From: Jim Mork
Subject: White Male Backlash

Reagan capitalism (so named to distinguish from the numerous
other kinds on this planet) characteristics are fabulous
enrichment of a smaller and smaller number of people,
especially those in businesses of financial manipulations
(Millken topped out at $500 million a year) accompanied by
erosion of opportunity for everyone else (real family income
sank continuously while Millken, Pickens, Icahn, Keating, and
that ilk were piling up wealth in the 80's). As opportunities
shrink and disadvantaged groups press for equal opportunity,
this puts pressure on the white male. The old bargain was "we
oppress you, but we favor you over the weaker elements of
society (esp. women and children); but programs like
affirmative action have undermined that bargain. So, now,
white males find themselves caught in a squeeze.

George Bush and his willing minions (such as Clarence Thomas)
transmit code words to the white males when they talk about
"quotas". If they *weren't* code words, you would see George
Bush leading the charge for fairness throughout American life,
excepting only the issue of quotas. Instead, he is being
dragged along, kicking and screaming, mostly screaming "I have
a great civil rights record" (but never any specifics, because
there aren't any). The message is "we'll put the old bargain
back in place." It is a convenient way to distract white
males, currently members of a dominant minority through
control of important levers of power like investment
institutions and conservative political action committees.

Can it work? Well, to me it is like the Soviet coup. If the
oppressed lay down and take it, yes. If blacks support a
black yesman JUST because he is black, Bush can have his way
and command the tides of history to ebb. If women try to be
"reasonable" with men whose only real goal is to save the
shrinking remains of their class privilege, then it is
comparable to Yeltsin crying "resist!" but the Soviet people
choosing to sit home, avoid confrontation, and saying "what's
the use, we can *never* win!"

Bobby Flora tells women to moderate their demands for
prosecution of rape. Why? To please men, especially white
men? Men are a *minority*. White men (of which I am one, but
a rebel against the system of privilege for white men) are a
smaller minority that is shrinking! Hostile white men, like
those I see here are doomed to early extinction by their own
hostility (according to the findings of cardiological science
in the last 15 years). They are comparable to the Soviet
hardliners, in retreat but defiant.

The proper aims for those whose rights are being held hostage
is not to please them but to outflank them. Imagine George
Washington as he faced British power. As small as Britain was
in 1776, it was one of the greatest powers in the world. But
it had critical weaknesses in the New World. The colonists
could have looked at Britain's place in the world, lost faith
in themselves, and begged for their rights. That's what those
who have no faith in themselves do. Instead, they decided
their own dignity required them to stand up. Life offered
them no guarantees but the chance to fight for what was right.
In the end, the essential weaknesses of Britain's position
told for the colonies.

Do women have that kind of belief? I hope so. I hope there
is no fatal inner weakness that causes them to crumple at the
signs of a white male backlash, the evidence of which I see
here practically every time I log on.

(By the way, in the question of rape, it may not be men after
all who are the greatest danger. In a recent St. Paul
Minnesota stranger-rape trial, the defense loaded the jury
with white women. My friend, a newspaper reporter, wrote the
story. And he found that loading the jury this way works.
Evidently, defense lawyers have found that stranger rape
scares middle class women and they become critical of the
victim because they have fears about it happening to them, and
believing that the victim is responsible helps them deny those
fears. Scary!!)