Wednesday, May 2, 2012
GOP Anti-Gay Faction Celebrates Running Ric Grenell Out of Romney's Campaign
UPDATE BELOW: Keeping Grenell muzzled!
Listen to this guy, Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis at the American Family Association,
celebrate running Romney's foreign policy advisor out of town because he is gay. These are the people Romney will be beholden to and, apparently, the people who will dictate to him who is acceptable for cabinet positions and who isn't, should he become president.
And make no mistake, NO GAY CITIZEN, NO MATTER HOW QUALIFIED, NEED APPLY!
Ric Grenell was hounded out of his position as Romney's foreign policy advisor by the Christianist gay haters, and they're celebrating it with a victory dance.
Imagine what their influence would be if Romney made it to the White House! I don't understand how any member of the LGBT community would want to be part of the GOP--a political party that reviles them--after listening to this hideously bigoted man:
I call Romney spineless. He can't stand up to this loud-mouthed bigot, how will he deal with America's enemies? Coward!
From the Washington Post:
"Fischer was central to that “hyper-partisan discussion.” He’s the director of issue analysis at the American Family Association, and he blasted the campaign upon Grenell’s hiring for associating itself with an openly gay man.
Grenell also ran into trouble for a bunch of sexist tweets that he ended up deleting from his Twitter feed. In an interview this afternoon, I pointed out to Fischer that Grenell had deep experience in foreign-affairs flacking, a tour of duty that included working under four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations. Would Fischer worry that, with Grenell’s resignation, the Romney campaign might have trouble finding someone as qualified? Someone with Grenell’s record as a bulldog vis-a-vis aggressive reporters? Someone who could bash the Obama team in the media? “Absolutely not,” responded Fischer. “I refuse to believe that Richard Grenell was the only qualified individual. I think that hire was about homosexuality, so there will be plenty of qualified candidates [Romney] will be able to choose from.” Straight ones, that is."
"STRAIGHT ONES, THAT IS."
There you go, America.
No gay person, no matter how qualified will be welcome if these bigots have any say in the matter. And apparently they decide whom Romeny will have as advisors, NOT Romney! Wow!
What a miserably distopian country these people want us to live in.
UPDATE:
"Sources close to Grenell say that he was specifically told by those high up in the Romney campaign to stay silent on the call, even while he was on it. And this was not the only time he had been instructed to shut up. Their response to the far right fooferaw was simply to go silent, to keep Grenell off-stage and mute, and to wait till the storm passed. But the storm was not likely to pass if no one in the Romney camp was prepared to back Grenell up. Hence his dilemma. The obvious solution was simply to get Grenell out there doling out the neocon red meat - which would have immediately changed the subject and helped dispel base skepticism. Instead the terrified Romneyites shut him up without any actual plan for when he might subsequently be able to do his job. To my mind, it's a mark of his integrity that he decided to quit rather than be put in this absurd situation. And it's a mark of Romney's fundamental weakness within his own party that he could not back his spokesman against the Bryan Fischers and Matthew Francks. "
Charlie Pierce writing in Esquire:
It's remarkable, this shitcanning of Richard Grenell as foreign-policy spokescritter for the Romneybot 2.0. Remarkable still for its being handled with such notable dispatch. First, you hire on the former mouthpiece for authoritarian nutbag John Bolton to establish further your neo-conservative foreign-policy gravitas. It turns out the guy is openly gay, so bonus! (Remember, all you wavering and otherwise vacant "independent" voters: Once, I was going to be a gayer senator than Teddy Kennedy. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.) Then, of course, the guy turns out to be just as crackers as his former boss — Bad-mouthing the lovely Callista Gingrich? Calumnizing kindly Doc Maddow? My seconds will call on yours, sir! — and, because he's gay, the megachurches scramble the flying monkeys into the air and, within two weeks, Grenell is as fired as an Ampad worker. Quoth the Politico:
"This was an unforced error, and one that could have been avoided if the Romney campaign had simply said early on we have 100 percent faith in Ric Grenell to do his job," said Chris Barron, one of the co-founders of the group GOProud. "Does anyone in the world doubt that if had been an evangelical or a Mormon or a Jewish person that the Romney campaign would not have defended that person? It is hard for me to comprehend why the Romney campaign chose to leave Ric Grenell hanging out there the way that they did." He added, "Every campaign when you're at this moment where you're making the transition from the primary to the general election looks for their Sistah Souljah moment. And this could have been Romney's Sistah Souljah moment. He could have said, look, this is a guy who was spokesman at the United Nations. This is a guy who served under John Bolton ... and by God, I'm not going to let a handful of extremists bring him down."
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/richard-grenell-fired-8534269#ixzz1tlMiykZa
This is a shameful example of Mitt Romney's weak-kneed response to outside pressures. He doesn't have the integrity nor the courage to stand his ground. He allowed a barking-mad group of homophobic cretins to overrule his choice of a foreign policy wonk.
Would Romney have allowed an outside group to pressure him to get rid of a Jewish person? A Mormon? An African-American? A Latino? Why is it acceptable for the Christianist bigots to single out a gay person as not acceptable? Why?
And why didn't Romney have the character to stand up to the bigoted bullies and say NO! This is the guy I want, and his sexual orientation is not an issue.
Romney failed. Big time.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Short memories
Does anybody remember why Hitler's march into Russia failed? It was for exactly the same reason that Napoleon's similar march failed, right?
I'm not comparing Romney to Hitler, except in that they both seem unable to learn from history. This is Romney's latest campaign ad.
I'm not even going to attack the obvious lies, distortions and half-truths that it's riddled with. Instead, here's a failed campaign strategy from just 4 short years ago.
Is it just me?
Here's Another Item That Will Enrage FAUX NOOZ and Conservatives
I can hear it now:
"Obama...blah....blah....blah...indoctrination...blah...blah...blah...only doing it to get elected...blah...blah...blah...doesn't really care...blah...blah...blah...whine...whine...whine...destroying the Constitution...blah...blah...blah...pandering...blah..."
President and Mrs. Obama have received the highest praise and honor for the work they've done to address the problem of homeless veterans from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV).
I can't wait to hear how FAUX NOOZ and Karl Rove will spin this into a negative to prove that Mr. Obama and his wife are America-hating, Ivy League elitist, election stealers. And then I'll wait to read all of the negative anti-Obama talking points on the rightwing blogs.
Meanwhile I'm happy to spread the good news about their worthy efforts to solve this problem and to bring it to America's attention. Kudos to both of them for the encouraging results.
"President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will receive the highest honor given to homeless advocates.
The Obamas were chosen to get this year’s Jerald Washington Memorial Founders' Award, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), and Barack Obama is the first person -- in history -- to receive the award more than once.
Barack Obama is tackling the issue with his 'Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness,' an initiative that aims to end chronic and veteran homelessness by 2015. He's working to meet this goal by mainstreaming housing, health, education and human service programs.
On any given night last January, 67,495 homeless veterans were sleeping on the streets, a 56 percent decline since the president took office, according to the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress.
'Under the leadership of President Obama, we are witnessing unprecedented national unity in the campaign to end and prevent veteran homelessness,' Patrick Ryan, Chairman of the NCHV Board of Directors, said in a press release. "The progress we have seen from the federal agencies, the Congress, the community partners NCHV represents, and the American people in just the last three years give rise to the expectation that this campaign will succeed."
Michelle Obama has been doing her part to address the range of issues veteran face, including homelessness, with the one-year-old initiative, Joining Forces, which she founded with Jill Biden."
This, of course, will cause no end of cognitive dissonance to those on the right who detest President and Mrs. Obama, because they won't be able to reconcile the fact that he and his wife can't possibly be America haters and at the same time work so earnestly to restore dignity to our veterans. This will disturb their narrative and make them extremely uncomfortable--truths can do that to people who practice avoiding them. But don't worry. They'll come up with some way to prove to themselves that this is NOT reality, that the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, in honoring President and Mrs. Obama, was bribed or forced into acknowledging the "fake" support the president and his wife have given them, and somehow this is all election year nonsense.
It's all so predictable and all such a farce--something we'd see on a SNL skit and laugh at. This is what many wingers have become in their knee-jerk reaction to anything related to Mr. and Mrs. Obama--buffoons. The only intelligent reaction to such buffonery is to shake one's head and donate to Mr. Obama's re-election campaign. Each time I read or hear a nasty swipe at PBO, I donate to his campaign, and I encourage my family and friends to do the same.
Think of it this way, every time you or I counter a contemptible and scurrilous accusation thrown at POTUS and FLOTUS, a little right-wing devil loses its horns.
"Obama...blah....blah....blah...indoctrination...blah...blah...blah...only doing it to get elected...blah...blah...blah...doesn't really care...blah...blah...blah...whine...whine...whine...destroying the Constitution...blah...blah...blah...pandering...blah..."
I can't wait to hear how FAUX NOOZ and Karl Rove will spin this into a negative to prove that Mr. Obama and his wife are America-hating, Ivy League elitist, election stealers. And then I'll wait to read all of the negative anti-Obama talking points on the rightwing blogs.
Meanwhile I'm happy to spread the good news about their worthy efforts to solve this problem and to bring it to America's attention. Kudos to both of them for the encouraging results.
"President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will receive the highest honor given to homeless advocates.
The Obamas were chosen to get this year’s Jerald Washington Memorial Founders' Award, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), and Barack Obama is the first person -- in history -- to receive the award more than once.
Barack Obama is tackling the issue with his 'Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness,' an initiative that aims to end chronic and veteran homelessness by 2015. He's working to meet this goal by mainstreaming housing, health, education and human service programs.
On any given night last January, 67,495 homeless veterans were sleeping on the streets, a 56 percent decline since the president took office, according to the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress.
'Under the leadership of President Obama, we are witnessing unprecedented national unity in the campaign to end and prevent veteran homelessness,' Patrick Ryan, Chairman of the NCHV Board of Directors, said in a press release. "The progress we have seen from the federal agencies, the Congress, the community partners NCHV represents, and the American people in just the last three years give rise to the expectation that this campaign will succeed."
Michelle Obama has been doing her part to address the range of issues veteran face, including homelessness, with the one-year-old initiative, Joining Forces, which she founded with Jill Biden."
This, of course, will cause no end of cognitive dissonance to those on the right who detest President and Mrs. Obama, because they won't be able to reconcile the fact that he and his wife can't possibly be America haters and at the same time work so earnestly to restore dignity to our veterans. This will disturb their narrative and make them extremely uncomfortable--truths can do that to people who practice avoiding them. But don't worry. They'll come up with some way to prove to themselves that this is NOT reality, that the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, in honoring President and Mrs. Obama, was bribed or forced into acknowledging the "fake" support the president and his wife have given them, and somehow this is all election year nonsense.
It's all so predictable and all such a farce--something we'd see on a SNL skit and laugh at. This is what many wingers have become in their knee-jerk reaction to anything related to Mr. and Mrs. Obama--buffoons. The only intelligent reaction to such buffonery is to shake one's head and donate to Mr. Obama's re-election campaign. Each time I read or hear a nasty swipe at PBO, I donate to his campaign, and I encourage my family and friends to do the same.
Think of it this way, every time you or I counter a contemptible and scurrilous accusation thrown at POTUS and FLOTUS, a little right-wing devil loses its horns.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Living While Black
It is a sensational story. An unarmed, black 17-year-old male is shot while walking in a residential neighborhood in which he was visiting while coming back from the store with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. The only thing that we are certain of is that the man who shot him thought that he looked suspicious,and that the man who shot him says that it was self defense.
The basic problem that I have is the willingness of so many to accept George Zimmerman's account of events as fact. Without the public outcry of the black community and some whites there were no plans to charge him with anything. This case should have always been headed for trial to determine the facts. You cannot kill someone and say it was self defense without offering facts to support your claim. That's what is meant by an affirmative defense. Yes, I killed someone but I had good cause.
There is nothing cut and dried about Zimmerman's claim of self defense. There still has not been a medical report confirming Zimmerman's allegation that Trayvon Martin broke his nose. We don't know that Trayvon initiated the fatal confrontation. He could have resisted Zimmerman's attempt to detain him. On the 911 call, Zimmerman expresses his frustration with how "they" always get away. He doesn't specify who "they" may be.
I find it of interest that the partial police summary clearly states that Trayvon was found face down. Was Trayvon on top of Zimmerman when Zimmerman shot him? He would have had to be on top to be banging Zimmermans head on the ground or was it the sidewalk? If Trayvon was on top and he was face down when the police arrived, did he fall over on Zimmerman when he was shot and Zimmerman wriggled out from under his body? No pun intended, but Trayvon would have been dead weight and wouldn't it have been easier for Zimmerman to push Trayvon off of him rather than slide from under Trayvon? And if he did push Trayvon's body off, is it likely that Trayvon would have landed face down? I don't know but it's something for forensic experts to consider and answer.
Why is there an assumption that Trayvon was obliged to treat Zimmerman as someone with authority? One thing that Zimmerman has not alleged is that he ever identified himself as part of the neighborhood watch to Trayvon.
Why is it that some people apparently have no problem with ZImmerman following Trayvon? Put yourself in Trayvon's shoes. There is a strange man following you. You don't know what he wants but he keeps following you. I would be wary and fearful and act defensively. How was Trayvon supposed to guess that Zimmerman was a member of the neighborhood watch and thought that he was thereby authorized to follow people?
Zimmerman lost track of Trayvon but was so determined to follow him that he got out of his vehicle to track him down. He alleges that he couldn't find Trayvon and was heading back to his vehicle when Trayvon initiated contact with him.
Evidently, the right to defend oneself only applies to Zimmerman. Trayvon was followed by an adult male whom he did not know. For all he knew Zimmerman was a pedophile or a kidnapper or both.
Zimmerman states that Trayvon asked, "do you have a problem with me?" Why didn't Zimmerman identify himself as a member of the neighborhood watch and explain why he was following Trayvon? Instead, according to Zimmerman's account, he shrugged off the question and indicated that he didn't have a problem with Trayvon at which point, according to Zimmerman, Trayvon said, "Well now you do."
The majority of people have opinions on this case including those whose opinion is that the media has stirred up the frenzy about racism. Nope, living while black in this country is what makes some of us talk about racism as a factor in Zimmerman's conclusion that Trayvon looked suspicious. That and the willingness of some to declare that Trayvon was a thug and offer as proof that he was suspended from school three times and may have smoked pot. He wasn't a thug; he was a teenager. But even if he were a thug,it doesn't matter; he's dead and Zimmerman killed him, and now Zimmerman must show that he had just cause for doing so.
Zimmerman will have a trial. He will get a chance in a court of law to convince a jury that he shot and killed Trayvon for justifiable reasons. Trayvon cannot tell his side of the story. It is up to the DA and forensic experts to make certain that his side of the story is told.
I've read stories that state that Zimmerman cries a great deal. So do Trayvon's parents.
The basic problem that I have is the willingness of so many to accept George Zimmerman's account of events as fact. Without the public outcry of the black community and some whites there were no plans to charge him with anything. This case should have always been headed for trial to determine the facts. You cannot kill someone and say it was self defense without offering facts to support your claim. That's what is meant by an affirmative defense. Yes, I killed someone but I had good cause.
There is nothing cut and dried about Zimmerman's claim of self defense. There still has not been a medical report confirming Zimmerman's allegation that Trayvon Martin broke his nose. We don't know that Trayvon initiated the fatal confrontation. He could have resisted Zimmerman's attempt to detain him. On the 911 call, Zimmerman expresses his frustration with how "they" always get away. He doesn't specify who "they" may be.
I find it of interest that the partial police summary clearly states that Trayvon was found face down. Was Trayvon on top of Zimmerman when Zimmerman shot him? He would have had to be on top to be banging Zimmermans head on the ground or was it the sidewalk? If Trayvon was on top and he was face down when the police arrived, did he fall over on Zimmerman when he was shot and Zimmerman wriggled out from under his body? No pun intended, but Trayvon would have been dead weight and wouldn't it have been easier for Zimmerman to push Trayvon off of him rather than slide from under Trayvon? And if he did push Trayvon's body off, is it likely that Trayvon would have landed face down? I don't know but it's something for forensic experts to consider and answer.
Why is there an assumption that Trayvon was obliged to treat Zimmerman as someone with authority? One thing that Zimmerman has not alleged is that he ever identified himself as part of the neighborhood watch to Trayvon.
Why is it that some people apparently have no problem with ZImmerman following Trayvon? Put yourself in Trayvon's shoes. There is a strange man following you. You don't know what he wants but he keeps following you. I would be wary and fearful and act defensively. How was Trayvon supposed to guess that Zimmerman was a member of the neighborhood watch and thought that he was thereby authorized to follow people?
Zimmerman lost track of Trayvon but was so determined to follow him that he got out of his vehicle to track him down. He alleges that he couldn't find Trayvon and was heading back to his vehicle when Trayvon initiated contact with him.
Evidently, the right to defend oneself only applies to Zimmerman. Trayvon was followed by an adult male whom he did not know. For all he knew Zimmerman was a pedophile or a kidnapper or both.
Zimmerman states that Trayvon asked, "do you have a problem with me?" Why didn't Zimmerman identify himself as a member of the neighborhood watch and explain why he was following Trayvon? Instead, according to Zimmerman's account, he shrugged off the question and indicated that he didn't have a problem with Trayvon at which point, according to Zimmerman, Trayvon said, "Well now you do."
The majority of people have opinions on this case including those whose opinion is that the media has stirred up the frenzy about racism. Nope, living while black in this country is what makes some of us talk about racism as a factor in Zimmerman's conclusion that Trayvon looked suspicious. That and the willingness of some to declare that Trayvon was a thug and offer as proof that he was suspended from school three times and may have smoked pot. He wasn't a thug; he was a teenager. But even if he were a thug,it doesn't matter; he's dead and Zimmerman killed him, and now Zimmerman must show that he had just cause for doing so.
Zimmerman will have a trial. He will get a chance in a court of law to convince a jury that he shot and killed Trayvon for justifiable reasons. Trayvon cannot tell his side of the story. It is up to the DA and forensic experts to make certain that his side of the story is told.
I've read stories that state that Zimmerman cries a great deal. So do Trayvon's parents.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Such are the heathen converted
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news
Isaiah 57:12
Isaiah 57:12
I can understand what it's like to be given a last minute reprieve. After a week spent with tubes and machines and embarrassing hospital gowns -- after being probed and scanned and punctured and pestered for days, the message came down that apparently, there's nothing really wrong and I could go home.
Being hospitalized, of course, gives one time and a reason to contemplate matters of life and its inevitable end and when it comes to hospitals and jails and other places of misery, it seems there are those good folks wandering about that would like very much indeed to offer one the comforts of their beliefs. Being all but trussed up like a sacrificial lamb and being fairly certain that the Mayans would have to hold their apocalypse without me, perhaps one can forgive me for being disinclined to being sociable to salesmen, for such I do see them. Yes I loathe having myths and ludicrous beliefs being sold to me as though I were some primitive, but it also seems like a hell of an ugly thing to go out rudely and in an undignified fashion by being nasty to them. The nearness of death, that great equalizer, should really teach a bit of compassion -- and so it does.
The first gentleman in a bright blue volunteer blazer identified himself as a chaplain and looking at his clipboard, he seemed puzzled that I had answered "none" to the question of religious preference.
" No, I don't have one," I said. " I don't prefer one over the next."
"Well that's OK, said he. "But if there's anything you need, you can call on me." Thank you very much," I answered, meaning it.The following day, a woman perhaps a few years older than I am arrived with the same clipboard and heavenly blue jacket.
"I'm not religious," I replied to the same question.
"So does that mean you don't believe in God?"
"It means I don't feel any reason to believe in gods or souls. I'm just not religious."
"Neither was Jesus," she responded, sensing an opening.
"OK, fine"She seemed perturbed.
"You know Jesus wasn't religious either"I said, being as terse as possible and not wanting to get drawn into the programmed dialog she's been trained to draw me into as though I couldn't lecture her for days on Jewish messianic movements, I retreated into my Kindle and ignored her as she went on about peace and how she had it and how we all needed it and she of course had it from Jesus. Any sarcasm would of course been lost and a bit out of place anyway and eventually she left with an odd expression that must have been the result of some inner peace that surpasseth all endurance, especially mine.
"I can understand that"
The next day, awaiting with some trepidation the results of a CT scan, a pair of Baptist chaplains approached the man in the next bed, behind a curtain who thanked them politely but as a Roman Catholic felt he needs better served elsewhere.
"Well all right." They said cheerfully. "We hope everything works out well for you."Approaching me next, the elderly, black (about my age) woman in the chaplain coat looked at her clip board.
"It says you don't have a religion but I thought maybe you could use a smile."
"You know, I really, absolutely, could and that's the best one I've seen in a long time. Thank you!"And thus is the light spread. Stepping out into the afternoon sun and sea wind, it was as though everything was new.
Thus is the light of your virtue still on its way, even when its work is done. Be it forgotten and dead, still its ray of light lives and travels. That your virtue is your Self, and not an outward thing, a skin, or a cloak: that is the truth from the basis of your souls, you virtuous ones!
-Friedrich Nietzsche-
-Friedrich Nietzsche-
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
The Problem with White Guilt
I recently read an article by Mark Judge in The Daily Caller entitled, The end of my white guilt. Mr. Judge recounts how the theft of his bike on Good Friday made him let go of white guilt. Judge concludes that black people use "...the moral authority of past generations for their own personal gain and self-aggrandizement." But his grand conclusion is that black pain is no different than white pain, which is the fall back position of the "but I'm not a racist" crowd. We're all alike and it's black people who insist on holding on to the past.
It's a convenient position. It allows white people to take no responsibility for current discriminatory laws and policies and to blissfully attribute racism to the willingness of black people to play the race card. Of course, they never consider that black people play the cards but white people deal the deck. When we insist that racism is still a factor in the social, political, ad economic structure of this country, they shake their heads in dismay, quickly declare, "I'm not a racist," and feel that should be the end of the conversation.
We are not all alike; we share a history but the role in that shared history is very different based on many factors including race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and nationality. This fixation on our being one homogeneous group generally results in those who are non-white being pressured to assimilate as fully as possible, giving up our own cultural identities and accepting fully the culture of the white majority. That is the foundation of the "English only" movement. Ask Native Americans about the efforts in the United States to forcibly transform Native American cultures to European culture from 1790 to 1920. The assimilation policy included removing Native American children from their families and ending them to boarding schools to receive a "civilized" education. Canada developed a similar system of assimilation that involved removing Indian children from their families and placing them in residential schools with a goal of forced assimilation.
I'm tired of the generalization on the part of far too many white people that they have somehow borne and continue to bear the great burden of white guilt and that they've been treated so unfairly. Bullshit. If I generalized to that extent, I would mistrust all white people and shoot them on sight.
How often do you hear of a group of bored black teenagers deciding to kill a white man and run him over with a truck for sport? (Anderson story) How often have black men dragged a white man behind a truck simply because he's white? (James Byrd) How often have black people covered their faces and burned crosses in people's yards to intimidate them? (Ohio cross burning 2012) How many times has a black person been acquitted after killing a 14-year-old white boy, beating him so viciously that he was unrecognizable as a human being? (Emmett Till, disturbing photo) How many 14-year-old white boys have been tried by an all black jury, convicted of murder and executed with no physical evidence tying him to the murders? (George Stinney Jr.)
How many white bodies swinging from trees with the signs of torture applied before death have been immortalized in photographs and postcards that show hundreds and in some instances thousands of people--men, women, children, grandma and grandpa--all standing around on a family outing to watch the lynching of men and women, thrilled when the victim was a woman eight months pregnant (Remembering Mary Turner) whose belly was ripped open to insure the death of her unborn child? (American Lynching, Without Sanctuary, from Life magazine, Bill Moyers Journal) All of these documented events took place in the 19th and 20th century, not some distant days of slavery.
There have been no instances of black adults spitting on white school children as they attempted to integrate public schools. And now, in the 21st century, black boys are being shot down for walking on a neighborhood street or for the way they are dressed; five black people in Oklahoma are shot by two white men who selected the victims based on skin color.
I'm tired of white people insisting, "Black people commit crimes and black people kill white people too," as if that somehow mitigates the killing of black people by white people simply based on race. Of course we kill people too. People have been killing according to the tale of Cain and Abel since the beginning of time and there is nothing acceptable about the murder of anyone for any reason. However, perpetrating this nonsense that white people are justified in fearing black people and that black people are somehow inherently dangerous and dishonest is blatant racism.
No one ever asked white people to feel guilt. What we asked for was to be treated with equality. What we received was decades of Jim Crow laws that lasted well into the 20th century. The civil rights movement isn't ancient history and racism and racial prejudice is alive and thriving in the 21st century.
Most of the time I am in a conciliatory mode when it comes to race relations. When I was 14 I learned to play the guitar, stuck peace signs all over my guitar case, and earnestly sang Kumbayah and all the verses of We Shall Overcome. I believed with all the earnestness of the very young that our newly integrated school system was the start of a better society where we all lived together in brotherhood and sisterhood. I held on to that belief for as long as I could, with the desperation of a novice trying to climb a rock wall.
Somewhere, deep in a brightly lit recess of my soul that belief still survives. But after 57 years on this earth, I find myself having more and more moments when the light is so dim that I can't see it any more and I truly wonder if has been extinguished. So far, like Pandora, I always eventually find that light again. But I'm older and I'm tired. Every day that I come across blatant racism, splattered across the Internet, shouting from social networking sites, reported on in the daily news, it swallows a bit of that light and I fear that one day I will remain in the darkness, angry and bitter and thoroughly disillusioned.
If you are white, and you feel uncomfortable or even attacked by my consistent reference to white people as including every white person in this country, you have experienced to some extent what it is like to be black in this country when every infraction committed by any black person is attributed to the character of all black people.
It's a convenient position. It allows white people to take no responsibility for current discriminatory laws and policies and to blissfully attribute racism to the willingness of black people to play the race card. Of course, they never consider that black people play the cards but white people deal the deck. When we insist that racism is still a factor in the social, political, ad economic structure of this country, they shake their heads in dismay, quickly declare, "I'm not a racist," and feel that should be the end of the conversation.
We are not all alike; we share a history but the role in that shared history is very different based on many factors including race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and nationality. This fixation on our being one homogeneous group generally results in those who are non-white being pressured to assimilate as fully as possible, giving up our own cultural identities and accepting fully the culture of the white majority. That is the foundation of the "English only" movement. Ask Native Americans about the efforts in the United States to forcibly transform Native American cultures to European culture from 1790 to 1920. The assimilation policy included removing Native American children from their families and ending them to boarding schools to receive a "civilized" education. Canada developed a similar system of assimilation that involved removing Indian children from their families and placing them in residential schools with a goal of forced assimilation.
I'm tired of the generalization on the part of far too many white people that they have somehow borne and continue to bear the great burden of white guilt and that they've been treated so unfairly. Bullshit. If I generalized to that extent, I would mistrust all white people and shoot them on sight.
How often do you hear of a group of bored black teenagers deciding to kill a white man and run him over with a truck for sport? (Anderson story) How often have black men dragged a white man behind a truck simply because he's white? (James Byrd) How often have black people covered their faces and burned crosses in people's yards to intimidate them? (Ohio cross burning 2012) How many times has a black person been acquitted after killing a 14-year-old white boy, beating him so viciously that he was unrecognizable as a human being? (Emmett Till, disturbing photo) How many 14-year-old white boys have been tried by an all black jury, convicted of murder and executed with no physical evidence tying him to the murders? (George Stinney Jr.)
How many white bodies swinging from trees with the signs of torture applied before death have been immortalized in photographs and postcards that show hundreds and in some instances thousands of people--men, women, children, grandma and grandpa--all standing around on a family outing to watch the lynching of men and women, thrilled when the victim was a woman eight months pregnant (Remembering Mary Turner) whose belly was ripped open to insure the death of her unborn child? (American Lynching, Without Sanctuary, from Life magazine, Bill Moyers Journal) All of these documented events took place in the 19th and 20th century, not some distant days of slavery.There have been no instances of black adults spitting on white school children as they attempted to integrate public schools. And now, in the 21st century, black boys are being shot down for walking on a neighborhood street or for the way they are dressed; five black people in Oklahoma are shot by two white men who selected the victims based on skin color.
I'm tired of white people insisting, "Black people commit crimes and black people kill white people too," as if that somehow mitigates the killing of black people by white people simply based on race. Of course we kill people too. People have been killing according to the tale of Cain and Abel since the beginning of time and there is nothing acceptable about the murder of anyone for any reason. However, perpetrating this nonsense that white people are justified in fearing black people and that black people are somehow inherently dangerous and dishonest is blatant racism.
No one ever asked white people to feel guilt. What we asked for was to be treated with equality. What we received was decades of Jim Crow laws that lasted well into the 20th century. The civil rights movement isn't ancient history and racism and racial prejudice is alive and thriving in the 21st century.
Most of the time I am in a conciliatory mode when it comes to race relations. When I was 14 I learned to play the guitar, stuck peace signs all over my guitar case, and earnestly sang Kumbayah and all the verses of We Shall Overcome. I believed with all the earnestness of the very young that our newly integrated school system was the start of a better society where we all lived together in brotherhood and sisterhood. I held on to that belief for as long as I could, with the desperation of a novice trying to climb a rock wall.
Somewhere, deep in a brightly lit recess of my soul that belief still survives. But after 57 years on this earth, I find myself having more and more moments when the light is so dim that I can't see it any more and I truly wonder if has been extinguished. So far, like Pandora, I always eventually find that light again. But I'm older and I'm tired. Every day that I come across blatant racism, splattered across the Internet, shouting from social networking sites, reported on in the daily news, it swallows a bit of that light and I fear that one day I will remain in the darkness, angry and bitter and thoroughly disillusioned.
If you are white, and you feel uncomfortable or even attacked by my consistent reference to white people as including every white person in this country, you have experienced to some extent what it is like to be black in this country when every infraction committed by any black person is attributed to the character of all black people.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
GREEN ACRES
Images of farm life usually call to mind a nostalgic innocence, a simple lifestyle, tender lessons… From Lassie to Green Acres we were given a glimpse of the desire to live off the land in both serious and comedic ways.
I was raised by a man who taught me to love the land and the creatures in my care. I raised my children on a farm and we had fresh vegetables, eggs, meat and milk we raised ourselves or that came from one of the other nearby farms. That kind of small family farming is almost extinct now, taken over by the big mega-corporate farming complexes that do not reflect any tiny
portion of farm life.
Animals are now raised in an assembly line type atmosphere, at best stressed, neglected – at worst tortured until their deaths. They are also fed a toxic mash of chemicals that find
their way into the bodies of all people young and old who consume the meat. There are banned substances that are STILL showing up in our food even though the growers are trying to keep it quiet as I found out while reading this article: Arsenic in Our Chicken?
I was raised by a man who taught me to love the land and the creatures in my care. I raised my children on a farm and we had fresh vegetables, eggs, meat and milk we raised ourselves or that came from one of the other nearby farms. That kind of small family farming is almost extinct now, taken over by the big mega-corporate farming complexes that do not reflect any tiny
portion of farm life.
Animals are now raised in an assembly line type atmosphere, at best stressed, neglected – at worst tortured until their deaths. They are also fed a toxic mash of chemicals that find
their way into the bodies of all people young and old who consume the meat. There are banned substances that are STILL showing up in our food even though the growers are trying to keep it quiet as I found out while reading this article: Arsenic in Our Chicken?
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a poultry byproduct made of feathers which, much like human hair and fingernails, retains a record of certain substances. What they found were low levels of chemicals that do not belong in our food supply. These low levels are not an immediate health risk but they do call into question not what are they putting into these animals but WHY?
They found arsenic and banned antibiotics and also the active ingredients in Tylenol, Benadryl and Prozac. If you are puzzled by this seemingly unrelated chemical cocktail then you do not live in the South in an area where there are either commercial chicken or pig farms.
The photos here represent how chicken and pigs are typically raised by commercial growers such as Tyson, Purdue and Smithfield Hams. The kind of chemicals found in this study are used by large farms to fend off infections rampant in these type of unsanitary, overcrowded conditions and also to keep the animals calm and subdued as high stress is known to toughen meat.From time to time a video or photo will be released showing animals being abused or tortured before their short, miserable lives are ended. For me the debate is not about what they are sneaking into the animal feed but how these animals are being raised. These inhumane conditions exist only for the corporate bottom line.
I still eat some meat but mine comes from a local processing plant that has a butcher shop.
All the meat is obtained from small local farms which raise their animals in a more humane manner. Still, we should question just how much meat we actually need in our diets these days
given a lifestyle so different from generations past.
I am not particularly advocating banning meat or that we all go vegetarian but I believe we
should care about bringing these mega-farming practices under greater scrutiny and have some respect for the animals that sustain us by ensuring they live in clean, comfortable surroundings.
Augusta Masters: Some Traditions Need to be Buried
The Augusta National Golf Club's no women allowed policy has been in the headlines for the last couple of days. The golf club's membership is populated by Spanky and Alfalfa of Our Gang fame, who would on occasion declare that their clubhouse was off limits--no girls allowed!
Since it's inception in 1933, Augusta hasn't allowed women to become members and just began allowing black males to wear the hallowed green jacket in 1990. The headlines pose the same question, Masters Controversy: Should Augusta Golf Club Admit Its First Female Member? Why now? Well, in addition to its tradition of not admitting women, Augusta also traditionally bestows membership on the CEOs of the Masters' three corporate sponsors. One of those sponsors is IBM, and its CEO is a woman, Ginni Rometty.
Augusta is confronted with a quandry as to which tradition to follow, the one that discriminates and treats women as second class citizens or the one that bestows a green jacket on the CEOs of the corporate sponsors of the Masters. What are chauvinistic reprobates with 19th century values to do?
It's 2012, this should not even be a question that needs to be asked. Membership in the club isn't simply about playing golf. These all male networks developed as social and business organizations. At the time of their inception, women did not play any role in the world of business or industry.
However, for some time now women have been making their way in a formerly male dominated world of business and industry. To deny women access to forums where much of the networking that is an essential part of the business world takes place is to impede the ability of women to fully participate and compete in the world of business and industry.
News anchor, Paula Faris, of ABC's World News Now, defended Augusta's practice declaring that it is a private club and it's exclusion of women is no big deal, after all there are boy scouts and girl scouts, and girls schools and boys schools. Paula, you need to go back and think it through a bit more.
This discriminatory tradition is not comparable to girl scouts and boy scouts, organizations primarily intended for children and where no one indulges in making business deals involving major corporations. Nor is it comparable to private schools segregated by gender. I personally find such gender separated institutions abhorrent, and a poor preparation for a world that isn't neatly divided by genitalia. However, I'm not making that argument today. Instead my focus is the exclusion of women from the big boys club where power deal are brokered and significant business connections are made.
We cannot have institutions that are a key part of the world of business be
closed to women based on antiquated notions of a woman's role in society or her lack of a role in the world of business.
If Augusta wishes to maintain it's male only status then it needs to strictly be a golf club and the only negotiations by its members need to be about golf. Augusta has made itself into an important cog in the world of business and industry and as such it should not be allowed to deny membership based on gender any more than it can deny membership based on race or ethnicity.
The days of "No Jews and No Coloreds" at the golf course are over. It's time to bury the "No Women Allowed" policy along side of them.
By the way, word is that Ginni Rometty plays golf.
Since it's inception in 1933, Augusta hasn't allowed women to become members and just began allowing black males to wear the hallowed green jacket in 1990. The headlines pose the same question, Masters Controversy: Should Augusta Golf Club Admit Its First Female Member? Why now? Well, in addition to its tradition of not admitting women, Augusta also traditionally bestows membership on the CEOs of the Masters' three corporate sponsors. One of those sponsors is IBM, and its CEO is a woman, Ginni Rometty.
Augusta is confronted with a quandry as to which tradition to follow, the one that discriminates and treats women as second class citizens or the one that bestows a green jacket on the CEOs of the corporate sponsors of the Masters. What are chauvinistic reprobates with 19th century values to do?
It's 2012, this should not even be a question that needs to be asked. Membership in the club isn't simply about playing golf. These all male networks developed as social and business organizations. At the time of their inception, women did not play any role in the world of business or industry.
However, for some time now women have been making their way in a formerly male dominated world of business and industry. To deny women access to forums where much of the networking that is an essential part of the business world takes place is to impede the ability of women to fully participate and compete in the world of business and industry.
News anchor, Paula Faris, of ABC's World News Now, defended Augusta's practice declaring that it is a private club and it's exclusion of women is no big deal, after all there are boy scouts and girl scouts, and girls schools and boys schools. Paula, you need to go back and think it through a bit more.
This discriminatory tradition is not comparable to girl scouts and boy scouts, organizations primarily intended for children and where no one indulges in making business deals involving major corporations. Nor is it comparable to private schools segregated by gender. I personally find such gender separated institutions abhorrent, and a poor preparation for a world that isn't neatly divided by genitalia. However, I'm not making that argument today. Instead my focus is the exclusion of women from the big boys club where power deal are brokered and significant business connections are made.
We cannot have institutions that are a key part of the world of business be
closed to women based on antiquated notions of a woman's role in society or her lack of a role in the world of business.
If Augusta wishes to maintain it's male only status then it needs to strictly be a golf club and the only negotiations by its members need to be about golf. Augusta has made itself into an important cog in the world of business and industry and as such it should not be allowed to deny membership based on gender any more than it can deny membership based on race or ethnicity.
The days of "No Jews and No Coloreds" at the golf course are over. It's time to bury the "No Women Allowed" policy along side of them.
By the way, word is that Ginni Rometty plays golf.
Monday, April 2, 2012
If it's Obama, it's got to be bad.
and if it's bad it's got to be Obama.
Am I a hard-core Democrat? I have no idea, but I don't remember the last time I was of voting age and the Republicans offered a decent candidate for any office higher than county commissioner.
But someone who sends me an endless series of fabricated, fictitious and venomous "articles" proving that Barack Obama is the Devil's evil twin, just told me that's just what I am yesterday and even though I'm a Democrat only by default, I guess I'm flattered. You see, he's yet to send me anything that didn't prove to be a baseless and usually flimsy lie and that makes him mad. He's often told me I "always have an excuse" when I expose him as a gullible idiot and seditious liar as though the truth were an excuse -- and of course if debunking lies makes me a Liberal apologist, telling them must make him, by his definition, a Republican liar, if I might be excused the tautology.
The latest offense was a short video of the President, leaving the podium and kicking open a door under the rubric:
What tax hikes? I guess the media has covered that up too!
It's typical to include rhetoric about the "media" not wanting us to know something to cover up the fact that it never actually happened, but in this case, the video actually was taken from "network TV" because it appeared as a joke on Jay Leno. No, of course it wasn't in the news any more than the previous pictures of a huge arms cache "on the Arizona border" the media didn't want us to hear about, or didn't care about because it actually was found hundreds of miles away in Mexico and had nothing to do with Arizona. Think these good folks know that illegal immigration is way down or that this administration has deported in less than 4 years, more than the Republican liars did in 8? If it's Obama, it's got to be bad.
Then there was the one showing Obama with his feet on the desk and the hysterical denunciation that insisted this desecration of a desk by this "arrogant, immature, self-centered idiot" proved he thought of himself as a king and that "generations to come" would feel the effects of his having had his feet on the desk.
This being another tu quoque attempt at distracting from Bush's naked imperialism, constitutional infractions, financial malfeasance, war crimes and putting his feet on the desk, of course I countered, like a hard core Democrat with this:
Of course one can find many pictures of many presidents with many feet on desks on the Internet. I'll leave that search to you, but I never expect evidence of fraud or the irony attached to it to have any effect on the lower orders of humanity. Inconvenient proof will only generate further rage, further scurrilous attacks and won't begin to stem the flow of fake picture after fake story after malicious and fictitious malediction.
So am I a hard core Democrat? Not really and I do perceive that Democrats have their own shibboleths and conceits and that they aren't always as scrupulous at fact checking as they might be, but I'm comparing apples to road apples here. There is no excuse for the bottomless cornucopia of scurrilous stories, fake videos and doctored photographs that have infested the Internet for the ignorant armies of the angry Right to use as a weapon.
Take the series of fake pictures designed to "prove" that Trayvon Martin was a dangerous thug now filling up the blogs and mailboxes. No, nothing is too racist or too false or too pathetic for the cause to ignore it nor do any of the GOP employees who work overtime creating it really have to worry about their constituents finally catching on to the long con. The left behind, the outmoded, the surplus population of maladapted Republican miscreants simply aren't capable of the level of honesty, the level of cognitive function needed to question anything so delightfully, so soothingly, so self-importantly hateful.
Am I a hard-core Democrat? I have no idea, but I don't remember the last time I was of voting age and the Republicans offered a decent candidate for any office higher than county commissioner.
But someone who sends me an endless series of fabricated, fictitious and venomous "articles" proving that Barack Obama is the Devil's evil twin, just told me that's just what I am yesterday and even though I'm a Democrat only by default, I guess I'm flattered. You see, he's yet to send me anything that didn't prove to be a baseless and usually flimsy lie and that makes him mad. He's often told me I "always have an excuse" when I expose him as a gullible idiot and seditious liar as though the truth were an excuse -- and of course if debunking lies makes me a Liberal apologist, telling them must make him, by his definition, a Republican liar, if I might be excused the tautology.
The latest offense was a short video of the President, leaving the podium and kicking open a door under the rubric:
The tantrum!!
| Picture worth ten thousand words -
|
What tax hikes? I guess the media has covered that up too!
It's typical to include rhetoric about the "media" not wanting us to know something to cover up the fact that it never actually happened, but in this case, the video actually was taken from "network TV" because it appeared as a joke on Jay Leno. No, of course it wasn't in the news any more than the previous pictures of a huge arms cache "on the Arizona border" the media didn't want us to hear about, or didn't care about because it actually was found hundreds of miles away in Mexico and had nothing to do with Arizona. Think these good folks know that illegal immigration is way down or that this administration has deported in less than 4 years, more than the Republican liars did in 8? If it's Obama, it's got to be bad.
Then there was the one showing Obama with his feet on the desk and the hysterical denunciation that insisted this desecration of a desk by this "arrogant, immature, self-centered idiot" proved he thought of himself as a king and that "generations to come" would feel the effects of his having had his feet on the desk.
This being another tu quoque attempt at distracting from Bush's naked imperialism, constitutional infractions, financial malfeasance, war crimes and putting his feet on the desk, of course I countered, like a hard core Democrat with this:
Of course one can find many pictures of many presidents with many feet on desks on the Internet. I'll leave that search to you, but I never expect evidence of fraud or the irony attached to it to have any effect on the lower orders of humanity. Inconvenient proof will only generate further rage, further scurrilous attacks and won't begin to stem the flow of fake picture after fake story after malicious and fictitious malediction.
So am I a hard core Democrat? Not really and I do perceive that Democrats have their own shibboleths and conceits and that they aren't always as scrupulous at fact checking as they might be, but I'm comparing apples to road apples here. There is no excuse for the bottomless cornucopia of scurrilous stories, fake videos and doctored photographs that have infested the Internet for the ignorant armies of the angry Right to use as a weapon.
Take the series of fake pictures designed to "prove" that Trayvon Martin was a dangerous thug now filling up the blogs and mailboxes. No, nothing is too racist or too false or too pathetic for the cause to ignore it nor do any of the GOP employees who work overtime creating it really have to worry about their constituents finally catching on to the long con. The left behind, the outmoded, the surplus population of maladapted Republican miscreants simply aren't capable of the level of honesty, the level of cognitive function needed to question anything so delightfully, so soothingly, so self-importantly hateful.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Swash Zone Sale to Murdoch Media Announced
The Swash Zone, the surf-pounding online Internet site founded by two trans-species cephalopods, the Internet’s only talking dinosaur, a self-styled pirate who named his vessel after a brand of beer, and a raccoon who cross dresses as a cat, will be bought for $520 million by Murdoch Media, a division of News Corporation. Arranged by Bane Capital, the deal is sure to stun investment skeptics and media septics alike.
The Flounders have dubbed the takeover a win-win for shareholders based on this equation: “Three times the square of WTF divided by two times LOL squared when the result is roughly equivalent to E = mass times LMAO squared.” All contributors who have been associated with the Zone since inception were turbulent at low tide when the news first broke late on Saturday.
With the sale of the site that began life on a shoestring in 2008, the takeover will send shockwaves through established media groups still struggling to understand the uncharted territory of trans-species punditry.
In a statement released on Saturday, the new operation will have a combined base of 24 unique visitors per month in the US, one Newfie north of the border, and zero for rest of the world.
"This is the most exciting transaction I have ever done," said (O)CT(O)PUS after the deal was announced. "In this dog-eat-dog world of perpetual oneupmanship, it is especially gratifying to make BIG BUCKS off the backs of starving writers who have been suckered into giving away their stuff for free ... for years! Compared with the acquisition of the Huffington Post by AOL last year, the sale of the Swash Zone establishes a new benchmark in getting rich off the sweat of others,” said the cephalopod.
The Flounders have dubbed the takeover a win-win for shareholders based on this equation: “Three times the square of WTF divided by two times LOL squared when the result is roughly equivalent to E = mass times LMAO squared.” All contributors who have been associated with the Zone since inception were turbulent at low tide when the news first broke late on Saturday.
With the sale of the site that began life on a shoestring in 2008, the takeover will send shockwaves through established media groups still struggling to understand the uncharted territory of trans-species punditry.
In a statement released on Saturday, the new operation will have a combined base of 24 unique visitors per month in the US, one Newfie north of the border, and zero for rest of the world.
"This is the most exciting transaction I have ever done," said (O)CT(O)PUS after the deal was announced. "In this dog-eat-dog world of perpetual oneupmanship, it is especially gratifying to make BIG BUCKS off the backs of starving writers who have been suckered into giving away their stuff for free ... for years! Compared with the acquisition of the Huffington Post by AOL last year, the sale of the Swash Zone establishes a new benchmark in getting rich off the sweat of others,” said the cephalopod.
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