American Jacobins

"...this is the place I told you to expect. Here you shall pass among the fallen people, souls who have lost the good of the intellect." Dante The Inferno
Canto III Vestibule of Hell: The Opportunists.

Part I

These are sick times. The furor around Don Imus tells me that much. An ignorant comment used as a leitmotif for race politics has carried the day. In the process, it is no longer the issue as better judgment fails to prevail. The reaction was just as unfortunate of the original utterances.

I do not know why but it got me thinking about the 18th century. During the French revolution, the Jacobins were a group that believed that only they could save the Republic. In the early stages they did just that; then came Maximilien Robespierre. His attempt to create a Republic of Virtue (where men would behave with justice and enlightenment toward one another) soon became a Reign of Terror.

The unholy dynamic duo of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson serve us all on a silver platter just how deep hypocrisy can run. They are, in a distant way, the modern Jacobins. The heightened level of hypocrisy on all sides is so high it's disheartening. The levels that have been reached is beyond any man of virtue should accept.

Men of God? Absolutely not. They are polarizing, self-preserving opportunists. Exploiting the history of black heritage for profits, they have become mercenaries disloyal to what many Americans are ultimately trying to achieve. They may preach the word of the Lord but they do not live by the teachings of Christ. It is hard to see how they behave is positive or progressive.

"...And all the other souls that bleed and mourn along this ditch were sowers of scandal and schism: as they tore others apart, so they are torn." Canto XXVIII, Circle Eight Bolgia Nine: The Sowers of Discord.

Yes, it is fair to consider these two gentlemen a tad scarier than Imus (not aesthetically of course). They have more power and influence to ruin lives without consequence. America must stop the madness. Oprah must stay clear lest she becomes part of the problem.

It's a very, very sick media and society that this had the legs it had. Then again, this is the same media that allowed itself to be swindled by Sharpton and Jackson in the past as the Duke Lacrosse case revealed. This is a frightening thought. One day you are living your life and the next it can be taken away. Media -if it has to - will numb your minds with what they determine to be news as is the case with Anna Nicole Smith and her decadent and tragic life.

Sick.

"...O Weary Mantle for eternity! We turned to the left again along their course, listening to their moans of misery..." Canto XXIII; Circle Eight, Bolgia Six: The Hypocrites.


Part II

Quebec has much to learn from this incident. In both the games waged by nationalists and race figures like Shaprton, innocents are caught in the cross-fire. Quite Machiavellian of them.

Quebec's intellectual classes have abandoned fair reasoning. Allowing past injustices to impede our forward progress towards a just society is an intellectual (if not a moral) crime. Hard-line nationalists presently make us pay for past injustices hurled upon them; as such we're the collateral damage. When do legitimate concerns of survival and racism cease to be acceptable in the realm of social interaction? At what point does serving the wounded cease to be productive and actually starts an unwitting regressive pattern?

Hypocrisy is big business. Special interest is big business. Everyone economically benefits in this sort of "controversy" except the people.

Sharpton and Jackson wish to make contemporary people pay for what blacks went through. If innocents get caught in the cross-fire so be it. Two wrongs make a right in their eyes.

In Quebec, modern intellectuals have created a neat comfort zone of justified racism. Identity and ethnic politics in Quebec takes a familiar (if not perverted) route among these "thinkers." No matter how much you try to rationalize the archaic, anti-democratic nature of parts of Quebec's cultural and political construct it all boils down to one thing: it runs contrary to the principles of freedom. They can try and negotiate all they want about balancing Quebecois culture and "les autres" and pass them off as "moderate and progressive" but it really isn't.

If Quebec were a nation (i.e. free of existing within the protective belly of the Canadian confederacy) this place would have degraded into ethnic war a long time ago. It has indeed flirted with violence in the past.

All this does is pander to the lowers rungs of our intellectual capabilities. Quebec once again, if it does not watch itself, will find itself suddenly needing to catch up to the rest of society if it insist to build a house with cards.

Quebec nationalists and American Jacobins are losers. They are a one-way ticket to a cul-de-sac. In the near-term they may seem attractive if not necessary and logical. In reality they are bankrupt. Play politics, lose and then blame others for your losses.

It's the mentality of a loser and neither blacks nor Quebecers are being well-served.

"Now filthy traitor, say no more!..for to your shame, be sure I shall bear back a true report of you..."

Canto XXXII; Circle Nine, Round Two: The Treacherous to Country.