is a popular debate, and this video has over 2 million views. Baldwin is still, after all these years and from the grave, a major voice in getting to the core of the conversation about American racial politics. If your interest takes you there, it will be well worth the 50 minutes. (At least the 20 minutes of Baldwin talking). Skip the political ads that come up before the video!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w&feature=youtu.be
Kerry (Quirky)
