tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33869768296390422512023-11-16T06:42:32.315-08:00Black Diaspora"Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance."
Richard von WeizsaeckerBlack Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-24470105048167494082012-12-18T17:48:00.000-08:002012-12-18T17:48:03.608-08:00"IT'S ELEMENTARY..."After the senseless carnage in Connecticut that saw the death of 20 first graders and 6 adults, all from the same elementary school, Sandy Hook Elementary, I received this e-mail from Humanity's Team.<br />
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The e-mail describes several steps we can take, if we choose, to address the disaster, from volunteering to writing targeted e-mails.
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The LETTER:<br />
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Twenty first graders lost their lives with six adults last Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Their loss follows horrific losses in Oregon, Colorado and countless locations before that including Norway, Germany, London and Australia. The responsibility to see that this never happens again now rests squarely with you and me.
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Each person that falls to an automatic weapon from here out is our responsibility. If we speak up and courageously share what is true we can stop the slaughter. If we don’t speak up it will continue. We must not sit idle for a moment longer. We must do three things and we must do them now.
First we must share we are all connected. Everything is part of One presence. Science is sharing this is true. We are all interconnected, interrelated and interdependent. Not only are we all connected, scripture tells us ‘we are made in the likeness and image of God’. We are connected in God/Divinity/Source. When we hurt another, we hurt our Self and when we hurt our Self we hurt the One presence, God. Very simply, when we drive an airplane into a building and kill others as happened on 9/11 or when we machine gun young first graders and the adults supervising them we are terminating life that is part of our Self and part of God. If we know this to be true we must share it because it is a powerful stop sign to killing and carnage.<br />
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Next, we must immediately ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons. They have no use except for mass killing. I met yesterday with Rabbi Zalman Schachter and his wife, Eve. They suggested we challenge the National Rifle Association to come up with a solution that bans automatic and semiautomatic weapons and still protects the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the right to bear arms). Let’s do this. Let's write to the National Rifle Association and challenge them to come up with a solution that accomplishes these things now, right now. Let’s tell them this is urgent and we will take this into our own hands if they don’t act fast, right now. Please write to the NRA now: <a href="https://nraila.org/secure/contact-us.aspx">https://nraila.org/secure/contact-us.aspx</a>. Then, let’s keep up the pressure and do everything in our power to see that a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons is passed right away.<br />
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Finally, please send a quick note to your lawmakers: <a href="http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml">http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml</a> asking them to enact legislation so that the mentally ill can be better identified and helped. Mental illness is also a large component of the onslaught of gun violence. If we are One, then we are One with all our brothers and sisters, and they need our assistance too.<br />
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People often ask how it is that about 100,000 people have come together all over the world to be part of Humanity’s Team, an almost all volunteer movement that is awakening the world to Oneness. Very simply, it is our cause. The paradigm of connection, of Oneness will put an end to killing now and forever. Our connection, our Oneness is a timeless truth verified by more and more scientists. When this truth, ultimate reality, is not talked about it encourages crimes against humanity and nature. The reverse is also true. When we talk about our connection, our Oneness, we come into responsibility to each other (connection always creates mutual responsibility).
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This is precisely the point at this sober moment in time. We must not allow a single other to fall to automatic or semi-automatic gunfire. It is our responsibility to put an end to it and to do this now. Are you in? Together, let's find our voice and let’s create the course correct that is long overdue. People’s lives depend on it.
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Thank you.<br />
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In Oneness,<br />
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Steve Farrell
Worldwide Coordinating Director
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Humanity’s Team
Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-12425106480873549522012-11-07T02:19:00.002-08:002012-11-07T02:19:12.563-08:00Human Firewalls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Congratulations Mr. President!</span></div>
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Obama did what many pundits said was impossible--get reelected in a down economy, where unemployment remains above 7%.<br />
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By the last count--with more possibly coming--the president had garnered 303 electoral votes to seal the deal, proving his critics wrong.<br />
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For all the billions that were poured into defeating this president, with Karl Rove's SuperPac leading the way, we learned that money has it's limits--it can get your message out, even with ample amplitude, but it can't necessarily sell your message, despite the repetition, if it's a lie.<br />
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When the final count is in, President Obama may have won all the battleground states, but one, North Carolina, although his statistical margin wasn't all that great in many of them.<br />
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Much has been said about the president's firewall--battleground states that would protect his path to victory and the White House.<br />
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As it turned out, the president's "firewall," and "path to victory," weren't these states so much as those indefatigable workers that pounded the pavement to spread the<i> word</i>--promoting President Obama's achievements and vision for the future of this country.<br />
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It is to these workers, and those voters who stood in line, some as long as eight hours to cast their ballot, that I wish to acknowledge and thank. In the end, it was the voter, by refusing to be frustrated by the process, a process that had been designed to guarantee a win for Mitt Romney, that was the "firewall" (human firewalls) that created the "path" to the White House.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-56394128306814715922012-11-06T15:35:00.002-08:002012-11-06T16:28:03.432-08:00The Symbol Of A Nation Lost!<div style="text-align: center;">
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Obama's Birth Certificate--The Symbol Of A Nation Lost</div>
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Responding to a blog posting at a blog of a black journalist, I left the following comments regarding the today's presidential election.
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But before I do that, let me say this.
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We're in the end game. Today, 11/06/2012, marks the culmination of a long election season, and the potential end to the administration of this nation's first black President.
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Today, I'm feeling a bit ambivalent, not about giving the president another four years, which he's earned, and more than likely will receive, to finish what he started almost four years ago, but how I now view this nation, and its people, after four turbulent years of a Democrat administration that saw an absolute obstructionism from those on the Right regarding anything this president sought to achieve--all towards the purpose of not giving him a "win" that he might use to advance his reelection, employing a single-mindedness that would be the envy of a Roman emperor, although the empire might suffer as a result, that empire being the United States.
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Conflating those hostile years with the voter suppression we're seeing in key battleground states that even now is convulsing the voting process, my ambivalence has reached a new high, forcing me to reconsider how much, going forward, I'm willing to devote of my personal wherewithal--my energies, my time, and my tangible resources--to the continued welfare of this nation.<br />
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If that sounds negative and hyper-cynical, so be it. Perhaps I'll wait for a more fortuitous season, one where the values of democracy are better appreciated and generally prized, as they appear now to have undergone a throwback to a earlier time--a time that's all too familiar for its ruthlessness and racial animus.<br />
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Now to the comment I left on the blog, in response to some remarks that were made:
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"I've seen so much anger, frustration, and hatred directed at Obama and Mitt Romney."<br />
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Clearly, I haven't seen all that you've seen, nor heard all that you've heard, but when it comes to the level--and amplitude--of "anger, frustration, and hatred directed at [the two candidates]," Obama wins that distinction hands down, not only during this election season, but for the better part of the four years he's been in office, remindful of ages gone by, where the niggerization of blacks was the national pastime.
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"I'm pretty sure I can survive four years of Romney."
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I can survive him, but I'm not sure that the nation can. Blacks, it's my belief, are watching this election closely, for the racial bellwether that it's becoming. Couple that with the voter suppression we're seeing in key battleground states, and you have in the making a total black disaffection--a turning of their collective back on this nation--a refusal to participate either in its economic growth, or in its survival as a superpower.
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Black purchasing power is huge. In the future, blacks just might be more selective about where they put they money, and what they buy.
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Whether Obama win or lose, the relationship between blacks and those in the majority will change appreciably--Republicans sought to steal this election and many whites on the Right stood by and watched it happen (finding justification for it), as well as some Republican blacks, notably Condi Rice, who lent her sizable reputation to Romney's bid for the White House, fully aware of the despicable tactics being used to effect that end.
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To his credit, Colin Powell endorsed the president. Condi Rice, with her support of Romney, and thereby Republican policies and tactics, may be trying to land a key position in a RomRy administration, but those aspirations come at a high price--by trampling on her own people and failing to speak out against her party's contemptible treatment of this nation's first black president to realize those aspirations, will cause her, in the years ahead to lose a large chunk of black respect and black support.
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Cable news is characterizing Romney's base as "hating" the black man in the White House--identifying the hatred as the key motivator driving them to the polls. What they're neglecting to tell you is just how angry black voters are, and blacks in general, as they watch the long lines at polling stations where early voting is allowed, but oftentimes at a reduction in hours and days, thanks to Republican state houses in swing states.
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This suppression attempt--and the anger that ensued--will do more to mobilize black voters and bring them to the polls for President Obama (notwithstanding, standing in long lines for as long as it takes to vote), than it would have, had Republicans just allowed the voting process to go forward without the suppression.<br />
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They say that elephants have long memories. It's nothing compared to the memories of black Democratic donkeys that have been forced to eat the hay that the Right has served up liberally during Obama's tenure as president--and fairly recently in their effort to suppress the vote.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-35729320747331008102012-11-03T15:22:00.001-07:002012-11-03T15:22:22.409-07:00This Election's Only Issue: Iss Ue!<br />
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The Only Issue In This Presidential Election</h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlFbQEjGxBtnLS0RT16tOIy8lOG524ms5m25V9Uly22Pim7zz2XqowZUBk87b6mJQapGDN_GLgll1pf4On98zu0FwcZ7PKTHv5HD2q8f100ZmYrC6OfttunYmFiX90wH7gtz6kUJZ0-8i/s1600/whitehouse1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxlFbQEjGxBtnLS0RT16tOIy8lOG524ms5m25V9Uly22Pim7zz2XqowZUBk87b6mJQapGDN_GLgll1pf4On98zu0FwcZ7PKTHv5HD2q8f100ZmYrC6OfttunYmFiX90wH7gtz6kUJZ0-8i/s400/whitehouse1.jpg" width="275" /></a></div>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-37029817285234536522012-10-31T15:09:00.002-07:002012-10-31T15:09:51.715-07:00OH, I Get It!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Recently, on another blog, I responded to the following remark, and several others:<br />
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"Your little game of 'them bad, us good' is blinding you to the fact that both the Repubs and Obama are working the same game plan."<br />
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Here's my preamble to my response:<br />
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I'm under no illusion that both the Left and the Right are manipulating policy outcomes--and, before the coming of TeaPublicans, they did so from the sharp point of a bayonet where one side (primarily the Left) proposed to capitulate to the demands of the other to prevent something worse from occurring, or to score a minor (but necessary) victory on a particular front.<br />
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The political wrangling over the raising of the debt ceiling fits that category of threat avoidance by capitulation.<br />
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What makes this approach so attractive is that each side is allowed to be seen as supporting the values and wishes of their respective bases, when it fact they're abandoning them.<br />
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Nevertheless, I don't believe that we can conclude that, in every instance, Democrats and Republicans are following the "same game plan," as the comment above states, and to which I responded thus--and not without a sprinkling of humor and a smattering of irony:<br />
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Using your bizarro logic, Democrats are Republicans and Republicans are Democrats--one big happy party--without one shred of difference between the two: "Obama is playing along with the Republicans and dancing to their tune," or they're dancing to his tune.<br />
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One never knows does one?<br />
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Obama's plan is to leave Afghanistan by 2014, but that's not a Democrat plan, but a Republican one, which means that if Romney is elected and he stays past 2014, as the RomRy team has suggested, then it's not a Republican plan but a Democrat plan.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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Obama repealed DADT, which wasn't a Democrat plan, but a Republican plan, although it was Republicans whose whine could be heard "from sea to shining sea."<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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We don't owe the suppression of votes in key battleground states to Republicans, but to Democrats, as that's what both sides really want, but aren't telling the rest of us.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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Ending the enforcement of DOMA wasn't a Democrat plan, but a Republican plan as there's no light between their policies on this issue, they just want us to think so.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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So when Republicans say that they'll introduce legislation to outlaw same-sex marriage, or to defund Planned Parenthood, or when Republicans engage in a contentious brouhaha over contraception, or the passage of legislation to force women to undergo transvaginal or transadominal ultrasounds, it's really the Democrats who're supporting this, although it's Republicans who're pushing it.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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When Democrats passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, or the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, it wasn't really Democrats who passed that, but Republicans. Republicans just whined about it to keep us all in the dark about where they really stood, but supported it with all their pachydermic might, from tail to tusk.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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So when Republicans said that they wanted to make Obama a "one-term president," and repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, they didn't really mean it, but were just playing a little joke on the nation, pushing, instead, their candidates, Team RomRy, just for the political exercise--push up and sit ups to strengthen the abdominal muscles and biceps of Democrats and Republicans alike.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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When Democrats bailed out GM, and passed the stimulus plan, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, it was Republicans who really wanted it passed, as it was their plan, too, but didn't want to crow about it.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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"Relative thinking is foolish, ignorant and dangerous in that we elect Republicans...like Obama."<br />
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Instead, we should elect a Democrat like Willard Mitt Romney.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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"Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."<br />
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So we should elect a Republican that's a Democrat, or is it a Democrat that's a Republican.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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"You don't even understand that it was Obama who first suggested the cuts to Medicare, not the Republican party."<br />
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It was, then, Obama the Republican who suggested the cuts in the first place, but not the Republican party that's really the Democratic Party.<br />
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Oh, I get it!<br />
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"Your pied-piper is pushing Republican policy, again."<br />
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What we need, rather, is a Republican that's "pushing Republican policy," or is it Democratic policy. It's hard to tell since, as you say, "both the Repubs and Obama are working the same game plan... and it's certainly not for the public good."Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-91161808425378640952012-09-29T21:39:00.002-07:002012-10-03T23:25:06.805-07:00What's Right of "Right"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">We can recite chapter and verse what's wrong with our democracy, and how </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">that wrong has impacted our economy--including our individual economic well-being.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Standing back, I see two major defects in the body politic--a political system that thrives on special interest money, and a concomitant, pervasive sense of helplessness gripping the electorate, an electorate that has struggled in vain to take back the reins of government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Nowhere has this been made more evident than in the 99%, Occupy Wall Street movements, which sought to bring attention to the wildfire raging across this nation, only to be beat back, derided, and pepper-sprayed for their trouble.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I'm what you'd call--paradoxically--a Realistic-Idealist. I see things as they are, but hold fast to the vision of how they might be.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">For all that the two parties hold in common, there's still sufficient differences in their approach to governance--their political philosophies--to vote for one or the other. We know all too well where the two political parties' lines merge, but we fail to acknowledge where those lines diverge.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">For example: Republicans are autocratic in their approach to winning and governing. Around 20 states are contemplating, or have passed, some voter-suppression legislation, or have purged their voters' rolls, in an obvious attempt to reduce the number of voters--and potential votes--for the Democratic party, preying on blacks, students, and the elderly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I like the fire and water analogies. Yet, a "leaky faucet" for some is a deluge for others, and the acrid smell of smoke is already flaring the nostrils of those closest to the fire.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">We all agree that, without a major shift of emphasis in this country's political and economic philosophies, this country's future as a superpower is in grave danger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">For now, my plan is to stay politically active. This activity will continue until such time the unthinkable happens--Republicans regain control of Congress and/or the White House.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">With the fire growing ever so close, threatening both the house and its contents, it becomes paramount that we salvage what we can while doing what some have suggested--indemnifying ourselves against inevitable losses, while "mak[ing] preparations to escape the flames."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Despite the proximity of the fire, we can still make a difference. We can still salvage some things before the roaring flames are allowed to fully consume the house, but not with a Republican administration.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">For example: With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we can salvage the Affordable Health Care Act, the current, hard-won law that Millard Mitt Romney has prioritized to repeal as his first official act as president. The Act, not perfect by most metrics, is still better than what preceded it, although a growing number of Americans are opposed to it, which brings me back to the article, "The 1 Percent's Problem," which suggests that people are hardwired to seek their own self-interest.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I say: People are more interested in “being right” (pun intended), even if it kills them!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">As a people, we're becoming more and more preoccupied with our own well-being, and less with the well-being of our neighbors, be it their physical or economic well-being.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The prevailing attitude, encapsulated this way--"I've got mine, get yours"--has entered the mainstream of American thought, perhaps driven by conservative talk radio, and a depressed economy placing strain on social services, as the cost for life essentials outpaces family incomes.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we can continue our troop draw down in Afghanistan, and foil a potential re-engagement by a hawkish Republican administration, believing that the Obama administration has prematurely abandoned what could be--were we to remain indefinitely in Afghanistan--an indisputable victory.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">We can continue to use measures short of war to force Iran to discard its nuclear ambitions, rethink its relationship with Hezbollah, and abandon its supposed plans for the destruction of Israel.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we can approach our national debt, not with austerity programs only, but with programs that stress economic growth and expansion. We have seen--by taking account of the lack of success of some countries in the Eurozone with austerity--just how ineffective austerity can be in a down economy--plunging these countries once again into the throes of a recession.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we can end the War on the Poor, as outlined in the Paul Ryan Budget, salvaging Medicare without privatizing it, and strengthening Social Security for future generations without gutting key provisions--allowing a portion of it to be invested in a volatile stock market. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we can not only wind down the Afghanistan war (which is now this nation's longest), but bring our bloated defense budget more in line with our current threat assessment, and resist the cry (occasionally by Willard Romney and other saber-rattling Republicans) to keep America strong with an even stronger military, accusing President Obama and his administration of "weakening"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">America's military resolve and readiness.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we can bring more balance to this nation's Supreme Court, and the entire federal-court system--countering efforts by Republicans to stack the courts with members of their own party and political persuasion.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Realizing that the federal courts are the last recourse for their draconian laws, and their desire to legislate clear political advantages for their party, Republicans have systematically held up court appointments, while packing the courts with members that often support their radical, conservative agenda.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we move one step closer to clinching a deal for a massive infrastructure project, one that will build new roads, and replace dilapidated and unsafe bridges, while putting back to work construction workers, and contractors, while boosting related businesses.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Economist, Paul Klugman, in his new book, "End This Depression Now," is urging the hiring and rehiring of our nation's first responders--police officers, and firefighters--as well as teachers and nurses--groups that have seen their numbers slashed over recent years, because of a loss of state and local government tax revenues during the housing crisis, and the job-reductions that ensued.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">In my city alone, firefighters are receiving pink slips, and fire stations have closed, one that would have responded to a fire at my resident had the need presented itself, requiring now a longer response time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">It's axiomatic, that the Republican-held House--currently spending more days in recess, than in actual work--won't pass the president's jobs bill, and neither will they introduce any of their own, for fear that a recovering economy--and a sanguine employment outlook--will help the president's reelection bid.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Just as it's the first responsibility of a bureaucracy to survive, Republicans will pass no laws that will put Americans back to work in substantial numbers, as the survival of their party hangs in the balance, as they pin their hopes on a continued sluggish and struggling economy.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">If asked, I'm sure Republicans wouldn't call their actions un-American, just good business sense, coupling their interests with that of the American people--saying essentially, "What's good for the party is good for America."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Strangely, many Americans aren't upset with this tactic, as Republicans have managed to spin our economic situation to their advantage—even as they promise further tax cuts for the 1%, the uber-rich "job creators"--pledging to reduce our national debt by downsizing government, and reducing food stamps, and other safety-net programs for the poor.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">We're learning--to our chagrin--that people don't always vote their self interest, but their perception of that self-interest (an interest usually molded by others), and are more incline to adhere to established principles, to be right regardless of cost, than to acknowledge the failure of those ideologies to which they've given their heart and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">soul.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, we might see higher taxes on the rich, the passage of the Buffett Rule, and full funding for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">To be sure, the Act does little to address "too big to fail," and other measures that brought this nation's economy to its proverbial knees. But it's a start and, with a little luck, the law may be strengthen under a Democratic congress.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Frankly, it's time that the 1 % pay their fair share, since many of them, and their children, aren't volunteering to fight the wars waged on their behalf, and on behalf of the military industrial complex, from which some of their wealth is derived, with the military subsidizing the true cost of providing oil to an oil-gluttonous nation, by keeping</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">shipping lanes open, piracy to a minimum, and masking the true cost of a gallon of gas.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration, and a supportive congress, the federal government could take the lead in ending the War on Women, and their need for low-cost contraception to keep abortions to a minimum by providing a shield against the assault of sex-crazed men, who feel that condoms reduce the pleasure of sex, and that abortions are the answers in cases where child support may be imposed.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">We would see an end to the attacks on Planned Parenthood at the federal level, threats from Willard Romney to bring it down--and hopefully a federal push to squash new Personhood legislation, to honor a woman's right to choose, and to keep Republican control statehouses from prescribing unnecessary medical procedures--transadominal</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">and transvaginal ultrasounds--and, in the process, coming between doctors and their patients, all in an effort to discourage women considering abortions.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">In recent months, the demand for ultrasound technicians has quadruple!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration and a supportive congress, we would see an end to the incessant wrangling over extending the nation's debt ceiling; we could then put in place sound fiscal policies, and reasonable cuts over time to reduce the debt, restoring the nation's AAA credit rating in the process, while preserving critical programs that would negatively impact the poor and the overall economy were they to be cut.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The Republicans' resistance to raising taxes on the top earners to achieve that end--presumably honoring their pledge to Grover Norquist--places an undue burden on society's most vulnerable members--the poor. As the economy resists rebounding, the plight of the poor garners less and less empathy from lawmakers, with congressional Republicans squarely blaming the unemployed for their out-of-work status.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">With a Democratic administration and a supportive congress, the assault on gays and lesbians will diminish--as will calls for a Constitutional provision outlawing same-sex marriage, threats to reinstate "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and promises to enforce DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">As Jesse Jackson has famously said, "We have to keep hope alive."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Although not much of a Jackson fan, the sentiment expressed in that aforementioned statement, captures precisely where this nation now stands--our crossroad, so to speak--that may become our cross if we don't choose wisely.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">As the ravenous fire approaches, having consumed everything in its path, we--the American people--will have to decide what possessions are worth saving (since we can't salvage everything)--and what can be allowed to perish along with the house, if it comes to that.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;"> In "The 1 Percent's Problem," the author says this of "rent seeking" and the "rent seekers":</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">"In a broad sense, "rent seeking" defines many of the ways by which our current political process helps the rich at the expense of everyone else, including transfers and subsidies from the government, laws that make the marketplace less competitive, laws that allow C.E.O.'s to take a disproportionate share of corporate revenue (though Dodd-Frank has made matters better by requiring a non-binding shareholder vote on compensation at least once every three years), and laws that permit corporations to make profits as they degrade the environment."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em !important; padding: 0px !important;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Although both parties have had a hand in creating the economic conditions that contribute to the income disparities that face this nation, Republicans--almost single-handedly--have become the party almost exclusively devoted to "rent seekers," convincing a growing number of the electorate that their personal interests lie with those exploiting the system--the "rent seekers."</span></div>
Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-2188507219993049882012-09-01T16:21:00.000-07:002012-09-01T16:21:28.239-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW04NRkd-d1VoJLOhQg-l_se9Z98IX5noyGIZ5clFBlXVSsV9I8X6owjMjbZv9pMrobndfjLnvL5DzyK9xGOJ-vvfBkezoQx0OHcI6t-647jUE_7l1VBCE51rw8V63uzy-5-v5dHzZrOnc/s1600/CLintChair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="262" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW04NRkd-d1VoJLOhQg-l_se9Z98IX5noyGIZ5clFBlXVSsV9I8X6owjMjbZv9pMrobndfjLnvL5DzyK9xGOJ-vvfBkezoQx0OHcI6t-647jUE_7l1VBCE51rw8V63uzy-5-v5dHzZrOnc/s400/CLintChair.jpg" /></a></div>
</br>
I thought Eastwood was chair-itable to Mitt. He created a moment that Mitt will chair-ish all his life.
Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-15808187904057381492012-08-12T23:24:00.000-07:002012-08-13T13:18:28.695-07:00Olympic-Style Politics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcj3K2ZkxnYQqrY-yeInONvkrAq8sdW_5Zq9tS30bKfun70fCuz6CMzPOXumQZu7fL-Xw5VToDpkEkBt9AInFu4_TZP2eTEEjdexT3XupvUgbXxeC_2LFEqMubbA3eintpvYa8sZr5brNk/s1600/romneymockedolympics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img 3width="209" border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcj3K2ZkxnYQqrY-yeInONvkrAq8sdW_5Zq9tS30bKfun70fCuz6CMzPOXumQZu7fL-Xw5VToDpkEkBt9AInFu4_TZP2eTEEjdexT3XupvUgbXxeC_2LFEqMubbA3eintpvYa8sZr5brNk/s320/romneymockedolympics.jpg" /></a></div>
We should have guessed. We should have calculated who Willard's running mate would be long before Willard announced it.<br />
<br />
His was a predictable choice, given all we know about Willard, and how he's positioned himself to be the "man of the hour," the unlikely, likely choice of Republicans to run against President Obama, and fulfill Republicans' most cherished, and most anticipated, hope: limiting Obama to one term, making him a "One-Term President."
<br />
<br />
We all know the obstacles facing Willard--his religion, his history of flipflopping on the issues, his passage of Romneycare (with the dreaded mandate), for which he doesn't wish to take credit or talk about, and the persistent accusations among party faithfuls that he's not conservative enough to be a real, card-carrying member of the Right.
<br />
<br />
Hence his running mate, Paul Ryan.
<br />
<br />
Not only will Ryan pass the conservative "brown bag" test, but Willard is hoping that the love and affection that Tea Party-ites now hold for Ryan will now shine down brightly upon him.<br />
<br />
So it's no surprise that when introducing Ryan as his running mate, Romney referred inadvertently (or was it Freudian?) to Ryan as the next president of the United States. Consciously, or unconsciously, Willard's hoping that the most conservative of Republicans, as well as moderates, will now see the team of Romney-Ryan as one, and forget about his supposed conservative deficiencies and turn out in large, enthusiastic numbers to elect Ryan, if not him.<br />
<br />
Now that the members of the team, on both sides, are now known, and revealed, holdouts can finally draw sides, size up the competition, and determine which team will be the <i>winning team </i>for Americans, and represent the "golden" aspirations and "silver" standards of a nation, as the U.S. Olympians have in the recent Olympic games, with Gabby Douglas as one of its most golden and gifted standouts. <br />
<br />
My choice for who will win Political Gold--and who must settle for last place as an also-ran with a bronzy compensation for competing--has been known for sometime, although I'm not predicting, just yet, who among the two teams on the field will actually win. <br />
<br />
Once more I'm crossing my fingers for the <i>Team of Obama-Biden</i>. I won't be leading the cheers, but I'll certainly be in the stands noisily showing my support as they near the finish line, hoping for a Usain Bolt-like sprint that breaks World Records, and Olympic Records.
<br />
<br />
My reason for selecting Team Obama-Biden isn't a selfish one, it's not even a political one, but a highly practical one, I know the potential pain that Team Romney-Ryan will inflict upon the nation if elected.
<br />
<br />
And the least of that pain is the possible repeal of what's been referred to, derisively, as Obamacare, or that Ryan's budget plan calls for ending Medicare as we know it, the reduction of medicaid, and cutting back aid for the poor, or that Romney's overhaul of the Tax Code will reward the uber-rich while asking the middle class to take up the slack.<br />
<br />
And it's not that Romney has threatened to defund Planned Parenthood, or has threatened to push for a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage, or support legislation that says that Religious institutions that pursue secular interests needn't have their insurers provide female contraception. <br />
<br />
What I fear most is the Tea Party agenda--reckless, and singleminded--that will dictate how the nation's deficit will be reduced, pushing for austerity measures over economic growth as the way to manage the nation's growing debt, and to do so by taking out huge chunks all at once, rather than small pieces over time.<br />
<br />
As Federal departments fall to the debt-reduction knife, and social programs are slashed, leading to greater unemployment, this nation economy will stumble, as politicians remove vital parts supporting the body politic as they hack away at supposed government excess.<br />
<br />
Republicans, by purposely reducing the money supply in the economy by using one device or the other, will see demand begin to dry, consumer confidence falter, panic ensue, and a depression as the inevitable outcome, creating once again soup lines, and the plaintive pleas, "Brother can you spare a dime?"<br />
<br />Our government contributes billions to the gross domestic product (GDP), and is the employer of last resort, but that's changing, as political aspirations supplant the needs of a nation.<br />
<br />I fear, too, the neo-cons and Republican hawks with whom Willard Romney has elected to surround himself, many from the Bush-era administration, with Cheney at the top of the smelly heap.
I don't think this nation can long survive a <i>Bush Redux</i>.
<br />
<br />
If this nation is still reeling economically from having fought two wars that we didn't pay for, but borrowed heavily from China and the Saudis, prepare once again for war profiteers--Cheney's Halliburton at the forefront--to make the case for war, and continue where they left off under Bush.<br />
<br />
Sure, a President Obama might embroil us, too, but I believe that if war becomes necessary--say with Iran--it will be a reluctant one, a short-lived one, and follow Colin Powell's rules of engagement.
<br />
<br />
An Olympic medal, gold, silver, or bronze, doesn't say how athletes acquitted themselves in the fray--during the competition--only that they won. In the game of life, it's more important how you acquitted yourself, than that you managed to win according to your assessment, or another's.
<br />
<br />
In the political arena, you might win the gold of victory while using that victory, not to make others of your nation winners--the majority of the people--but a select few. <br />
<br />
If the nation must lose in order for politicians to win a political contest, then we all lose. By winning by any means necessary--voter suppression, and the weakening, and elimination of public and private unions--you and your party lose character, and ultimately the confidence of a nation. <br />
<br />
A nation loses, too, when a political party win using such dastardly tactics, but our losses, regrettably, will be measured by our sweat, blood, and tears--and our only medal that of shame and regret.
Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-71953745925998059962012-07-30T20:21:00.001-07:002012-07-30T23:22:57.244-07:00Battlin' Machines<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSIQs8dCHtwTeyXvZB5d0DQSHg3_I5Ir2nvJXakpnR0Y2PiAuaEM_agOgvXrDTzi9HeJgEmcws59eWA2WEjJWrYKjqPku__hopQC8DPABHNRTO-iW7LZFvRWp1KEFzJJFGf6ZM6ohxtxnh/s1600/vending+machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSIQs8dCHtwTeyXvZB5d0DQSHg3_I5Ir2nvJXakpnR0Y2PiAuaEM_agOgvXrDTzi9HeJgEmcws59eWA2WEjJWrYKjqPku__hopQC8DPABHNRTO-iW7LZFvRWp1KEFzJJFGf6ZM6ohxtxnh/s320/vending+machine.jpg" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vending Machine</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha9mfNWs8KL-cl7-4EO5FzWa0PHXhlgWTqAFaFdbJJT58swGv9Z3ePYhDulyfpN82-7hzOLrDSu8nGfbG6hosu74cKbE1I-7H66wowT1OlHHJqNUcq8Ylbnbv-K_9nPFKoEH7glGm9Khl4/s1600/mitt-romney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha9mfNWs8KL-cl7-4EO5FzWa0PHXhlgWTqAFaFdbJJT58swGv9Z3ePYhDulyfpN82-7hzOLrDSu8nGfbG6hosu74cKbE1I-7H66wowT1OlHHJqNUcq8Ylbnbv-K_9nPFKoEH7glGm9Khl4/s320/mitt-romney.jpg" width="460" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Offending Machine</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-76349094967729522782012-06-29T15:14:00.000-07:002012-07-01T22:07:42.357-07:00Holder-ing A Gun To Their Head<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhMxyX66dbe_nmUtki0gu2vI1H-GQyoN_nESQeDTYc7_Px2QqA0kms1lJJXFhwfVhx6BHE8RbnndLe-MM_BSidZpXQoKvTtTlRo1NlYo7brbhW62qIvO69ldifOySS2MJx2_sEOyFtBN-/s1600/businessman_holding_a_gun_to_head_x4ga3-154.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhMxyX66dbe_nmUtki0gu2vI1H-GQyoN_nESQeDTYc7_Px2QqA0kms1lJJXFhwfVhx6BHE8RbnndLe-MM_BSidZpXQoKvTtTlRo1NlYo7brbhW62qIvO69ldifOySS2MJx2_sEOyFtBN-/s320/businessman_holding_a_gun_to_head_x4ga3-154.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Lost in yesterday's Supreme Court Ruling--one which made Chief Justice Roberts an overnight sensation, and a Democratic Hero, and, for Republicans, the most hated man in America--was the contempt vote that a Republican House brought against Attorney General Eric Holder.<br />
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With the scoring threat of the National Rifle Association (NRA) hovering over yesterday's proceedings, it was no surprise that 17 Democrats voted with Republicans to uphold the sanction.<br />
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Presumably, had Democrats in swing districts voted against the contempt, they would be placing their own House tenure in jeopardy, as the NRA, with the long memory of elephants, would, during their reelection bid, remind their respective electorate--with one damaging ad after the other--of their unforgivable sin against gun ownership.<br />
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Supposedly a non-partisan organization, the group was anything but leading up to the House contempt vote, with the NRA leading the charge on the unsubstantiated claim that the Attorney General was involved in a cover up of misdeeds in the <i>ATF Fast and Furious Operation</i>, insisting that the Obama administration allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico, so that the ensuing violence would so disgust the American citizenry that they would call for a repeal of the Second Amendment.<br />
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An outlandish claim on the surface, but one that Republicans believed--once all the facts surfaced--would vindicate their actions and behavior, if only they could get their hands on the Attorney General's internal memos, e-mails and the like, that he refused to surrender to
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform</span>.</span><br />
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Congress holding Attorney General Holder in contempt has no precedence--and neither is there precedence for how this president <i>has</i> been attacked, and <i>continues </i>to be treated by those on the Right. The only explanation for it--according to many non-black pundits--is that the president is black, and the real reason that this kind of racist and racial treatment, far from being generally denounced, is quietly tolerated.<br />
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One of Fortune Magazine's reporters investigated the<i> Fast and Furious </i>conspiratorial claim, as well as other claims, revealing that Republican claims of a cover up, and a conspiracy to repeal the Second Amendment, was, itself, fraught with conspiratorial overtones:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron." The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF's congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.</span><br />
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The agents faced numerous obstacles in what they dubbed the Fast and Furious case. (They named it after the street-racing movie because the suspects drag raced cars together.) Their greatest difficulty by far, however, was convincing prosecutors that they had sufficient grounds to seize guns and arrest straw purchasers. By June 2010 the agents had sent the U.S. Attorney's office a list of 31 suspects they wanted to arrest, with 46 pages outlining their illegal acts. But for the next seven months prosecutors did not indict a single suspect.</div>
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On Dec. 14, 2010, a tragic event rewrote the narrative of the investigation. In a remote stretch of Peck Canyon, Ariz., Mexican bandits attacked an elite U.S. Border Patrol unit and killed an agent named Brian Terry. The attackers fled, leaving behind two semiautomatic rifles. A trace of the guns' serial numbers revealed that the weapons had been purchased 11 months earlier at a Phoenix-area gun store by a Fast and Furious suspect.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Conservatives have pummeled the Obama administration, and especially Holder, for more than a year. "Who authorized this program that was so </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">felony </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">stupid that it got people killed?" Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, demanded to know in a hearing in June 2011. He has charged the Justice Department, which oversees the ATF, with having "blood on their hands." Issa and more than 100 other Republican members of Congress have demanded Holder's resignation.</span></div>
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The conflict has escalated dramatically in the past ten days. On June 20, in a day of political brinkmanship, Issa's committee voted along party lines, 23 to 17, to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for allegedly failing to turn over certain subpoenaed documents, which the Justice Department contended could not be released because they related to ongoing criminal investigations. The vote came hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege to block the release of the documents. Holder now faces a vote by the full House of Representatives this week on the contempt motion (though negotiations over the documents continue). Assuming a vote occurs, it will be the first against an attorney general in U.S. history.</div>
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As political pressure has mounted, ATF and Justice Department officials have reversed themselves. After initially supporting Group VII agents and denying the allegations, they have since agreed that the ATF purpose<strike></strike>fully chose not to interdict guns it lawfully could have seized. Holder testified in December that "the use of this misguided tactic is inexcusable, and it must never happen again."</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Read the whole story <a href="http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/">here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">We know this: The NRA, as a chief exponent of gun ownership, makes wide-spread gun distribution possible, by resisting new gun-control laws, and regulations, while threatening reform-minded lawmakers--using a Grover Norquist-like zeal--indirectly (if not directly) supporting gun manufacturers (the volume of guns made), and gun sellers (the volume of guns sold), many of whom have no compunction as to the niceties of the law, nor care who will ultimately end up holding the stock of a rifle, or the grip of a revolver.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Almost from the moment President Obama took the oath of office, word went out that this new president was positioning himself to take away the people's guns and ammunition--and the very fact that he hadn't well into his first term was proof enough that he was lulling the America people to sleep on the issue, only to spring it upon them later during a second term, when he had nothing left to gain by remaining quiescent. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">As nonsensical as this may sound, it did sell guns and ammo by the millions, and provided Republicans with a rallying issue on which to raise money and galvanize their base for the Fall elections--the real reason behind all this. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One thing Republicans knew, and could count on: Chief Justice Roberts was their man on the Supreme Court (their go-to guy). How could <i>he</i> turn on them by supporting this dreaded law (the Affordable Health Care Act), on which Republicans had placed their political fortunes?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">It was their hope that the Supreme Court ruling would become President Obama's political Waterloo, dashing his bid for reelection. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">However, Chief Justice Roberts had other plans. He seemed to know: The Constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">could very well tarnish his Supreme Court legacy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">--</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">if it was allowed to be decided as had some previous critical rulings, along partisan lines, a 5 - 4 split</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Democrats would be giddy with this Supreme Court opinion--as it seemingly marked a return to sanity and balance on the nation's highest court--were it not for the Court's decision on Citizen's United, and Citizen's United <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/06/26/155747830/supreme-court-reaffirms-citizens-united-decision">Redux</a>, a Supreme Court decision that I hope to blog about soon.</span></div>
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<br />Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-76476646620870176632012-05-10T00:13:00.000-07:002012-05-10T02:27:53.628-07:00"That's Not Who We Are!"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9KmG0QI1ZKB4Ubw1hHOpo35Bj2wnRa3ZVphqdsXWIrpXPtDA_UJlM72RuRnBCGjZ01lt8G4qS2xtpohmS7gcWRE0SvkhKyTl9ztLfNNX7qd8EQBFzewROJv_rzVzYB-SETIr-e8ke9cD/s1600/Indigent+Couple_Wealthy+Couple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9KmG0QI1ZKB4Ubw1hHOpo35Bj2wnRa3ZVphqdsXWIrpXPtDA_UJlM72RuRnBCGjZ01lt8G4qS2xtpohmS7gcWRE0SvkhKyTl9ztLfNNX7qd8EQBFzewROJv_rzVzYB-SETIr-e8ke9cD/s400/Indigent+Couple_Wealthy+Couple.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Perhaps you've heard it said, too: "That's not who we are...as a nation." I hear this statement often, and usually, after a moment's reflection, I find that, "Yes, that's who <i>we</i> are!"<br />
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People who say this are often confusing our constitution with our national character, confusing our stated ideals with what we actually feel about the social issues facing our nation.<br />
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As far back as the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson summed up the American ideal by writing, "All people are created equal," later "stylized" by Ben Franklin in the now immortal words of the <i>Declaration of Independence: </i>"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."<br />
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And it didn't stop there, but continued: "that they [all men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."<br />
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"In 1776, <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionist" title="Abolitionist">abolitionist</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Day" title="Thomas Day">Thomas Day</a> responding to the hypocrisy in the Declaration wrote:<br />
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"If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AFP_12-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_men_are_created_equal#cite_note-AFP-12">[13]</a>"</sup></blockquote>
From the time that these words were written, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," the "altering" and "abolishing" part has been the one "Right" that has languished, requiring years of protests and appeals for some in our society to partake of the "among these."<br />
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It was Government's stated role to "secure these rights," but, all too often, it was Government, itself, that stood in the way, that became "destructive of these ends,"
that frustrated the efforts of many in our society struggling to secure that elusive "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
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<em>"That's not who we are!"</em> they insist<em>.</em> Not so: We deprived millions of "Liberty," institutionalizing slavery in this country, requiring a bloody civil war to uproot it, and then only partially, as Jim Crow quickly replaced the gains that blacks had achieved with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.<br />
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In most of the states, we enacted laws to enshrine marriage between a man and a woman, with assurances from presidential-hopeful Willard Romney that he'll seek a Constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriages.<br />
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In several states, Republican-led statehouses enacted laws to discourage a woman's legal right to abortions by legislating procedures which have no medical necessity--transadominal and/or transvaginal ultrasounds--invading the doctor-patient prerogative, violating two of the rock-ribbed tenets of Republicanism and conservatism which advocate for "personal freedom," and "small government."<br />
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In yet more states, Republican-led statehouses enacted voter identification laws, presumably to thwart voter fraud--which wasn't a problem--but serve merely to suppress voter turnout, and disenfranchise college students and the elderly, two voting demographics for Democrats.<br />
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<em>"That's not who we are!"</em> they insist<em>.</em> Not so: We have enacted laws that endanger "Life" rather than support it with the passage of "Castle Laws," and "Stand Your Ground Laws." As a law enforcement student, George Zimmerman knew, when he followed and intimidated Trayvon Martin, that the law was on his side, and that he could take a life with impunity.<br />
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The jury is literally out on this one, but the prosecution has a virtual mountain to climb to convict George Zimmerman, as it's his word against the silence of Trayvon Martin, not able to speak now for the lack of a voice.<br />
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<em>"That's not who we are!"</em> they insist. Not so: We have enacted laws that define what "Happiness" should be for some in the LGBT community. We have told gays and lesbians that they don't have constitutionally-protected Equal Protection under the law, a clause designed to fulfill the self-evidential statement that "all men are created equal."<br />
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<em><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Equal Protection Clause</b><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">, part of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution"><em>Fourteenth Amendment</em></a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="United States Constitution"><em>United States Constitution</em></a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><em>, provides that 'no state shall ... deny to any person within its<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Jurisdiction"><em>jurisdiction</em></a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the equal protection of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Law"><em>laws</em></a><em><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">.'</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1em; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause#cite_note-0" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a></sup><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The Equal Protection Clause can be seen as an attempt to secure the promise of the United States' professed commitment to the proposition that '</span></em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_men_are_created_equal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 13px/19px sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="All men are created equal"><em>all men are created equal</em></a>'<em><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1em; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause#cite_note-1" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a>"</sup></em><br />
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To be sure, we can "institute new Government" without bloodshed and a violent overthrow, but it takes men and women of goodwill--men and women not hamstrung by the political exigencies of the times, men and women willing to sacrifice party loyalty, but not their conscience.<br />
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In an obvious attempt to even the playing field, to deprive President Obama of a political advantage, Fox News is now casting Obama as a "flip-flopper," arrogating to him a Romney failing.
To his credit, Shepard Smith, Fox News anchor, sided with the president, stating that the president is on the "right side of history."<br />
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Mysteriously, Fox's attack on the president, that he's waging a "war on marriage," was abandoned abruptly and replaced with a steady beat of Obama as "flip-flopper."
However, someone should tell Fox that notorious flip-floppers such as Willard Mitt Romney, flop in order to receive votes, and not as President Obama, whose stance on marriage equality may cost him some votes, and possibly another term as president.
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Every day Fox News becomes the butt of the joke, and not fit to call itself a cable news outlet.<br />
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On Wednesday, President Obama, seemingly allowing Vice President Biden, and others to pave the way, drove on the left side of the road, rather than in the center, which has long been his custom, on marriage equality, admitting in an interview on Wednesday that same-sex marriage should be legal.<br />
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<em>As described by several aides, that quick decision and his subsequent announcement in a hastily scheduled network television interview were thrust on the White House by 48 hours of frenzied will-he-or-won’t-he speculation after Vice President </em><a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_r_jr_biden/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Joseph R. Biden Jr."><em>Joseph R. Biden Jr.</em></a><em> all but forced the president’s hand by embracing the idea of same-sex unions in a Sunday talk show interview. </em><br />
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<em>Advisers say now that Mr. Obama had intended since early this year to define his position sometime before Democrats nominate him for re-election in September. Yet many of the president’s allies believed he would not do so, trusting instead in his strong support from gay voters for having ended a ban on openly gay people in the military and disavowing a federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. </em><br />
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<em>Such caution was understandable, the allies said, given the unpredictable fallout the president would face by taking a clear stand on one of the most contentious and politically charged social issues of the day, before what is likely to be a close election. Mr. Obama’s closest advisers say only the timing was in question. Mr. Biden’s unexpected remarks undoubtedly accelerated the timetable.</em><br />
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His was a courageous political move by all metrics, a move that Willard will never make as he's too busy lying his way to the presidency.
"That's not who we are."
Judge for yourself. Some of the many faces of America photographically <a href="http://2photo.ru/en/post/22223"> captured</a>.
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With some Catholic Bishops attacking Obama for his extreme secularism (forgetting Jesus' admonition to "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's") [1], and the GOP's autocratic disregard for the U.S. Constitution, and the Rights outlined there--wishing to change some of its provisions, while ignoring others--backed by a Supreme Court who's poised, I believe, to support key provisions of Arizona's "papers please" law, and strike down the mandate in the <em>Patients Protection and Affordable Health Care Act,</em> It's my civic duty to vote for any party other than the Republican party.<br />
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The national character isn't too pretty. It's a character that I, as a black man, have had a long acquaintance. If the national character had a face, it would be pox-marked, with hairy moles upon its nose--spewing words that would make my not-so-virginal ears blush.<br />
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Despite its current appearance, our national character is still a work in progress, and it's my hope that one day, it will take a long, hard look at its ideals, ideals written upon so many of our nation's prized, and venerated documents, and strive to live up to them, transforming this nation from that of an ugly, "venomous toad," into a story-book prince, where we can truly say when confronted with our shame, "<em>That's not who we are</em>!"<br />
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[1] Angrily condemning President Obama for his “radical pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda,” an Illinois bishop likened his leadership to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin last weekend and urged Catholics to vote against him.<br />
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“This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries—only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down,” said Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria at a gathering of Catholic men on Saturday, according to LifeSiteNews.com<br />
Read more on Newsmax.com: Bishop Compares Obama Policies to Hitler, Stalin.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-34646970059695367002012-05-02T23:39:00.001-07:002012-05-02T23:43:38.771-07:00Connecting the Dots: Al-Qaeda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">From time to time, I will connect dots--using an analytical and intuitive process--to understand current events.</span></b>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here's my first blog entry with that goal in mind, which is not to say that I haven't used this process before. For example, I wrote sometime ago:
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><b>"A population shift is now taking place in this country, with a rise of Latinos, and a decline of whites.<br /><br />"The Latino demographic will, in a decade or two, wield most of the political power in this country, with whites falling precipitously to the back of the electoral bus.<br /><br />"What's needed to offset this shift is a new power dynamic assuring that whites will continue to assert their will over the political and social landscape. [...] </b></span></span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px;"><b>"How do they preserve their once monopolistic power in the midst of this population shift? Simple. Transfer it to corporations. And this what we're now seeing take place, unabashedly, by the Roberts Supreme Court.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px;"><b><br />"Corporations, recently raised to the importance, and stature of the individual, can now use their collective power to influence the outcome of elections and the passage of legislation."</b></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px;">From the Rachel Maddow show we find some support for my conclusion, as it's becoming more and more evident that the demographic shift will impact a distribution of power in this country--political and otherwise.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0" height="245" id="msnbc635ad7" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 22px;"><b>Recently, President Obama signed a compact with Harmid Karzai: "[D]uring an unannounced visit to sign a strategic partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai that sets the terms for relations after the departure of American troops in 2014. [...]</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">"But Mr. Obama also spoke of an “enduring partnership” with Afghanistan, invoking the agreement, which pledges American help for a decade in developing the Afghan economy and public institutions, though it makes no concrete financial commitments, which Congress would have to authorize each year."</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b>Some have placed the financial commitment somewhere around $2 billion dollars a year, and that's probably a conservative estimate, and doesn't take into account further payouts to the Pakistanis.</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b>Here's where the dots come together: As long as the US is willing to pump billions of dollars into Afghanistan and Pakistan for the purpose of defeating Al-Qaeda, or tamping Taliban insurgency, these two countries will never address our goals.</b> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">Where's the incentive to further them, when, to do so, would damage </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><i>their </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">goal, which is to keep American dollars flooding the two countries?</span></span></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b>I can hear someone high up in the Pakistan military remonstrate this way:</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b><br /></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b>"Damn those American's are stupid! Do they really think we're going to kill the golden goose? We need Al-Qaeda! We need a Taliban insurgency! That's why we gave Osama bin Laden sanctuary. That's why we did as little as possible to kill him and to stop the Taliban." </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b><br /></b>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><b>It appears that President Obama has heard their remonstrations, as well--one of the reasons he upped the number of drone attacks within Pakistan, and sent Seal Team 6 on a daring mission to examine a compound they believed might house the Chief Terrorist.</b>
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-77013610838627538422012-04-22T23:11:00.003-07:002012-04-22T23:15:57.951-07:00"Choose You This day Whom Ye Will Serve...."<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUm8Zg_JRUwWG49eIYvD7pC1DTeAWacbjcnEL3AdNXvQ8rmp3fGQVQjAt7Zi33i8igp2x0oQp5Sc-hReMHY7bkeIRZvj5e8sF7a2anV90s0W0D7nwyKRUDBbwqOQPc_KlhNb6kVcmf4d0/s1600/trayvonmartin.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723689460606559106" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUm8Zg_JRUwWG49eIYvD7pC1DTeAWacbjcnEL3AdNXvQ8rmp3fGQVQjAt7Zi33i8igp2x0oQp5Sc-hReMHY7bkeIRZvj5e8sF7a2anV90s0W0D7nwyKRUDBbwqOQPc_KlhNb6kVcmf4d0/s400/trayvonmartin.jpg" /></a>Because I had little to add to the dialog, I didn't wade into the Trayvon Martin controversy, as many pundits have already weighed in with their unique and not-so-unique perspectives.<br /><br />But after reading a prominent black Republican's perspective, I felt that I owed it to my readers to have my say. On his Facebook page, Allen West denounces the actions of law enforcement authorities in Sanford, and takes a cheap shot at those protesting:<br /><br /><em>I have sat back and allowed myself time to assess the current episode revealing itself in Sanford, Florida involving the shooting of 17-year-old Treyvon Martin. First of all, if all that has been reported is accurate, the Sanford Police Chief should be relieved of his duties due to what appears to be a mishandling of this shooting in its early stages. The US Navy SEALS identified Osama Bin Laden within hours, while this young man laid on a morgue slab for three days. The shooter, Mr Zimmerman, should have been held in custody and certainly should not be walking free, still having a concealed weapons carry permit. From my reading, it seems this young man was pursued and there was no probable cause to engage him, certainly not pursue and shoot him….against the direction of the 911 responder. Let’s all be appalled at this instance not because of race, but because a young American man has lost his life, seemingly, for no reason. I have signed a letter supporting a DOJ investigation. I am not heading to Sanford to shout and scream, because we need the responsible entities and agencies to handle this situation from this point without media bias or undue political influences. This is an outrage.</em><br /><br />It <b><i>is</i></b> an outrage--and why can't we say it loud; why can't we "shout" it in overwhelming numbers, and "scream," if we must, above the silly din of a Republican primary that's hogging the airwaves?<br /><br />What West doesn't seem to appreciate is that the Trayvon Martin case would have been swept under the proverbial blue carpet were it not for the shouting and screaming that took place online, in the streets of Sanford, Florida, and other places--student's showing their solidarity by walking out of class, New Yorkers showing their support with a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">Million Hoodie March</i><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">, and </span></span><a style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; " href="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/sports/photos/2012/03/23/heat-hoodies-trayvon-martin.jpg">LeBron Raymone James posing with hoodie-wearing teammates</a><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">. Were it not for bloggers, and other </span>protesters<span style="font-size: 100%;">, MSNBC in all likelihood would have allowed Nancy Grace to run exclusively with the story.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">West, as is customary among black Republicans, dismisses the race nexus, reducing it to a footnote in the whole affair, when it's clear from the 9-1-1 call, and the allegations of a police coverup to protect Zimmerman, that race, and racial profiling, played a prominent role, and can't be separated from the incident, as one would egg white from the yoke. Some even insist that the words,</span></span><a style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; " href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9YYwvN_Zn4">"fucking coon,"</a><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> can be heard, at about 1:52 in, on an enhanced version of the tape.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Before I offer my opinions, let me discuss briefly a book that I read many years ago, titled, </span></span><em style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">Contingency Management</em><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Contingency management says, substantially, all the various styles of management--autocratic, democratic, and participatory, to name a few--are valid, and useful, the effectiveness of each dependent on the situation, and one's ability to choose the right managerial strategy at any given time.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">There are those who will swear that one management style is superior to all others, but what I found over the years is that a contingency approach to employee management was not only practical, but an indispensable approach to the art and science of effective management. It was preferable to focusing on just one style to the exclusion of all others, becoming, in time, an integral part of my overall managerial approach.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Similarly, there are those--white and black--who insist tirelessly that we must react to racism, and racial insensitivity, in one way, and one way only.</span></span><br /><br /><em style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">To that I say poppycock. Respond any way you choose!</em><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Once upon a time in America, blacks chose to meet the horrors of racism with the threat of violence against violence (They called themselves the Black Panthers.), while others believed that a peaceful, non-violent approach would serve our interests best (as advocated by Martin Luther King, Jr.)</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">During the civil right's struggle, Ebony Magazine ran an article discussing the several "ways" blacks were responding to white racism, asking the question,</span></span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=QrBv5xmgHfMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "> "Which Way Black America--Separation? Integration? Liberation?"</a><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Although I'm a proponent of change without violence, and civil disobedience, I would never tell blacks how they should respond to racism--individually or collectively.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">If you choose to march, and voice your dissent, and your grievance, I say march on. If you choose to express your outrage in a blog entry, I say blog on. If you choose to call nothing racism, and openly oppose black protests--a community's vocal outrage against acts leveled at blacks--I say right on. If you choose to refrain from participating in a society dominated by whites and their ideals, I say resist on. If you choose to attend Harvard, become a lawyer, and the president of the United States, I say carry on.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">The insistence of some black Republicans that blacks should downplay race, and never use the term "racism," even when it's blatantly obvious that racism is at the heart of certain behaviors, is to subject themselves to a mental contortion for which there's no recovery, but that's their choice.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">And I honor that, just as I honor those who resort to actions that are out of the mainstream, and may run counter to the law, for the purpose of making statements that bring certain conditions into starker relief.</span></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5OgpBXp9eKT6R_USZGPzUFwQfO0XA7UYZdVUDwte6c1_NL6AH2x5NeuDGnTdIvjQ7e5pWbMw-UF09WSrXL_4d5vvaBPrYC5r8W5F80E1XdWLv23QscoD5qYqBxQq6OOcZPUNdByhVRgau/s1600/new-black-panther-party.jpg" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img style="MARGIN: 10px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 120px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725937706585903346" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5OgpBXp9eKT6R_USZGPzUFwQfO0XA7UYZdVUDwte6c1_NL6AH2x5NeuDGnTdIvjQ7e5pWbMw-UF09WSrXL_4d5vvaBPrYC5r8W5F80E1XdWLv23QscoD5qYqBxQq6OOcZPUNdByhVRgau/s200/new-black-panther-party.jpg" /></a><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Nevertheless, I do condemn those who appear to use race issues as a way to further their own financial interests, such as the New Black Panthers, an organization who has borrowed the old Panthers' reputation of fierce resistance to racism, as a way to add street cred where it hasn't been earned. The old Panthers have denounced the new Panthers, as the new group seeks to reap where it hasn't sown.</span></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFI5LZe12rifEMuu_SxOxaW9na2Km9JeVCgw4nyJZB6Nrz6kFICSw6DlR7M2Vb2TfEquxuapu6cmdHIATEVYB3bEq1Clo-c2lvvQzdz6qJuAuLT1cPJrmpwCjCoMyVj0UeNMtV3rpIRoeH/s1600/george-zimmerman-wanted-poster-2.jpg" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img style="MARGIN: 10px; WIDTH: 140px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725940842809992754" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFI5LZe12rifEMuu_SxOxaW9na2Km9JeVCgw4nyJZB6Nrz6kFICSw6DlR7M2Vb2TfEquxuapu6cmdHIATEVYB3bEq1Clo-c2lvvQzdz6qJuAuLT1cPJrmpwCjCoMyVj0UeNMtV3rpIRoeH/s200/george-zimmerman-wanted-poster-2.jpg" /></a><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">When whites need a black boogieman to thrust a wedge deep into black and white cooperation, to polarize the races for the purpose of frustrating racial unity, the New Black Panthers are at the ready, seemingly prepared to deliver an image in keeping with white stereotypes of the angry, violent, black man, to fuel already feared black stereotypes.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Contingency management embraces all acceptable and responsible managerial styles, denouncing none, or elevating one style over another, or dictating when any style should be used, but yields to circumstances in play, and the manager's judgment to choose a managerial style as the need dictates.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Similarly, blacks have a virtual cornucopia of options from which to choose when deciding how to respond to their perception of racism, to do as Allen West did, sign "a letter supporting a DOJ investigation," downplay the "race" angle, and refrain from shouting and screaming (very dignified and low-key), with the hope that the system will respond appropriately, and justice will prevail, or take a hands-on approach, as it were, march, protest, "shout and scream," blog about it, take photos to highlight it--any action, or speech, or behavior that we feel addresses the grievous circumstances at hand.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Clearly, no responsible response is superior to another. All blacks who take up the cause of redress, and seek to address perceived threats to their life, and to their general well-being, as well as the life and general well-being of other blacks in a nation where racism once flourished, and still persists, have a duty to resist in ways of their choosing.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">"Choose you this day whom ye will serve," and which response among many will serve the needs of those in black communities across this land, as we traverse the path that takes us from injustice to justice.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">But let it be of </span></span><em style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">your</em><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> choosing, and not Alan West's choosing, or Bill Cosby's choosing, or....</span></span>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-68123419110637112542012-02-08T14:25:00.000-08:002012-02-12T01:47:24.855-08:00Dropping Nichols!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4q71oudWO4pVdE7X1xwT_OCySGTtNPZ6UYfWTz8fnEoR9lUsIJvnBplUfC4TqfWFv8Pgy1gZQPvoo7mYMZP0fZLGkrsp5WMRRdc_mM-aMJENVurM_noiPkVuuVcIVLjCRvW056n67woHI/s1600/s-NICHELLENICHOLS21040CM113011-large300.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 10px 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 219px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4q71oudWO4pVdE7X1xwT_OCySGTtNPZ6UYfWTz8fnEoR9lUsIJvnBplUfC4TqfWFv8Pgy1gZQPvoo7mYMZP0fZLGkrsp5WMRRdc_mM-aMJENVurM_noiPkVuuVcIVLjCRvW056n67woHI/s400/s-NICHELLENICHOLS21040CM113011-large300.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5706297520411069282" /></a>I'm not one for name dropping, and could, if I choose to, drop my share of notable names, as I've met many black celebrities over the years.<br /><br />Although I've never been a star gazer, or a star follower, taking count, I've had the privilege to meet a goodly number of them, which, given my humble beginnings, continues to amaze and please.<br /><br />And like many other blacks--famous or not so famous, starry or not so stellar--I've waged a number of private, and public, wars against racism and have lived to tell it.<br /><br />During those years, I never saw racism as an obstruction to my life goals, but merely as another obstacle to overcome. It wasn't that, like the president, I had a fractious congress to stand defiantly in my way, but an assortment of white figures with their own individual agendas, all equally determined to derail my progress.<br /><br />One of those black notables I met was Nichelle Nichols, Lt. Nyota Uhura of Star Trek. A beautiful black woman with an equally beautiful disposition, and with stunningly beautiful eyes to match.<br /><br />If the whole of her faded, as the Cheshire Cat faded in Lewis Carroll's <em>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,</em> leaving behind only his toothy grin, Nichelle's eyes, similarly, would remain, many years hence, indelibly etched in memory.<br /><br />They are just that remarkable--a remarkableness that photographs can never capture, or do justice.<br /><br /><b>You'd think that a beautiful, talented, black woman, such as Nichelle Nichols, would have escaped the ravages of racism, but alas, she had to face </b><b>during the early years of her career </b><b>the indignity of defending her humanity, and her self-worth against relentless forces that assailed her almost daily, not unlike many other black women, <i>and men</i> before and after her.</b><br /><br /><em>When television writer and producer Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" science fiction series debuted on NBC in 1966, the Civil Rights Movement -- under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- was in high gear, fighting the injustices of racial segregation, black economic oppression and discrimination and racial violence against African Americans. <a>[1]</a><br /><br />And when Nichols landed the role of communications officer Uhura on the Starship Enterprise (see dual image below of her then and now), she had no idea that this was a breakthrough role for black women.<br /><br />"It didn't hit me at the time until somebody told me," she told The Huffington Post. "I splashed onto the TV screen at a propitious historical moment. Black people were marching all over the South. Dr. King was leading people to freedom, and here I was, in the 23rd century, fourth in command of the Enterprise."<br /><br />Nichols vividly recalls how America reacted when her Uhura character first hit the television airwaves.<br /><br />"Oh, man, there were parts of the South that wouldn't show 'Star Trek' because this was an African American woman in a powerful position, and she wasn't a maid or tap dancer."</em><br /><br />[This was not unusual. The South had its own rating system, barring many films that portrayed blacks in roles that showed them as equal to whites, or their better.]<br /><br /><em>While shooting "Star Trek" episodes in the late 1960s, Nichols didn't feel any discrimination on the set, but felt it in other parts of the studio, especially where she wasn't allowed to enter the studio through a particular gate where the other actors could go through.<br /><br />"That's right. There were instances where I was turned away from entering the studio at the walk-on gate, and I had to go all the way around to the front gate, sign-in and come back. A guard on the set told me I had no right being there -- that they had replaced a blue-eyed blonde with me," she remembered.<br /><br />"I went through crap, man. Racism was alive and rampant there. Some people said I wasn't good enough, saying things like, 'I don't know how you got this role.' And they kept waiting for me to complain and raise hell about it, but I decided to ignore it. I never went to Gene [Roddenberry] about it."</em><br /><br />[Believe it or not, blacks were often accosted in this manner--as was I--although I made my living outside the movie industry. On many occasions whites would approach me and ask with incredulity, and anger, "How did you get this job?" Now, they weren't asking how they could go about entering the field in which I was employed, but how I managed to land a job that whites were having difficulty landing.<br /><br />Did all of this make me bitter? At the time it made me angry, but the anger didn't last, and the bitterness that might have consumed me, and perhaps did consume some, faded like the Cheshire Cat, leaving only vague reminders of the flesh-tearing pain that only the sharp claws of hatred can inflict.]<br /><br /><em>She even said that the show photographer was a racist. "There are more pictures of me <b>behind somebody</b> where you can barely see me, but they also had to take pictures of me singularly."</em><br /><br />As blacks, we were so often relegated to the background in this nation's history books, that we wrote our own. Additionally, we were so often forced to sit in the back of the bus, that we grew "tired" and weary of the affront and fought to sit where we pleased. We were told where we could live, what homes we could buy, and in which part of town our <i>kind</i> could reside, but we insisted on living anywhere we chose--anywhere we liked. We were told where we could eat, where we could sit, and where we could drink, but we defied those orders, too--as individuals, and finally collectively.<br /><br />The Civil Rights movement started long before its often-cited, official start-up date, the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, long before the Supreme Court decision—<i>Plessy v. Ferguson</i>, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). It started when Europeans brought the first slaves to this continent in 1565, right up to the <i>Amistad mutiny</i> and beyond--the period that we know as Jim Crow, extending from Reconstruction right through the mid-20th century.<br /><br />Not to discredit Dr. King's momentous contribution to the Civil Right's movement, but there were black civil rights leaders before Martin Luther King, and after. <b>All blacks who stood up to the dehumanization of racism--in small and large ways--were leaders in their own right</b>, taking, as they did, their first steps against social injustice, which made it possible for others to do the same, as these others followed their example, and waged war, privately, and publicly, singularly and collectively.<br /><br /><em><b>To resist racism anywhere is to resist it everywhere, as it resides in our collective consciousness, requiring consent, and room to grow. We defeat it by denying it that consent and growing room, as we would weeds in a garden.</b></em><br /><br /><b>February is Black History Month</b>. In recognition of the month, find below several sites that have brought together resources around people, themes, and events.<br /><br />http://www.history.com/topics/black-history-month<br /><br />http://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/<br /><br />http://www.infoplease.com/black-history-month/<br /><br />http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/black/index.asp<br /><br />http://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-History-Month/44836849562<br /><br />http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/black_history_month.htm<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/nichelle-nichols-star-trek-uhura_n_1244343.html?ref=black-voices#s656359&title=Nichelle_Nichols_And">[1]</a><br /><br />Yesterday, along with untold others, I learned of Whitney Houston's death. Many are in mourning for this songstress, which some are calling a "songbird." She was that and more. I posted the following on another blog. It pretty much sums up my feelings:<br /><br /><em>She will be missed. She won't be again, but, then, she will always be. A paradox for some, but for the cognoscenti a truism without contradiction. We're always at choice. She lived as she chose, and died at the time, the place, and in the way of her choosing. <br /><br />She didn't live in vain, nor die in vain. All who knew her, and knew of her, received a benefit because she lived.<br /><br />Her music wasn't her life, but it gave life to many. She touched us with her songs, and because of her incomparable voice--and the essence of her that flowed through her--we knew her in ways that are unforgettable, ways that say, "I believe in you and me."</em>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-84295194285060292342012-01-19T14:58:00.000-08:002012-01-21T22:11:21.738-08:00InSandity<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYsEjKudrcV1NytXaFNw6bHaQaXKLXgYLndrPokWyGzZaIvVkpICc6tq5SwPUmYnz3cpfPo34-7znux53ThsJfH8X0Yw21mGvfP8k9sugpiFSExXLlr6OAWD8neyArGJkjsjaQnuhTBVy9/s1600/Hourglass.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 10px 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 340px; height: 420px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYsEjKudrcV1NytXaFNw6bHaQaXKLXgYLndrPokWyGzZaIvVkpICc6tq5SwPUmYnz3cpfPo34-7znux53ThsJfH8X0Yw21mGvfP8k9sugpiFSExXLlr6OAWD8neyArGJkjsjaQnuhTBVy9/s320/Hourglass.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699527523676387266" /></a><em><b>"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."</b></em><br /><br />This nation is in a perpetual loop, in a perpetual tail-chasing posture, a living, concrete example of Einstein's definition of "insanity," as quoted above.<br /><br />We enter <a href="http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/07/19/trading-our-future-tax-cheating-and-the-panama-free-trade-agreement/">trade agreements</a> that benefit the one percent, or disproportionately benefit those nations with whom we have agreements.<br /><br />We continue to risk our future to one energy source, fossil fuels, the latest incarnation of that risk, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/46058105">Canadian tar sands</a>, despite grave climate-change concerns, and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083681/Fracking-cited-official-cause-Ohios-11-earthquakes-year.html">"earthquakes, in diver places"</a>.<br /><br />I could go on and on, citing one example after the other of this nation's acquiescence to special interest, and its willingness to stay the course--the ship of state veering only when it serves the needs of expediency, or to brandish our bogus American exceptionalism: a self-congratulatory indulgence that could, potentially, list the ship dangerously, inviting the disastrous outcome of this <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086831/Costa-Concordia-cruise-ship-pictures-Trapped-survivor-Manrico-Giampedroni-airlifted-safety.html">cruise ship</a>.<br /><br />If you believe the ship of state is listing now, give it another decade or two. What's that old saying, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"<br /><br />It's not that I harbor pessimism, it's that I see things the way they are, not the way I wish them to be. That's my relative position, not my absolute one. From my absolute position, there's nothing we need do, there's nothing we need say, but focus on what we're <em>being</em>--for it's what we're being that we end up creating.<br /><br />Regrettably, the sands of time aren't as plentiful as the Canadian tar sands, somber grains gathering ominously along the bottom of our national hourglass, as time runs out on our steadying the ship of state, as it lists starboard, lurching precariously to the Right. <br /><br />After seeing the video below, I wanted to bring it to your attention, even if you've seen it before, so that we may discuss its proposals on how this nation may avoid walking the plank on one key component of our continued national prosperity--the education of our children, resulting in a well-educated adult population<br /><br />As part of his <em>30 Million Jobs Tour</em>, Dylan Ratigan identifies areas of concern--factors that need to be addressed to keep the ship of state from foundering over time, proposing a national initiative, rather than state-sponsored ones, deviating substantially from right-wing solutions that call for the abolition of the Department of Education, and a shift of power to states.<br /><br />Without a national initiative, Dylan sees a permanent underclass emerging, made up mostly of blacks, Mexican Americans, and other poverty-laden groups, adrift in lifeboats, without land in sight, or rescue-ships on the horizon.<br /><br />I recommend watching the video. It's not very long, but you may have to endure a short commercial at the beginning. I've appended a transcript of the video, but it won't show the visuals, diagrams that connect the dots, clarifying how we got to this state, and what factors continue to roil the seas upon which this nation must sail, as it struggles to stay on course, and keep the ship's listing to a minimum. <br /><br /><object width="620" height="445" id="msnbc576554" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0"><param name="movie" value="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640"><param name="FlashVars" value="launch=46062229&width=620&height=445"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed name="msnbc576554" src="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" width="620" height="445" flashvars="launch=46062229&width=620&height=445" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object><p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 420px;">Visit msnbc.com for <a style="text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#5799DB !important;" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/">breaking news</a>, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032507" style="text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#5799DB !important;">world news</a>, and <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072" style="text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#5799DB !important;">news about the economy</a></p><em>We're back at chegg. a go-to place for students to develop an efficient way to learn and a cheaper and rational way to use it using it cannology and innovation to bring down the costs students face after they pay tuition. first, the students need to make it through elementary and high school 37 we spend more on education than any other nation. but for all that money, there's little to show for it. worldwide rankings, we're 25th in math. 17th in science. so we're taking a page out of our book "greedy bastards" and connecting the dots to trace the money trail in our schools.<br /><br />the money trail begins in your own backyard. funding for american schools is based on your property taxes. which means schools in low-income areas get the smallest share of resources. so while there's massive resources allocated to the wealthiest, the poor get the least when it comes to education. i call this reverse hot spotting. because those who need it most aren't getting the resources we need, the poorest are neglected in a way to permanently damage their brain development. we know that a child's brain forms 700 synapses per second. that's 700 times a second to process senses, use language, and develop vocabulary and relational and reasonable skills. if that opportunity is missed, that child will be playing catch up literally for the the rest of their adult lives. the same model is true all the way through high school graduation.<br /><br />if you're lucky enough to afford it, college would be next. but our universities value prestige over learning and mastery. it's a classic "greedy bastards" behavior. they put prestige and profits over skill mastery. and talk about student loan debt. $830 billion collectively across our nation. the bankers are offering easy credit that traps graduates for decades. it's a debt for diploma system. there are proven solutions to all of this. but the "greedy bastards" are so hell bent on paying off, that they refuse to let anything threaten it. it becomes a vicious and destructive cycle for our country. poverty, which creates low property taxes to fund schools, which means little money for poor schools, leads to limited problem solving skills, limited adapt blt, higher levels of unemployment, which lands those folks back in poverty.<br /><br />but there's a way to fix it. we must end the reverse hot spotting and overallocate to those most desperately in need of help and start funding schools through a national tax structure. if we use it correctly to overallocate to our problems, we can direct assets to those most in need. as suzie buffett explains, it's been proven to work, but politicians refuse to take notice.<br /><br />it doesn't work in an election cycle. it's going to take 15 years to show it works. it's not very interesting to the politicians.<br /><br />another fix, we need to force our universities to stop valuing prestige over learning. it won't be easy. you know how university pride runs deep. we have to stop rewarding test taking abilities and encourage a culture of experimentation which will come with mistakes and failures. but those are exactly what we need to ultimately achieve the skills and mastery needed to learn in the fastest-changing world in the history of human civilization. the khan academy has proven this classroom flip is successful right through the university level. finally, we must call out the universities, which means adopting the first letter of. we must refuse schools. two students on the internet before they apply or pay tuition. this is how vici values can restore values while receiving the modern tools of the digital age.<br /><br />if you want to take another look at this and connect the dots on your own time, go to "greedy bastards".com. they are explained inside the book itself. we show you how to get results and change things as well. and as martin mentioned last hour, "greedy bastards" is going today bu at number nine on the new york best sellers list. we have you to thank for that. thank you so much for enlisting with us in this mission to change the conversation to issues-based problem solving. next up here, we've talked to people who do it right. there's a prime example of a great idea that may be using the opposite of hot spotting as the quest to bring high speed rail to california jumped the tracks.</em>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-18427833965862736562012-01-13T14:39:00.001-08:002012-01-14T01:03:30.274-08:00"The Road Not Taken"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn5Nl7jpDGybp3twYY3-cU6FwdXJYjBSMG7Ukxn02ibqWiKpNaPTM8Rz6IOSEvENh_WOMDq-JSJmd0WM8ahLu8bxpc4Hdg27j8d4f1XUBFBCXBLgU5BeH8G67C56pKtzQMdkYSrusaAqVM/s1600/fork-in-the-road1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 279px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn5Nl7jpDGybp3twYY3-cU6FwdXJYjBSMG7Ukxn02ibqWiKpNaPTM8Rz6IOSEvENh_WOMDq-JSJmd0WM8ahLu8bxpc4Hdg27j8d4f1XUBFBCXBLgU5BeH8G67C56pKtzQMdkYSrusaAqVM/s400/fork-in-the-road1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696984878945182290" /></a>Robert Frost penned a poem, one of my favorites, that explored the poet's decision to take one road at a fork, and not another.<br /><br />Whether your life is filled with forks in the road, or not, we can all commiserate with those who have them, as they force introspection, and reflection.<br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote><blockquote><b>The Road Not Taken</b></blockquote></blockquote><em>Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,<br />And sorry I could not travel both<br />And be one traveler, long I stood<br />And looked down one as far as I could<br />To where it bent in the undergrowth;<br /><br />Then took the other, as just as fair,<br />And having perhaps the better claim,<br />Because it was grassy and wanted wear;<br />Though as for that the passing there<br />Had worn them really about the same,</em><br /><br />The latter road, as described in the poem, stands out as one that's rarely taken when two competing positions collide--racism and stupidity, for example--both representing the fork in the road, becoming rivaling perspectives for how an act, a behavior, or an attitude may be viewed by those exposed to the same information and to the same set of facts.<br /><br /><em>And both that morning equally lay<br />In leaves no step had trodden black.<br />Oh, I kept the first for another day!<br />Yet knowing how way leads on to way,<br />I doubted if I should ever come back.</em><br /><br />Although I've privately wrestled with whether a set of facts represented racism or stupidity, I've never agonized over whether I should call a set of facts racist. Whites rarely quibble as to what should be called racist and what should be called stupidity, more inclined to call racially-insensitive acts the result of stupidity than racism.<br /><br />Agreeing with Frost, these whites almost never reconsider their first position, "the road not taken"--that it's stupidity rather than racism that prompted an action by their fellow whites--postponing indefinitely a more thorough examination: "I kept the first for another day!/ Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/ I doubted if I should ever come back."<br /><br />Blacks, during their earthly travels, find more forks in their roads, than whites (Is this act born of racism or stupidity?), as whites are usually spared this kind of dilemma; yet, <em>whites never tire of telling us what it is that we should believe</em>--and, oftentimes, what they want us to believe is that "stupidity" explains their white counterparts actions or behavior, and not "racism," the most likely choice, and the most likely characterization of the facts.<br /><br />When I purchased my current home, my white real-estate salesperson presented such a fork in the road. From a tract of homes, she selected the one that she felt represented our income and our taste.<br /><br />I did my own research, using the real estate broker's web site as my source, copying relevant information about each home in the tract, the number of rooms, square footage, and lot size.<br /><br />When I told her that I wanted to see each house in the tract before committing to the one she selected, she turned red, suspiciously eyeing the papers I held in my hand.<br /><br />"What do you have there?" she asked roughly. Before I could reply, she snatched the papers from my hand, and, while rifling through them, asked, "Where did you get these?"<br /><br />"From your web page," I said, struggling to stay calm, as I knew, with a little more provocation, I was going to either walk away, or find another salesperson.<br /><br />Reluctantly, and with great exasperation, she walked me through each house. On one house in the tract, I made an offer. No, it wasn't on the one she had selected, but on the one I felt had a better view of the mountains.<br /><br />She was livid. "The builder doesn't take offers," she said. I insisted. Her anger boiled over, mainly because, as she pointed out, she had already drawn up the paperwork for the house of her choosing, and now I was having her repeat her effort.<br /><br />Finally, she relented, saying, "Now I'll have to start all over again."<br /><br />The builder accepted my offer, which I knew he would, and, by accepting my offer, reduced her commission. This was not my purpose, but I wasn't distressed because of it.<br /><br />When the house was making its way through escrow, unbeknownst to me, my wife had promised to invite this salesperson to dinner when the sale was finalized. When she restated her invitation, I was standing nearby.<br /><br />"When we move in," my wife told the white salesperson, "I'm going to have you over for dinner."<br /><br />"Okay," she said, "but I don't eat innards."<br /><br />That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, that and a few other racially-insensitive things she had said and done during our brief relationship, splitting the road into a fork that ran as far as the eye could see.<br /><br />The fork appeared abruptly: Was this a show of racism on the salesperson's part, or gross stupidity?<br /><br />The article that spurred this blog entry has already made its rounds on several blogs, with some readers taking one road or the other, as to whether the act of some Georgia school teachers represented racism or stupidity.<br /><br />Some of the comments came from whites, and some from blacks, which at times took an uncomfortable turn, as racism is not an easy topic for many, although most had an opinion one way or the other, all looking for travelling companions where the road forked, now that they had committed themselves to one road or the other.<br /><br />The title reads, <b>'If eight slaves pick 56 oranges...' Georgia school under fire for racist, violent math homework</b> [1]<br /><br /><em>Parents of elementary school students in Georgia are outraged after their children brought home math homework referencing slavery and beatings.<br />In an attempt to mix social studies with math, students of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross were asked to calculate such questions as how many oranges and cotton slaves could pick.</em><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qFslzpgLrGpnL01wpySR-9fCvjVmQFFonkCdwURG2rt7j5KIP2CxadIZHxc9neBqrBwQGHaJ-Ed7kzYhS6lvpSWR3c7P4CnzsdSryAUGZ_E2nWRhZLk_z6Q3NioOJlnHtAJTyn3VI0Id/s1600/Frederick+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qFslzpgLrGpnL01wpySR-9fCvjVmQFFonkCdwURG2rt7j5KIP2CxadIZHxc9neBqrBwQGHaJ-Ed7kzYhS6lvpSWR3c7P4CnzsdSryAUGZ_E2nWRhZLk_z6Q3NioOJlnHtAJTyn3VI0Id/s400/Frederick+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697279180502456162" /></a>[My first thought: Was the question written with Frederick Douglass in mind?]<br /><br /><em>'I'm having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts,' Terrance Barnett expressed to WSB-TV.</em><br /><br />Here's another example from the test:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwcaHy5OE8ICSV-boDt4WwBINqe2QBVIamWLq-4EYOwzFSAot4w5zvap0ZNhJ9Dkr8Rnw8joswZxWK-jVfHlHkQ6LIUgttH4vrn1wUFTlOjN5MtVgPAVgjWjRf13GJC4rdtBruOInEBrQ/s1600/slave+pick.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwcaHy5OE8ICSV-boDt4WwBINqe2QBVIamWLq-4EYOwzFSAot4w5zvap0ZNhJ9Dkr8Rnw8joswZxWK-jVfHlHkQ6LIUgttH4vrn1wUFTlOjN5MtVgPAVgjWjRf13GJC4rdtBruOInEBrQ/s400/slave+pick.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697281278225057586" /></a>Whether you find the following to be either "racist" or a show of "stupidity," is fine by me. That's not my argument. You're entitled to your view. My position on this, however, remains the same, as it was formed after much thought, and over many years of reflection and rumination:<br /><br />Given this nation's racist history, and the fact that blacks have, more often than not, been the hapless recipients of racism, when I hear or see racially-insensitive things, my default position is that they're prompted by racism. I don't accept the burden of determining for others whether these things are racist or not, which fork in the road--racism or stupidity--would better describe, or sum up the facts. That's not my burden. That burden belongs to the other, those who did the racially-insensitive things.<br /><br /><em>Blacks shouldn't be asked to shoulder this burden, and we shouldn't accept it, if asked.</em><br /><br />Let the burden rest with them, and not us. Let those in society who behave racially insensitive, show, prove, demonstrate that a racially-insensitive act is not racism. In the case under review here, we're talking about teachers, for god sake! People who know world history and American history, and the various legacies of race.<br /><br />Would these teachers have said something similar about Jews caught in the throes of the holocaust? I don't think so. For blacks, the legacy of slavery is what the holocaust is to Jews--highly reprehensible, and highly inhumane.<br /><br />I always assume that white's racially-insensitive acts, behavior, and attitudes are the result of racism, and not stupidity, refusing to ride the horn of a dilemma, taking the road I've traveled often, when faced with a fork that leads to the left and to the right.<br /><br />Whites, and some blacks, mostly black conservatives, wouldn't have us call anything racist, occasionally reversing the charge, and leveling it at us for having the temerity to call a thing racist, thereby effectively putting a roadblock at one of the forks, forbidding passage, and making it unpopular to even consider taking the more damning road, where "[t]wo roads diverged in a yellow wood."<br /><br />On the other hand, Blacks are urged to suspend judgment, not to call a thing racist, when another characterization may be more appropriate, like "stupidity." They're told to exercise restraint, to err on the side of caution, to ignore it, to look the other way--in short, take the high road.<br /><br />Sure we can take the high road, or the road at the fork that whites would like for us to take, but we don't owe them this. We don't owe anyone anything, in matters of deciding what constitutes racism or not.<br /><br />At times, I take the road rarely taken, the one with the signpost that read, "STUPIDITY," but I don't feel I'm obligated, or obliged to do so. I could, just as well, turn to the left at the fork, and take the road with the signpost that read, "RACISM."<br /><br />Occasionally, the stupidity is so glaring, a neon flashing bright red, the only conclusion one can derive is that it's what it seems to be--and <i>that</i> unmistakably. At other times, the road sign identifying the road to the left glows equally bright, pulsating in large block letters the word, RACISM.<br /><br />I know too much about life, and how it works, to hold anger or animosity towards those who are racist, or those who insist on calling racism stupidity, when all the signs are pointing in the direction of "the road not taken."<br /><br />I feel an overwhelming pity for those so deluded, as they will, one day, perhaps in another lifetime, stand at the fork of the road where, at times, I stand--definitely more often than I care to say--peering down both roads "where they diverged in a wood."<br /><br /><em>I shall be telling this with a sigh<br />Somewhere ages and ages hence:<br />Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--<br />I took the one less traveled by,<br />And that has made all the difference.</em><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083734/If-slaves-pick-56-oranges--Georgia-school-racist-violent-math-homework.html#ixzz1jNydMXoP">[1]</a> A video accompanies this article.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-90552410332884480652012-01-05T12:53:00.000-08:002012-01-05T17:41:26.661-08:00"Easy," Does It!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgst-XvBCL6gBxZ9bXqqwLklsqRaNsHnMTGrjz-kYtxY0JEHQJBxq9mRE9i3BzPD4m0jmQekEya0dGaRqI8hUvvXyrqHBy1a2_Jm05oBvAtO7bNBk1DnIHZ1hUQEkjsybqVNmw-omkuHsag/s1600/Dunes.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgst-XvBCL6gBxZ9bXqqwLklsqRaNsHnMTGrjz-kYtxY0JEHQJBxq9mRE9i3BzPD4m0jmQekEya0dGaRqI8hUvvXyrqHBy1a2_Jm05oBvAtO7bNBk1DnIHZ1hUQEkjsybqVNmw-omkuHsag/s400/Dunes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694281692115756194" /></a>For several years, I worked in a penal institution which housed inmates with an age range of about 15 years old to about 25 years old, young men as well adults. <br /><br />In conversation one day with one of the inmates, the talk suddenly turned to why he robbed homes.<br /><br />His answer was as unexpected as it was bewildering: "I break into homes," he said, "because it's easy." <br /><br />There it was, it wasn't just the money, the thrill, or the need to impress his homies, it was, as he put it, "easy."<br /><br />In a world of moral relativism, this young man's candor stands out, a striking reminder that right and wrong is a constantly shifting concept, so many dunes, here today, but gone tomorrow, as the wind shifts, or we capitulate to the demands of a source, or we seek out our fortunes in a narrowing landscape of opportunities, seen more often as bare, than verdant with hope, infinite possibilities, and endless choices.<br /><br />Under these perceived circumstances, like the young man who broke into homes, because it was easy, departing from our moral code, or breaking away from our ethical foundation becomes the "easy," convenient, and lucrative thing to do.<br /><br />Greg L, and I, at <a href="http://theafricanamericanclarioncall.com/?p=3519">his blog</a>, exchanged posts exploring the edges of our moral boundaries, and why some in society behave the way that they do. Greg L, wrote:<br /><br />"[T]he political system and all other forms of leadership, are ultimately reflection of the moral system that governs us." <br /><br />Greg L. summed up his position, thusly:<br /><br />"Morality, in part, involves the ability to objectively examine something to determine if it actually aligns with what you subscribe to. It's these judgments that are sorely missing and that's why we have what we have."<br /><br />To which I responded:<br /><br />True, but our morality isn't absolutistic, but relativistic, in as much as we subscribe to several, some of which obtain their relevance and their validity from a source--an existential morality dictated by that source, rather that subject to a morality to which we may all generally subscribe, and which we may all hold in common.<br /><br />Let me illustrate: There's a political morality. Politics has established its own moral center, where almost anything goes--lies, deception, misrepresentations, flip-flopping, waffling, spin, and propaganda--and, by our actions, looking the other way, excusing it, downplaying it, justifying it, we often dismiss this moral laxity, or moral turpitude in our body politic by supporting and voting for those candidates who have clearly demonstrated that they play loose and fast with either the facts or the truth.<br /><br />Politics, then, dictates its own morality, for which voters will, all too eagerly, set aside their specific morality as they rush to the polls and the voting booth in the hopes of installing their party's candidate into the office for which they're running.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcZWp0-l80cBQzTGnX0Gm6JCNxSLmN_ky5dFHrEbWpdXYduGvYzf1eLStaZqRo00vr0rMGv1vzniP2TegKFaZdZXooGbWMOrvEFbXpb1xzVZaGqxaAZ262x9pDQLkYluvkpK5okZ35aLX/s1600/FoxConn_Slaves.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcZWp0-l80cBQzTGnX0Gm6JCNxSLmN_ky5dFHrEbWpdXYduGvYzf1eLStaZqRo00vr0rMGv1vzniP2TegKFaZdZXooGbWMOrvEFbXpb1xzVZaGqxaAZ262x9pDQLkYluvkpK5okZ35aLX/s200/FoxConn_Slaves.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694294286895400818" /></a>There's an economic morality. Capitalism has shown time and time again that it doesn't subscribe to a moral correctness, saving that which the government imposes, an imposition which it doesn't often enforce, or enforce poorly. People in this country still buy iPads, and iPhones, and it doesn't matter to many that they're <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5542527/undercover-report-from-foxconns-hell-factory">produced under almost slave-like conditions</a> or not. Sure there are some who do care, and will put their money where their conscience resides.<br /><br />Capitalism, then, dictates its own morality, for which consumers will, all too eagerly, set aside their specific morality as they avail themselves of its various offerings.<br /><br />There's an elitist morality. Congress has passed many laws from which it has exempted itself, one in particular as odious as they come--congresspersons can participate in <a href="http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-14/politics/30396448_1_stock-market-market-moving-information-trades">insider trading</a>, an <a href="http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-21/news/30541466_1_insider-private-sector-revelations">act</a> that would have anyone else arrested, and sent to jail for a time. Congress can be bought to vote against what's in the best interest of those who sent them to congress, and use <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sandp-considering-first-downgrade-of-us-credit-rating/2011/08/05/gIQAqKeIxI_story.html">brinkmanship to wrest from the opposing party concessions it cannot obtain otherwise</a>, risking a potentially expensive downgrade in our national credit rating. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/congress-approval-rating-porn-polygamy_n_1098497.html">Despite its low approval rating</a>, Congress dictates its own morality, for which its constituents will, all too eagerly, set aside their specific morality as they return incumbents time and again to the office which they held, deluding themselves into thinking that it's not their Representative that's inept and crooked, but the other guy's.<br /><br />There's planned obsolescence, the use of psychology, and behavioral science, to seduce consumers, to trick them into buying--whether impromptu, or not; there're repairs that we don't need for which we're being charged, low interest rates for which we may qualify, but which aren't offered, loans we're said to qualify for, but which, in the end, will bankrupt us, or force our homes into foreclosure, product insurance which is too expensive, and useless, if we try to collect, health insurance with caps, and for which a preexisting condition may not be treated, advertisements, and commercials that don't live up to the hype, and a variety of other scams, designed to part us from our hard-earned money.<br /><br />Because morality comes in many shapes and configurations, and oftentimes dictated by a source, life comes with many caveats--buyer beware, test drive before you buy, read the contract, especially the small print, live within your means, know the return policy, don't remove the tag, and, get it in writing.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-54677741558228139662012-01-01T16:42:00.000-08:002012-01-01T17:18:57.111-08:00My Fair Lady<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZMQk-IhYpizlxA0uCENPG9eIxu43dY6kzfkc6U4wFbxr1adLAjqI-Hd9rTQE9MJyqbh_1JgAvZsjB-2A6DV8pEjrBCSH3YQxkosWUM7WbGvCsXXvGJkpS3MgQb6k5Rae73EmzpoD9qlx/s1600/my+fair+lady.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 380px; height: 350px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZMQk-IhYpizlxA0uCENPG9eIxu43dY6kzfkc6U4wFbxr1adLAjqI-Hd9rTQE9MJyqbh_1JgAvZsjB-2A6DV8pEjrBCSH3YQxkosWUM7WbGvCsXXvGJkpS3MgQb6k5Rae73EmzpoD9qlx/s400/my+fair+lady.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692781309347834258" /></a>For all the years I've lived, you'd think I be accustomed to it, but I still find human nature strange, if not bizarre.<br /><br />I'm still flummoxed by it.<br /><br />Sure, I'm aware that people can, and will, do certain things out of the ordinary--things for which I'm always scratching my head in total amazement, bewildered beyond words.<br /><br />And when they do, I'm taken aback, sometimes pleasantly when they offer a kindness (such as holding a door open), and sometimes exceedingly perplexed, especially when people behave in ways that are foreign to my sensibilities, and my expectations.<br /><br />One instance from my life will serve to illustrate this. I once worked for an organization that required that some of us meet at least once every other month to coordinate system-wide activities. We were a fairly good size group, perhaps as many as thirty or forty of us.<br /><br />We would meet at various locations throughout the system and the meeting organizer from each location was responsible for providing morning refreshments, and arranging for a restaurant that would accommodate our number for lunch, as it was customary for us all to eat at the same time, and in the same place.<br /><br />When the collective bill arrived, each would pay for what they had ordered, and, in a similar fashion, each would leave tips, in the middle of the table according to the generosity of each, or how each felt about the quality of the service.<br /><br />On one occasion, the tip was left as usual, a fairly large amount, as there were many in our number, and the service had been excellent.<br /><br />Most of us had filed out of the room where the lunch tables and chairs had been assembled, with me and another straggling behind, my companion straggler a well-respected, middle-aged woman, who had stopped suddenly to eye the pile of money that constituted our collective tip, left there by those who, after settling up, fully expected that the money that remained on the table would go to the restaurant staff that brought the food and drinks to our table.<br /><br />With out hesitation, my coworker reached into the pile and withdrew a handful of the bills deposited there. "That's too much money for a tip," she said simply, and stuffed the money into her coat pocket and walked out.<br /><br />I was stunned.<br /><br />Not only did she take an unwarranted initiative, she had, in effect, stole money, stealing it twice--first, from those who waited on the table, and then from those who had left the money as a tip.<br /><br /><em>Not only did my coworker not pay her fair share, she took from those who had</em>.<br /><br />Some corporations are like my coworker: Not only do they not pay their fair share (using tax loopholes, and tax dodges), they also take from those of us who do pay our fair share. (Click to enlarge chart.)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHOx7GCewoI44_Zsc7fr7Qjf6d-yqJwkJXf7UQzW9z7iH3eBd2GzxLE1qk2KJffWZQMssu5pOMvySvfxrcth8bs7hJyW4pvIu-TmeRbFQ_cLwwY4iCYUXz00VrYpKyUP1hT626G7Caqbmk/s1600/202247-lobbying.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 178px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHOx7GCewoI44_Zsc7fr7Qjf6d-yqJwkJXf7UQzW9z7iH3eBd2GzxLE1qk2KJffWZQMssu5pOMvySvfxrcth8bs7hJyW4pvIu-TmeRbFQ_cLwwY4iCYUXz00VrYpKyUP1hT626G7Caqbmk/s320/202247-lobbying.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692796608522058914" /></a>Here's how the headline reads from this <em>International Business Times</em> article: <b>30 Major U.S. Corporations Paid More to Lobby Congress Than Income Taxes, 2008-2010.</b> [1]<br /><br /><em>By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day -- including weekends -- during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections, according to a <a href="http://publicampaign.org/sites/default/files/ReportTaxDodgerLobbyingDec6.pdf">new report from the non-partisan Public Campaign</a>.<br /><br />The Public Campaign, a non-partisan research and advocacy organization, reports 30 major U.S. corporations spent more money lobbying Congress than they did on federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010.<br /><br />Despite a growing federal deficit and the widespread economic stability that has swept the U.S since 2008, the companies in question managed to accumulate profits of $164 billion between 2008 and 2010, while receiving combined tax rebates totaling almost $11 billion. Moreover, Public Campaign reports these companies spent about $476 million during the same period to lobby the U.S. Congress, as well as another $22 million on federal campaigns, while in some instances laying off employees and increasing executive compensation.</em><br /><br />This revelation is enough to make one take to the streets and start a blood-less revolution--a new movement. Perhaps we'll call it the <em>Occupy Wall Street</em> movement. Wait a minute: Don't we have such a movement already?<br /><br />Not only do we have such a movement, with each passing day, certain information comes to light to justify its existence, and to silence those critics who have done all that they could on behalf of these offending corporations to besmirch the movement.<br /><br />And if you believed that it is only the federal government that's being stiffed by these corporations, think again:<br /><br /><em>"Our report shows these corporations raked in a combined $1.33 trillion in profits in the last three years, and far too many have managed to shelter half or more of their profits from state taxes," Matthew Gardner, Executive Director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the report's co-author, said in a statement. "They're so busy avoiding taxes, it's no wonder they're not creating any new jobs."<br /><br />According to the report, titled "Corporate Tax Dodging in the Fifty States, 2008-2010," state corporate tax revenues have been declining for 20 years, due to the passage of multiple state tax subsidies, as well federal tax breaks that further reduce state corporate income tax revenues since states usually accept corporations' federal tax. Moreover, Gardner said multi-state corporations are constantly "devoting their money and legal firepower to coming up with tax avoidance schemes."<br /><br />Between 2008 and 2010, the 265 companies analyzed paid state income taxes equal to only 3 percent of their U.S. profits, half of the statutory 6.2 percent state corporate tax rate. As a result, these companies avoided a total of $42.7 billion in state corporate taxes over three years.</em><br /><br />What is the Republican position on all this? They believe that these supposed corporate job creators shouldn't have to pay more taxes (their fair share)--and, if they had their way, no taxes at all. But <em>are</em> these tax-avoiding corporations actually creating jobs?<br /><br /><em>Even while dodging most of their state and federal taxes between 2008 and 2010, Verizon (VZ) laid off more than 21,000 U.S. employees, while Boeing, Wells Fargo, General Electric, American Electric Power, and FedEx also let go of thousands of workers. Because companies can be reluctant to make data changes in U.S. employment available, Public Campaign reports it was not able to find up-to-date employment statistics for many of the companies evaluated in the report.<br /><br />Moreover, as it was laying off employees, General Electric gave their top executives a 27 percent pay raise between 2008 and 2010 -- executives received more than $75 million in compensation in 2010. Wells Fargo increased executive pay by a whopping 180 percent, upping executive compensation from $17.8 million in 2008 to almost $50 million in 2010, while Boeing, FedEx and American Electric Power also instituted lavish executive pay raises while laying off thousands of lower-level workers.<br /><br />In fact, 2010 year was a record year for executive compensation. The CEO's of some of the largest U.S. corporations made, on average, $11.4 million in 2010, about 343 times more than workers' median pay, according to an analysis by the American Federation of Labor, the widest gap between executive and employee pay in the world. CEO pay has skyrocketed since 1980, when chief executives were only paid about 42 times more than the average blue collar worker.</em><br /><br />Corporate compensation is symptomatic of the income disparity that's become a gaping hole in our economy, looking more like a chasm than a ditch. For better or for worse, corporations are now elevated to the status of gods, permitted to do pretty much as they choose with little or no interference from government regulators, and with politicians at all levels tripping over themselves to regale them with gifts of additional tax breaks, some of which come in the form of <em>negative effective tax rates</em>, tax cuts, and a potential tax reparation holiday:<br /><br /><em>A negative effective tax rate means that a company enjoyed a tax rebate, usually obtained by carrying back excess tax deductions and credits to an earlier year, thereby allowing the company to receive a tax rebate check, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.<br /><br />U.S. House Deputy Whip Kevin Brady, R-Tex., is currently making a last-ditch effort to include a corporate tax repatriation holiday on legislation to extend a payroll tax cut....While those in favor of the corporate tax repatriation provision -- which would give U.S. businesses a temporary tax break on as much as $1 trillion in overseas income -- insist it would boost the nation's sluggish economy and make it easier for corporations to create jobs, the Congressional Budget Office reports tax repatriation holidays ranks dead last among 13 policy options for creating jobs. The CBO estimates that over the 2012-2013 period, a repatriation holiday would, at best, create the equivalent of one-full time job for every $1 million in federal costs.</em><br /><br />My <em>Fair Lady</em>, my coworker of many years, not only was unfair, so, too, are many of the corporations that make this fair nation their home. Not only have these corporations transferred the tax burden of supporting this country to the average taxpayer, they have become, despite this, one of the chief recipients of government largess--the backing of the world's largest, and most powerful military, and the support of practically every politician in the country, many in the courts, and, at times, the executive branch.<br /><br />Unfortunately, these corporations have money to burn, and it's burning the pockets of legislators and judges, who, increasingly, are more anxious to fill their campaign coffers, than fill state and national treasuries.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/264481/20111209/30-major-u-s-corporations-paid-lobby.htm">[1]</a>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-91811186477359997952011-12-24T22:30:00.000-08:002011-12-25T11:54:58.084-08:00A Pavolvian Christmas Award<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTdQVaKXlC_2yXL6swhsyjMbvEbxBQfJen-XIFg1gZkPaANxLsitu8mZ_RrCvvHILlO4dajcNOP0FPNpQ4xNzFBBWV2mPHtkBCzAc71p0KAqkNtkxSLrHIOZ_OIwOlGfqL6vUTboHTH4va/s1600/WH_Card.gif"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 600px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 357px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689957367346417122" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTdQVaKXlC_2yXL6swhsyjMbvEbxBQfJen-XIFg1gZkPaANxLsitu8mZ_RrCvvHILlO4dajcNOP0FPNpQ4xNzFBBWV2mPHtkBCzAc71p0KAqkNtkxSLrHIOZ_OIwOlGfqL6vUTboHTH4va/s400/WH_Card.gif" /></a><br />One of the first things you learn in Psychology 101 is the "Pavlovian response mechanism," or the "Pavlovian conditioning response." Most of us have heard of this phenomenon whether we've taken a class in psychology or not.<br /><br />Just to refresh your memory--and mine as well--let's go over Pavlov's findings, and how he came to discover that certain behavior can be conditioned in dogs (and by extension humans) by manipulating actions and the environment.<br /><br /><em>"Ivan Petrovich Pavlov studied medicine in Russia and Germany, accepting posts in St. Petersburg as a professor in pharmacology and physiology. In 1889 Pavlov began experiments with dogs that proved their reflexes could be conditioned by external stimuli. Specifically, after they were conditioned by the ringing of a bell at feeding time, they would reflexively salivate upon hearing the bell, whether or not food was present. In 1904 Pavlov won the Nobel Prize for his work on digestive physiology, but he is most widely known today as an early influence on behavioral psychology."</em><br /><br />In my own life, I've seen the power of "conditioned reflex," but this reflex wasn't induced directly but indirectly. We say people "push our buttons," but what we're actually saying is this: At various times in our life, we have--directly or indirectly--allowed the actions, behaviors, words, or attitudes of others, to trigger certain prescribed responses.<br /><br />When the environment is suitable for such responses (certain stimuli is present), a prescribed behavior follows as certainly as night follows day.<br /><br />For most of us, these responses go unchallenged, and unexamined. Were we to scrutinize them we'd fine that many of what we call normal or natural responses to stimuli in our environment are really nothing more than "conditioned responses," prescribed, almost automatic, reactions that come to the fore when certain things, or events occur in our environment. We're a great deal like the salivating dog in Pavlov's experiment--reacting to the "ringing bell" of our own making, whether the bell is heard as words, behaviors, or other stimuli in our environment.<br /><br />But what does all of this have to do with Christmas? Believe it or not, this is a Christmas story, despite our delving into the mysteries of human and animal behavior, and our departure into the realm of human psychology.<br /><br />Just to prove it, let me make a casual observation. The lovely Christmas card that's appended to the top of this blog entry is the Obama family official White House Christmas card, featuring the beloved <em>First Dog </em>Bo. Would you believe over at Fox News the card has become the subject of some controversy, nothing short of a "Pavlovian conditioned reflex response"?<br /><br />In an article entitled, "No Christmas in White House Card," [1] the author--referencing the card--writes facetiously and humorously:<br /><br /><em>"It's all pretty non-controversial. Boring, even. Unless, of course, you're Fox News—in which case the bookshelf is filled with Lenin's B-sides, the Constitution is burning in the fireplace, Winston Churchill's bust is conspicuously absent, Bo has become dependent on the federal government for handouts, and the empty seat is a stirring reminder of President Obama's nonexistent leadership. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly."</em><br /><br />Several of Fox News' talking heads--even one as neatly coiffed as Sarah Palin's--weighed in on the Christmas card:<br /><br /><em>Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told Fox News & Commentary that she found the card to be a bit unusual.<br /><br />"It's odd," she said, wondering why the president's Christmas card highlights his dog instead of traditions like "family, faith and freedom."<br />...<br />Palin said the majority of Americans can appreciate the more traditional, "American foundational values illustrated and displayed on Christmas cards and on a Christmas tree."<br /><br />As for the Obama card, she replied, "It's just a different way of thinking coming out of the White House."</em><br /><br />As <em>Pavlovian conditioning responses </em>go, the Fox News one is comparatively a light-weight one, and not deserving of much attention other than to say that Fox and Company are in the GOP spirit this year--that is, Grinches On Parade.<br /><br />The response that won my <em>Pavlovian Christmas Award </em>this year is not the Fox News Pavlovian attack on Obama, but the public response to the new <em>Air Jordans</em> that went on sale just days before Christmas, creating some troubling scenes from coast to coast, as anxious shoppers do whatever it takes to buy this pricey footwear.<br /><br />You can watch some of it <a href="http://www.digtriad.com/video/1344392020001/1/New-Air-Jordans-Cause-Frenzy-At-Stores">here"</a>, but videos aren't in short supply if you have the time to <em>Bing</em> or <em>Google</em> them.<br /><br />In this season that celebrates the birth of Jesus, Joy, Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men, we find our perennial villain, "conditioned response," lurking among Christmas decorations, scores of presents, festive colors, fake Santas, and merry carolers ready to pounce upon unsuspecting Christmas shoppers at the first sign that something they've been conditioned to do--"shop till they drop, and buy till they die"--reaches a fever pitch when items, as generally desirable as a pair of new Air Jordans, are placed within their immediate reach.<br /><br />We have seen this buying craze with other items, and we have become witness to yet another soul-numbing impulse compliments of capitalism and the crass commercialism that undergirds it. And--can we say honestly--we want to share this "blessing" of the <em>American Way </em>with the rest of the world?<br /><br /><em>Are we sure?</em><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/fox-sarah-palin-freaks-out-white-house-christmas-card">[1]</a>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-26039989281422908762011-12-06T14:50:00.001-08:002011-12-07T17:13:42.766-08:00Kingsize Rhetoric and New Government<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_mpi16TBI70J5EGDdnZbaG_rERAcxvrsK2uPZfepHLwKKxRRvZh_PuD1uc0TLQD7SaCI1C2sj7_NQ0dn-PjtdZZws0Fn7L8vqECPDOhoBMFoFPTsB1lrke1FAy2OzulYBknSzRYm8q-Hm/s1600/a_larry_king_special_-_a_dinner_with_the_kings.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683263464947387778" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_mpi16TBI70J5EGDdnZbaG_rERAcxvrsK2uPZfepHLwKKxRRvZh_PuD1uc0TLQD7SaCI1C2sj7_NQ0dn-PjtdZZws0Fn7L8vqECPDOhoBMFoFPTsB1lrke1FAy2OzulYBknSzRYm8q-Hm/s400/a_larry_king_special_-_a_dinner_with_the_kings.jpg" /></a><br />On Sunday night, in almost the same timeslot as Sunday Night Football, Larry King aired a Special on CNN. It was called<em> "A Dinner with the Kings"</em>. Larry King and his wife hosted the event, and Wolfgang Puck plied his culinary skills in the creation a multi-course meal fit for Kings.<br /><br />If you didn't have the good fortune of watching the special, you can sample some of the fare <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/30/preview-cnn-international-special-programming-information-a-larry-king-special-a-dinner-with-the-kings/">here</a>.<br /><br />Many of the invited guests are arguably kings in their own right, having achieved crowning successes in their respective fields, from sports to television, from the world of fashion, music, and the Internet, to television host.<br /><br />Tyra Banks, Shaquille O'Neal, Quincy Jones, Russell Brand, Seth MacFarlane, Jack Dorsey, Conan O'Brien--all royal standouts in their various industries, were seated, not around a <em>Round Table</em>, but an oblong one.<br /><br />The guests responded to questions that Larry passed to them, first to one, and then to another, as one would pass a dish laden with food--after helping oneself--from one person to another.<br /><br />Of the several questions that were passed from guest to guest, one, perhaps more than others, left a bitter taste in the mouth, and contributed to a likely case of indigestion.<br /><br />Larry asked one guest: "What gets you angry?"<br /><br />It was Conan O'Brien's answer to the question that would have had me reaching for a handful of Tums, or an Alka-Seltzer, had I been there:<br /><br /><em>"I think entitlements is my least favorite. I can't stand it when people think that they're entitled to something. I think our culture is very entitled. I honestly don't think I'm entitled to anything. I come from a culture where you get what you can...and you're grateful for it--but I don't think I deserve anything...we [his family] didn't feel any entitlement. I think in America there's a lot of I'm owed this and this."</em><br /><br />O'Brien's statement came from a classic Republican/conservative recipe, a potluck dish secreted in to compete with a dish from one of the world's greatest chefs, Wolfgang Puck.<br /><br />After the "entitlement" statement, O'Brien revealed: His mother became a lawyer, and his father was successful in his own right. It's easy to slam "entitlements" when your life has had the auspicious beginning that a upper-class upbringing can afford.<br /><br />Larry King with a followup question asked: "Where does this come from [this sense of entitlement]?"<br /><br />O'Brien responded: "I don't know where that comes from."<br /><br />As the camera panned them, Tyra Banks and Shaquille O'Neal appeared visibly uncomfortable with the subject, perhaps prompting Larry King, after a couple of more responses from his dinner guests, to quickly changed the subject.<br /><br />But not before Russell Brand garnished the topic with a biting remark of his own, interpreting "entitlements" as it may relate to consumerism, and not as it may relate to people's expectations from the government and others in society. Harking back to the question, "Where does this come from [this sense of entitlement]? he said:<br /><br /><em>"I don't know where that comes from...because you're told that you're nothing unless you can consume, unless you can purchase. People see these products and they want them. People are being accidentally marketed to who can't afford the products that they're being sold, they're being told they should have, that they deserve, because you're working, just do it....And there's been a void created, a spiritual void."</em><br /><br />Not to be outdone, Seth MacFarlane added a pungent spice of his own to the evening's meal: It comes from "every politician on the planet saying, 'You know what, you're getting screwed, you deserve more, how are you, why are you, tolerating this.'"<br /><br />Now, I'm willing to admit: O'Brien and MacFarlane may not have had the <em>Arab Spring </em>or the various <em>Occupy Movements </em>and their foreign supporters in mind when they made these statements, perhaps sprinkling a bit too much hot sauce on them, but neither did they answer the question that the host posed:<br /><br /><strong><em>"Where does this come from [this sense of entitlement]?"</em></strong><br /><br />The term, "entitlement," has various definitions:<blockquote><br />1. The act or process of entitling.<br />2. The state of being entitled.<br />3. A government program that guarantees and provides benefits to a particular group: "fights . . . to preserve victories won a generation ago, like the Medicaid entitlement for the poor" (Jason DeParle).</blockquote>The last definition<a href="http://redeyesfrontpage.blogspot.com/"> Red Eye</a> would refer to as "earned benefits," and rightfully so, as the term "entitlement" has been muddied by the likes of <a href="http://diasporablack.blogspot.com/2011/12/whats-in-name.html">Frank Luntz</a>.<br /><br />Rather than argue whether a "sense of entitlement" is prevalent throughout the world (which is absurd), or whether the Occupy Movement or the Arab Spring, or the unrest we see in England, or Greece, is symptomatic of this (which it's not), let me answer the question that the host, Larry King, or his several guests failed to answer to my satisfaction.<br /><br />My answer will focus on "entitlement" as it pertains to this country, and not as it may be considered in other parts of the world.<br /><br />To the question--<strong><em>"Where does this come from [this sense of entitlement]?"</em></strong>--I have this answer: It comes from our <em>Declaration of Independence </em>and our <em>U.S. Constitution</em>. Entitlements, loosely defined, are <em>Rights</em>, pure and simple. Entitlements are what one has a right to expect from a government that has established itself as sovereign over the lives of those that fall within the sphere of its governance.<br /><br /><em>"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." </em><br /><br />Over the past several decades, our federal and state governments have become "destructive of these ends," and a growing number of the people (especially those in the Occupy Movement) are exercising their rights--entitlements afforded them by their Constitution--"the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government," one that hasn't been corrupted by special-interest money.<br /><br />And there are other Rights, entitlements, at the people's disposal. They're called the Bill of Rights:<blockquote><br />Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition<br />Right to keep and bear arms<br />Conditions for quarters of soldiers<br />Right of search and seizure regulated<br />Provisions concerning prosecution<br />Right to a speedy trial, witnesses, etc.<br />Right to a trial by jury<br />Excessive bail, cruel punishment<br />Rule of construction of Constitution<br />Rights of the States under Constitution [1]<br /></blockquote>Over a Wolfgang Puck meal, Conan O'Brien assured us that he didn't feel entitled: "I honestly don't think I'm entitled to anything."<br /><br /><em>Well I do!</em> And I'm not reticent to say so.<br /><br />I'm entitled to the social contract that was drawn before I was born, one that I didn't have a hand in writing, but which has governed my actions, and those of many of my fellow Americans since its inception--the <em>United States Constitution</em>.<br /><br /><em><strong>Because I pay taxes</strong>, </em>I'm entitled to a government that actually works for the people and not corporate special interests that have more legislators and judges on their payroll, and in their pocket, than did Al Capone at the height of his infamy.<br /><br /><strong><em>Because I vote</em></strong>, as a civically-minded member of my city, state, and nation, I'm entitled to have my vote count and not suppressed; I'm entitled to representatives--those who I helped elect to office--who will do their utmost to represent me and other constituents to the best of their ability, putting in more time to carry out the people's business than their own.<br /><br /><strong><strong>Because I live in the country in which I pay taxes</strong>, </strong>I'm entitled to a livable environment--clean air and clean water--and regulatory agencies that actually take steps to make sure that my air is breathable, and my water potable, and a Congress that stands with me against corporate polluters, rather than with them, patiently waiting for just the perfect moment to dismantle them and scuttle their live-saving mission.<br /><br /><em><strong>Because I worked to become a contributing member of my community</strong>, </em>I'm entitled to a government that works to be a contributing force in the lives of its many constituents, by assuring "that We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal [by affirming equal rights for all, regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual preference], that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life [by making health-care universal, and available to all], Liberty [by insisting that no one is above the law, and that all participate in the defense of this country, and help pay for the cost, regardless of social status] and the pursuit of Happiness [by providing opportunities to all, using a criterion of inclusion, rather than exclusion]. [2]<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>We may never achieve the status of kingliness in this lifetime that would satisfy Larry King's criterion sufficiently to be invited to his home for a royal dinner, or partake of a seven-course dinner created by the incomparable chef, Wolfgang Puck, but we can all do our part to elevate our government so that it is self-correcting, continuously monitoring and rectifying an errant system which is more vested in promoting social, political, and income inequality, where a few arrogate to themselves through their wealth, the people's power, than standing with the 99 percent. </div><div><br /></div><div>When government fails the people, we the people are entitled by history, and by duty, "<em>to institute <b>new Government</b>, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to [what] shall seem most likely to effect [our] Safety and Happiness." </em></div><div><br /></div><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ratical.com/co-globalize/BillOfRights.html">[1]</a> Read more about your Bill of Rights.<br /><br /><a href="http://grannystandingfortruth.blogspot.com/2011/12/discrimination-in-presidential-pardons.html">[2]</a> See GrannyStandingForTruth latest blog entryBlack Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-66372516634240322522011-12-01T20:51:00.000-08:002011-12-02T03:49:25.549-08:00What's in a Name?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqTmbniPq-8TOcvcSv6kIRsXne9Qc0lsrhWmfK0vi6HQwBkmGBIYvR_4GKjm8z_3S95_ASYq5NfYoQAll7qBqGp_bmKdzSwapRXH0XlpnYoYt7SQb1t7aUK85B1Wn4QMuauGFSPD0OgpYn/s1600/Protesters-form-a-wall-of-signs-at-the-Occupy-Portland-camp-in-downtown-Portland-Oregon.-AP.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqTmbniPq-8TOcvcSv6kIRsXne9Qc0lsrhWmfK0vi6HQwBkmGBIYvR_4GKjm8z_3S95_ASYq5NfYoQAll7qBqGp_bmKdzSwapRXH0XlpnYoYt7SQb1t7aUK85B1Wn4QMuauGFSPD0OgpYn/s400/Protesters-form-a-wall-of-signs-at-the-Occupy-Portland-camp-in-downtown-Portland-Oregon.-AP.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5681414775730803746" /></a><br />It's hard to admit, but I never really cared all that much for my name. I honor it because the one who named me is someone I dearly love and cherish. Over the years, I have taken on nicknames, and <em>nom de plumes</em> that I believe represent who I am more accurately than my given name.<br /><br />I suspect that I'm not alone. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that there's been more legal name changes, more uses of substitute names, aliases, and sobriquets, than there are actual baby names in books designed to help you give your newborn the perfect name in combination with a given surname.<br /><br />Shakespeare may have been the first to ask the question, using the voice of Juliet in his tragedy, Romeo and Juliet: <em>"What's in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet."</em><br /><br />Nevertheless, there's one who may disagree with Shakespeare. One who has built a career on changing the names of things, guaranteeing that even the sweet smell of a rose may lose its attractive fragrance, if only an appropriate name may be found, and applied.<br /><br /><em>That someone is Frank Luntz, political consultant and pollster</em>.<br /><br />Wikipedia says in part the following about Luntz in a brief bio:<br /><br /><em>Luntz's specialty is “testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.”...<br /><br />Luntz frequently tests word and phrase choices using focus groups and interviews. His stated purpose in this is the goal of causing audiences to react based on emotion. "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think." "If I respond to you quietly, the viewer at home is going to have a different reaction than if I respond to you with emotion and with passion and I wave my arms around. Somebody like this is an intellectual; somebody like this is a freak."</em><br /><br />If you conclude from this that Luntz' goal is to shape the perception of others using the persuasive power of words that are charged with just the right emotions, and invoking just the right imagery, you'd be right. Just so that no one will mistake his aim, Luntz gives this description of his methodology:<br /><br /><em>Luntz discussed his use of the term, "energy exploration" (oil drilling). His research on the matter involved showing people a picture of current oil drilling and asking if in the picture it "looks like exploration or drilling." He said that 90 percent of the people he spoke to said it looked like exploring. "Therefore I'd argue that it is a more appropriate way to communicate." He went on to say "if the public says after looking at the pictures, that doesn't look like my definition of drilling—it looks like my definition of exploring—then don't you think we should be calling it what people see it to be, rather than adding a political aspect to it all?" Terry Gross responded: "Should we be calling it what it actually is, as opposed to what somebody thinks it might be? The difference between exploration and actually getting out the oil—they're two different things, aren't they?"</em><br /><br />Recently, Luntz made headlines again, this time before the Republican Governors Association, and on the subject of the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS):<br /><br /><em>The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?<br /><br />"I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation's foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. "They're having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism."<br /><br />Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about "income inequality" and "paying your fair share."<br /><br />Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do's and don'ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />1. Don't say 'capitalism.'</span><br />"I'm trying to get that word removed and we're replacing it with either 'economic freedom' or 'free market,' " Luntz said. "The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we're seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we've got a problem."<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />2. Don't say that the government 'taxes the rich.'</span> Instead, tell them that the government 'takes from the rich.'<br />"If you talk about raising taxes on the rich," the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But "if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes."<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the 'middle class.'</span> Call them 'hardworking taxpayers.'<br />"They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the 'middle class' and the public will say, I'm not sure about that. But defending 'hardworking taxpayers' and Republicans have the advantage."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">4. Don't talk about 'jobs.' Talk about 'careers.'</span><br />"Everyone in this room talks about 'jobs,'" Luntz said. "Watch this."<br />He then asked everyone to raise their hand if they want a "job." Few hands went up. Then he asked who wants a "career." Almost every hand was raised.<br />"So why are we talking about jobs?"<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">5. Don't say 'government spending.'</span> Call it 'waste.'<br />"It's not about 'government spending.' It's about 'waste.' That's what makes people angry."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">6. Don't ever say you're willing to 'compromise.'</span><br />"If you talk about 'compromise,' they'll say you're selling out. Your side doesn't want you to 'compromise.' What you use in that to replace it with is 'cooperation.' It means the same thing. But cooperation means you stick to your principles but still get the job done. Compromise says that you're selling out those principles."<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: 'I get it.'</span><br />"First off, here are three words for you all: 'I get it.' . . . 'I get that you're angry. I get that you've seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system."<br />Then, he instructed, offer Republican solutions to the problem.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8. Out: 'Entrepreneur.' In: 'Job creator.'</span><br />Use the phrases "small business owners" and "job creators" instead of "entrepreneurs" and "innovators."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9. Don't ever ask anyone to 'sacrifice.'</span><br />"There isn't an American today in November of 2011 who doesn't think they've already sacrificed. If you tell them you want them to 'sacrifice,' they're going to be be pretty angry at you. You talk about how 'we're all in this together.' We either succeed together or we fail together."<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />10. Always blame Washington.</span><br />Tell them, "You shouldn't be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it's the policies over the past few years that have created this problem."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">BONUS:<br />Don't say 'bonus!'</span><br />Luntz advised that if they give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a "bonus."<br />"If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you're going to make people angry. It's 'pay for performance.'"</em><br /><br />Christians are told that the devil is always busy, but I suspect that the devil has nothing on Republicans. They never seem to rest, never seem to take a break from the battle, continually devising ways to defeat their mortal enemy--Democrats.<br /><br />It could be that Democrats are strategizing to the same extent as Republicans, deploying some of the same undermining, deceptive practices, but I doubt it.<br /><br />Republicans are a breed apart, calculating and devious to a flaw, not reticent to do whatever it takes to maintain a political edge--and no detail is too small to exploit, whether it's descending upon liberal blogs with a swarm of anonymous locusts to attack liberals and the president, coordinating their attacks with the use of <a href="http://www.diasporablack.blogspot.com/2011/07/alec-whats-in-name.html">ALEC</a>, or attempting to enact voter suppression laws, "[s]weeping new laws — including an end to same-day registration and cuts to early voting — could disenfranchise millions of voters in 2012."[1]<br /><br />If we're to defeat a Republican take over of this country, we need to know the party's methods, and work harder than they do to impose a political ideology that works for the 99 percent as well as the 1 percent.<br /><br />You can be sure: Republicans are willing to use legislation, our language, and our emotions--and not so much our intellect--to achieve their ends. We don't have to operate in the same fashion as they do, but we do have to be willing to expose their tactics, and deploy a counterattack to their attacks, lest the whole nation ends up in an oversize body bag. <br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ajc.com/opinion/suppressing-vote-is-not-1248537.html">[1]</a>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-43205120598967206592011-11-25T19:12:00.000-08:002011-11-30T13:07:33.137-08:00Black-eye Friday?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkzA4bGW6RsF_crEHscu4ZYc8fl1G3hNd7ililXCKJXX0zRo7rORm39xbvrNEk-8VhmQc873uvdXbSb6sdnUwkXHYBi-bOf-Y3yiTbbwYy74_BFwEm6ktf7owsSzuc81BTdQnI_k7evQB5/s1600/1123-OCCUPY-COSTS-SUE_full_600.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679157050155299666" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkzA4bGW6RsF_crEHscu4ZYc8fl1G3hNd7ililXCKJXX0zRo7rORm39xbvrNEk-8VhmQc873uvdXbSb6sdnUwkXHYBi-bOf-Y3yiTbbwYy74_BFwEm6ktf7owsSzuc81BTdQnI_k7evQB5/s320/1123-OCCUPY-COSTS-SUE_full_600.jpg" /></a>Have big retail stores found a way to curb the enthusiasm of thousands of Occupy Movement protesters who may have plans in the making to disrupt what is usually considered their blackest day of the year--Black Friday?<br /><br />Unfortunately, it seems that way.<br /><br />With the possibility of business-disrupting protests becoming a growing reality, already these big retailers may be mobilizing an army of lawyers to help protect their bottom line, and send a chilling message to those who may be contemplating sit-ins and other protest tactics to bring attention to how corporations--multinational and otherwise--have conspired with congress to keep the people of this nation captive to crass commercialism and to the might of their congress-corrupting dollars.<br /><br />In an article titled, <b>"Could Occupy Wall Street protesters be sued for Black Friday tactic?"</b> the dreary prospect is raised, and it offers those who would love to see an ignominious end to the movement yet another weapon--besides police in riot gear, armed with rubber bullets, gas canisters and pepper spray--with which to deploy to defeat this inconvenient movement.<br /><br /><em>They can also bring lawsuits seeking damages, says John Banzhaf, a legal expert who teaches a class called "Torts R Us.”<br /><br />Yes, Occupy protesters contemplating illegally squatting in “publicly traded” stores such as Neiman Marcus and Wal-Mart on Black Friday, might want to check to see if the stores are litigious before sitting down in front of a pallet of children’s toys. If the store owner is so inclined, lawsuits seeking damages could be in order.<br /><br />Yes, a lawsuit seeking thousands of dollars could be filed, says Mr. Banzhaf, who has been called “a legal flamethrower” and teaches at George Washington University Law School.<br /><br />“It could be a deterrent,” he says. “No one wants to have a huge judgment hanging over one’s head, you can be asked embarrassing questions in court – no one wants to go through that.”<br /><br />He says the lawsuits can be aimed at a group, if they are organized, or even an individual who can be sued for the total amount of damages. If the damages are intentional, he says, a court could impose punitive damages as well. “Punitive damages are usually more than ordinary damages and that would act like a deterrent as well,” he says.<br /><br />Banzhaf says he doesn’t know of any lawsuits brought against protesters so far, but he thinks they could eventually happen.<br /><br />“It will only take one lawyer who gets stuck in an illegal demonstration and suffers a business loss,” says Banzhaf. “Or, perhaps some people can’t get into an office because protesters are blocking the way [and] decide they want to do something about it.”<br /><br />Banzhaf, who says he is a big proponent of First Amendment rights, says the lawsuits would only deal with illegal activities. “At a university, you have a right to sit-in, to write, to walk around – but not to block people from coming into classrooms.”</em><br /><br />One thing that characterizes the Occupy Movement, and has harried its detractors from the very beginning, is that it's near impossible to identify its leadership. As long as the movement remains amorphous (once seen as a negative, but now a blessing), and without discernible leaders, it minimizes its chances of facing litigation from those entities it would highlight for promoting egregious acts against the public good.<br /><br />The movement would do well to elicit the help of other protest groups--those, for example, seeking to protect the environment from polluters who would would rape it for profit. The ACLU may be persuaded to step in as needed, as well as other sympathizers in the legal community, individuals and well as legal agencies with the necessary expertise to advise and represent the protesters.<br /><br />For all its potential to derail the movement, litigation may not be the magic bullet to the head of the movement that some detractors may be pinning their hopes on.<br /><br /><em>Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, thinks Banzhaf’s idea is “a real stretch.”<br /><br />Mr. Ratner, who has acted as a legal observer for the Occupy movement, says civil disobedience has been a hallmark of protest in the country practically since the Revolutionary War. During the civil rights era, Americans sat in at Woolworth’s lunch counters to protest discrimination. Animal rights activists have been known to participate in civil disobedience.<br /><br />“I would consider this a misuse of a lawyer’s time and a misunderstanding of protest in this country,” says Ratner.</em> Read the complete article <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1123/Could-Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-be-sued-for-Black-Friday-tactic">here</a>.<br /><br />Recently, we saw what the threat of law suits can do in certain cases, practically silencing the women accusing Cain of sexual harassment, notwithstanding the credibility of their claims:<br /><br /><em>In general, [Atlanta attorney Lin Wood hired by Cain]...said anyone considering making public accusations of wrongdoing against another person should carefully consider the wisdom and potential consequences in taking such action.<br /><br />"<b>Anyone should think twice before you take that type of action</b>," Wood said. "And I think it's particularly true when you are making serious accusations against someone running for president of the United States, but I think it's equally true if you are making those accusations against your next door neighbor."<br /><br />Asked to respond to Wood's "think twice" comment, Kraushaar's lawyer, Bennett, said: "I have not heard his statement, but statements of that nature could intimidate or discourage women from reporting sexual harassment."</em><br /><br />And the ploy seemed to have worked: "The two public accusers — Bialek and Karen Kraushaar — had planned to hold a joint press conference, but on Thursday Kraushaar decided against it."<br /><br />It's my hope that no matter what challenges are thrown their way, the <em>Occupy Movement</em> will remain amorphous enough, flexible enough, and nimble enough (which in hindsight seems more by design than happenstance), to morph into whatever form necessary so that the movement will continue to be a thorn in the side of those who have been a thorn in our side for years.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-46677031004566193252011-11-24T22:58:00.001-08:002011-11-25T01:42:04.953-08:00The Pappafication of the Presidency<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoXiSbUyvLcsRaKo4uVWCVUYnvSp5qo9rQxsuh7tp6OUebqwbEAbMIwjOA5-3cbh4jokyBQzeMGS8VUczjdyBa24NLxpZiQ_pDt2GDGQG2LC5q_rQzyyx5ueMDkXDE3krciPwM9p7KfGA3/s1600/whip_post.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 187px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoXiSbUyvLcsRaKo4uVWCVUYnvSp5qo9rQxsuh7tp6OUebqwbEAbMIwjOA5-3cbh4jokyBQzeMGS8VUczjdyBa24NLxpZiQ_pDt2GDGQG2LC5q_rQzyyx5ueMDkXDE3krciPwM9p7KfGA3/s400/whip_post.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678836805789192034" /></a>In a recent NPR interview, David Frum, a former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, (hat tip to Greg L at http://theafricanamericanclarioncall.com/) said the following about President Obama:<br /><br /><em>"The president is overwhelm. I don't think he's the man for the job.<br /><br />"But He's not leading the country on the path of socialist ruin as matter of policy and intention. And the danger of thinking so--that's a very powerful way to mobilize followers and raise money...but it also traps you. Because when you mobilize people to that extent, the leaders find themselves unable to lead. <br /><br />And we saw that happen most dramatically this summer with the crisis over the debt ceiling, where suddenly Republicans who desperately wanted to make a deal, who understood the consequences, they were terrified, they wanted a deal and they couldn't--because they had a wall of people behind them that would not allow them to step back."</em><br /><br /><b>"We need a strong and forceful president."</b><br /><br />I hear this criticism of the president crop up again and again. Looking back over the several previous White House administrations--Republican and Democratic--the criticism appears almost gratuitous, something that is said (almost casually) if you're a Republican, and you wish to keep your membership in the Republican party in good standing.<br /><br />We mustn't forget: Bush <b>I</b> was slammed for lack of presidential fortitude: He was excoriated severely for not invading Iraq during Desert Storm, and deposing Saddam Hussien. Bill Clinton surrendered liberal values to appease a Republican congress, and mostly gave them what they wanted in order to appear "strong and forceful." We know, too, that his presidency, elevated by hindsight, was hamstrung by a sex scandal, one that Republicans exploited all the way to an impeachment. George W.Bush showed his Texas cowboy strength and force by embroiling this nation in two wars, squandering a huge budget surplus and enacting tax cuts in a time of war--bold but foolish actions that precipitated the huge federal deficits that're hounding the nation now.<br /><br />I heard this criticism again when the congressional Supercommittee failed to reach consensus on a debt-reduction package. It as though the president is expected to take each member of the committee behind the woodshed and give them a good thrashing until they relent and give him what he wants. I call this the <em>papafication of the presidency</em>--where the president, to be considered an effective leader, must find a way or ways to coerce the legislation that's required from a fractious congress, or be considered weak and lacking force.<br /><br />Without a willing congress, nothing gets done in Washington. What this president needed in order to be seen as "strong and forceful" was to know the dirt on each Republican in congress, and the will to expose it if each refused to give him what he wanted. Anything short of that, we have what we have now--stalemates, and obstructionism.<br /><br />I agree that the "president is overwhelm." With what Obama inherited from George Bush, it would have been a daunting task for any president to overcome, especially when Republicans in congress are more interested in helping the president "fail" than succeed, doing nothing to stem unemployment, or boosting the economy, in hopes that their inaction will help them achieve their end.<br /><br />With patriotism like that, one thing is clear: We're fighting the wrong "war on terror." The terror with which this nation must contend is inflicted from the Right, and from within the hallowed halls of congress. The Republican Party has done more to damage this country economically than has bin Laden and his merry band of jihadists. <br /><br />The Occupy Wall Street Movement is a response to this "terrorism," and it's ironic that the full weight of our nation's police forces has been brought to bear to squash it. It's also telling that a large segment of this society is more supportive of the terrorism on the Right than in championing the efforts of OWS to bring this terrorism to an end.<br /><br />Frum's statement above clearly places the lack of leadership squarely at the feet of Republicans. Their entrenchment--which, by the way, is of their own making--may garner party support, but it also paralyzes their will, and capacity, to do more than that.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-76956125991596414782011-10-31T15:05:00.000-07:002011-10-31T15:52:36.591-07:00The Disappearing Act!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKZrACuEKZ4usw67lKX3S6u4jOpYTg8yWM8COEpJ2Kdox3YtRn4JBm9SYTYAlKtbGwydM0rn9J1sDyWhnXYgwQ8fx9hLSdCDfBkEG2cVpqVeHZ3f6G1PTGTjqGDDN7hTfx2QOGjINZ3y-2/s1600/disappearing-act-the-disappearing-act.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKZrACuEKZ4usw67lKX3S6u4jOpYTg8yWM8COEpJ2Kdox3YtRn4JBm9SYTYAlKtbGwydM0rn9J1sDyWhnXYgwQ8fx9hLSdCDfBkEG2cVpqVeHZ3f6G1PTGTjqGDDN7hTfx2QOGjINZ3y-2/s320/disappearing-act-the-disappearing-act.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669775293282704354" /></a>"Now you see them, now you don't."<br /><br />Illusionists, such as David Copperfield, Criss Angel, and others, have thrilled us for years with their uncanny feats of magic, making objects disappear that defy logic and commonsense--in the case of Copperfield, the Statue of Liberty. But compared to the <em>disappearing act</em> yet to come, these illusionists have nothing on Life's greatest illusionist, <em>Father Time</em>.<br /><br />For all of Father Time's illusionist skills, the Disappearing Act won't take place all at once, engulfed within a large cloud of gray smoke for effect, but gradually over a few decades--actually around A.D. 2041, says the Census Bureau.<br /><br />At that time, this nation's white majority will have disappeared, and, for the first time in a long time, assume a <em>minority status</em>.<br /><br />And not everyone is pleased with this Disappearing Act, and not everyone is clapping and cheering for what Father Time is about to wrought, chief among them, Patrick J. Buchanan, Republican.<br /><br />To show his displeasure, Buchanan wrote a review of the coming A.D. 2041 event, writing it long before the event (the disappearing act) has had a chance to crystallize in the record books, and long before it has had a chance to register in the hearts and minds of the Americans of that day.<br /><br />Back in June of this year, I advanced a thesis--one that I knew would require a book-length treatment if I were to substantiate my position--in the comment section of my blog. I'm going restate it here, and ask that you take a bite of it, roll it around on your tongue, and tell me if it has the taste of authenticity.<br /><br />But before I do that, let's read a little from Buchanan's review on the Disappearing Act facing white America--an eventuality which Buchanan is now dreading, despite the prediction that it will occur years in the future. He titles his observations simply, <b><span class="Apple-style-span">.A.D. 2041 -- End of White America? </span></b><br /><br /><em>"John Hope Franklin, the famed black historian at Duke University, once told the incoming freshmen, "The new America in the 21st century will be primarily non-white, a place George Washington would not recognize."<br /><br />In his June 1998 commencement address at Portland State, President Clinton affirmed it: "In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States." The graduates cheered.<br /><br />The Census Bureau has now fixed at 2041 the year when whites become a minority in a country where the Founding Fathers had restricted citizenship to "free white persons" of "good moral character."<br /><br />With publication today of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" this writer takes up what this portends. And while many on the left are enthusiastic about relegating the America of Eisenhower and JFK to a reactionary past, I concur with the late Clare Boothe Luce.<br /><br />In this world, she said, there are optimists and pessimists.<br /><br />"The pessimists are better informed."</em><br /><br />Clever statement from Pat, sounding the alarm, but what, if anything, can be done to offset the inevitability of the white Disappearing Act? You'd think not much, given the coming population shift, and the ensuing "<em>Incredible Shrinking White Population</em>." But then you'd be wrong. That's where my <i>thesis</i> comes in. I've used every skill and my disposal, my intuition, and my reasoning, to reveal a plot to keep power--especially political power--in the hands of whites.<br /><br />Next, Buchanan prepares his readers for the consequences of a white Disappearing Act, and what it means for our national economic superiority:<br /><br /><em>First, the end of a national Republican Party that routinely gets 90 percent of its presidential votes from white America.<br /><br />California is the harbinger of what is to come.<br /><br />Carried by Richard Nixon in all five presidential elections when he was on the ticket and by Ronald Reagan all four times he ran, California, where whites are now a shrinking minority, is a state where the GOP faces extinction. John McCain's share of the California vote was down to the Barry Goldwater level of 1964.<br /><br />When Texas, where two-thirds of the newborns and half the schoolchildren are Hispanic, goes the way of California, it is the end for the GOP. Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, also critical to any victorious GOP coalition, are Hispanicizing as rapidly as Texas.<br /><br />In every presidential election since Bush I in 1992, Hispanics have given 60-70 percent of their votes to the Democratic ticket.<br /><br />For Hispanics, largely poor and working class, are beneficiaries of a cornucopia of government goods - from free education to food stamps to free health care. Few pay federal income taxes.<br /><br />Why would they not vote for the Party of Government?<br /><br />Second, the economic crisis of California, brought on by an outflow of taxpayers and a huge influx of tax consumers - i.e., millions of immigrants, legal and illegal - will be mirrored nationally.<br /><br />For though the majority of immigrants and illegals comes to work, and work hard, most now come from Third World countries and do not bring the academic or professional skills of European-Americans.<br /><br />Third, the decline in academic test scores here at home and in international competition is likely to continue, as more and more of the children taking those tests will be African-American and Hispanic. For though we have spent trillions over four decades, we have failed to close the racial gap in education. White and Asian children continue to outscore black and Hispanic children.<br /><br />Can the test-score gap be closed? With the Hispanic illegitimacy rate at 51 percent and the black rate having risen to 71 percent, how can their children conceivably arrive at school ready to compete?<br /><br />Should this continue for three decades, what will it mean for America if Asians and whites occupy the knowledge-industry jobs, while scores of millions of black and Hispanic workers are relegated to low-paying service-sector jobs? Will that make for social tranquility?<br /><br />Affirmative action is one answer. But this is already causing a severe backlash, and the reason is obvious.<br /><br />When affirmative action was first imposed, whites outnumbered blacks nine to one. The burden of reverse discrimination on the white community was thus relatively light. Today, however, not only blacks, but Hispanics and women - two-thirds of the entire population - qualify for affirmative action in hiring and school admissions.<br /><br />And the burden falls almost entirely on white males, who are one-third of the country but three-fourths of the dead and wounded coming back from Afghanistan.</em><br /><br />No where does Pat mention the <em>Dream Act</em>, which Republicans detest, and its power to close the education gap that he says exists between Latinos and whites. He suggests, further, that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have served primarily to reduce a large number of an essential class of whites, specifically white males, upon which this country will someday depend to fill its "knowledge-industry jobs."<br /><br />For the sake of this country's future, it would have been better, he seems to say, if Latinos and blacks were the primary fighters in those wars, as they're more expendable than white males.<br /><br />How close can you come, if you're Pat Buchanan, to saying that blacks and Latinos are intellectually inferior to Asians and whites, without crossing that line?<br /><br />Pat had a few more things to say, or rather, lament over:<br /><br /><em>Can Western civilization survive the passing of the European peoples whose ancestors created it and their replacement by Third World immigrants? Probably not, for the new arrivals seem uninterested in preserving the old culture they have found.<br /><br />Those who hold the white race responsible for the mortal sins of mankind - slavery, racism, imperialism, genocide - may welcome its departure from history.<br /><br />Those who believe that the civilization that came out of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome and London to be the crowning achievement of mankind will mourn its passing.</em> <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/patrick-j-buchanan/ad-2041-end-white-america">Read more here</a>.<br /><br />Come now, Pat: Are you saying that we should forgive the "sins" of European people, because of what they built ("the crowning achievement of mankind"), and not condemn them for the harsh and brutal tactics that were used to erect these "crowning achievements"?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">That the end justified the means?</span><br /><br />Here's my contention: Plans are in the making to assure that, with the "passing of the European peoples," it will be business as usual in this country, that the torch of power and control will be passed forward, as it has for centuries, to its supposed rightful owners--<em>European people</em>.<br /><br />From one of my favorite movies, <em>Dune</em>, we get this line of dialogue: "He who <i>controls</i> the spice, controls the universe." I'm going to make a point here by altering this familiar line from the movie somewhat: "He who<i> controls</i> the jobs, controls everything else."<br /><br />Here's the full <em>thesis</em> that I promised a ways back. Let me know what you think.<br /><br /><b>A population shift is now taking place in this country, with a rise of Latinos, and a decline of whites.<br /><br />The Latino demographic will, in a decade or two, wield most of the political power in this country, with whites falling precipitously to the back of the electoral bus.<br /><br />What's needed to offset this shift is a new power dynamic assuring that whites will continue to assert their will over the political and social landscape.<br /><br />Whites will "not go gentle into that good night...[but will] rage, rage against the dying of the light."<br /><br />How do they preserve their once monopolistic power in the midst of this population shift? Simple. Transfer it to corporations. And this what we're now seeing take place, unabashedly, by the Roberts Supreme Court.<br /><br />Corporations, recently raised to the importance, and stature of the individual, can now use their collective power to influence the outcome of elections and the passage of legislation.<br /><br />They already have life's largest bargaining chip--jobs, the creation of the them, and the destruction of them.<br /><br />Further, any regulations, or regulators that would challenge the new authority of corporations can be bought, or defeated, in some other way.<br /><br />In addition, because unions support labor, they, too, will have to go in this new power paradigm. A weak, disorganized, labor force won't be able to challenge the power of the corporate purse.<br /><br />Further, use everything at your disposal to weaken the hand of the Federal Government and those agencies that would stand in the way of the fledgling corpocracy.<br /><br />I think all of this is by design, and is not happenstance. Look for more shifts of power from the people to the corporations--shifts that will dilute our democracy, and empower corporations.<br /><br />[In response to a remark regarding the indoctrination of those on the Right, Republicans and conservatives, in preparation of this demographic shift, I had this to say:]<br /><br />That's easy to do, and easy to understand, in light of the new power paradigm: Whites know that their historical position--Alpha dog, Massa, owners of white privilege--is quickly coming to a crashing end.<br /><br />What good is a democracy, "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people," if you're not the people to whom it refers.<br /><br />A race war would go a long way toward assisting whites in their struggle to hold onto what's slipping away.<br /><br />They would, then, have an excuse to legally suppress minority groups that are threatening to be the majority and the ramifications that shift would entail.</b>Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3386976829639042251.post-67706225737726720202011-10-15T15:36:00.000-07:002011-10-15T15:45:02.935-07:00Skin Deep?I'm guest speaker over at Granny's place. Follow my latest blog entry, <em>Skin Deep?</em>, <a href="http://grannystandingfortruth.blogspot.com/2011/10/skin-deep.html">there</a>.Black Diasporahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08890792781361839105noreply@blogger.com5