Let’s Get Real - What We Call ‘American Ideals’ Are a Sham

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Let’s Get Real - What We Call ‘American Ideals’ Are a Sham

.

While this country professes to honor the ideals of freedom, independence, liberty, and justice, that's just lip service. We have a long history of stifling each and every one of those ideals, and anyone who doesn't believe that should simply try suing a major corporation for an injustice, or try embracing the "freedom" to live an unconventional lifestyle. This country frowns upon those things just like any other country. Gays and women are learning that lesson as we speak.
.
All of the institutions that are supposedly designed to protect our freedom and justice are nothing more than facades that are actually designed to give us the ILLUSION of freedom and justice. While I don't want to throw a monkey-wrench in anyone's comfort zone, it's very important for us to wake up and be realistic about what we DON'T have, in order to work towards actually achieving what I choose to call "The American Wish List."
.
According to "TakePart.com, "In 2008, eight states had no laws requiring students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school. That number has recently dwindled to five, with Nebraska being the latest state to adopt a statewide mandate."
.
Many conservatives, enthusiastically advocate that children recite "The Pledge of Allegiance." Conservative talk show host, Sean Hannity said, "Why wouldn’t anyone want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, unless they detested their own country or were ignorant of its greatness?” Notice that even in Hannity's statement advocating the recitation of "The Pledge of Allegiance," which guarantees "Freedom and Justice for all," you can hear a clear indictment against those who may choose not to recite the pledge.
.
The problem with many conservatives like Hannity, Limbaugh, and other's is they're so blind that they fail to even see the hypocrisy of their position. Thus, as a middle-class African American male - in fact, as a human being of good conscience - I take great exception with making it mandatory for our children to recite a lie as fact at a time in their lives when their thinking is being molded without their consent, or the consent of their parents. Because the Pledge of Allegiance represents the worst kind of hypocrisy, and it serves no useful purpose other than to brainwash the nation's children.
.
One would think that as a conservative Mr. Hannity would recognize that the very essence of freedom is the freedom of parents to raise our children according to the philosophy that we see fit. Therefore, forcing a pledge down the collective throat of America's children constitutes an unconscionable intrusion by government on a family's rights. It's un-American by definition, and violates the very pledge that our children are being forced to recite.
.
A mandatory pledge is a blatant act of indoctrination. What other motive can we have for forcing a children to recite a pledge that they don't even understand? When I was a kid coming up during the height of the civil rights struggle, I was forced to pledge my allegiance to a nation that frowned upon everything I represented, and was dead set on thwarting anything that I ever hoped to become.
.
At the same time, so-called "patriotic Americans" - while enthusiastically insisting that we recite The Pledge - simultaneously lynched African Americans, bombed black children in church, and formed angry mobs to show up and jeer black children attempting nothing more than to go to the school of their choice.
.
And shortly before that, these same "patriotic Americans" forced Black WWII heroes (the Tuskegee Airman) returning from Europe to give up their seats to German prisoners of war. Yet, there I was, standing there reciting the Pledge of Allegiance - "and to the republic for which it stands" - every morning. Even as a child, if I had understood the meaning of the words that I would later have to dredge from my brain just to be able to think clearly, I would have refused to recite them - regardless of the consequences.
.
And beyond the pledge being morally disingenuous and a monument to the worst kind of hypocrisy, the entire text is, literally, a lie: ". . . One nation under God." In light of what I've just described, what is that supposed to mean? "Indivisible." The Civil War demonstrates that's a lie. "With liberty and justice for all." I won't even waste the ink to address that issue. So again, other than brainwashing, what other motive could we possibly have for requiring our children to start off every morning with a lie of that magnitude?
.
Now, I realize that I sound like a wild-eyed radical, but if I do, it's only because I have a very low threshold for bullshit. I love this country, but I love truth and clear thinking much more. So I'm eclectic in my views. I believe in clear, unadulterated thought, and addressing every issue on its own merit. As a result, sometimes I agree with liberals, and at other times I agree with conservatives. That doesn't always make me very popular, but I'm more than happy to forego popularity in return for moral and intellectual clarity. I was taught that's what it means to be an American. Maybe I'm naive, but I took that lesson seriously.
.
I'm in pursuit of truth, not an agenda. For that reason I stand with conservatives on issues like set-asides based on race, because moral and intellectual consistency dictates that if you're against discrimination, you must be against all discrimination. Thus, if we're going to set aside resources for the poor, those resources should be available to all of the poor, regardless to race, creed, or color. Our failure to recognize that fact ran a lot of White people who marched with King right into the arms of the Republican Party during the Affirmative Action controversy.
.
Yet, I stand with liberals in being against vouchers. The mere fact that conservatives want to create an entitlement program "in the best interest of minorities" immediately sends up a red flag for me. Creating schools run by corporations is the fastest way that I can think of to create young fascists who are running around speaking in fundamentalist tongue.
.
A voucher system would also lead to a two-tier society. What would happen to low and middle-class children if private schools raised tuition  beyond their parents' reach and the public school system have been destroyed? I'll tell you what will happened - the parents would be chained to corporations to work for crumbs just so their children could learn to read and write.
.
Proponents of a mandatory pledge contend that our children should be taught to love and respect our country. It is my position that too much nationalism and not enough principle is what caused the kind of animosity toward this country that led to 9/11. We need to teach our children to embrace high ethical standards and principles, and then if the leaders of our country followed suit, the nation would benefit from the uncoerced love and respect of its citizens and the world.
.
Thus, the Pledge of Allegiance should not be a pledge at all. It should be presented as a goal. Then instead of lying about who and what we are, it would encourage us to focus our energies on actually becoming the society that we profess to believe in. Maybe then we'll create the kind of nation where brainwashing our children for their allegiance won't be necessary.
.
Tupelo, Miss. Judge Jails Attorney for Refusing to Recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Socrates: The Hood Rat of Antiquity

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Socrates: The Hood Rat of Antiquity

. 

Socrates was indeed the hood rat of antiquity. He had absolutely no stature in society, and he never wrote a thing for posterity. To modernize his own words, his sentiments were essentially, "My thing is simply hangin' out on the block and discussing reality."  So we wouldn't have even known who he was if it weren't for "youngsters" like Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon, who spoke of him in their writings.

.

So when I think of Socrates, it brings to mind some of the older brothers in the neighborhood that I grew up in, and who were very much responsible for the awaking my own mind. They used to sit around for hours on end pontificating on everything from political science to the origin of the universe. While they held absolutely no formal "credentials" to validate their knowledge, their legitimacy was girded firmly in place by their wisdom, insight, and tremendous intellect alone. These were the Eulipians:

THE EULIPIANS
.

Some of the greatest minds I've ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lot of ghetto liquor stores. At their feet I embraced the love of knowledge, and through their tutelage defined self-worth In my own terms.
.
These were the "Eulipians" - writers, poets, musicians, painters, and uncommon drunks - those shade-tree philosophers who contemplate the fungus between the toes society; Who dance with reckless abandon, unfettered by formal inhibition through the presumptuous speculation of the ages; and who live in county jails, cardboard boxes, alley ways, and luxury Apartments - insignificant here in Great Bruteland, but of ultimate significance in the eyes of God.
.
While these obscure intellectuals stand well outside the mainstream of academy, I’ve watch with astonished delight as they sang, scat, and scribed their various philosophies into the mainstream of human knowledge.
.

Miles, Bird, Trane, Langston Hughes, Eulipians all. I’m a Eulipian. We’re easy to spot, because we all sing but one song - "Knowledge is free, thus, will transcend all attempts to be contained through barriers of caste and privilege, leaving man's innate thirst for knowledge free to someday overwhelm his passionate lust for stupidity."

.
OSCAR BROWN, JR. - EULIPIAN

.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

.

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

A Retrospective on George W. Bush: Am I a Prophet, or Did America Ignore Reality?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

A Retrospective on George W. Bush:

Am I a Prophet, or Did America Ignore Reality?

.

On September 15, 2002–six months and four days prior to the Iraqi invasion--I published an article entitled "Would Bush's Saber Rattle as Loudly Against China?" in the Portland Independent Media Center http://Portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/09/21292.shtml –no one else would publish it at the time–that said the following:

.
WOULD BUSH'S SABER RATTLE AS LOUDLY AGAINST CHINA
.
Now that we've reached the anniversary of 9-11, I am consumed by one thought--in light of what I've seen over the past year I find myself much more afraid of Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft than I am the Al Qaeda. While I understand that terrorists strike without warning to destroy life and property to promote their own agenda, it has become increasingly clear that Bush and his cohorts threaten to be even more destructive by attacking life, liberty, and the very foundation of this nation in the promotion of theirs.
.
Over the past year these conservative war mongers have been playing the American people like a fiddle. Now they want to sacrifice American lives for nothing more than their own political advantage. Just ask yourself, what does Saddam Hussein have to do with 9-11? Absolutely nothing. Evidence of that can be found in the fact that if Saddam had been involved in 9-11 the administration would have gone after him initially.
.
So why is it suddenly so imperative that we invade Iraq now? I'll tell you why. Since Bush was unable to produce the head of Osama Bin Laden, he now needs another villain to take Bin Laden's place in order to keep his numbers up in the polls-- and if that means having to sacrifice a few American lives and ignite even more terrorist activity on American soil in the process, so be it.
.
It is a well known political fact that the American people tend to rally around the president when the country's at war. That's why the Bush Administration fell all over themselves after 9-11 to declare "a war against terrorism." And the American people reacted just as planed-Bush's numbers immediately went up in the polls. But now with the mystery surrounding the fate of Osama Bin Laden, the administration has found itself without a war to sustain those numbers, so now they have to create one.
.
While I'm not prepared to say that the Bush Administration allowed 9-11 to take place, it is clear that the timing of the 9-11 tragedy was without a doubt the best thing that could ever happened to Bush's presidency.
.
Bush was a lame duck the minute he was sworn in. It seems that as soon as Bush entered The Oval Office the stock market began to falter and the economy started to weaken. And whenever he spoke, the next day's news was not so much what he said, but whether or not he got through the speech without falling on his face. In addition, his big tax cut that was touted as the key to boosting the economy turned out to be a bust, and he was so inept in dealing with congress that a Republican senator changed parties costing Bush control of the senate. As a result, when 9-11 took place, it was embraced by conservatives more like it was a football rally than the sober occasion that it was--thus, all the flag waving, ceremonies, and strutting about.
.
But where was all that bluster prior to 9-11? ABC News reported on May 16th of this year [2002] that the Bush Administration acknowledged that U.S. Intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before 9-11 that Osama Bin Laden's terrorists might try to hijack a plane. It was also reported that Bush privately alerted transportation officials and security agencies, but other than that, simply sat on the information.
.
The administration claims that the information they received was non-specific, but one would think that even if they couldn't determine exactly when and where the attack was going to take place, at the very least they could have warned the American people. If they had, maybe some of the people who died would have chosen not to fly-or possibly, chosen to leave their children behind. But no, this president who now claims to be so concerned with protecting our welfare that he feels compelled to launch an unprovoked attack against Iraq, was at that time more interested in the impact that warning us would have on the airline industry.
.
What the American people needs to understand is that the power elite in this country doesn't view the United States in the same way as its citizens. They see the United States as a huge corporation, with its various industries as its subsidiaries. They see American citizens, particularly the lower and middle class, as simply pawns to be cajoled and manipulated in whatever way is necessary to meet the goals of the corporation. Therefore, they didn't view the tragedy of 9-11 in the same patriotic way as the average American citizen. After the initial shock, they saw 9-11 in terms of dollars and cents. Ultimately, it was viewed as an assault on their corporate superstructure. Later they recognized that the incident could be used as a distraction for the American people, and still later, an opportunity to move on Middle Eastern oil interests.
.
So let there be no doubt, all of the flag waving, ceremonies, and patriotic speeches have nothing to do with 9-11; they are designed to whip the American people into such a frenzy that they're blinded to Bush's actual agenda. And that agenda includes the following:
.
1). Committing America (and American lives) to a war in order to get
himself re-elected.
2). Taking control of Iraqi oil fields to benefit his friends in big business.
3). Keeping the American voter distracted from considering the ramifications of the recent corporate scandals.
4). Keeping the American people from recognizing how inept he is as president.
.
The rest of the world sees Bush's agenda for what it is, and the American people would too if they'd stop waving their flags long enough to consider the flag's true meaning. The American flag represents freedom and justice, not trying to dictate who should lead other countries. It represents the open debate of issues, not intolerance to any and everyone who disagrees with your point of view. It represents the guarantee of personal freedom, not the suspension of the Bill of Rights.
.
If the American people would just stop to consider these facts, it would become clear that even while Bush and his conservative cohorts are frantically waving our flag, they are simultaneously waging war against the very values that the flag and this great country represent.
.
These issues can, and will, be debated ad nauseam, but the American people need only ask themselves two questions to put all of the administration's nonsense into perspective. First, would the administration be so anxious to go to war if we were talking about China as opposed to Iraq? And secondly, do we think that invading Iraq will make us more, or less safe from terrorist attacks? If we answer those questions honestly, it becomes clear that the administration is being disingenuous at best.
.
So what I'd like to know is this--if a shade tree "journalist" sitting up in his den in the heart of a Los Angeles ghetto could see what was going on, why couldn't the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN and all of the networks; Harvard, Yale, and the various and sundry Ph.D.s from the other great institutions of learning; the nation's think tanks, all of the nation's political scientists, the United States Congress and Hillary Clinton couldn't figure it out?
.
It kinda makes you wanna go, hmmmmmmm.
.
Eric L. Wattree

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

 

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

This Poem of Yours

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

THIS POEM OF YOURS

This poem of yours,
it represents
more truth than I can bear.
So please stop speaking of horror and death,
I don't want to hear it no more.
.
I want to see an evil enemy,
not babies crushed and torn;
I want to see pictures of angry infidels,
not of mothers as they mourn.
.
How do you expect me to support
our troops if you keep talking
to me this way?
Now whenever I sing
America the Beautiful
decaying corpses get in my way.
.
Stop this!
It's un-American,
to bring on this brutal truth.
Please don’t tell me justice
is just a myth;
You wouldn’t do that,
Would you?

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

An Irrefutable Truth About the GOP

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

An Irrefutable Truth About the GOP
.

A gentleman by the name of James W. Lewis recently commented on my article, "Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?" In his comment he posed a question which under ordinary circumstances would seem to be very reasonable, and one that seems to currently be on the mind of a surprising number of younger Black people. He asked the following:
.
"There’s one thing that has always bothered me about black folks. We constantly battle trying to prove we’re not all the same, especially what’s portrayed on television. We come from a variety of backgrounds, and our unique upbringings shape our beliefs, including political beliefs. If that’s the case, why do we ALL have to be Democrat (or even Independent)? The Democratic Party was once pro-slavery with obviously no, to very little African American support. The shift began in the 1940s with FDR’s New Deal. African Americans have been generally pro-Democrat ever since. If African Americans can change the face of the Democratic party, can’t the same be said for the Republican party?"
.
James, in a word, no.
.
People often suggest that I tend to advocate for the Democratic Party over the GOP.   In response to that, first, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not a Democrat, and I haven’t been since my early twenties. I’m a independent progressive thinker, as oppose to a liberal or conservative. There is a difference.
.
Liberals and conservatives are both ideologues, and as such, tend to be different sides of the same coin. They both have a propensity to give ideology priority over unadulterated truth. So when truth fails to conform to their particular ideological position, they both have a tendency to try to bend and contort the truth in order to mold it into a more comfortable fit within their political philosophy.
.
Progressives, on the other hand, are non-ideological. We believe in following truth wherever it leads and regardless to who’s ox it gores. Truth is our only constituent, so we tend to look upon the political landscape as though we’re observing an ant farm, rather than from a partisan perspective.
.
At this point it must be granted, however, that progressives do generally come down on the liberal side of the ledger, but there’s a reason for that, and since we believe in truth, that reason should be obvious. The current Republican Party has become a refuge for scoundrels for some, and a refuge from reality for many others. So while I’m not advocating FOR the Democratic Party, I routinely and vociferously advocate AGAINST the Republican Party with my every keystroke, because the current GOP is filled to the brim with some of the most dangerously malevolent people in this country.
.
Simply ask yourself, when was the last time a party had to, literally, hide their last president and vice president during an election? Granted, I’m not a historian, but I can’t think of another time in our history. But the Republican Party had to do it twice - in both the 2008 and 2012 elections - and with good reason.
.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spent their entire eight-year reign enriching their cronies. In addition, during their time in office they didn’t do one solitary thing to help America, or the American people, and that’s been the Republican record for nearly ONE HUNDRED YEARS. The GOP has a clear and irrefutable one hundred year record of swindling the American people, which I clearly lay out in the following link. (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2010/10/gop-one-hundred-year-record-of.html).

.
Thus, the GOP has clearly become the domestic enemy of the United States. So to even try to be nonpartisan with this group would constitute colluding with the enemy against the American people.
.
Am I engaging in a hyperbolic rant? I don’t think so. Let me prove it: Who was the last Republican president who didn’t drag America under a bus? That’s a real brain teaser isn’t it? Now try to name one good thing that the GOP has done for the American people in the last 30 years. Let me answer that for you - Absolutely nothing.
.

Rush Limbaugh was foolish enough to make his feelings known out loud - "I don’t want Obama to be successful" - and as everyone knows, Rush speaks for the Republican Party.
.
 Thus, Rush gave the Republican Party their marching orders at the very beginning of President Obama’s administration - that the GOP should do everything in its power to prevent America from succeeding, regardless to the level of suffering that the American people may have to endure, and they've stood steadfast to that agenda.
.
In yesterday's vote on gun control, in spite of the fact that a majority of 54 senators voted to approve the measure, the Republicans used the threat of filibuster to block true democracy and thumbed their nose at nearly 90% of the American people in favor of their corporate cronies. That, is the literal definition of a domestic enemy.
.

The History of the Republican Party
.

One of the founding fathers of conservative thought was Alexander Hamilton. He was an aristocrat who advocated that poor and middle-class Americans should be relegated to second-class citizenship, and the GOP has fully embraced his agenda. Hamilton said the following:
.
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.” (Debates of the Federalist Convention, May 14-September 17, 1787).
.
The founding fathers rejected Hamilton's position in laying out the blueprint for this nation, but the arrogance of Hamilton's philosophy continues to exist, even to this day, in our politics - and it was exactly that arrogance that we witnessed in the Republican Party in yesterday's vote on gun control - "To Hell with the people; we're talking about my reelection here!"
.
The modern Republican Party is a coalition between fiscal conservatives, or big business, and social conservatives, or social bigots. Even though these two factions don’t even like each other, they have one thing in common – they both have a vested interest in undermining Black people.

.

Big business has a vested interest in not only lowering the standard of living of Black people, but the entire American Middle class in order to become more competitive in the global market against countries who pay their workers less per week, than the average middle-class American spends on lunch per day. And the great American bigot simply hates Black people in general. The most benevolent of them think that Black people should be relegated to shining his shoes.

.

.

But it is true that most Black people used to be Republicans immediately after the Civil War up through the Civil Rights Era – Martin Luther King was a Republican. But the Republican Party was different back then. They represented the business community of the North, and the Democrats, or Dixiecrats, represented the farmers of the South. That was one of the reasons for the Civil War. The Civil War wasn't actually about freeing the slaves; it was actually a dispute between the big business Republicans of the North, and the Southern Democrats that represented the farming interests. Black people just happened to benefit from the dispute, and during the industrial revolution big business could use the additional manpower.
.
But during the Great Depression the two parties began to change their alliances dramatically. After Democrat president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, turned on big business to help the poor and middle class with his "New Deal" for the American people during the Great Depression, working-class people began to gravitate to the Democratic Party. Then during the Civil Rights Era of the sixties when John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson began to support Black civil rights, many more Black people migrated to the Democratic Party, and southern racists began to move to the Republican Party. So, essentially, a complete shift took place in party alliances.
.
So when you hear someone from the Republican Party saying that it was the Democrats who kept Black people in slavery and formed the Klan, they’re trying to play on your ignorance of history. A much better way of keeping track of those who victimized Black people is by following political philosophy. It was conservatives who victimized Black people, and those conservatives currently reside in the Republican Party - and as we speak, they’re desperately trying to obstruct our right to vote.
.
But the Republican Party is currently in a state of turmoil. Every since social conservatives sought out refuge in the GOP subsequent to the Civil Rights Era, there’s been an uneasy alliance between the corporatist conservatives like Mitt Romney, and social bigots like Rick Santorum.
.
So once again there’s a dispute between the interest of fiscal conservatives, or big business, who benefit from a more practical approach to social policies - and who would love to bring in as many undocumented workers as possible as potential customers, and to lower the cost of wages; and social conservatives, the social bigots - who, if they had their way would send all undocumented workers back to their respective homelands. So a second Civil War is brewing, but this time it’s going on within the Republican Party itself, and it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
.
But the bottom line is this - the bigots within the Republican Party hate Black people even more than they do undocumented workers, liberals, and gays; and the corporatists hate the entire poor and middle-class population. You heard Mitt Romney talking to his homies – he thinks nearly half of the American people are scum – Black and White.
.
Thus, any Black person, regardless to who he or she is, who think that Black people can find a comfortable fit in the churning cauldron of Republican hatred, bigotry, and self-interest, has got to be a fool - a damn fool.

 .

THE GOP HAS BECOME DANGEROUSLY
UN-AMERICAN
.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

President Obama: Let Us Not Forget

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

A MESSAGE TO BUSHLAND

(July 11, 2006)

It’s scary how easily the American people can be manipulated to the point that they find the death of entire families a hoot; How we can sit in front of the tv set with chili dogs and fries and cheer on the death of others like we’re watching the Super Bowl. And it’s a tribute to psychosis how America can unleash mass destruction in "an attempt to prevent mass destruction," in the name of God.

Can’t you see that many of "those towel-heads" are children just like your own? You didn’t really think the U.S. could unleash destruction like we saw and not kill children did you? Rumsfeld said, "Well, [shit] happens." But shit doesn’t just happen--you allowed it to happen. You made it happen. You cheered it on! Consider that as the children bleed and you're admiring the beauty of "Shock and Awe."

Think about your own children as "collateral damage." Think about them screaming in horror while you're helplessly watching their limbs being blown off. Think about them desperately reaching out to you for comfort as life slowly drains from their tiny bodies. Think about foreign boots kicking down your front door, and strangers walking through your home systematically killing every man, woman and child. Imagine the last sight you ever see on this Earth is of your loving child with her brains spilling from her tiny little head. Think about that picture, America--then ask yourself, who's really the terrorist?

Where has America gone? Who’s left to standup for justice and humanity? You say, God Bless America? You'd have to be a fool to think God is gonna bless America after what we’ve done--for choosing Standard Oil over Justice, and Exxon over God himself. In God we trust? How dare you blame this atrocity on God! It is in Bush you trust:

You trust Bush that God has entrusted you to blow off Iraqi arms and wrap them around you to enable them to embrace your benevolence. And you trust Bush that you must lovingly pluck out Iraqi eyes to enable them to see the wisdom of viewing the world through your own. And you trust Bush that in the name of all that is good you must slaughter their children in a desperate attempt to provide them with a better future. You also trust Bush that you must rape their land and steal their wealth in order to allow them to choose the government of their choosing-- (so long as they choose the government that Bush chooses for them to choose). And you trust Bush that you do all this in the name of American charity.

You also trust Bush that God will bless America--but this Ain’t America. America is the land of the free, and home of the brave, the land of just souls who freed their slaves. No, this is not America, this is Bushland–the land of small pox infected blankets; the land of public lynchings and church–place bombings; the land of imprisoned Japanese-Americans, and corporate murderers.

Yeah, God Bless Bushland! The land of the free and home of the slave; the land of My Lai, and Calley’s mass grave. And you trust that God will bless Bushland?

Well, trust this–You are blind, my friend.

... and those who do make it home are denied a living wage

 

Eric L. WattreeHttp://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?

Many conservatives - including a few Black accommodationists - are saying that Black people are being bamboozled into voting nearly exclusively for the Democratic Party. This is clearly a republican talking point - either that, or they believe that Black people are so stupid that they can be convinced to vote for people who have left no stone unturned to deprive them of their right to vote, and who repeatedly try to portray them as lazy criminals and dope fiends who are content to vote for anyone who will allow them to spend their lives on welfare. When placed in that context it makes one wonder, what could Black people possibly be thinking? How could they not want to vote for a group of people who portray them in that way?
.
It seems to me, however, that a more pertinent question is how any Black person in America could proudly, or even quietly, declare themselves a conservative, or even think of voting for a Republican - any Republican? 
.

After all, the Republican Party has clearly demonstrated themselves to be the domestic enemy of the United States, with their policies, their governmental obstructionism, and with their seeming determination to hold America hostage to accommodate their corporate cronies. They’re, literally, trying to punish America for electing President Obama under the pretext of addressing a national crisis that they created, just like every other economic crisis that the nation has experienced over the past one hundred years (The GOP: A One Hundred Year Record of Swindling the American People ).
.
In addition, any Black person with even a casual understanding of the English language would recognize that "conservative," by its very definition, means that they’re aligning themselves with people who are dedicated to "conserving" the values and traditions of the past. That alone represents a malevolent agenda for all Black people. Thus, any Black man who supports that agenda is either dumb, or self-serving. Period.
.
But I have a theory about those who cave-in to become Black conservatives. I think they suffer from a form of "Stockholm Syndrome." Stockholm Syndrome is a psychiatric concept named to describe the psychological response of hostages who were locked in a bank vault for five days during a robbery in Stockholm, Sweden between August 23rd and 28^th of 1973.
.
Some of the hostages were so traumatized during their ordeal that they began to confuse relief from blatant abuse with an act of kindness. As a result, they began to empathize with their captors. Many became so attached to their captors, in fact, that they refused assistance and even defended the criminals after they were released.
.

We saw the very same effect in Patty Hearst after she was kidnaped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and also in Black collaborators during slavery - "Dim niggas talkin’ bout burnin’ our house down, Massa." Such people have an overwhelming need for acceptance by the people they perceive to have power over their lives.
.
The Stockholm Syndrome is consistent with what we’ve suggested many times before - that since Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White people, many Black people, of weaker character, have become just as racist towards other Black people as any mouth-foaming, sheet-wearing, White bigot. Any Black person who has ever worked for the United States Postal Service will eagerly attest to that. In addition, the epidemic of Black-on-Black crime in our inner cities and the lack of darker skinned Black women in entertainment videos will also attest to this fact.
.
Further, over the years many Black people have been conditioned to believe that having "arrived" means that you live as far away from other Black people as you can get, and that you assume as many White attributes as you can accommodate without bleaching your skin - and some have even gone so far as to do that. Then there's a small minority of Black people who feel that the ultimate proof that they’ve arrived is to assume conservative values - values that are renown for looking upon Black people, and the Black culture in general, with disdain.
.
There are also Black people who go conservative, even at the expense of the Black community, for personal gain. In his article, "My Republican Party has Abandoned Me," Black Republican activist, Raynard Jackson, says the following:
.

"For many years, I have approached the party and its supporters about underwriting programs to bring together Blacks who are Republican or lean Republican so we can weave them into every facet of the party structure. The answer is always, no! But, twice this year some of these same people have approached me about funding for some election year tricks that they (White Republicans) have conjured up and simply need a Black face to execute the plan. On these two separate occasions, these funders were willing to spend upwards of $20 million to have me organize a national campaign to identify Blacks who would be critical of President Obama."
.
Most Black people understand these facts intuitively, so no matter how many Herman Cains or Dr. Ben Carsons the Republican Party trots out, they’ll never obtain the Black vote. In fact, trotting out such people only serve to stoke the flame of their animosity even further, because it's clear to them that the GOP is not only trying to insult their intelligence, but they’re manipulating the very least among them to try to achieve that goal - even when they have to resort to the lunatic fringe:

.

.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

About Gay Marriage

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

About Gay Marriage

.　

I recognize that everyone who is against gay marriage is not a bigot. There's much more to being a bigot than merely one's opinion. Bigots are also mean-spirited, and they generally know that their attitudes are unjust. That's why they maintain them - to express their hatred.
.
But one doesn't have to be bigoted to hold bigoted beliefs. Some people are raised to hold certain attitudes, and while the person him or herself is not a bigot, they hold discriminatory beliefs, and those beliefs have the very same kind of negative impact on society as a mouth-foaming, sheet-wearing bigot.
.
That's what happened during slavery. All White people didn't hate Black people, but the impact of their unexamined ideas had the very same negative consequences as those of bigots. That's also what happened in Nazi Germany, and what led to the near extinction of Native Americans here in this country. In those instances, many of those people weren't bigots, but they allowed themselves to hold on to attitudes that allowed the true bigots to thrive.
.
In the case of Black people, it's important for us to understand that we're either against discrimination or we’re not; we must either be for ALL the people in our society to be treated equally, or we're not - there's no in-between. And the argument that, "If we allow same-sex marriage, we also have to allow a man to marry his dog, or his sister," is invalid, because we don't allow ANYONE to marry their dog or sister. So everyone is being treated equally in that regard.
.
So what Black people should always remember is, we're products of the very same bigoted environment as White people. So we're capable of being just as bigoted as any racist Hillbilly. Look at any hip hop video and count the number of dark-skin sisters in them - very few. And when was the last time you heard of a person committing a drive-by wearing a sheet? Again, very rarely, if ever. The reason for that is our own bigoted attitudes towards one another has rendered the Klan redundant.
.
That's why when I became a thinking adult I decided to reassessed ALL of my attitudes and beliefs, and anything that didn't stand up to reason, I unceremoniously discarded - and that included religion. I replaced religion with ethics, because I realized that the only reason I held the religious beliefs that I did was due to an accident of birth.
.
With just a little bit of God-given logic, it became clear to me that if I had been born in Israel I would have believed something altogether different, and if I'd been born in Iraq, I would have believed something different still. That fact alone made it abundantly clear that my religious beliefs were forged by man, not God.
.
It became clear to me that the only way that I could truly know God's will was by observing what God has done - and he made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. So if I allowed myself to be more loyal to what man has WRITTEN than what God has done, my faith is not in God, but in man. In fact, that's what faith means - that you've decided to embrace what you've been told.
.
But just because you've decided to embraced a given philosophy as your religious beliefs does not mean that you have the right to shove those beliefs down everyone else's throats, and that's exactly what many people in this country are trying to do. That's stupid, and it's exactly why the founding fathers chose to separate church and state - to protect us from our stupidity.
.
Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

Are We Lying On God To Justify Our Own Bigotry - Again?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Are We Lying On God To Justify Our Own Bigotry - Again?



I just reread an editorial entitled "Don't Shake Your Fist at God," by Larry Buford. In the editorial Mr. Buford comes out against same-sex marriage based on the Bible, and his view that it is not a civil rights issue. He refers to gays as "reprobates" and implies that by allowing same-sex marriage our society is on the threshold of becoming a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
.
Larry Buford is a friend and a very gifted writer, but I found his position on this particular issue to be absolutely ridiculous. While I'm as straight as they come, and it's beyond my comprehension why with all the beautiful women in this world one man would want to marry another, it is just as incomprehensible to me why one group of people would insist on shoving their belief system down everyone else's throat.
.
It simply eludes me why a person who's against same-sex marriage can't be satisfied with simply taking the position that since I'm totally against same-sex marriage, I'm going to make it a point to marry someone of the opposite sex, then just leave it at that. But that's not good enough for some people. Some people aren't satisfied unless they can make their opinion THE LAW. There's simply got to be some kind of pathology attendant to that kind of obsession.
.
I was raise by devout Christians, and most of my values are consistent with the values reflected in the Bible, but I didn't get any of them by reading the Bible. All of my values evolved around the principle of minding my own business and treating people the way I want to be treated–and I didn't get that from the Bible either; I got it through what God gave us to live by long before there was any such thing as a Bible–it's called, common sense.
.
For that reason, even though my values are consistent with those of the Christian tradition, I have refused to formalize my association with the Christian community, because I've known too many Christians over the years who are more interested in looking down on other people than looking up to God. Too many tend to be narrow-minded and discriminatory in mind-set. They also tend to be more interested in preaching a sermon, than living one.
.

This world would be a much less hostile place if we would simply live, and let live, as long as individuals are not hurting others. I don't see what's so difficult about that concept. But even if we did decide to abolish certain behaviors, I'd go after the bigots long before I went after the gays. After all, Rush Limbaugh is having a much more negative impact on society than Little Richard.
.
I've pointed out several times in my columns that true Christians are some of the most loving and beneficent people in the world, but unfortunately, there are far too many demagogues hiding among their number. Some of the most vicious bigots in the world find the Christian community a very convenient place to hide and spread their hatred and bigotry. By feigning to be Christians, these demagogues are allowed to say, "It's not that I hate everybody who don't look, think, and act like me, it's just that God does." That allows them to promote the demonization and slaughter of anyone who is different from themselves, while at the same time being wrapping themselves in the alleged "word of God" - ask Sitting Bull.
.
That creates a serious problem within the Christian community, because much too often these bigots are in positions of authority, and since many Christians believe that these authoritarian bigots have a direct pipeline to God, their poisonous bigotry tends to seep into the thinking of legitimate Christians.
.

We've seen the demonic impact of these people throughout history. We saw them during the Inquisition when they burned of so-called "witches" alive, and they raised their ugly heads again with the brutality of slavery, and yet again during the so-called "Manifest Destiny," where they justified the slaughter of nearly all the Native Americans across this land. Now we see them, once again, spreading their malevolence in the middle-east, while at the same time disseminating their poison here at home.
.
So I want to take this opportunity to point out to my well-meaning, but grossly misguided colleague, that whenever one group in our society attempts to demonize another, that's not God's will - that's the will of bigots, and it is, indeed, a civil rights issue.
.
When I was a kid, about five years old, I had a friend who was quite effeminate. It was clear that he was "different" long before we even knew what sex was. It was obvious that the adults already knew he was gay - even though he didn't even know what sex was - because they use to whisper and giggle whenever he'd come around. But of all my friends, even then, he was the smartest and the most loyal. Later in life, it turned out that he indeed was gay, but there is no one on the face of this Earth that can tell me that he had a choice in the matter, anymore than I had a choice in growing up to love women, because he was effeminate before he was old enough to make a choice, or even know their was a choice to be made. Therefore, if God made him gay, who are we to discriminate against an act of God?
.
With respect to the Bible, many Christians tend to be quite hypocritical in picking and choosing what scriptures they choose to adhere to. While those who are against gay marriage often select scriptures that tend to justify their bigotry, there is another scripture - one that seems to me to be much more reflective of what Christianity is suppose to be about. It says, "Judge ye not."
.
What makes that scripture so important is that it seems to be a warning from God. It tells man to stay out of God's business, because man is much too narrow-minded and stupid to understand why God chose to do what he has done.
.
It is also important for Black "Christians" to remember that the people who taught us the attitudes and religious beliefs that many Black people so passionately embrace had us tied next to the mules when they taught it to us. They were killing and abusing us even as they taught us to "Love thy neighbor," and it seems that many of us have learned our lesson well - that God wants us to love our neighbors, except for the ones the bigots taught us to hate.
.
We should also remember that at the time that Barack Obama was born, there were many states in this union where it was illegal for his mother and father to marry. There were many people who thought that reflected God's will as well - and they still do.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

The Real History of The Poverty Tours

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

The Real History of The Poverty Tours

.

The hostility that Tavis Smiley and Cornel West have for President Obama is so transparent that if it were glass we would have walked right through it and cut ourselves to shreds. These two are shameless, and it’s not only a national disgrace how the establishment media is allowing them to prance around posing as the savior of the poor and middle class, but they're actually helping them to perpetuate this fraud by providing them constant coverage and millions of dollars worth of publicly supported air time.
.
These two thought that they were gonna become the Grand Dragons of the Black Community - which is a very profitable gig when you’re in the business of selling ALEC-connected corporations access to the Black community like Tavis Smiley. Tavis is the biggest corporate shill in the Black community. He fronts for Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, Exxon/Mobile, Allstate Ins., Nationwide Ins., etc. - a veritable who’s who of the corporations that are most responsible for victimizing the poor and middle class in the country, and who are spending millions of dollars to obstruct minority voter rights. That’s what makes it so ironic that they’re trying to portray themselves as the saviors of "the poor minorities."
.

During Obama’s first campaign for president Smiley and West had already hitched their wagons to Hillary Clinton. She was 37 points ahead of Obama in the Black community at the time, so they were all set to gain the clout, prestige, and riches of having presidential access and being acknowledged as the new grand viziers of the Black community. But then, Obama won the election - in spite of their most ardent efforts - and caught them by surprise. In fact, Cornel West tried to jump the fence and began campaigning for Obama when it became clear that Obama might actually win, but Obama wasn’t having it. That's what caused the controversy over West not being invited to the inaugural celebration.
.
At the time, West tried to frame the issue like Obama was an ingrate for not inviting him to the inauguration after he campaigned for him. But he failed to mention the fact that less than an hour after Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States West went on national television and told the Black community that Obama couldn’t be trusted.

.
That’s right - on the very day that Obama went to Springfield, Illinois to maximize the historic significance of announcing his candidacy for president in the shadow of Lincoln's former statehouse instead of coming on Tavis' "State of the Black Union" jibfest, West stood up and did an impassioned rant indicating that Obama couldn’t be trusted to be president because he didn’t come on the Tavis Smiley show, as though Tavis was the gatekeeper of the Black community - and all the while Tavis is standing there grinnin' like a chess cat as though they'd caught Obama committing some sort of unconscionable act.
.
Look at the video below and notice how entitled West sounds, as though it was more appropriate for Obama to come kiss Tavis’ ring than to announce his candidacy in the shadow of Lincoln’s former statehouse. I remember becoming slack-jawed at his unmitigated arrogance. Up until that moment I had been a big fan of both Tavis and West, but that was when I first realized that they were egomaniacal fools. That was also the morning that I started investigating them, and I’ve written nearly 30 articles on them since.
.
The video is also ironically prophetic. Notice how even as West is lecturing the nation on how Obama is surrounding himself with people who can’t be trusted, you can see Wells Fargo and Exxon/Mobil logos floating by in the background behind him. What makes that so prophetically ironic is Tavis was later involved in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loans" scam, where Wells Fargo ended up having to settled a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice agreeing to pay poor and middle-class minorities $175 million as a result of the scam. This is the biggest scandal EVER perpetrated by a Black man on the Black community, but the establishment media is refusing to cover it. That’s why I’ve become so fixated on bringing the machinations of these two demagogues to the attention of the Black community.

.

.

So the Bottom Line is this - when people like myself criticize Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, or Boyce Watkins, we’re not criticizing them because they’re critical of President Obama; our problem with them is they’re cherry-picking their facts and telling half-truths to promote their own agenda.
.

HEY, AREN'T YOU THE SAME GUY
WHO SAID I COULDN'T BE TRUSTED? 

A prime example of that is they are going out of their way NOT to tell the Black community that the United States Constitution gives sole control of spending to the United States House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republicans. So the only way that President Obama can spend any money to assist the Black community, or anyone else, is to get the Republican House to go along with him.
.
That’s why it’s so important for the president to hold together a coalition of Blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, and every other segment of the American population. He needs ALL of us to place pressure on the Republicans to loosen the purse strings in order for him to get anything done. So anytime you hear Tavis, West, or Watkins pointing their finger at what President Obama is doing for any other segment of the population, they’re doing you a disservice.
.
Here’s how politics works - "you support me when I need you, and I’ll support you when you need me." So whenever President Obama does anything for other segments of the population, he’s building up political capital so he can help you. But, of course, he doesn’t discuss what he’s doing for the Black community for a very good reason - as Cornel says himself (when it’s convenient), "Race Matters."
.

These gentlemen know full well that if President Obama runs around bragging about what he’s doing for the Black community, the Republicans are going to use that as leverage to tear his coalition apart. They would tell women, gays, Hispanics, and everyone else in America that Obama doesn’t care about them; all he wants to do is help his own people, and that message hurts the Black community. Don’t these so-called intellectuals recognize that? If they don’t, they’re dumb. If they do, that means that they’re purposely trying to mislead you. The question, then, is why?
.
So the fact is, when people like Tavis, West, and Watkins run around telling you that the proof that President Obama is not working for you is that he refuses to throw his fist in the air, these people are working against you, not for you - and they know it. You see, their primary agenda is NOT about helping the Black community. Their agenda is about tearing President Obama down, and again, that hurts you. But they don't care - and that's the problem.

.

.

RELATED ARTICLES

A Question For Both Tavis Smiley and Cornel West 

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-question-for-both-tavis-smiley-and.html

.

Poverty Pimp, Inc.

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/01/poverty-pimp-inc.html

Eric L. Wattree 
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

TAP DANCING FOR THE KLAN

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

TAP DANCING FOR THE KLAN
.

I'm not here to defend President Obama, because as I pointed out in previous articles, I have an issue or two with some of his policies myself, just like I've had with EVERY White president. But I think we owe this brother the benefit of the doubt. He's plagued with enough problems in having to deal with world affairs and our domestic crisis, while at the same time, having to fight off racist Republicans and envious, self-serving turncoats like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. So we shouldn't add yet another problem to his plate by forcing him to have to worry about whether he has the support of his own people.
.
To be quit frank, I think there are only two kinds of people in this world - good people, and bad people. In addition, I believe the battle over race was a part of the last war. Those who are enlightened recognize that the current battle is over class, because the current powers that be don’t care any more about poor and middle-class White folks than they do Black people. Most White people recognize that fact. That's why Obama is president.  So while I often write about what’s in the best interest of the Black community as a whole, I rarely make race a part of my personal political calculations.
.
But I consider the presidency of Barack Obama a unique situation, and what we’ve been watching with respect to many Black Obama critics should be regarded as a teaching moment, because it represents a cultural dysfunction that’s been played out thousands of times over the past four hundred years. Many of us have heard stories about Black self-hatred all of our lives, but due to President Obama’s high profile we now have the opportunity, as an entire culture, to see it being played out in all of its ugliness for the very first time.
.
But of course, there are going to be a few of Obama's critics who are going to ask, "What are you saying, that Obama should be above criticism just because he’s Black?" Of course not, and the people who pose such a ridiculous question know that’s not what I’m saying before they even ask it. But just asking such a disingenuous question should also serve as a teaching moment - it shows the extraordinary lengths that such people will go to mask their "bligotry."
.
Questioning President Obama’s policies is not the problem - it’s the mean-spirited way in which it’s being done. In fact, Black haters are not merely questioning Obama’s policies at all. More often than not these people are simply using policy differences as a pretext for making slanderous assertions about the president’s character as a whole - he’s a "war criminal," "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats," "a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface," and even, "He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination" [WHAT!!!?].  Notice that three out of the four slanders are racial in nature, and these quotes are from just one man - Cornel West.
.
None of the criticisms above were legitimate attempts to address the president’s public policies. They were racial slanders, clear and simple. That clearly demonstrates that many Black Obama-haters are not nearly as interested in addressing public policy as they are in attacking the man himself. These slanders also demonstrate the fallacious allegation that people who object to their criticism are merely Obama cheerleaders. That's simply not true - what we’re against is what we’ve always been against - racist attacks.
.
But even those haters who have the good sense to refrain from blatant, racist attacks often make themselves known by going over the top in their allegations regarding policy. They’ll often say things like, "Obama is a part of the machine." But since we’re not privy to the information that Obama is basing his decisions upon, nor his motives for making any given decision, any allegation being made about his being a part of any "machine" are wholly without supporting substantiation at best. Critics who suggest this are merely commenting on what things LOOK like to their jaundiced eye - or what they're trying to convince you to think they look like - without having a shred of evidence to support their views. Their allegations have no more basis in fact than that of the birthers.
.
The reality is, being the first Black President of the United States, Obama can’t approach the nation’s problems in the same way that they were approached by his White predecessors. In many cases he has to take a circuitous approach to addressing issues in order to prevent the GOP from mischaracterizing his efforts with their very special kind of malevolent spin. Thus, the way that things may look, may not always be what they seem. So anyone who would lend comfort to the most steadfast enemies of the Black community by helping to drag this Black man through the mud is on what my good friend, Playthell Benjamin, would call, a fool’s errand. 
.
There were people in the Tea Party who were consistently calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer, right up until he brought Osama Bin Laden’s head home in a bag. Bush spent nearly eight years and close to a trillion dollars trying to pull that off with no success, but Obama did it with three helicopters and a handful of courageous men without busting a sweat bubble - and he did it while America thought he was just kickin’ it.
.
So this brother ain’t no punk, and he’s not the kind of person we should second guess without very good cause.  So yes, I think everyone in the Black community should get behind this brother - period. If we have a comment on policy, we should voice our concern, but we should do it politely, and very respectfully. Because while Obama is, and should be, the president of ALL of America, he is also the most high profile representative of the Black community in the entire world. So to be disrespectful of him, is to be disrespectful of us; and his success, is our success. 
.
With regard to Cornel West, I can only say this - any Black man who tries to publicly engage in the Dozens against the first Black President of the United States cannot be regarded as a serious intellectual. He deserves very close scrutiny, because his behavior is not only disrespectful of the president, but it betrays a gross disdain for the Black community as a whole. So he can say whatever he likes about his motives, but his behavior lends comfort to the most dedicated enemies of the Black community. Thus, the issue is not even debatable - the stupidity he’s engaged in amounts to tap dancing for the Klan.

.

.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

We Must Never Confuse Education With Intelligence

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

We Must Never Confuse Education With Intelligence

.

When we consider all of the problems that we have in the Black community, if anyone asked me what we are in most dire need of to resolve those problems, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second - I’d say education. Education is the key to resolving high unemployment, because it would enable us to create our own jobs; it is the key to reducing crime in the community, because if we educate ourselves properly we’ll become enlightened enough to recognize that simply gathering the most material "things" is not what makes life worthwhile; and finally, with the proper kind of education we’d stop worrying about what other people think of us and start focusing on what we think of ourselves.
.
But with that said, it is also important to never confuse education - which I define as the science of efficient and independent thought - with indoctrination, the mere ability to regurgitate the thoughts of others - and it’s our tendency to do just that. That is the source of many of our problems, in not just the Black community, but in society as a whole.
.
Our universities and various institutions of higher learning are great when it comes to teaching the science of technology - math, engineering, medicine, and other technical pursuits - but they fall far short of the mark when it comes to educating students in the pure, efficient, and independent ability to think. That’s why we have so many Ph.Ds running around saying things that essentially amount to, "Obama is un-American - he’s engaged in a socialist plot to save my family." They’re unable to differentiate between the theoretical - their emotional, and thereby, erroneous association of the word "socialist," with evil - from the practical need to put policies in place that will promote the overall needs of the people, and society as a whole.  A given policy may be the perfect solution for one of the nation's problems, but because someone labeled it socialist, they'll fight against it, because they've been told that socialism is evil - even though, with all of their education, they can't explain what makes it evil.
.
Thus, many of the people who we accept as "experts" in what I call the "speculative arts" - psychology, philosophy, sociology, political science, economics, etc. - routinely engage in reckless and unwarranted speculation as though it’s fact. That’s why we can’t assess, predict, or control human behavior with the precision that we can land a spacecraft on the moon. If a physicist, biologist, or medical doctor engaged in the kind of reckless speculation as these people, they’d be run out of the profession.
.

One of the primary reasons that many of these people are so reckless in their thinking is, while it is true that these "highly educated" individuals have spent years in various classrooms, they haven’t been educated in the area of efficient and independent thought. Instead, they’ve spent their entire educational careers being indoctrinated into embracing the beliefs of long-dead White men. Now, that isn’t to say that the thoughts of the thinkers of the past shouldn’t be reviewed, but their thoughts shouldn’t be idolized and considered superior to our own, which is generally the case. As a result, many of our so-called intellectuals come out the other end of our most prestigious universities not as powerful independent thinkers, but as celebrated, but shallow-minded regurgitators of other people’s thoughts.
.
A perfect example of how our educational system is failing society in its responsibility to prepare the leaders in our society to think can be seen in the case of Rep. Michelle Bachmann. In 1988 Ms. Bachmann received an LL.M in tax law from the William and Mary School of Law, and she worked as a tax attorney prior to entering congress. Now, I don’t know what kind of tax lawyer she was, but I’m confident that most of the people reading this document will agree that a deep and independent thinker she’s not. The very same is true of not just many, but the majority of people that we accept as "educated" based on their resume and credentials alone. If that were not the case, with all of the Ph.ds being conferred across this country every year, one would think we'd live in a much more enlightened society.  George W. Bush is a product of Yale.
.
My point is this - the primary way that the establishment manages to control and bamboozle the people is by trotting out selected people that they want us to listen to, and then offering up their resume and credentials as justification for why we should hang on to their every word. And since most of us have been conditioned to be in awe of the reputations of the various prestigious institutions of higher learning - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. - the establishment can simply attach the name of one of these institutions to the person they're promoting, and more often than not, we’ll simply suspend all reason and critical thought and blindly accept whatever the person says as gospel. And in many cases, even when our common sense says, "Hey, what he just said doesn’t make sense," we’ll often simply chalk it up to our not being "educated enough" to grasp the nuances of his or her position. That’s exactly how we get played, and we often pay these people ridiculous speaking fees for the privilege of being played.
.
You can go into many courtrooms across this country and routinely witness two so-called experts taking completely opposite points of view on almost any subject, because they're saying what they're being paid to say. That's a flaw of human nature. So if you want to be enlightened, never blindly accept other people's points of view. Take the time to do the research and connect the dots for yourself.
.
We should never give anyone else’s ability to think priority over our own. Simply because a person has more degrees than you do, that doesn’t mean that he or she is more intelligent than you are. If we take a brain surgeon with an IQ of 120, and a high school dropout with an IQ of 140, while the brain surgeon may have more knowledge at his immediate disposal than the high school dropout, he’ll never be as smart. Thus, in a situation where all things are equal, the high school dropout will be able to connect the dots much more efficiently than the brain surgeon every time.
.
So while we should always attempt to enhance our education, if circumstances prevent us from attending an institution of higher learning, we should always remember this - knowledge is free, and there’s just as much knowledge on Google, or at the corner library, as there is at Harvard University. So we should dedicate our lives to obtaining that knowledge, because once we have it, it doesn’t matter where it came from. In fact, while Harvard can expose you to knowledge, it cannot educate you. Education is a solitary pursuit, so the only one who can truly educate you, is yourself.
.
Thus, whenever you begin to feel self-conscious over your lack of formal education, you should remember that Socrates - the father of modern thought - was a hood rat.  Look it up, and begin to educate yourself.

.

INTELLECTUAL RICE CAKE

.

THE EULIPIANS
Some of the greatest minds I've ever known
held court while sitting on empty milk crates
in the parking lot of ghetto liquor stores.
At their feet I embraced the love of knowledge,
and through their tutelage learned to
defined self-worth in my own terms.
.
These are the "Eulipians"—
writers, poets, musicians, painters,
and uncommon drunks—
those shade-tree philosophers who
contemplate the fungus between the
toes of society;
Who dance with reckless abandon,
unfettered by formal inhibition
through the presumptuous
speculation of the ages;
Who live in county jails, cardboard boxes,
alley ways, and luxury Apartments;
Whose very existence exposes the scam
of Great Bruteland.
.
While these obscure intellectuals
stood well outside the mainstream
of academy, I’ve watched
with astonished delight as
they sang, scat, and scribed their
philosophy into the mainstream
of human knowledge;
As they rammed forth the proposition
that thought transcends caste
and social privilege.
.
Bird, Malcolm, Langston, Trane –
They all sang but one song,
a song dedicated to the proposition
that man’s innate thirst for knowledge
will someday overwhelm his passionate
lust for stupidity.     

Eric L. Wattree
.
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.　

Sphere: Related Content