I haven't drunk the Kool Aid yet, but I'm adding sugar and stirring briskly. In a perfect world Obama would be older and better on the fly. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound....But he's not. But John McCain is a man I would vote most likely to use our military as a cure for Erectile Dysfunction. It's not about age as much as attitude.
The reality is that America is not the only Democracy or even the best functioning Democracy anymore. Our Economy is worse than it looks/ $4 gas is the tip of an iceberg that includes the migration of good jobs for lower middle class folk and a debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay with wages from jobs that will pay less and less. May I take your order please?
The Democrats are better on the economy and I believe Obama when he says that he will pull the best of the best into his administration. He hasn't been on the scene long enough to have many political debts, so I take him at his word. Deeper still, he seems humble enough to negotiate and compromise when it's in the best interest of everyone involved. That goes for Foreign and domestic issues. The politics of all or nothing my way or the Highway with us or against us is the reason our economy is addicted to Chinese capital and Arabian oil. We need a smart guy in office and he's the best hope left.
The cold war is over and we need to be a nation that can be prosperous and GOOD in the absence of an enemy to focus on. I don't love him, but I like him and am not afraid to give him a try.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
This is Planet Earth
Haven't posted lately, having been caught up in the election goings on , and have spent too much time battling my inferiors in the blogoshere. Enjoy the slings and arrows
[Read the article: The mix master] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
After all and not some Anime Utopia where everyone is pretty, holds hands and sings Kumbaya. The writer's ignorance of Black/White dynamics and American history are betrayed by statements that could only be made from the outside looking in. The one drop rule is not a Black invention. It is the Ante Bellum and Jim Crow designation of racial impurity. When Black people say someone isn't Black enough it has nothing to do with skin tone (witness Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan etc) it means that a person is not strong ehough to hold on to our trust without selling us out. Therefore Clarence Thomas was not Black enough since he's proved to be Scalia's bootlicker. Colin Powell would not be a race traitor. He is an intelligent thoughtful and strong man who only recently wasted his ethical capital in service to George Bush. But he would have gained 75 to 80 percent of the Black vote easily.
The issue is that in the course of attempting to become color blind, certain segments of society would like black folks to forget that their physical characteristics were labelled as sub human by the White Supremacists that ran this country. To forget that yes, we too had Apartheid in America and not that long ago. That is why the public pretends to be shocked when the old social order rears its ugly head. You think Obama is post racial? Ask Geraldine Ferraro and those so-called liberal white women who called him an "inadequate black male" or decry his inexperience when he has as much or more experience as half the men already elected. Ask the Clintons who dog whistled Appalachia to come out against him. I believe the Clinton supporters were more racially animated than the Republicans will be. Republicans KNOW the power of the lynch mob and use it more selectively.
It's not Black people who won't let this race thing die. It's the "white man (including women)" who sees the ultimate symbol of his power, Leadership of the Free World, slipping into the hands of one that was meant to be ruled and not to rule. Wake up and smell the coffee. Most black people who have been to a family reunion see the gamut of color shades in our kin folk. We already know that skin tone is no indicator of character. But we don't have to PRETEND it doesn't exist to ACT and LIVE as if it doesn't.
When enough people of the older generations die out, race will be irrelevant. The question then will be, How will people measure superiority, class and rank and why will that criteria be more acceptable?
Permalink Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:49 AM
[Read the article: The mix master] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
After all and not some Anime Utopia where everyone is pretty, holds hands and sings Kumbaya. The writer's ignorance of Black/White dynamics and American history are betrayed by statements that could only be made from the outside looking in. The one drop rule is not a Black invention. It is the Ante Bellum and Jim Crow designation of racial impurity. When Black people say someone isn't Black enough it has nothing to do with skin tone (witness Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan etc) it means that a person is not strong ehough to hold on to our trust without selling us out. Therefore Clarence Thomas was not Black enough since he's proved to be Scalia's bootlicker. Colin Powell would not be a race traitor. He is an intelligent thoughtful and strong man who only recently wasted his ethical capital in service to George Bush. But he would have gained 75 to 80 percent of the Black vote easily.
The issue is that in the course of attempting to become color blind, certain segments of society would like black folks to forget that their physical characteristics were labelled as sub human by the White Supremacists that ran this country. To forget that yes, we too had Apartheid in America and not that long ago. That is why the public pretends to be shocked when the old social order rears its ugly head. You think Obama is post racial? Ask Geraldine Ferraro and those so-called liberal white women who called him an "inadequate black male" or decry his inexperience when he has as much or more experience as half the men already elected. Ask the Clintons who dog whistled Appalachia to come out against him. I believe the Clinton supporters were more racially animated than the Republicans will be. Republicans KNOW the power of the lynch mob and use it more selectively.
It's not Black people who won't let this race thing die. It's the "white man (including women)" who sees the ultimate symbol of his power, Leadership of the Free World, slipping into the hands of one that was meant to be ruled and not to rule. Wake up and smell the coffee. Most black people who have been to a family reunion see the gamut of color shades in our kin folk. We already know that skin tone is no indicator of character. But we don't have to PRETEND it doesn't exist to ACT and LIVE as if it doesn't.
When enough people of the older generations die out, race will be irrelevant. The question then will be, How will people measure superiority, class and rank and why will that criteria be more acceptable?
Permalink Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:49 AM
Church Switch
[Read the article: Big weekend news] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
I sometimes think the media listens for what it wants to hear as opposed to what is really being said. Obama explained yesterday quite clearly that he was leaving not only because he was asked to account for everything said from the pulpit over which he has no control, but for the good of the congregation. Your fellow members of the media were taking church bulletins and hounding the SICK AND SHUT INS for more dirt on the man. Sheesh. Funny that THAT isn't mentioned in the coverage and was not addressed by the media in the Q & A.
The Silver Lining. I kind of liked the snappish irritation that I saw as he answered inane question after inane question. I believe the primary, the church controversy and Hillary's cheap stunts (I don't THINK....he's a muslim) have toughened and hardened him. I think he will be glad to take off the kid gloves that he had to don to keep from attacking Ms Clinton and playing the bully. ( Can't you see Hillary going all Scarlett Ohara when he questions HER judgement HER associations HER supporters " Well I....cue the southern drawl ... NEVAH heard such a thing a'tall"
Give the man a break. All of us who join a church are usually enraptured for a moment and then when the rapture doesn't come we find other reasons for coming. Friendships social interaction, a child's comfort zone. You show me a man who's attended church for twenty years and I'll show you a man who's checking his watch, wondering if he cut off the coffee pot and thinking about the cubs line-up halfway through the sermon. I know the minute I hear words like exegesis or philosophy or apologia... I zone out. I'm not anti-intellectual, but I'm too jaded to expect great wisdom from a man in a robe that looks like mamas housecoat. I'm not looking for the sermon on the mount or a socratic exercise. Church is not where the Manchurian candidates get their instruction. It's just a church. A place to take a 90 minute trip away from everything in the comfort people who know you and like your company. It's just an opiate after all, right.?
Permalink Sunday, June 1, 2008 07:09 AM
I sometimes think the media listens for what it wants to hear as opposed to what is really being said. Obama explained yesterday quite clearly that he was leaving not only because he was asked to account for everything said from the pulpit over which he has no control, but for the good of the congregation. Your fellow members of the media were taking church bulletins and hounding the SICK AND SHUT INS for more dirt on the man. Sheesh. Funny that THAT isn't mentioned in the coverage and was not addressed by the media in the Q & A.
The Silver Lining. I kind of liked the snappish irritation that I saw as he answered inane question after inane question. I believe the primary, the church controversy and Hillary's cheap stunts (I don't THINK....he's a muslim) have toughened and hardened him. I think he will be glad to take off the kid gloves that he had to don to keep from attacking Ms Clinton and playing the bully. ( Can't you see Hillary going all Scarlett Ohara when he questions HER judgement HER associations HER supporters " Well I....cue the southern drawl ... NEVAH heard such a thing a'tall"
Give the man a break. All of us who join a church are usually enraptured for a moment and then when the rapture doesn't come we find other reasons for coming. Friendships social interaction, a child's comfort zone. You show me a man who's attended church for twenty years and I'll show you a man who's checking his watch, wondering if he cut off the coffee pot and thinking about the cubs line-up halfway through the sermon. I know the minute I hear words like exegesis or philosophy or apologia... I zone out. I'm not anti-intellectual, but I'm too jaded to expect great wisdom from a man in a robe that looks like mamas housecoat. I'm not looking for the sermon on the mount or a socratic exercise. Church is not where the Manchurian candidates get their instruction. It's just a church. A place to take a 90 minute trip away from everything in the comfort people who know you and like your company. It's just an opiate after all, right.?
Permalink Sunday, June 1, 2008 07:09 AM
coronatius interruptus
[Read the article: Waiting for the first Madam President] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
If for some reason decades pass before another woman mounts a strong campaign for the White House, Hillary Clinton will be largely responsible for the delay. Why? Because by treating the Democratic Primary as a coronation and not a contest, she was caught with her guard down while the no-name from Chicago emerged from the phone booth with an 'S' on his chest.She has wasted the potential to become a mentor/groomer of talent by burning bridges alienating constituencies. She has become a caricature of a candidate, the once and future Ferraro. Unsupportable in her attempts to portray Obama as unelectable. She mistakenly believed that name recognition and gender( Not to be confused with experience, since she has held elected office for less time than Obama) were an unbeatable combination.
News Flash. The triumph of feminism is that IT IS GOOD TO BE A GIRL IN THIS CENTURY. A girl is more likely to go to college and less likely to be murdered or go to prison than a man and everything between these extremes becomes a matter of choices. I feel better about my daughters' world than mine. Women cannot count on the solidarity of aggrieved parties because the grievances are institutional and not Constitutional as is race. Women are the largest group of voters in the country. Why should we expect them to form into a minority-like bloc? The success of feminism has diluted the power of their vote.
The next Female President will have the IT quality that Obama has. The word has not been defined yet, but it's quintessentially American antecedent is
"cool". Yes, she will be cool. Not Faddish cool, but Competent, confident and easy to understand. Fair, Just, Brave without being masculine. She will ba a lawyer or an executive. She'll be here. American politics is always about the fulfillment of a myth and hers has already been born in Hollywood. We need only wait on the auditions.
Hillary. IF she had only been genuine in the beginning. If she had only acted like a woman with a draft age Daughter during a questionable war and voted No. She would have been practically unopposed and Obama would have been jockeying for a post in her administration.
Permalink Sunday, May 25, 2008 01:49 PM
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If for some reason decades pass before another woman mounts a strong campaign for the White House, Hillary Clinton will be largely responsible for the delay. Why? Because by treating the Democratic Primary as a coronation and not a contest, she was caught with her guard down while the no-name from Chicago emerged from the phone booth with an 'S' on his chest.She has wasted the potential to become a mentor/groomer of talent by burning bridges alienating constituencies. She has become a caricature of a candidate, the once and future Ferraro. Unsupportable in her attempts to portray Obama as unelectable. She mistakenly believed that name recognition and gender( Not to be confused with experience, since she has held elected office for less time than Obama) were an unbeatable combination.
News Flash. The triumph of feminism is that IT IS GOOD TO BE A GIRL IN THIS CENTURY. A girl is more likely to go to college and less likely to be murdered or go to prison than a man and everything between these extremes becomes a matter of choices. I feel better about my daughters' world than mine. Women cannot count on the solidarity of aggrieved parties because the grievances are institutional and not Constitutional as is race. Women are the largest group of voters in the country. Why should we expect them to form into a minority-like bloc? The success of feminism has diluted the power of their vote.
The next Female President will have the IT quality that Obama has. The word has not been defined yet, but it's quintessentially American antecedent is
"cool". Yes, she will be cool. Not Faddish cool, but Competent, confident and easy to understand. Fair, Just, Brave without being masculine. She will ba a lawyer or an executive. She'll be here. American politics is always about the fulfillment of a myth and hers has already been born in Hollywood. We need only wait on the auditions.
Hillary. IF she had only been genuine in the beginning. If she had only acted like a woman with a draft age Daughter during a questionable war and voted No. She would have been practically unopposed and Obama would have been jockeying for a post in her administration.
Permalink Sunday, May 25, 2008 01:49 PM
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What Ferraro REALLY wants
[Read the article: Ferraro wants study on sexism, racism in campaign] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
is the kind of old guard coronation for Clinton that has gotten us Democrats BLASTED or PUNKED OUT in 7 of the last 10 elections. By her own words, Ferraro is the party's affirmative Action Baby and an ungrateful one at that. Sexism, goes both ways. Saying you won't vote for a candidate because SOMEONE ELSE says or does something offensive is equivalent to guilt by association. She doesn't like his supporters or spokespeople, so she will vote against him. Let her go.In the end, Sexism, Racism or any other "iism" that does not respect an individual's right to be judged by the content of their character is foolish and wrong. Ferraro is doing McCain's dirty work for him by ginning up ridiculous issues that take the party's focus off of the general elaction.
I am an Obama supporter. But not because he inspires me the way he does others. I see in him a bland sort of competence and intelligence that we need in government. He also has a hard streak that hides behind the smile and the humor. He has cojones. He just keeps his zipper closed. He's a different kind of man. Man first. Label second. And that, I believe is what galls Ferraro so much. He doesn't wear grievances on his sleeve. He doess'nt wear the Blackwomangreenlaborprolife tags that they issued him to facilitate quoting him a price. She is too corrupt to accept a Obama's sweeping in out of the blue and cooly toppling the staus quo by playing the game on the party's terms. She doesn't like audacity of a man who swept past the pecking order and owes her nothing. She's from New York. She wants to get her beak wet.
As a party, we have always been fairly disfunctional and we've always had to cut deals with each other to get anywhere. I say we cut Geraldine out this time but save her a place at the table in case she wants to come back. Geraldine, we'd love to have you. But we won't be your hostages
Permalink Saturday, May 31, 2008 10:42 PM
[Read the article: Ferraro wants study on sexism, racism in campaign] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
is the kind of old guard coronation for Clinton that has gotten us Democrats BLASTED or PUNKED OUT in 7 of the last 10 elections. By her own words, Ferraro is the party's affirmative Action Baby and an ungrateful one at that. Sexism, goes both ways. Saying you won't vote for a candidate because SOMEONE ELSE says or does something offensive is equivalent to guilt by association. She doesn't like his supporters or spokespeople, so she will vote against him. Let her go.In the end, Sexism, Racism or any other "iism" that does not respect an individual's right to be judged by the content of their character is foolish and wrong. Ferraro is doing McCain's dirty work for him by ginning up ridiculous issues that take the party's focus off of the general elaction.
I am an Obama supporter. But not because he inspires me the way he does others. I see in him a bland sort of competence and intelligence that we need in government. He also has a hard streak that hides behind the smile and the humor. He has cojones. He just keeps his zipper closed. He's a different kind of man. Man first. Label second. And that, I believe is what galls Ferraro so much. He doesn't wear grievances on his sleeve. He doess'nt wear the Blackwomangreenlaborprolife tags that they issued him to facilitate quoting him a price. She is too corrupt to accept a Obama's sweeping in out of the blue and cooly toppling the staus quo by playing the game on the party's terms. She doesn't like audacity of a man who swept past the pecking order and owes her nothing. She's from New York. She wants to get her beak wet.
As a party, we have always been fairly disfunctional and we've always had to cut deals with each other to get anywhere. I say we cut Geraldine out this time but save her a place at the table in case she wants to come back. Geraldine, we'd love to have you. But we won't be your hostages
Permalink Saturday, May 31, 2008 10:42 PM
Crybillies
Crybillies
[Read the article: A great debate about Obama and Appalachia] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
The number of posts I've read apologizing or rationalizing the 20% of WV DEMOCRATS who vote on racial (read "white only" lines) is laughable. As a Black southerner born in North Carolina and having moved to the deep south, marched with Jesse Jackson against the Klan, survived race riots over school integration and butted heads with racism in a lot of places, I have to say that West Virginians make me proud of the Georgia and Alabama whites I live and work with.
Here racism takes a backseat to enlightened self-interest money, jobs, grants, contracts etc.... Those WV Hillbillies are so hateful of a race that poses absolutely no competitive threat to them (at less than 5% of the population), that they will vote against their own interests to justify the racist/xenophobic actions/votes and use the loony-tunes arguments of proven fear-mongers like Hannity, limbaugh etc... to give themselves a moral cover. To hell with them. Keep voting republican. Keep watching gas get higher and your children keep getting left behind. If you're not smart enough to see that you're not better off than you were 7 years ago, maybe you deserve more of the same.
WV and KY Democrats may be the best proof that Darwin was wrong about the survival of the fittest. And for the guy who made a crack about people of the Shenandoah Valley not having Affirmitive Action, I've got news for you. Being born white in America WAS Affirmitive Action for a long time. You were just so used to white privilege that you thought it was divine right.
Permalink Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11
[Read the article: A great debate about Obama and Appalachia] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
The number of posts I've read apologizing or rationalizing the 20% of WV DEMOCRATS who vote on racial (read "white only" lines) is laughable. As a Black southerner born in North Carolina and having moved to the deep south, marched with Jesse Jackson against the Klan, survived race riots over school integration and butted heads with racism in a lot of places, I have to say that West Virginians make me proud of the Georgia and Alabama whites I live and work with.
Here racism takes a backseat to enlightened self-interest money, jobs, grants, contracts etc.... Those WV Hillbillies are so hateful of a race that poses absolutely no competitive threat to them (at less than 5% of the population), that they will vote against their own interests to justify the racist/xenophobic actions/votes and use the loony-tunes arguments of proven fear-mongers like Hannity, limbaugh etc... to give themselves a moral cover. To hell with them. Keep voting republican. Keep watching gas get higher and your children keep getting left behind. If you're not smart enough to see that you're not better off than you were 7 years ago, maybe you deserve more of the same.
WV and KY Democrats may be the best proof that Darwin was wrong about the survival of the fittest. And for the guy who made a crack about people of the Shenandoah Valley not having Affirmitive Action, I've got news for you. Being born white in America WAS Affirmitive Action for a long time. You were just so used to white privilege that you thought it was divine right.
Permalink Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11
Rumble young man Rumble
Haven't posted in a while since i've been battling my lessers in the blogosphere over the campaign and such. Here are a few of my slings and allows
Rumble young man Rumble!
[Read the article: How much will white racism hurt Obama?] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
What sets the Obama campaign apart from any other I've seen is it's relentless drive to stay on message and out of the mud. With the exception of the San Francisco "Bitter" speech, you don't see Obama trip himself with words or trap himself with the ham fisted feints that Hillary uses in attempts to draw him into a battle of aggrieved parties. She thinks she's Rocky duking it out with Apollo Creed. But that's Hollywood fiction. She's not Rocky. She's Goerge Foreman and Barack is Muhammad Ali (an ACTUAL Muslim)He's a boxer, not a slugger and he out points HRC when he can like a smart pugilist, when he can't he covers up. North Carolina was the left hand that Ali stuck in Foreman's mouth as he sprang out of the rope-a-dope. Oregon was the right that knocked Big George out. Or am I the only one who recalls the Rumble in the Jungle?
Why should Obama waste his strength contending for states that he can't win. Pride? Ego? No. Professionalism. Why actively campaign against Hilary"a chicken in every pot" Clinton in Appalachia when it would require his lying and pandering and then disappointing them like everyone else has done for the last 30 years. No Obama's skin color isn't his problem. It's the problem of those Appalachians that can't see past it for their own good.
Hilary is so frustrated that he won't take the bait that she's only half a news cycle from saying "your mama wears army boots".
Good Judgement. Cool under fire. Not the pop quiz format of Debate, But the cool processing of information from sources he has handpicked and trusts. This campaign is a machine. No more yale schooled cowboys, or chicken hawks who use the our military strength as a cure for ED. We are at the mercy of Sheikhs to sell us oil, Chinese to lend us money and homegrown leadership that wants to bring about perpetual war as a growth undustry. This is the time for smart people. For thoughtful persuasive and trithful people. We don't need anymore Sluggers. We need Ali.
Permalink Saturday, May 24, 2008 02:54 PM
Rumble young man Rumble!
[Read the article: How much will white racism hurt Obama?] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
What sets the Obama campaign apart from any other I've seen is it's relentless drive to stay on message and out of the mud. With the exception of the San Francisco "Bitter" speech, you don't see Obama trip himself with words or trap himself with the ham fisted feints that Hillary uses in attempts to draw him into a battle of aggrieved parties. She thinks she's Rocky duking it out with Apollo Creed. But that's Hollywood fiction. She's not Rocky. She's Goerge Foreman and Barack is Muhammad Ali (an ACTUAL Muslim)He's a boxer, not a slugger and he out points HRC when he can like a smart pugilist, when he can't he covers up. North Carolina was the left hand that Ali stuck in Foreman's mouth as he sprang out of the rope-a-dope. Oregon was the right that knocked Big George out. Or am I the only one who recalls the Rumble in the Jungle?
Why should Obama waste his strength contending for states that he can't win. Pride? Ego? No. Professionalism. Why actively campaign against Hilary"a chicken in every pot" Clinton in Appalachia when it would require his lying and pandering and then disappointing them like everyone else has done for the last 30 years. No Obama's skin color isn't his problem. It's the problem of those Appalachians that can't see past it for their own good.
Hilary is so frustrated that he won't take the bait that she's only half a news cycle from saying "your mama wears army boots".
Good Judgement. Cool under fire. Not the pop quiz format of Debate, But the cool processing of information from sources he has handpicked and trusts. This campaign is a machine. No more yale schooled cowboys, or chicken hawks who use the our military strength as a cure for ED. We are at the mercy of Sheikhs to sell us oil, Chinese to lend us money and homegrown leadership that wants to bring about perpetual war as a growth undustry. This is the time for smart people. For thoughtful persuasive and trithful people. We don't need anymore Sluggers. We need Ali.
Permalink Saturday, May 24, 2008 02:54 PM
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