Truism

Rising Above Politics, Joe Bageant.

"Sure, they may kick a lot of Republicans asses out of office next election. Big friggin deal! For my people, the same feudalist deal is on the table as ever: work hard, kill when you are told to, trust your betters, and everything will be all right. Plenty of highly politicized leftists and their meeker kin, the last hopeful Democrats, came up as hard as anyone I've described here. The Democratic Party definitely doesn't want them showing up like bikers at a cocktail party and talking real populism. Because there ain't no big money campaign contributions behind populism.

Look at it this way: Black America suffered lynchings, police dogs and fire bombings just to shit on the same toilet seats as white Americans like you and me, and ultimately waste their lives in front of computer monitors next to us on the same electronic plantation of the gulag global economy swallowing America and the rest of the world.

And so, still I ask (and who am I to ask anything?): Are there any progressives or leftists willing to come out here into the hinterlands and offer the first step. True populist hope? Spell it out in "see-spot-run" language? Talk about our bad teeth and why our elderly parents are rotting in pisshole nursing homes owned by ex-car dealers and attended by imported Asian physicians who barely speak English? Or the dynamics of hopelessness that drive the meth epidemic out here?

It will take an entire lifetime of commitment amid a crumbling world. And it will continue to crumble around us even as we work. There will be not one ounce of glory or acknowledgement or public reward. But it lies there before us, the first fearful and questioning stone on the pathway to the liberation of mankind.

True populist politics could give us a quarter turn in the right direction. Genuine socialism could put us on the approximate path to justice. Eco-politics cannot save us from the inevitable, but at lest it can teach us to deal with our limitations as a species upon this earth. But one begins the journey at the start of the path, not the promised land at its end."

---- I used to like Joe's catchy rants. Now they seem predictable and rehashed. In large part the populist/socialist "movement" fails for the simple fact that its representatives are bullshitters pushing a heart-warming tale about the "liberation of mankind." They can't save their own teeth or tend to aging parents - but they can start you on the path to the promised land.

I can remember when "liberal" was the thing to be - now it's "populist" - the club which typifies the common man. Populists can pander as well as any pol - all they need do is denounce the status quo and make generous promises - like all pols, a populist claims to believe in the virtue and wisdom of the common man, especially those common enough to qualify as candidates for Springer-type talk shows.

Number one problem for - populist progressive liberal left - is they are always looking for a gimmick, and always using the same gimmick as everyone else - to break the "feudalist deal" the Democrats and Republicans stick you with, promise.

Joe uses the "true populist politics" phrase - that's the catch isn't it? Proponents of anything always use "true." In its "true form" true capitalism, true socialism, true communism, yadayada. What a wonderful world it will be as soon as we get that "true" ism.

Let's look at some "see-spot-run" language.

Bad teeth? Meth does that. So does sugar, liquor, lazy lack of routine brushing, maybe a cleaning at the clinic now and then, a lifetime commitment to our own health, you think? My grandparents rarely if ever saw a dentist - yet they had their own teeth for 80 years. What they didn't have was access to junk, they brushed with baking soda on their fingers; floss was a broom straw. I see kids today as young as 4 with rotting baby teeth, sucking on a soft drink with a bag of chips. And that is the fault of ... ? Capitalism? Hopelessness?

Look at those elderly parents in "pisshole nursing homes." Why is that? No one wants to bother with mom or dad? Have these unfortunate nursing home clients simply been labored to death by the economic gulag? Today is the disposable generation - accustomed to shrugging off any inconvenience; throw-away parents, throw-away kids, throw away teeth...

My dad was a hopeful man regardless of circumstances; hope for me, hope for my brother. He worked in the field all his life, drank a 6 pack of beer once a year listening to the World Series on the radio - he considered it a luxury, an indulgence. He drove a tractor until he was 79 - left the field one day, mentioned some chest pain and died, his mind still sharp, his body a little stooped and slow. When I was 16 I nursed my mom for months, dying of cancer. A nursing home never occurred to us, or the neighbors who sometimes helped.

Yes yes, I know, one of the excuses today is that people have to work and have no time or skills to care for aging/ill parents. Yea, as if we didn't have to work "in the old days", back then we were all born with time and money and the skills to nurse our dying loved ones.

Imported Asian physicians who barely speak English? Yep. But I speak to Americans who have been here in the 'hood for 400 years and can't understand half of what they mutter. Knom'whu'mm'sain'?

Dynamics of hopelessness driving meth epidemic? Which came first, the meth or the guvmint check? Does anyone see the correlation between the "welfare" state and the drug epidemic?

Hopelessness - having no expectations of good, of success. Who are you expecting to give you and your children hope - yourself or the government? What makes you believe anyone or the government should move the stones on your path?

Yep Bubba, populists will be wise and virtuous, handing out hope and success - probably in a voucher.

Snitch

Stop Snitching, For Justice’s Sake, by Suhith Wickrema, who best I can tell is a social worker in Cincinnati. This piece is a good example of the endless ignorance the public is subjected to.

The writer states:

Earlier this year my daughter, Angela, and her boyfriend bought a house in Roselawn. At a belated Fathers Day brunch, Angela shared that she had wanted to call the police on the “dope boys” hanging around the street corner. Her boyfriend protested. He said that calling the police would be snitching. Angela’s boyfriend was in good company. James Duane, a law professor at Regent Law School, in a public lecture titled, “Don’t Talk to the Police,” states, “I will never talk to any police officer under any circumstances.” Duane tells the story of Eddie Joe Lloyd, who had written to the police, suggesting how to solve several murders. Lloyd was convicted of committing one of those murders. After spending 17 years in prison, DNA evidence exonerated him.

Most inmates in state prisons tend to come from a handful of neighborhoods. This means that, in certain neighborhoods, almost all the residents might know someone who is in prison or has been in prison. At the same time people in these neighborhoods have not experienced a reduction in victimization. Life experience has taught them that talking to the police does not help. Residents in high-crime areas do not need statistical data or criminological concepts to know that the current criminal justice policy is not working.

So why cooperate with a broken system? Why talk to the police? Not talking to the police has become an act of passive resistance. “All men recognize the right of revolution – that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.”-Henry David Thoreau. “We got over two million motherfuckers locked up. Stop snitchin’”- Hip-hop artist Ice Cube.

With more than two million of my fellow citizens in prisons, I see the act of not cooperating with the police as an act of civil disobedience. I hope you join me. "

------ Wouldn't wanna snitch on "dope boys" because ... according to the left/progressive code of conduct snitching does not change anything, the police are your natural enemy, and/or a few rocks and joints are a "victimless crime." Never mind the victims of the dope boys and their customers - you know the murdered and/or used and abused family members and future boys and customers, neighbors, businesses - who are forced to support the dope boys - one way or another. "Victimless crime" is shouted by those doing the crime - follow the trail and there will always be others paying dearly for it somewhere.

The professor/author, James Duane, wrote of Eddie Joe Lloyd of Michigan who did 17 years for a crime he didn't commit. Eddie Joe had been confined to a mental institution after a violent dispute in a welfare office in 1984. From the mental institution he wrote the local police that he could help them solve the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl. It is said his confession was coerced and he had the usual sloppy court appointed defense. In 2002 DNA proved it was not Eddie. Some believe he knew details of the crime because he overhead conversation from folks in the neighborhood who had organized the search for the missing girl and found her body in an abandoned garage. Some say he was fed crime scene details by the police. Family and acquaintances said Eddie always had illusions of grandeur.

Wrongful convictions are of course unjust, but to use that as an excuse not to "snitch" or not to "talk to police under any circumstances", especially involving horrific crime - is pure stupid. Eddie was a victim of the system, but he was also a victim of his own disturbed mind. He died 2 years after his release and family members and attorneys have since received $4 million. Hopefully the profit from his suffering will be used wisely.

The silly snitch piece goes on to quote Thoreau and Ice Cube as if non-cooperation with police is an act of civil disobedience, revolutionary, and cool - the author wants you to join him. Baaa baaa. The revolutionaries who think it's okay for "dope boys" hanging on the corner are usually the first to cry and "snitch" to the police when they come home one day to find the door busted and all electronics missing.

The reason why the system is not working in high crime areas is partly because the sheep have been convinced not to snitch - but even more reason is because many of those who might have information do not want to draw attention to themselves because they too are guilty of illegal, immoral, or unsavory activity. A few keep quiet with fear of retaliation if they "snitch." Some have just washed their brains with stupid is and stupid does.

But, thanks to the "don't snitch" mentality - watching the rising tide toilet swirling at your doorstep is now cool, a revolution Bubba - eat, drink, and keep quiet. It's the Jim Jones ghetto cool-aid. Salud.

What A Country

I want to tell you a story - it's about someone local but she is representative of millions of Americans. Let's call her Claire. She could be black, brown, red, yellow, or white, male or female.

Claire just turned 21, is unmarried with 3 children (ages 5, 3, 1) with a high school diploma. She had a rough childhood and is bestowing most of the same roughness on her own children. She works as a nurse's aide in a nursing home at just over minimum wage. With overtime, she brings home about $1000 per month. The State is paying a cousin nearly $900 for Claire's childcare. This method of BigDaddy Government's helping hand seems absurd to me - why pay someone else as much as Claire earns, to stay home and raise Claire's children? Why not let her stay home until they start school? I suppose it has to do with the welfare-to-work but any way you work it someone is getting the welfare for the kids, why not mom ...

Claire receives about $700 in foodstamps, and lives in low-income housing. The children are covered by Medicaid. Several times through the year she receives help from charitable organizations to pay utilities. Thanksgiving and Christmas are bonanzas with food, toys, cash, and gift baskets from churches and agencies. If she had thriftier habits and mindset she could do a little better, she still likes to "run the streets" on occasion, but she refuses to shop the goodwill or secondhand stores for clothes and furniture. Another odd thing I've noticed about welfare recipients - most are ashamed to have anything "used" or hand-me-down, but no shame at all in lining up for organizational or government handouts.

Claire is wondering about college - being that Obamaman is encouraging moms with back to school programs/grants. Several of her girlfriends have received their school grant checks and are spending fast and furious. I cautioned her to think seriously about it as most of these grants are based on class attendance, passing grades, etc. and if you screw up you will owe BigDaddy. Loans are always repaid. It's a commitment Claire, not a means to a shopping spree. Claire even refused to put her oldest son in public preschool this year because her cousin needs the childcare money and she didn't have the money to buy him "a bunch of new clothes." For crisssake - I bought 4 outfits at the goodwill for my 5-year-old granddaughter - designer brands, hardly worn. One of my contributions to recycling the world, and when it comes to money I'm tighter than Dick's hatband, splurging is for bigger events than group finger painting and grass stains at recess.

Recently Claire was discussing her paycheck and the amount of taxes withheld every week. She pays about $83 per month for Social Security and Medicare, and another $10 for state tax. She pays no federal tax. Every February she receives approximately $4000 in tax refund.

Claire began to rant about the amount of taxes withheld from her paycheck and that she shouldn't have to pay so much, weaving her head and talkin' loud and ghettofied - she's a taxpayer goddamn motherf8#!ing guvmint.

I reminded her, considering the benefits of paid childcare, EIC cash, education, utilities, housing and food assistance, etc. and all the Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security that she and her nonworking and never worked relatives receive (plus our infrastructure and a myriad of other expenses) - that her taxes do not begin to cover what she receives in return. She asked, with what I can only describe as seriously, with an epiphanic expression ... "Is that what taxes are for?" then added, "so that's why white folks get so pissed."

Groan ... excuse me, gotta run, time to fill the moat and pull up the drawbridge.

Andre Rieu

Amazing Grace

Monkey See Do

(CNN) — Former President Bill Clinton is speaking out about his decision to change his personal stance on same-sex marriage.

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, the former president said that while he still believes the issue should be left up to the states, he is no longer personally opposed to same-sex marriage as he once was.

"I was against the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage nation-wide, and I still think that the American people should be able to play this out in debates," Clinton said. "But me, Bill Clinton personally, I changed my position.

"I am no longer opposed to that," he added. "I think if people want to make commitments that last a lifetime, they ought to be able to do it."

---- Yep, Clinton is the go-to man on a lifetime commitment. Has Cooper left the closet yet? If the morality whores would push as fervently for Black marriage - our moral leaders might be worth their weight in condoms.

Interesting to read the defenders "logic" in the comments sections, "Haven't you noticed male on male sex among animals? Cats, dogs, sheep, horses, etc. That's as natural as you can get." --- Yep, our neutered male dog will still try to hump other male dogs - if the other mutt refuses, and usually does, a real dog fight follows. It's not sex fool, it's domination, territory, alpha male. As for the gay primate argument - maybe that's why the bonobo ape is known as the "forgotten monkey." Primate homosexual behavior is also a dominance thing, or used to divert attention and diffuse tension - rubbing genitals to avoid conflict - sort of reminds me of the UN speeches. (Even flinging verbal feces on occasion at the UN.)

In nature I see promiscuity, polygamy, polyandry, incest, and species who cannibalize their young and their mates - but most human societies frown on those "natural" acts too, for good reason.

Hodgepodge #2

G20 protests in Pittsburgh. "Police, in an overwhelming show of force, declared a Thursday afternoon march illegal almost as soon as it began, firing rubber bullets and canisters of pepper spray and smoke after small bands of anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling huge metal trash bins, throwing rocks and breaking windows. The G-20 Resistance Project has encouraged "affinity groups" to protest Friday morning at companies that it says represent greed, exploitation, warfare and other social ills, with potential targets including banks, Starbucks, McDonald's, grocery stores and a Marine Corps recruiting center." ------- After the smoke and rubber bullet drubbing, members of the "Resistance," high on adrenaline, regrouped at a nearby Starbucks, after buying all of the apple pies at a nearby McDonald's.

A group of kids singing an Obama Song last February is causing a stir again after MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell defended the tribute on the air. During Black History Month 2009, 20 children at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in New Jersey were videotaped singing a song of praise to the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Hmm, hmm, hmm
Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must all lend a hand
To make this Country strong again
Hmm, hmm, hmm
Barack Hussein Obama
...Hmm, hmm, hmm
Barack Hussein Obama
...Hmm, hmm, hmm
Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black, or white,
All are equal in his sight
Hmm, hmm, hmm
Barack Hussein Obama
Yes, hmm, hmm, hmm
Barack Hussein Obama

Hmmmmm - "equal in his sight" - a little too messianic for me, even if there's the reasonable cover of Black History Month and President's Day. Imagine if it were hmm, hmm, hmm George Walker Bush hmm hmm hmm.

AURORA, Colorado (CNN) -- An Afghan-born Colorado man charged with plotting to make bombs from household chemicals made several recent purchases from beauty supply stores in suburban Denver, telling workers he had "a lot of girlfriends," employees said Thursday. Najibullah Zazi, now charged with plotting to set off "weapons of mass destruction" in the United States was "a regular" at the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, one store worker said. ------ Decades ago when we lived in Colorado, this suburb was known as "Saudi Aurora." East of Denver the area had no mountains, little greenery, like a desert, and a cultural mix of odd people. The only folks who bought homes in Aurora were those who didn't know better.

Former child star Mackenzie Phillips' candid confession about her purported decade-long sexual relationship with her singer-father, John Phillips, has forced the uncomfortable issue of incest into the public limelight. ------ Uncomfortable?? Phillips is a career criminal and "rehab-ista" - having been arrested again on drug charges in 2008. Sex with daddy took place between the age of 19-29; she was not exactly a victim, drug use is not a disease, nor is it an excuse. High on Arrival is just more vulgar garbage sold to a lascivious seeking public. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. "Now, more than a quarter century later, the saga continues. If she stays in good health, Mackenzie can perpetuate the cycle any number of times. John never quit "recovering." Among other great moments in their epic tale, John got a liver transplant ten years after the People story, following which the National Enquirer photographed him at a bar. Here is one more "fun" fact from John's memoir (yes, he wrote one too lauding his recovery, in 1986, while he was still screwing Mackenzie). The NY Times reviewer was not entirely convinced by John's story: "Phillips is not altogether realistic about himself. He recalls that when he was a postman, he threw mail away because his mailbags were too heavy; as a graveyard plot salesman, he received down payments, pocketed the money and never recorded the transactions. Still, on page 297 of a 444 page book, in reporting how he skipped out on a $2,000 hotel bill, he writes, 'My values were beginning to corrode under the prolonged influence of hard drugs.'

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the United Nations Thursday, said, "It doesn't smell like sulfur anymore." ---- I watched part of Chavez and Gadhafi speeches yesterday. Amazing, I finally agree with Bush the Boy on something as he supposedly has said Chavez is Castro without the brains - a good description. Hugo backed off some of his earlier criticism of Obama to kiss butt as he compared Barry to JFK and said the lectern now "smells of hope," pucker up and mmmwah. Gadhafi, introduced as the "king of kings" by a fellow Libyan, once a fiery rebel in green fatigues, is now a prissy semi-senile putz patting and fussing with his robes, earpiece, and notes, rambling on and on and on. King of Krazies. And in the US, prefers to live as a homeless old man in a tent. I briefly listened to bits and pieces of Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu, and Obama. Good thing I never believed the UN was the answer to anything.

Last but not least - Obama's "good war." Obama spoke like a true hawk on the ridiculous notion that Afghanistan was a just war. On the campaign trail in July 2008 he visited Afghanistan and declared "troop levels must increase in Afghanistan." Of course, that was tough talk rhetoric for the "right" because I still meet folks today who swear Obama voted against both wars. Obama was not in the US senate in 2002 or 2003 to vote. Some people hear what they want to hear. Now that Barry O. has to put his money where his mouth is he's waffling, wandering around in his own mind over what's the best thing for his career. Last year he believed the situation in Afghanistan was "urgent" and needed more troops. Now, his apologists insist Barry O. is being boxed into a lose-lose situation. "Obama would do well to take his own sweet time with this decision and do his best to make the right one, and that appears to be the course he intends to take. What's the hurry? Why can't a new president take the time to listen to all the advice, test all the assumptions, weigh all the costs and then come to a decision with which he's comfortable? Obama's inheritance is a sorry one, to say the least. The Bush administration attacked Afghanistan after 9/11 but almost immediately turned its attention to its costly and unnecessary war of choice in Iraq, leaving al Qaida and the Taliban still standing and the war in Afghanistan starved of manpower and resources for nearly seven years." --- Remember the BushCo cry "blame it on Clinton?" Now it's blame it on Bush. "Why can't a new president take the time...?" Because he has had 2+ years of campaigning and in office to assess Afghanistan and have a pretty good idea of where he would go with it. Obama defenders sound as stupid as Bush's did.

Lift and Tote

"For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," the president said. "What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.

"Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance," Obama added. "Nobody considers that a tax increase.

"You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase," he added.

But a Democratic staff description of Sen. Max Baucus' bill calls the proposed fines an "excise tax." Initially, the Montana Democrat's plan called for penalties of up to $950 for individuals and $3,800 for families. But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Monday he expects the family penalty to be slashed in half to $1,900.

---------------- Read his lips - not a tax increase. You know Bubba, I won't be surprised if this mammoth in the living room healthcare reform passes, and I won't be surprised if it doesn't. Nothing the government does has surprised me since 1968. Besides, tax increases are on goods and products, i.e. cigarettes - pols have learned not to be obvious.

Take responsibility. Ooops wait a minute! Isn't "responsibility" what democrats and progressives (like Buzzflash, etc.) claim is the Republican "code" for "... institutional oppression, a "gimme" to their extremist base, which is primarily a large minority of Southern traditionalists, that when Republicans say "personal responsibility" they mean black, poor, disenfranchised, and otherwise less fortunate members of society who are left to fend for themselves."

Some people haven't a clue that not all Southern traditionalists are white - and what kind of doublespeak is "large minority"? Is there a lot of them, or a few of them? Or are there only some who think this way but there's a lot of them?

There's more to southern tradition than the stereotyped images of racists and rednecks. Tradition here includes people bound by diet, religion, habits, music and manners. It is ghost tales and old wives' tales passed down from generation to generation. It's gardening - okra and roses and honeysuckle vine. Hunting and fishing and picnics in the woods. It's taking cornmeal and lard and a cast iron skillet to the river to fry up catfish as you catch them. It's cooking large amounts of food to take to a neighbor who has lost a loved one, even if you barely knew them. It's a huge vocabulary of "old sayings" that finally make sense when you began to repeat them to your own children. And contrary to Michael Vick's dog fighting defense, dog fighting is not "just a part of the southern way of life." Maybe in his neighborhood, his generation.

I also found this Obama comment particularly interesting - "What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore."

Ha! Sounds good but who does he think he's fooling. Half the voting public expects someone else to heft their bale, lift their barge, and we know who is stuck carrying the deadweight (disguised as compassion).

Heave ho.

American Tribal Syndrome

Jimmah Carter, Bill Cosby, Pelosi, Maureen Dowd, etc. - It is not racism. Even Obama rejects the claim, letting others hoist this petard.

It may be the OJ syndrome. You know, where tens of thousands high-fived OJ's acquittal simply because it was a black man who beat the man (slitting throats didn't matter). It was the OJ syndrome that made long time Republican and Bush man, Colin Powell, become an Obama supporter. It wouldn't matter if Obama had preached Marxism from the stump, African-American Colin would have supported him because he was a black man who might beat the man. It's why most blacks laughed when African-American Kanye West stole the young European-American Taylor Swifts thunder - she was just a hillbilly singing white girl.

It may be the syndrome that caused African-American rightwinger Bill "personal responsibility" Cosby to also claim "racism is playing a role in recent outbursts against President Obama." Probably the most militant statement Cosby has ever made in his life.

I dunno why European-American James Carter would believe criticism of Obama is fueled by racism - Carter is supposed to be a wise old man. Is racism what he hears in his circle of white friends? How much time has Jimmah spent with black folks in the past few decades? When I was watching the clips of Carter on this topic I thought, god the man is still living in the '60s and '70s. I firmly believe one should retire from public forums when of the age of persistent watery eyes, 3 inch earlobes, and unable to pass a mini mental status exam.

European-American Pelosi used the issue for nothing more than a quivering lip with frozen forehead moment of pandering to the gays in her district. And she warns folks regarding their statements to "curb their enthusiasm ... that some of the people — the ears it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume." Is that the recycled "watch what you say" from the Bush era?

And what does airhead pundit Queen of Snark European-American Maureen Dowd know about racism? Well, she won a Pulitzer for reporting Monica's blowjob ... uhm ... she hears unspoken words in the air as in "You lie, boy!" Born and bred in D.C., she claims that for two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks. Lol. God, is that helterskelterish. Dowd should stick to penis reporting.

Those who suffer from OJ syndrome are often white, for example, the white talking heads who claim that comparing Obama to Hitler or an animal is racism - although my Bushitler and Chimp Bush shirt and coffee mugs are okay, raise your hand if you considered Bush the village idiot and wet-brain moron, commander in thief. Oh, the placard that said "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy" was bad? No, it was in response to the liberals who hoped to get more converts for their healthcare plan while European-American Ted's dead body was still warm - claiming healthcare reform was Kennedy's lifelong dream. A tacky and obvious grab at support via sentimental b.s.

You see, it's only racist when a white person criticizes a black person, white folks can only criticize other white folks, black folks can criticize all white folks - if black folks criticize Obama they are "sell-outs," so it's okay to trash blacks who criticize Obama, as the liberals trashed Cosby when his speeches mentioned personal responsibility and pound cake. But Cosby may have seen the light now that he finally agrees with liberal tribe members on something.

For those who think the animosity toward Obama is race-based - think again. Most Americans, even the dumbest, know that the president (any color) is a puppet. The president, whether Bush or Obama, may believe in the agenda he's pushing - but he did not write the agenda, did not plan the agenda - he's given the to-do list, the speeches, and follows the script.

Slamming, even loathing Obama, is not racism. I think Bush the Boy the most loathsome man to hold office in my lifetime, nothing to do with race - I'm sure people can feel the same about Obama, and nothing to do with race.

It seems to me, folks like Carter, Dowd, and Pelosi weighing in on racism are depicting whites as the natural enemy of blacks - and seems they think we're all dumb enough to believe it.

Maybe the race issue is nothing more than an attempt to distract from all the other hot potatoes being thrown around - Acorn, the economy, unemployment, Wars that Obama owns now, plummeting poll numbers (haven't heard "plummet" in a while), or distraction from the hypocrisy, of such things as firing the IG Gerald Walpin, the Obama ties to Public Allies, another organization on the public teat, to train future community leaders - if it were a republican tribe, that would be community brownshirts. Maybe it's to distract from the government takeover of higher education - cutting out those evil middle-men bankers, so the government can run education successfully without corruption, you know like the post office, Medicare/Medicaid, HUD, DoD, Social Security, EPA, the IRS, Amtrak, etc...

I think this is the part where I say something profound about "move beyond" ... ? or is it move along nothing to see ... ? I can no longer be sure what rhetoric belongs to which tribe.

Dethroned

Isaac and big brother Alan.
There is almost exactly 5 years between Alan and Isaac. Alan has been parentally "prepared" for a new sibling. Just as Alan's dad (my son) was prepared for a new sibling when he was 5 y/o, about 35 years ago. My son adored his little sister like this, day after day. On the 5th day, my 5 y/o smiled and said "You can take her back now."

Hodgepodgery

ACORN: Are you shocked by the Acorn employees caught on tape giving pointers on how not to get caught running a child prostitution ring? Glenn Beck (Mr. Meltdown) has been showing this all week. I'm no fan of Beck's, he is too often embarrassingly, disturbingly emotional, but he is doing a good job on Acorn.

Acorn is corrupt, always has been. Long ago I was approached a few times to "join." After checking them out, attending a few meetings, etc. I said thank but no thanks. I have not paid much attention to the organization since, other than to shoo them away from my door, although I have heard many stories of corruption from folks who have dealt with Acorn over the years. Ninety percent of the Acornistas I have known or knew of, were liars, thieves, social dysfunctions who seem to know nothing of life other than to piss and moan, blame and game, lie and cheat, and scam the man. Those who might be decent folks, always seemed desperately lonely and lost - looking to feel part of a community, any community.

Back when I knew it, Acorn had the feel of a cult. Reminded me of bible thumpers, who if you would but listen and receive their word, you could be saved. When I turned down membership I knew they thought I was unworthy of their lofty ideals, a hopeless fool for not wanting to walk their path to social justice, welfare rights, cheap housing, free lunches, wages, etc. Acorn claims it informs, moves and recruits members and allies on such important issues. Yep, and look how much better off folks are today.

But nothing is more important to Acorn than the fatcat acorns at the top who can buy a politician or two or three or .... especially founder Wade Rathke and his I-stole-a-million dolla brother Dale Rathke. Acorn tried to keep Dale's embezzlement quiet but someone blew the whistle. How's this for "social justice" - Dale was dismissed from Acorn, no charges, and last year Wade stepped down as Acorn's chief but remains the chief of Acorn International - why not, since Acorn has taken its brand of social justice global.

Rathke is author of Citizen Wealth but I doubt Acorn followers get that the citizen and wealth is him and his. Citizen Rathke writes that all the "social justice" his cult has scammed and demanded for 30 years, is now not enough. Reportedly his new book shows how food stamps, unemployment insurance, and tax relief are temporary. The justice Acorn has fought for, are now stop-gap fixes and "do not address the systemic problems that keep people from building up the assets they need to create a stable life for themselves and their families." Supposedly, Rathke now has a real, workable plan to end poverty (his anyway).

JOE WILSON: Smacked on the wrist with a congressional admonishment, after 2 apologies, and after Obama took the high road and accepted the apology. How come? Because Obama's inner circle jerk, holding a deck of race cards, wanted it. Come on Barry, chastise that s.o.b., show that Joe mo'fo who be the boss. As ill-behaved as Wilson's you lie, do Obama advisers want him to look like a backwater preacher, clowning around with the congregation? If the wuss-faced Democrats had any backbone at least one of them would have yelled you lie, at least once, when Bush addressed them - and we would have cheered. Instead, Bush was given the go-ahead for war and the Democrat wussies talked against it later. Also, I take issue with the exactness of "you lie" versus "liar." The first is signifying a lie, the latter a person who tells lies, usually on a routine basis. There's a difference between saying you lie and you're a liar. But that's just my parsing, and hard to keep a straight face with lie/liar in conjunction with pols. Speaking of straight faces - Nancy Pelosi's expression seemed frozen, other than the eyelids opening wider. Botox? Did you notice seconds before the "you lie" she stifled a yawn. Wilson woke her up, maybe that expression was her morning wake face.

ALBERT GORE: An inconvenient truth may be that Al is co-founder and Chairman of Generation Investment Management (along with buddy Pete Knight), which provides funding for "alternative" energy, which also owns 10% of the Chicago Climate Exchange, which will issue the carbon credits that Cap and Tax legislation is based upon. Yep Bubba, it's generational. Al is also a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiman, Perkins, Claufield and Byers (KPCB). KPCB is heavily invested in renewable energy and electrical grid improvements. The market for their products is almost completely dependent on government programs in the form of subsidies, tax breaks or regulation. Al Gore's contribution to KPCB is to promote government intervention in the energy markets. (Note KPCB global alliance with China.) Who said the "left" doesn't love Big Business? Not to worry - when you're literally keeping warm by singing around the campfire, reformed healthcare will pay for your Cymbalta.

MOVE/MOVED BEYOND: I'm so tired of this meme. This "national debate" of whether we have or have not moved beyond, regarding issues which I wonder why the hell we stopped to look at in the first place - other than for pols pandering to the meanest among us.

Top Gun

Isaac A. landed safely at Lackland AFB on Sep 13, 2009.
Landing weight 8 lbs. 1 oz. at 21 inches. Mom and baby
fine - dad home soon from Iraq. :) #8 :)

Truthers

Raimondo reminds readers to question the official story of 9/11. The 19 hijackers and boxcutters, etc. He revisits the Carl Cameron story, a favorite of Mike what's his name over at whatreallyhappened, and mentions the usual suspects - Israeli lobby, Israeli suspects, but Raimondo fails to mention the word Mossad in today's piece.

My first thought that day, when the plane hit the tower, was "only the CIA could do this ... an inside job." However, within a few weeks I was questioning who might the "inside" be? Yes, a foreign intel such as Mossad seemed more than feasible, believable, and that certainly seemed to be what the tinfoil crowd was pushing. But - then I gotta wonder, who are the folks behind the tinfoilers and what is their agenda in making sure the Israeli theory gets attention far and wide forever?

Raimondo says : "... those nineteen hijackers simply could not have pulled it off without outside assistance of some sort, by which I mean to say help from a foreign power acting covertly in this country."

Yes, I buy that much. Although that "foreign power" may be first generation or new citizens. Or it could be a group of homegrown disgruntled Americans who had a price that was met by foreign power.

But I have yet to see sufficient evidence which definitely links 9/11 to Israel. It could just as well have been the old KGB, Iran's MOIS, or some Middle Eastern group of billionaires living in Europe, buying influence and politicians and slowly but surely collapsing the US as we know it. Maybe it's an as yet unknown acronym from Latin America, who have joined subversive forces to bring down the Empire - Brazil, Chile, Argentine are skilled at covert activity. The international list of suspects as to insiders who done it may include folks you've never heard of, or would never guess. Hell, it may even be our old friends the foppish Brits and French - in the palaces of power you can never be 100% sure of allegiance.

Another issue for Raimondo, and many other "truthers" on the Israeli connection page, is the complexity of the attack, and how so much was missed or not caught, as if this proves whatever theory a particular "truther" is offering. Raimondo: "... Israeli agents on American soil had tracked the hijackers, as they moved amongst us, and, in addition, had launched what appeared to be a wide-ranging and quite aggressive intelligence-collection operation directed at US government offices across the country."

Attempts at intel collection from government offices is a far cry from an overt act of war (911).

I once bought into the Israeli connection, if for no other reason than it was easy to believe on the surface. Having grown weary of conspiracy all my life, it was easier to drink the current Kool-Aid. Finally, tearing myself away from gardening and grandkids, I forced myself to look closer, and most of the tinfoil is really tinfoil.

The Cameron files are here, - conveniently, not scrubbed or lost down the memory hole to eternity. The Israeli art students, mall salesmen, and high-five guys in a van by the river were broadcast within weeks of 9/11 - the Jews did it spin was a red flag that Reynolds wrap was on the roll.

In Cameron/Fox sensational reporting there is a lot of "...may well be .... ... could be used... if this, possibly that ... Israelis spying on Arabs in the US might have known in advance ... no direct evidence Israeli spies knew but suggests how could they not have known - how then could the US not have known? Isn't the FBI and a dozen other acronyms doing any surveillance?

May be, could be, what if, shoulda, coulda, woulda is not evidence. Cameron's report suggests to me more the activity of organized crime than Israeli connections to 911. It suggests Israel spying on Arab Americans, so who are Arab Americans spying on?

All agencies spy on all other agencies - friends and foes. Sad truth folks - a lot of this is explained by the simple fact that people do not do their jobs. From FBI agent slackers, to airport security, local cops not paying attention, lazy overpaid bureaucrats, incompetent desk jockeys, grownups pretending to be important while staring at bellybutton lint - the Peter Principle honed to perfection, American career masters of halfass-ism. But trust me, the rest of the world's agents are no different.

I have sat in a foreign country which was on the US shitlist and viewed classified documents, actually translating them until it dawned on me these people should not have this material and when asked how they obtained it, I was told "... we have friends in America." Those "friends" were not Jewish, not Middle Eastern. I now wonder if those "friends" are the same folks behind our pop-cult tinfoil, self-proclaimed saviors and truthsayers who have been debauching our minds for years, covertly of course.

One of the many many little details that caused me to question the "truthers" was the pretzel incident with Bush. Someone beat the crap out of the US president, and the public, both left and right shills, accepted the choked on a pretzel cover-up. I have to keep asking - who and why - those marks are not from fainting and rolling off the couch. It took place in January of 2003, just after invading Afghanistan and just before invading Iraq.

I wondered then and now if Bush balked at war on Iraq and someone let him know he was not in charge. I don't believe the asskicker was AIPAC or Jews - it was most likely a faction of the good old boys, as in Carl Oglesby's the yankee and cowboy war, whose agendas for the US encompasses all that has taken place in the last 40+ years, although I believe now the yankees and cowboys may have morphed into sold-out powers nearly unrecognizable from their originals. I know, makes me sound as tinfoil as the next guy.

Supposedly, one theory behind the Israeli link, is the attack would give Israel the war they wanted on the Middle East. For profit? For ideology? To risk having their little sliver of land blown to kingdom come? To destroy the US economically and politically? Why would Israel seek to bring about the fall of the US - who would replace the US as their best friend and benefactor? Heavy tinfoilers have a slue of theories on the whys and wherefores - the lightly tinfoiled crowd toss out fuzzy hints on the why/wherefore and you can draw your own conclusions - both crowds feed those folks who look for a goat to stake to the post.

I could just as easily form a theory that 9/11 was an act committed by Aryan/Arab intelligence and nation states with or without inside help, and inside help would not necessarily mean the foreign power in the US is Israeli - after all, according to the conspiracy crowds - the world hates us, as do a good many of our own angry homegrown political pedagogues in high places, and their followers.

It and they - could be anyone, although I have my druthers and others.

They Lie

They all lie - they're politicians. Even the claim that Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst is unprecedented - is a lie. Presidents have been heckled in congress. Bush was booed and hissed, deservedly so, in more than one congressional speech. What may be unprecedented, is an individual member openly calling the president a liar during his speech to congress, although historically it has likely occurred it has never been caught on tape. It was a bit unsettling to witness last night's disrespect, but a few years ago when it was Bush being booed, I cheered.

More important, to me anyway, was Obama's statements that prompted Wilson's blurting "you lie." Obama: "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

Ahh come on ... we know that's a lie, just as Wilson so rudely pointed out. We do not and will not turn away illegal immigrants who need treatment. So, if Obama is lying about one detail he's lying about others. It's our don't ask, don't tell sort of policy at clinics and hospitals. Besides Bubba, it's right there in Sec. 152. Prohibiting Discrimination in Health Care. "... all health care and related services covered by this Act shall be provided without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services." Plain and simple - you cannot discriminate based on a person's legal status.

But, aside from the phony talking points of the ruling class managed pundits, what's the real goal behind taxpayer funded health care for all? We know the government never does anything that is not, first and foremost, beneficial to the ruling class. So what's in it for the ruling class?

Why would corporate America not embrace ObamaCare? Wouldn't government funded health care finally remove corporate responsibility to provide such benefits and up the company's bottom line? Of course it would.

Why would insurance companies drag their feet on ObamaCare? The government will contract with insurance companies to provide coverage because you will be required by law to have a policy, just like auto insurance. Although unlike a vehicle, as you become a clunker your rates will go up, not down. But wait - Obama claims insurers will not be allowed to raise your cost - sure they won't, until congress passes approval based on excuses written by lobbyists. Obama's plan says those who cannot afford a policy will be subsidized, supposedly a small percentage - another way of saying taxpayer funds will be sent directly to a corporate policy provider approved by the government.

Doublespeaking, much of the scam is referred to as "insurance exchange" and the "public option." The public option, if included, is a health insurance provider run by the government and not for profit - we don't have to worry about the government making a profit do we - how can they when all the funds go to the corporations providing the government paid services. Sniff, sniff - does that smell like government insurance contractors?

The insurance exchange is where small businesses and individuals are pooled to negotiate better deals with insurance providers. The public option, if included in the final game plan, will be part of the exchange. So government and private insurance will be quasi-competitors - and as promised, the government will be not-for-profit - it's the only promise our massively indebted government keeps - no profit.

Folks, if this cradle to grave mediocre scam was not being swallowed by the public, I would be ROTFLMAO.

Just as you believe you can negotiate great insurance deals for your home, auto, life, etc. you will negotiate health care policies, and if not, BigDaddy Guvmint will be your proxy negotiator, right? Just as with other insurance policies, your costs will depend on your record, your region, even your neighborhood.

The public option, according to Obama estimates, would include only 5% of the country, and is for those without any insurance, and it is not taxpayer subsidized - it would have to be self-sufficient and paid for by premiums it collects. No government subsidy and self-sufficient? sounds like a failed option from the git-go. So who would this 5% be? Not the poor as they do not have the money for premiums.

Obama's plan expands the customer base of insurance companies because carrying a policy will be mandatory - so are corporate insurers really dragging their feet? Nah, that's just rhetoric from the "left" so you will assume the plan must be magnanimous otherwise the evil insurance companies would not be against it. Insurance companies did not fight legislating mandatory vehicle insurance in the 1980s, and they're not fighting mandatory health insurance. They're salivating.

I said years ago, and will say it again, if you cannot purchase your own policy, the government will eventually get around to applying your tax refund, or add another withholding box on your paystub, which goes to the insurance pool for your health coverage.

I know a lot of single mammas EICers who are not going to like losing that refund. Of course, there may be an up side to ObamaCare. I know a few hypochondriacs and seekers who will be pee'ode as well as those regular trips to the ER for a cocktail injection buzz will not be covered. And 2 guys I know have made a lifetime living off personal injury lawsuits with willing chiropractors and spine surgeons. If Obama's plan cuts all the fraud and waste in the health industry - the nation will be better off, but at a cost of almost a trillion dollars and more bloated agencies/overseers, I beg you not to count on a fraud-free industry.

The sad part beyond the smoke and mirrors is - your quality of health care will not be better, if anything it will be worse. Dr. Gitrich will know he has to tend to a certain number of folks in the lower priced pools and, much like now, your care will be those tests and procedures BigDaddy coverage allows - not necessarily what you need.

And although torte reform has not been discussed, that too will come to pass - you will not be suing BigDaddy Guvmint and his medical groundlings for malpractice.

1940's Norman Thomas: "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

So, stay well folks, because once again, rather than address the root cause of our problems (political corruption) we're just going to hire more and more apparatchikers to doctor the system. Sort of gives the term "red tape" new meaning.

Italian Commercial

Racist? Americans have no sense of humor.

Fluidity of Language

Lesson for Van Jones: Don't get too uppity. By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist.

Van Jones loved the spotlight. Heck, who wouldn't, after being named a special adviser and green jobs czar for President Barack Obama. In Kansas City last week, Jones was one of the federal officials flown in to take a look at the Green Impact Zone, an idea to upgrade 150 blocks of low-income neighborhoods. Jones was introduced twice by fellow, higher-ranking fed officials -- and on both occasions, Jones made sure to interject that he was a "special adviser" to Obama. But now he's not part of the administration at all, thanks to imprudent remarks and a petition he signed years ago, a petition that implied the federal government allowed 9/11 to happen. The statement that really got Jones in trouble with radio shock-jock Glenn Beck and other conservatives came in February, when he was at a green energy conference in Berkeley. When asked why Republicans were more effective when they held Congress, Jones replied: The answer to that is: "They're assholes. That's a technical political science term. And Barack Obama's not an asshole. I will say this, I can be an asshole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are gonna have to start getting a little bit uppity." Of course, for Beck and the rest of the white-America crowd, Jones got a little too uppity, especially when a group co-founded by Jones went after Beck and got some advertisers to pull out of supporting his show.

---- Oooweee, the Van man is so good-looking I'd hire him on looks alone. But woe are the BlameWhitey crowd as Van the Green Tsar has left the first black president's Tsarena.

A few short years ago Van Jones was a San Francisco Bay Area radical agitator–a committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, waging war on the police and capitalist system. A participant in the 1992 Rodney King riots (arrested, charges dropped); signing petitions with Code Pinkers regarding government culpability in 9/11; and founder of Ellen Baker Center for Human Rights, an NGO, the Color of Change, a 501c3, and Green for All - another NGO.

NGO - nongovernmental organization. Implies independence from government, but most NGOs depend heavily on governments for their funding, and/or funding by the older and larger moneybag NGO foundations of the ruling class. Peter Hallward argues that NGOs are an aristocratic form of politics, i.e. a faction of the ruling class can pour funds into an NGO which is complicit with their particular political agenda - and it all looks benevolent, charitable, humanitarian, independent, indigenous, community-based, and grass rootsy, etc. But follow the money.

I have ranted previously on NGOs, 501c3, foundations, etc. These organizations began to take serious hold in the 1950s and their growth has exploded in the last 35 years. They are definitely a form of aristocratic politics as the "founders" and members see themselves superior and best qualified to run the social-political show they have chosen to latch onto - usually color related, green, black, brown, red, or white folks helping some color or another. Amazingly, I can't think of one NGO that has done anything of real and lasting value for the peasantry in the last 35 years.

Even though Mr. Yael T. Abouhalkah, fortunately, is only a hack for the KC Star, his mentality represents much of what tries to pass itself off as progressive thought today but it is so 1950s.

Yael and friends are behind on the times because in today's world "uppity" does not mean a black man who dares to look the white women in the eye or the black woman who refuses to give up her seat on the bus - - no, uppity today is code for asshole, as defined by Mr. Van Jones himself, in above paragraph, in his owns words : "They're assholes. That's a technical political science term. And Barack Obama's not an asshole. I will say this, I can be an asshole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are gonna have to start getting a little bit uppity."

So you see Bubba, to be a little bit uppity you only have to be an asshole - these days it doesn't matter what color you are or what political body you support - you simply have to feel self-important, arrogant, and overstep the boundaries of politeness - obnoxious is a plus (the Bush family are masters of uppity/asshole). You can be a member of the "white-American crowd" and be an uppity. And if you make the sheople chuckle by referring to yourself and the opposition as assholes - that's a cool uppity.

We can all be uppity - and some of us are bigger uppities than others. Some make a living at being an uppity, and for some being an uppity seems to come naturally. And, wouldn't you know it, in our physically fixated culture - it usually helps if you're a good-looking "aristocratic" uppity.

Of course, uppity/asshole can also, as Mr. Anthony "Van" Jones knows well, come back and bite you in the ....... especially if you love the spotlight.

Introspection

The violent anti-Obama sentiment coming out of central Arizona managed to get still more toxic over the weekend. Chris Broughton, the man who brought an AR-15 rifle and a handgun to an Arizona Obama rally earlier this month, says he "concurs" with his fundamentalist pastor's prayer for President Obama "to die and go to hell."

And in an interview with a local TV station, pastor Steven Anderson himself elaborated on his statement to TPMmuckraker that he would prefer Obama to die of natural causes so "he's not some martyr." "I don't want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday. I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer," Anderson now says.

In an interview with ABC 15 outside the storefront Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Broughton said of Anderson's controversial August 16 "Why I Hate Barack Obama" sermon: "I concur, I think we'd be better off if God would send [Obama] where he's going now instead of later. [Obama] is destroying our country." And when a reporter followed up with, "you're not advocating violence against the president?" Broughton, who has previously said his weapons are for defense, says "I'm not going to answer that question directly." "I don't care how God does it, I'm not going into further detail than that," Broughton says. "It would be better now than later."

---- When I first heard this story I thought, crazy zealots wanting their 15 minutes. My second thought was the left/progressive and democrats will love the fuel for their anti-religious folks, and their anti-racist groups - but damn, Broughton is black so that completely waters down the race card.

The comments, as always on these stories, are so predictable. There's the "give real Christians a bad name" sect. The gun experts describing the workings of an AR-15. The shut down this church commentors. The right to bear arms commentors and their opponents' diatribes on gun control. And of course, the all love one another sermons from those commentors who always want to appear bigger and better-hearted than anyone else. On and on.

But not one comment mentioned something I thought a few short years ago.

There was a time when I could not see Bush's mug or hear his voice without feeling intense loathing and the fleeting wish that the s.o.b. would just die, drop dead, choke to death on a pretzel. That's right, die - I didn't care how.

So, what many on the "right" feel today about Obama, is no worse than my own darkest thoughts about George W. Bush. Maybe the only difference between my "violent" thoughts and the pastor's - is I know when to bite my tongue and not preach about it.

The Big Dig - Burying Ted

Finally, it's over, I think. A week of listening to tales about the 47-year career of the "lion of the senate" was more than enough thank you. Is the public really this gullible? Ted Kennedy was the weakest male and biggest sot produced by Joe and Rose.

Ted has been described as a "guy's guy" - although I'm not sure what a "guy's guy" is ... but since the phrase is attributed to Dan Quayle need I say more. Hmm... a man's man is a traditional male, a stud, doing the manly things men want to do but many can't or won't - risky frisky behavior, drinking, womanizing, flaunting danger, a man who swears and spits and winks, a bad boy - until slowed down by age or feebleness - a woman is often credited with "reigning or reining-in" these manly codgers when they reach 60 years, unless you're Hugh Hefner and made a living at playboyhood, then it takes 3 young women pulling on the bridle and bit.

I won't ponder long the silly sentimental references to Camelot, the 3 brothers, the dynasty, or the insane blogger over at HuffPo who stated Mary Jo Kopechne was "a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history."

And said blogger didn't have the sense to end it there but continued with "So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it."

Yea, but would such bloggers feel it worth drowning a kid or two of their own to launch a political career?

I watched a few minutes of the hearse carrying Ted's body and heard the crowds applauding and occasional cheers. Applauding? When did it become socially appropriate to applaud the carcass of political figures? Other than maybe Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini. Oh well, etiquette has changed so much ...

I read a few accolades, supposedly from Ted's constituency - and realized it was Ted's Era that killed off any semblance of political statesmanship and decency in the republic, to be replaced with porkers having their staff make enough phone calls to ensure that a sufficient percentage of constituents receive the free stuff to which they are entitled. Maybe you can't buy love but you can buy the next best thing - votes.

"Here in Rome, Ted Kennedy is nobody. He's a legend with his own constituency," says the Vatican official.

That about says it ... a legend in his own constituents' mind.

Dani Klein - Vaya con dios

What's a Woman

White Folk Love Affairs

White folks carry on the love affair with black radicals, brothers in prison, past and present.

From the prison letters of George Jackson (1941-1971)
"Blackmen born in the U.S. and fortunate enough to live past the age of eighteen are conditioned to accept the inevitability of prison. For most of us, it simply looms as the next phase in a sequence of humiliations. Being born a slave in a captive society and never experiencing any objective basis for expectation had the effect of preparing me for the progressively traumatic misfortunes that lead so many blackmen to the prison gate. I was prepared for prison. It required only minor psychic adjustments."
Page 28
"I've been asked to explain myself, "briefly," before the world has done with me. It is difficult because I don't recognize uniqueness, not as it's applied to individualism, because it is too tightly tied into decadent capitalist culture. Rather I've always strained to see the indivisible thing cutting across the artificial barricades which have been erected to an older section of our brains, back to the mind of the primitive commune that exists in all blacks. But then how can I explain the runaway slave in terms that do not imply uniqueness?
I was captured and brought to prison when I was 18 years old because I couldn't adjust. The record that the state has compiled on my activities reads like the record of ten men. It labels me brigand, thief, burglar, gambler, hobo, drug addict, gunman, escape artist, Communist revolutionary, and murderer. I was born as the Great Depression was ending. It was ending because the second great war for colonial markets was beginning in the U.S. .."

-------- Born in Chicago, Jackson spent time in the California Youth Authority Corrections facility in Paso Robles for several convictions. He was convicted of armed robbery, a felony, for robbing a gas station at gunpoint and at age 18 was sentenced to serve one year to life in prison. While at Soledad prison in 1966, he founded the Black Guerrilla Family, a Marxist prison gang with political objectives. The BGF is still active today and still considered a prison gang.

On 16 January 1970 along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, Jackson was charged with murdering guard John V. Mills, in retaliation for the shooting deaths of three black inmates by officer O.G. Miller from his guard tower; both the shooting and the retaliation took place inside Soledad Prison. The guard was not charged, a grand jury ruled his actions to be justifiable homicide in response to a fight that had broken out. Incarcerated in the maximum security cellblock at Soledad Prison, Jackson and the other two inmates became known as the "Soledad Brothers".

On 7th August, 1970, George Jackson's seventeen year old brother, Jonathan, burst into a Marin County courtroom with a machine-gun and after taking Judge Harold Haley, Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas and three jurors hostage, he demanded freedom for the "Soledad Brothers".

Judge Haley and prisoners William Christmas, James McClain, and Jonathan Jackson were killed as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse. Eyewitness testimony suggests Haley was hit by fire discharged from a sawed-off shotgun that had been fastened to his neck with adhesive tape by the abductors. The DA and prisoner Ruchell Magee and one of the jurors were wounded. The shotgun was bought by Angela Davis, but she was acquitted of any crime in 1972 as ownership was not sufficient to establish her involvement in the plot. In August 1971 George Jackson was shot trying to escape prison. Jackson supposedly was armed with a 9mm which also was allegedly smuggled in by Angela Davis. (Davis ran on the Communist ticket for VP in 1980 and 1984, but since then Angie has pretty much been on the lecturing professor circuit tour. I once had her poster next to Che, what was I thinking.)

Yes, life is often unfair. Even so, not all black Americans condition their children to accept the inevitability of prison. Not all familial environments prepare their children for the gates of prison. The men below lived in hard times, sometimes harder, than prison brother George, yet these successful men were never "captured and brought to prison."

George Washington Carver - (USA, ca. 1864-1943) George Washington Carver was an agricultural chemist who discovered industrial uses for crop plants such as sweet potatoes, peanuts and soybeans. He developed methods for improving soil. Carver recognized that legumes return nitrates to the soil. His work led to crop rotation. Carver was born a slave in Missouri. He struggled to gain an education, eventually graduating from what was to become Iowa State University. He joined the faculty of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1896. Tuskegee is where he performed his famous experiments.

Percy Julian - (USA, 1899-1975) Percy Julian developed the anti-glaucoma drug physostigmine. Dr. Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, but educational opportunities for African Americans were limited in the South at that time, so he received his undergraduate degree from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Later he moved to Massachusetts and enrolled in Harvard University, where he earned his master's degree in 1923. Denied the teaching fellowship that customarily led to a doctorate at Harvard, he received a Rockefeller Grant and enrolled at the University of Vienna in Austria where he received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1929. Returning to the US he taught at Howard University in Washington, DC, another historically black school, then returned to his alma mater, DePauw, where he completed his landmark work on the drug physostigmine in 1935. Physostigmine was used to preserve sight by lessening the build-up of pressure caused by glaucoma, and it had only been available from its natural source, the Calabar bean. Though the achievement earned Julian worldwide acclaim, DePauw declined to appoint him to its faculty. Disgusted, he left academia and joined the Glidden Company in Chicago (today best known for its paints) as head of its soy products division. Julian used his knowledge of chemistry to make a wide variety of products from soybeans, including sex hormones, other steroids, and foams to extinguish oil and gas fires. In 1948, he developed a new way to synthesize the hydrocortisone used to treat rheumatoid arthritis - the method most widely used to this day. By the time he died in 1975, his research had resulted in more than 160 separate patents. He also integrated the all white affluent Oak Park neighborhood in 1950, his family still owns the home.

Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (1877 - 1963) was an African American inventor who originated a respiratory protective hood (similar to the modern gas masks), invented a hair-straightening preparation, and patented a type of traffic signal. He is renowned for a heroic rescue in which he used his hood to save workers trapped in a tunnel system filled with fumes. He is credited as the first African-American in Cleveland to own an automobile. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Garrett A. Morgan on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

Lloyd Augustus Hall (1894 - 1971) An industrial food chemist, Lloyd Augustus Hall revolutionized the meatpacking industry with his development of curing salts for the processing and reserving of meats. He developed a technique of "flash-driving" (evaporating) and a technique of sterilization with ethylene oxide which is still used by medical professionals today. Lloyd Augustus Hall was born in Elgin, Illinois on June 20, 1894, and raised in Aurora, Illinois. Hall invented new ways to preserve food. In 1925, Hall was the chief chemist and director of research at Griffith Laboratories in Chicago. It was here that Hall invented his processes for preserving meat using sodium chloride and nitrate and nitrite crystals. Hall also pioneered the use of antioxidants. Fats and oils spoil when exposed to oxygen in the air. Hall used lecithin, propyl gallate, and ascorbyl palmite as antioxidants, and invented a process to prepare the antioxidants for food preservation.

Otis Boykin - (1920-1982) graduated Fisk College in 1941. He invented an improved electrical resistor used in computers - radios - television sets and a variety of electronic devices. Boykin's resistor helped reduce the cost of those products. Otis Boykin also invented a variable resistor used in guided missile parts, a control unit for heart stimulators, a burglar-proof cash register and a chemical air filter.

So why is it Bubba that white folks love to love black "political prisoners"? The successful black men above, and tens of thousands of other successful blacks are ignored by white (and black) progressives/leftists who prefer to drool over those inmates who cannot adjust to the "decadent capitalist culture," encouraging black men to rant about thieving capitalists, the imperialism-made-me-do-it defense. The evils of capitalism, which apparently forces many black men to rob the neighborhood store at gunpoint, to cap off a rap sheet they've been working on since age 13.

Oddly, capitalism works well for their backers, employed on the outside as authors, lecturers, celebs, weekend sign carriers. A cult of white do-gooders handing out excuses; and all they accomplish is keeping the prisons filled with mama's discarded children and who's yo daddy because the ignorant swallow this political b.s. Isn't it great that a few of those captives, who become literate and articulate with forced incarceration, are chosen by white folks to be poster boys?

Ever notice Bubba that the original field negro, ballot or bullet, any means necessary MX is the "left" hero - not the MX who returned from Mecca with the message that he would accept only "sincere whites" because "the solution for black Americans would not begin with whites, it would begin and end with blacks", self-discipline, self-help, self-respect, etc. MX criticized the "liberalism" of the '60s; you can see why looking at the results today.

You might ask yourself who your real friends are Bubba.

I wondered why white folks don't have a similar group of white prison heroes ... aren't there any screwed up anti-social white guys behind bars waiting to become pet political prisoners? Some Joe Blow willing to change his name and rage against the machine from an 8 x 12 room? What about Johnny Walker Lindh aka Abd-al-Hamid - he would make a fine white political prisoner poster boy. Just a mixed up talibony white boy fighting the system. Free Johnny Hamid free Johnny Hamid free Johnny now. Maybe they're afraid they'll create more Johnny white boys if they romanticize and poster them.

Wee Wee'd (Stand) Up

In context : "... And when you notice that nobody is paying attention to what you're doing, just remember we've been through this before. Some of you were involved when we were in Iowa, 30 points down, and all of Washington said, oh, it's over -- hand-wringing and angst and teeth-gnashing. (Laughter.) And then last year just about this time, you'll recall that the Republicans had just nominated their Vice Presidential candidate, and everybody was -- the media was obsessed with it, and cable was 24 hours a day, and "Obama's lost his mojo." (Laughter.) You remember all that? (Laughter.) There's something about August going into September -- (laughter) -- where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up. (Laughter.) I don't know what it is. (Laughter.) But that's what happens."

---- Hmmm. That's "wee-weed up" on the official website - and BHO should stay away from the word "weed" as we know he has a penchant for smoking ... (laughter).

Could it be wee-wee as in pee pee? Does everyone in Washington in the months of August and September wet themselves (laughter) - because they are going on break from delegating those wordy legislative bills to staffers to read. It's hard labor passing along that much paperwork (laughter).

Or did Obama use "wee-wee'd up" because from what I've seen of the adoring audience nearest Obama that day, it was heavily geriatric, and some may have been wee-weeing as he spoke (laughter). Maybe BHO was getting a whiff of Depend (laughter).

Or maybe he meant wee-weed up as in very small things that only eat, shit, and bother people, like gnats and flies. Was Barry Mojo just speaking off-the-cuff to wee the little people? (Laughter.)

Semper Fi, Racketeers Repent

I was thinking of Smedley Butler - always running into references to his "war is a racket" - and I asked myself something I've never asked self before - why/how does a man of Butler's background go from 33 years active duty, a chest full of medals, some of the highest honors a soldier can receive - how did he become a late-blooming "peacenik"?

Butler says in his 1935 pamphlet: "Truthfulness compels me to. I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."

Butler joined the military just shy of his 17th birthday in 1898. After WWI he assumed command of the Marine Barracks at Quantico, Va., transforming what had been a temporary wartime camp into a permanent Marine installation. From January 1924 to December 1925, Brig. Gen. Butler was granted a leave of absence from the Corps to serve as director of Philadelphia’s Department of Public Safety, in an attempt to militarize the police force; but mainly a "supercop" closing down speakeasies and bootleggers, cleaning up Philly's vice. There was another temporary leave of absence, for 9 months in 1908, for a "nervous breakdown" although during that time Butler worked in the West Virginia coal mining business; odd as this was the era of the "Rebellion in the Coal Fields". Hmmm... was Butler acting as "a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers" on the home front?

The difficulty is finding the truth from history - which pushes predominantly the material written by supporters and detractors who paint larger than life legends, while the stark factual record raises more questions than it answers.

Butler returned to active duty in 1926, assuming command of the Marine base at San Diego, and a year later returned to China as commander of an MEF sent to protect American interests in Shanghai during a period of intense Chinese nationalist revolutionary activity. Not a traditional military expedition, this was among the first of what would now be called American peacekeeping missions. To the surprise of many, Butler executed his duties with great sensitivity and diplomatic skill. Twice the Chinese awarded him their ceremonial Umbrella of Ten Thousand Blessings, possibly the first foreigner ever to receive that honor.

Even 80 years ago the "racket" was sometimes a "peacekeeping mission."

Butler served around the world, wounded several times; earned more medals than I care to list, until 1931 when he requested retirement. What happened? Does a leopard change its spots?

In 1930, Smedley was expected to be named Commandant of the Marine Corps, but the position was given to Ben Fuller. Butler's father, Thomas, was an influential career congress critter from Pennsylvania, serving from 1897 to 1928, reelected 16 times until he died in office. His father's influence helped Smedley's life and military career. Had his father been alive in 1930 would Butler have been given the commandant promotion?

It seems he was unpopular with pols and powerful civilians for his loose lip over the years. Not loose in that he exposed government/military secrets or wrong doing - but he was known to gossip publicly about powerful people who didn't appreciate it. After his pass on the promotion he did state in a 1931 Liberty magazine interview that he was going to "do a little swatting of some heads of some low-down-bums who tried to ruin my life for me." Was Butler's anti-war stance born from job politics and personal grudges, or was he a genuine born-again anti-imperialist peace activist?

Still, in 1932 Smed was not quite ready to join the Socialist or Communist club - instead he ran for the US senate as a republican from Pennsylvania, daddy's old slot. Butler lost. This is when he apparently turned "left" - anti-war, anti-imperialism. While many think he was also anti-capitalist I find no information to solidly support the idea. He may have been anti-war, anti-imperialism, an isolationist, and against war profiteering, but he didn't appear to be anti-capitalist anywhere other than in the mind of the "left" who too often assume anyone against war and profiteering is anti-capitalism.

Between 1935 and 1937 Butler served as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism (which some considered communist-dominated). The '30s were an era when the communist party in the US saw growth and popularity among the working class, as it did in Europe. But that popularity was brief - after Hitler and Stalin divided up eastern Europe in 1939, the US communist party lost members, and where communists once supported FDR by 1939-40 they considered him a warmonger.

Before the romance of socialism/communism had worn off though, but after Butler's commandant and senatorial loss, in 1934 he made news with the FDR plot, or the Business Plot - a political conspiracy in which wealthy businessmen plotted a coup d’état to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified that a group of wealthy pro-Fascist industrialists had been plotting to overthrow the government and had approached him to lead it. The investigation supposedly found some merit to the allegations - but was that truth or a ploy to bolster support for FDR who angered many capitalists by signing new acts and new deals - the mood then was much as it is today, from a 1930s cartoon : "spend, spend, spend under guise of recovery, bust the government, blame the capitalists." The tinfoil crowd today claims Prescott Bush was one of the Business Plot plotters.

Butler reportedly was against fascism, so ask yourself - would fascist businessmen hire a man who was anti-fascism to lead a fascist coup? If that makes sense to you, please enlighten me. Butler initially supported FDR but later did not, maybe because FDR praised Benito :

FDR: "I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman."
FDR: "There seems to be no question that [Mussolini] is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy. " (Comments on Benito Mussolini in 1933, as quoted in Three New Deals : Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (2006) by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, p. 31.)

So again, why would fascist businessmen want to overthrow FDR when in 1933, at the time of Butler's allegations, Frankie D. didn't seem to have a problem with fascists? Who better to serve the US fascists than the FDR of 1933 who found Benito an honest and admirable gentleman?

Butler's Business Plot conspiracy alone is enough to question his sanity. Butler also alleged Douglas McArthur had organized the 1936 assassination of Huey Long. Huey's 1936 presidential bid promised to name Butler as Secretary of War.

Who better to drive the masses into the arms of tyranny than a man like Butler who spent more than half his life warring and profiting and suddenly "sees the light," who can emphatically state the depression era misery is due to the profiteering he himself participated in for 33 years and 4 months? Would that "muscle man" blurb have been written if Butler had won that 1932 congressional seat? Or would Smed have been a John Kerry of the 1930s - the wounded warrior turned pacifist? Someone who would have posed on a peace platform but approve every round of war funding? Or a John Murtha who was for war before he was against it and who's district and family members grow fat on defense pork? Or perhaps Butler would have been a Kucinich - the token "leftist" trotted out every 4 years to make chatter and change nothing.

Butler did not see action in WWI, he was in China, and he attempted to return one of his Medals of Honor awarded in 1914 for service in Mexico, stating he had done nothing to deserve it. He was told to keep it which he did; the medal toss was not part of pop culture in the 1930s. His second Medal was for suppressing Caco rebels in 1915 Haiti, where Smed boasted of his exploits and that his men "hunted the Cacos like pigs."

We, the commoners, know war is a racket - old adages are proof of that. Question is, why did it take Butler 33 years and 4 months to connect the dots, to publicly claim he was a thug for Big Business? Did "truthfulness compel" Smedley to renounce war and imperialism, or was he guided by expediency rather than principle because of the socialist-leaning hope and change political winds of the 1930s?

(What I would like to know but unlikely to find, is how did Butler feel about black Americans in uniform? In WWI 400,000 black soldiers served in the armed forces. Over half of the black American men who served in the war were stationed in France, my dad was exposed to mustard gas in France in 1918, never received a dime in compensation but had a cough the rest of his life.).

Richman Poorman

Concentration of wealth in hands of rich greatest on record. By Daniel Tencer.

Once upon a time I had a gut reaction to statements such as above - then I looked closer for myself at wealth, income, concentration, statistics.

Mr. Tencer says: "The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than they ever have in records going back nearly a century — an even larger amount than during the Roaring Twenties, the last time the US saw such similar disparities in wealth. In recent years, the fact that differences between rich and poor are the greatest they’ve been since the Great Depression has become a popular talking point among liberal-leaning economists. But an updated study from University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez shows that, in 2007, the wealth disparity grew to its highest number on record, based on US tax data going back to 1917. According to Saez’s study, which Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman drew attention to at his New York Times blog, the top 10 percent of earners in America now receive nearly 50 percent of all the income earned in the United States, a higher percentage than they did during the 1920s."

--- "Income" and "wealth" are two different animals, although related. Income is what is coming in, wealth is what you own minus debts. You may have a great deal of wealth and very little income. Or you may blow all of a good income and own little.

So my little chickadees - can you list the "top 10 percent of earners" who receive nearly "50 percent of all income earned in the United States" ? And tell me how many are top earners, 1000? 100,000? A million, or more?

And exactly who is making these top "earners" so tops? Would that be us bottomfeeders who buy their products? Buy the tickets to their concerts, their sports, their movies? I guess Russell Peters ($10M last year), Jeff Foxworthy, and Jerry Seinfeld ($85M) really are a million laughs.

But, no joke folks : In 2008 to break into the top 1 percent, a tax return had to have an AGI of $410,096 or more. In 2006 one only had to make $156,000 to be included in the top 5% earners club. The top 10% of earners Krugman drew attention to is anyone with an AGI of $113,000.

To be in the top 1-10% you might be a professor, author, salesman, musician, restaurant owner/manager, doctor, dentist, lawyer, accountant, celebrity, sports figure, politician, business administrator, retail manager, ice cream maker, farmer, small time contractor, mid size anything, daycare owner, franchise owner, car dealer, glorified secretary, animal breeder, dog trainer, lottery winner, pet rock man, porn star, call girl, gambler, conman, drug dealer, or Indian chief. You may need to be a 2-income family to join the top 10 percenters club - but the club is not exactly the tiny evil group of fatcats the "progressive" folks would have you believe is crushing you beneath the weight of their wealthy feet. You, and others you know, may be members in the 10% club, and worked for and deserve every dime of it.

So, what do these "disparity" figures, a consistent talking point for the democrats and "left," really mean? Could the repuglicans be right? Do too many Americans now believe they are constitutionally entitled to a nice slice of someone else's hard-earned pie?

Clunkers

Obama's speech in Grand Junction on Saturday - he says opponents way back when called Social Security and Medicare "socialism." Scare tactics he says, by opponents, and they use the same ones today. (Actually, they are socialist programs.)

1935 FDR - In the United States, Social Security did not exist on the federal level until the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935. This statute provided for a federal program of old-age retirement benefits and a joint federal-state venture of Unemployment Compensation. In addition, it dispensed federal funds to aid the development at the state level of such programs as vocational rehabilitation, public health services, and child welfare services, along with assistance to the elderly and the handicapped. The act instituted a system of mandatory old-age insurance, issuing benefits in proportion to the previous earnings of persons over sixty-five and establishing a reserve fund financed through the imposition of payroll taxes on employers and employees. The original levy was 1 percent, but the rate has increased over the years. Only employees in industrial and commercial occupations were eligible for protection under the Social Security Act of 1935, but numerous important amendments have expanded the categories of coverage.

A nation providing a net for the needy is appropriate. It is the "numerous amendments" and increasing levy that is onerous. In 2004 Social Security paid out $500 billion in benefits. Our Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expenditure in the federal budget.

2008 mandatory spending programs - Social Security and Medicare:

* Social Security - $544 billion
* Medicare - $325 billion
* Medicaid - $186 billion
* All other mandatory programs - $357 billion. These programs include Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition, Child Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the blind and disabled, Student Loans, and Retirement / Disability programs for Civil Servants, the Coast Guard and the Military.

Contrary to popular myth - defense spending is not the main recipient of tax dollars. Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment and Welfare are 31.7% of the 2008 pie chart. Department of Defense 16.6%, if we add GWOT and DHS into the defense category their piece of the pie rises to 22.8 - still almost 9% less than that spent on social programs.

1965 LBJ - Medicare and its companion program Medicaid, (which insures indigent recipients), were signed into law by Lyndon Johnson as part of his "Great Society."

The original Acts, not so egregiously burdensome, continued to expand and expand. Initially meant to rescue those who could not provide their own safety net or retirement. But, rather than a net to assist the retirement of the lower classes and those in temporary dire straits, the Deal and Act have become the biggest public troughs.

A large amount of the political and social corruption seen in the US can be laid on the abuse of these programs, which is why we do not have or ever will have social security nor a great society. What we have is everyone who wants to gaming the system - and believing it's their "right."

Give 'Til it Hurts

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