Photos Reveal Who We Are

*Please see Photo Captions below

Some photos stick in my mind, like the songs some people can’t purge from theirs. Baby Shark or even the Macarena are good examples.

But the photos I remember most are representative of life’s tipping points, the ones that changed our view of our world.

This past week we witnessed a modern-day tech photo, a video, of our national tipping point when Nick Sandmann, the junior from Covington Catholic High School, and Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder and Vietnam veteran, ended up face-to-face near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial surrounded by what appeared to be a bunch of teens seemingly on the verge of “no good”.

I was shocked when I saw a photo and the video of the encounter because it sparked past images of terrible times in my mind.

Kara Vought, Mother Jones, assembled an outstanding report about the incident. Excerpts follow below.

The Best Articles We’ve Read So Far About the MAGA Teens Intimidating Nathan Phillips, Kara Voght, Mother Jones, 20 Jan 2019.

“A video of a group of white teenagers taunting a Native American man at Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, DC, sent shockwaves across social media as it went viral Saturday afternoon. The clip shows a young man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat smirking at Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder and Vietnam veteran, near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”

“The scene enraged those who saw the exchange as an example of the intolerance perpetuated by President Trump. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, called the actions of the MAGA hat-sporting students, who were in town for the anti-abortion rally, March for Life, a “display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance” that she blamed squarely on the president.”

“Conservative defenders, meanwhile, tried to blame the incident on Phillips, whom they say approached the teens first. Oklahoma senator and Trump ally James Lankford (R) said the teen was standing “awkwardly close” to the elder, but didn’t agree that the behavior measured up to harassment.”

“The smartest corners of the Internet have been busy offering explanations for why the confrontation drew instant attention—and why it matters. Here’s a selection of the best analysis we’ve been reading so far:

“Slate writer Ruth Graham locates the source of the moment’s disturbing virality in the legacy of white male privilege that has mocked, oppressed, and humiliated populations across American history. The current political moment, Graham says, surely played a role—after all, less than a week had passed since President Trump used the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre to make fun of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom he often derisively refers to as “Pocahontas.” For Graham, the face of the MAGA hat-wearing teen is one that’s recognizable across other hate-inspired moments: “The face of self-satisfaction and certitude, of edginess expressed as cruelty.”

“The face is in this photo of a clutch of white young men crowding around a single black man at a lunch counter sit-in in Virginia in the 1960s, and in many other images of jeering white men from that era. The face is the rows of Wisconsin high school boys flashing Nazi salutes in a prom picture last year. The face is Brett Kavanaugh—then a student at an all-boys Catholic prep school—“drunkenly laughing” as he allegedly held down Christine Blasey Ford. Anyone who knew the popular white boys in high school recognized it: the confident gaze, the eyes twinkling with menace, the smirk. The face of a boy who is not as smart as he thinks he is, but is exactly as powerful. The face that sneers, “What? I’m just standing here,” if you flinch or cry or lash out. The face knows that no matter how you react, it wins.

“Atlantic editor James Fallows also places the moment in historical context, comparing it to the intimidating faces of white young men who looked upon the black students integrating into Little Rock’s Central High School, in a famous 1957 photo. Fallows dismisses the various arguments the teenagers’ defenders put forth, arguing that the only takeaway that matters is the enduring tableau of intimidation:

“Whatever happened just before or after the three or four minutes most widely circulated on yesterday’s videos, those three or four minutes convey a reality that seems impossible to deny. For a sustained period, a large group of young men, who had chosen by their apparel to identify themselves with a political movement (and a movement whose leader uses “Pocahontas” as an epithet and recently made a “joking” reference to the massacre at Wounded Knee), act mockingly to a man their grandfathers’ age, who by his apparel and activities represents a racial-minority, indigenous-American group.

“And finally, Rolling Stones‘ Peter Wade offers insight as to why it appears Phillips might have approached the young men in the first place: Phillips’ says he was trying to stop them taunting a group of Black Hebrews who were protesting the president at the Lincoln Memorial. Wade, citing an interview Phillips did with the Indian Country Times, presents an indigenous perspective on how to combat hate in the Trump era:

“…this is the commitment when I picked up the pipe 27 years ago. It’s for the next generation. It’s when that moment comes and you got to stand your ground. That commitment that you made to either fulfill that or you don’t. I mean, I was scared and I didn’t want to. I really, I really didn’t want to, but nobody else was,” Phillips said, adding, “We’re indigenous. We’re different than that. When we see our youth going the wrong way, we will go up and say, ‘You are doing the wrong thing there nephew, or grandson. This is just the wrong way.’ I tell them, ‘This is the way you have to behave. This wrong, this is right.’”

So, who are we?

Are we the “Make America Great Again” mocking adolescents? Or, are we the hopeful adults attempting to spark tolerance and a rebirth of our ancestors elusive “American Dream” in our Trumpian age?

*Photo Captions
(L-R)
Top Row

1. Parker High School student Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs May 1963. Photo credit, AP/Bill Hudson
2. Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was fatally shot by the Ohio National Guard, May 1970. Photo credit, John Filo.
3. Phan Thi Kim Phuc (age 9) a victim of mistakenly dropped napalm, 25 miles northwest of Saigon, 1972. Photo credit Nick Ut.

Center Row

1. Unknown protester, Tiananmen Square protest, 1989. Photo credit, Jeff Widener
2. U.S. Army torture victim, Abu Ghraib Prison, 2004.

Bottom Row

1. Charlottesville, Virginia, white nationalist, 2017.
2. Nick Sandmann, the junior from Covington Catholic High School, and Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder and Vietnam veteran, near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Jan 2019. Photo credit, KC Noland, YouTube.

Please see past posting about tipping points and photos, What is the Price of Teacup Stupid?

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Published on Jan 21, 2019
Worlds collided at rallies in D.C. this weekend and things got real messy real fast.
Trevor Noah Jokes That He Wanted To Punch The MAGA-Hat Kid, Too.
“Trump or not, he just looks like an asshole. That’s how you look when you’re a teenager at that age,” ‘The Daily Show” host joked.

Dad Was Right

Dad was right about President Eisenhower.
He thought Ike was a “do nothing” president, I guess, because Ike seemed to take a lot of golfing vacation time.

Looking back on the late 1950s, from my child’s perspective, things seemed a lot simpler than today. Many shared Dad's perspective of Ike as the respected, safe "father" figure.

After all, it was safe to walk home from grade school by yourself; people said, “Hello, how are you today?” and actually waited to hear your reply; TV programs were fun to watch; and, I actually thought adults lived by the Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code.

Today, we do know that a lot was going on during the Eisenhower administration, thanks to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

We have discovered that even though Ike wasn’t doin’ the "goin’ on" part, others were doin’ the doin’ while Ike did the approvin’ and then the "playin’ golf" part.

Like today, Americans back then just didn’t know what was really happening because it was done in secret, out of view. Please see previous posts:
Lies Too Big to Fail, Part I, How We Lost Our Naïveté
Lies Too Big to Fail, Part II, A Doppelganger USA is Running Amok Throughout Our World
Lies Too Big to Fail, Part III, The Time of The Great Awakening: How We Can Resurrect Our Democracy

While Ike's Sec. of State, John Foster Dulles and his brother, Allan Dulles, Director of the CIA, and their compadres were creating our world-wide image as what later became collectively known as, The Ugly American, at home, the CIA, under Mr. Alan Dulles, inaugurated operation Mockingbird to subvert what little Fourth Estate remained.

All this was partially outed by Carl Bernstein in his 20 Oct 1977, Rolling Stone article, The CIA and the Media.

Unknown to all of us naïve Americans, many members of the press had sold out, becoming pawns of the CIA, and accomplices in the duping of America.

At the same time, NSC-68 was under way*. That was the program aimed at molding US citizens’ opinion in favor of government military actions and foreign policy.

Later, another CIA program, detailed in CIA memorandum 1035-960, was implemented. That program was uncovered by a 1976  The New York Times FOIA request:

“The memorandum lays out a detailed series of actions and techniques for “countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries.” For example, approaching “friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)” to remind them of the Warren Commission’s integrity and soundness should be prioritized. “[T]he charges of the critics are without serious foundation,” the document reads, and “further speculative discussion only plays in to the hands of the [Communist] opposition.”

Like I said, Dad was right. But, he didn’t know how right he was.

Ike played a lot of golf but he also took his eye off the most important ball, so to speak. His style of laissez faire management allowed the boys to run unrestrained, freeing them to make their dream come true — the American oligarchy we have today.

* From Conspiracy Theory in America, by Dr. Lance deHaven-Smith:
 “In actuality however, U.S. military and intelligence elites actively manipulate domestic affairs as a matter of policy. America’s national security elites have long declared that the U.S. public opinion must be molded and managed to maintain popular support for the nation’s military actions and foreign policies. A well-known example of such thinking is NSC-68, a report authored in 1950 by the National Security Council. While advocating covert operations to subvert communist regimes overseas, NSC-68 called for a public relations strategy at home to strengthen America’s resolve in the Cold War. ** For decades, presidents and other top officials have been routinely misleading the public about the nation’s foreign policies, tactics, and capabilities, and about the actions and capabilities of America’s enemies. American involvement in various coups and assassinations has been denied; American provocations of military conflict have been concealed; U.S. citizens have been secretly and illegally wiretapped and monitored — all in the name of national security. To the extent that national security elites are influencing national political priorities by manipulating the constellation of issues confronting the nation, all of the theories in the social sciences and their associated research programs are studying downstream phenomena while the real explanation of events resides earlier in time and higher in America’s authoritative hierarchy. In other words, it is quite possible that the social sciences are studying shadows and that the people making the shadows are designing them for effect. Of course, this was how Plato described the situation of the citizens, except that in his story, which we must assume was a noble lie, the philosophers were helping citizens understand the shadows, not using the shadows for social control.”

**Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, Dr. Sheldon Wolin, 2008

So... We Had Help Being Naive... 
Just Rememberin' Hits from the 1950s
Whatever Will Be, Will Be, 1956
Doris Day