Is the GOP Really America’s Domestic Enemy?

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Is the GOP Really America’s Domestic Enemy?

Many of my conservative friends are advising me that by implying that the GOP is a domestic enemy of America that I’m being unnecessarily divisive, and I’m doing myself a disservice. One particularly good friend said, “Contrary to what you and Gordon love to espouse, the GOP is not the 'devil incarnate.' It may be politically convenient and divisive for you to call it that, but it is just not true.” Sorry Tom, but I beg to disagree.

The fact is, I’m neither implying, espousing, nor equivocating. I’m stating a demonstrable fact. The GOP leadership is un-American, period. And they specialize in holding the American people hostage. Their total disregard for America is made quite evident by the fact that every time the GOP wants to push one of their unpopular initiatives they begin to strangle a segment of the American people for leverage. Two of the most recent examples of that are the way they held unemployed Americans and first responders hostage in order to push through the extension of the Bush tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population. Thereafter, they threatened to shut down the entire government in an attempt to push through initiatives that would have brought severe hardships upon the poor and middle class.

Both the methods and propaganda of the GOP are not only un-American, but right out of the Nazi playbook. The GOP leadership has calculated that the more miserable they can keep the American people, the better chance they have of regaining power. That, in turn, would allow them to get on with the business of totally enslaving the American people. So they routinely employ tactics from right out of Joseph Gobbels’ handbook on the effective use of propaganda to keep us so angry and divided that we’re blind to their concerted effort to keep America ignorant, distracted, and miserable.

The issue doesn’t even require debate, because the facts are indisputable. But unfortunately, in politics, just like religion, people tend to close their eyes to any and all facts, no matter how revealing, that tends to contradict what they want to believe. The same is true in both parties and across the political spectrum. Many of President Obama’s supporters also suffer from this ailment. They close their eyes to Obama’s tendency to engage in collusive “compromises” just like Republicans are closing their eyes to the horrific Republican conspiracy against America - and in the case of both, that’s in spite of the fact it’s a direct assault on the quality of life of their own family and children.

But the GOP is enabled by being allowed to hide in plain sight behind Godwin’s Law, which asserts that whenever you bring up Hitler or the Nazis as a metaphor to define others you automatically render your argument meaningless. But Godwin’s Law doesn’t take into account that there are times when the comparison is not only appropriate, but unavoidable - and this is one such time. So I seriously reassert, without hyperbole and in all candor, that the modus operandi and goals of the current GOP leadership come right out of the Nazi tradition - in fact, so much so that it inspires a sense of deja-vu.

Adolph Hitler pointed out the following in Mein Kampf :

“The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward . . . Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side.”

This is exactly the tactic employed by the GOP. They assume that the people are stupid so they all constantly repeat the exact same script, and conspicuously avoid any vestige of truth that is unfavorable to them. That’s why on any given news cycle they all trot out the same mantras: “Tax and spend Democrats,” “Government controlled healthcare,” “Death panels,” “Obamacare,” “Job-killing policies,” etc.

Joseph Gobbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, also felt that it was essential to gain control over the media, which the GOP embarked upon during the Reagan administration when they abolished the Fairness Doctrine. The doctrine allowed for equal time for opposing points of view, and the GOP couldn’t have that. Then afer the doctrine was abolished, conservative interests began to buy and take control of television and radio networks across the country. The rest is history. If the Fairness Doctrine hadn’t been abolished, every time Limbaugh, Beck, or Fox News made a ridiculous statement on public policy, the network would have had to give equal time to any qualified person or group espousing the opposing point of view.

Gobbels also advocated limiting the people’s access to information. It is this prescription that accounts for the GOP’s thirty-year assault on our educational system and their current attempts to revise history. It also accounts for their assault on the National Public Broadcasting Network. So now it isn’t enough to simply lie to the people, now they’re also trying to prevent them from hearing the truth. Now, as a direct result of this thirty-year assault truth, many young Americans don’t realize that it’s un-American for the government to torture prisoners, or for Gov. Rick Snyder to fire duly elected local officials.

Gobbels also discussed the tactic of accusing your opponent of the assault on freedom that you’re actually committing. This tactic has also been clearly demonstrated by the GOP. Every since Obama has been in office, the GOP has been accusing him of promoting big government and trying to take government control of our lives. But now it turns out that all over the country Republican governors are not only trying to install big government, but initiate totalitarian policies that completely strip the American people of all of their rights of self-determination.

That brings us to the Nazi device of creating a crisis as a pretext for initiating unpopular policies. The GOP contends that their assault on the poor and middle class is absolutely necessary to address the nation’s deficit. But what they don’t tell us is that they created the deficit through Bush’s reckless spending in the first place. John Dyer of MSN Money points out that Bush alone cost the nation $11.5 trillion, and I suggest that it wasn’t purely due to incompetence.

The GOP has been on a single-minded mission for more than 70 years to reverse New Deal initiatives that President Roosevelt put into place to rescue the American people during the Great Depression. Thus, over the years the GOP’s determination to abolish social security, the minium wage, and the Fair Labor Standards Act has been even more virulent than their current determination to abolish President Obama’s healthcare reform. But these programs have been so popular among the American people that they haven’t been able to go after them legislatively, so the GOP has purposely spent us into a ditch in order to manufacture a crisis as a pretext to initiate policies that they wanted to pursue in the first place.

That explains a lot. It perfectly explains why the nation is now in such dire straits even though President Clinton left Bush a $150 billion surplus. It also explains why Bush couldn’t put forth a rational explanation for why he was so anxious to invade Iraq that he sacrificed the lives of American troops by sending them to war without the necessary gear to protect their lives. In addition, that’s also why he made the supremely irrational decision to pursue two wars and a huge tax cut simultaneously and put it all on a credit card, costing the nation $5 trillion. Bush had to take out a loan to cover just the loss of revenue created by his tax cut for the rich, and the interest alone on that loan cost the nation $265 billion.

But that’s not all it explains. When we take into account the fact that the GOP has been purposely spending America into a ditch as a pretext to attack the poor and middle class safety net, it also explains why in spite of the fact that the GOP bills itself as the party of fiscal responsibility, they not only applauded, but lionized Ronald Reagan after he came close to tripling the national debt. It also explains why even though the poor and middle class had nothing to do with creating this economic disaster - including the estimated $6 trillion cost of the Wall Street bailout - the burden of resolving the crisis is being placed squarely in the lap of those least able to pay.

But the most unconscionable example of the GOP’s attack on the middle class is with social security. They claim that social security is in a crisis situation so the poor and middle class have got to prepare themselves to take a hit. But the only reason social security is in crisis is because the government has borrowed $2.5 trillion from the program and they don’t want to pay it back. So the GOP solution to the problem is to make us bite the bullet to absorb the cost of money that they borrowed from us.

Now, in spite of the Republican claim to be against big government, Republican governor, Rick Snyder of Michigan, has signed a bill into law that allows him to declare a state of budgetary marshal law which allows him to take over the cities and municipalities in the state of Michigan and appoint “Emergency Managers” with the authority to fire duly elected officials, rescind municipal contracts and labor agreements, and ignore any and all rules of public accountability. So in essence - no, in fact - he’s installed a dictatorship in the state of Michigan, and other Republican governors across the country are following suit.

In addition, the GOP judiciary, who was supposed to be so big on a “strict constructionist” interpretation of the constitution, not only ruled that international corporations were equal to American citizens in addressing our political system, but in the 2000 election disenfranchised American voters to appoint the president of their choice. Then to add insult to injury, they ruled that the judicial jujitsu that they engaged in to circumvent the will of the people could not be used as a precedent in future cases.

So the GOP has but one step left. If they can gain control of our national government and establish the same rules that now exist in Michigan, America’s beautiful experiment in democracy is over.

So yes, Tom, the GOP is indeed the Devil incarnate - and worse.

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.

THE MAN

THE MAN

Young and curious, crusin' the street, my partner and I, with life at our feet. Beautiful days of summer's ilk, and beautiful ladies with legs of silk. Miles on the box with Thelonious in tow, playin’ “Round Midnite”, with nothin' but soul. Miles was moanin', Thelonious was Monk, our senses were spinnin' -our top in the trunk.

Down Century Boulevard, past Sportsman Park, North on Crenshaw, Can't wait 'til it's dark. Crenshaw was jammin', not like today, with cognitive people, who went their own way. Cadillacs gleamin', prosperity galore, Ladies a struttin', that gait I adore. The hood left behind, no denial or shame, among people of substance, on top of their game.

Dreamin' and crusin', yet, chained to the hood, but into an element we both understood. Jazz was the thing that had lured our route, and no chain of poverty was keepin' us out. 'Cause THE MAN was in town, with his mighty ax, and was jammin= that night at Dynamite Jack's.

So anxious to worship THE MAN in the flesh, the first thing that mornin' we started to dress. In our youthful exuberance we saw nothin' wrong, with the hours to kill before HE would go on. Hence, there we were with nothin' to do, THE MAN'S first note at 9, and it was now only 2.

So we went to a park on Rodeo Road and proceeded to get in our Mack-daddy mode. We needed two women with presence and class, who were progressive, and sexy, and dug modern jazz.

We lucked-out, no doubt, with Debra and Gwen, two sisters on cruse in their step-father's Benz. These women were ladies we soon recognized, not only quite lovely but exceedingly wise. We spoke of Dizzy, Dexter, Thelonious and Bird, and all of the monsters of jazz that we'd heard. Then just as our session was starting to end, Gwen mentioned Dolphy, and we were at it again.

We partook of the bush, we had a few beers, by 8 it was like we'd been partyin' for years. But now it was time to hit Dynamite Jack's, to hear THE MAN blow, sip Scotch and relax.

So we followed the ladies up into the hills, to a fabulous pad, must've cost a few bills. We dropped off my car, then got in the wind. We split to see HIM, and my journey began.

Dynamite Jack's was the place to be. There seemed to be thousands of new things to see. Doctors, lawyers, pimps and whoes, dope fiends with their nostrils froze; Perverts, politicians (one and the same), everyone seemed to have some kind of game.

At 16 years old I was really impressed, with this flash, this glitz, this flamboyant success. I knew before long, that my turn would come, I'd shoot for the stars, at least, out of the slum.

Then HE came on stage to a mighty roar, as bustling humanity hung all out the door. A quiet MAN, of knowledge and taste, yet his presence sent a chill through the place

Then flash became silence, and glitz bled to awe. Pure greatness just glistened from THIS MAN we saw. No posturing, no swagger, no hipster-like Mack, Just unfettered greatness, the essence, in fact....

On that one precious moment, as I gaped at the stand, my young reckless mind would take hold as a man. That moment estranged from the kid that I'd been. Life’s door was flung wide, and a new man would step in.

******

Now, many years later, I assess my life, with the dues of raising two kids with a wife. THE MAN now long gone from this earthly plain, but his un-flaunted manhood stays etched in my brain.

A kid on that night gave birth to a plan, that night when I looked up in awe at THE MAN. Revealed was a path that would color my life, that shunned the flamboyance and glitz of the night. To shoot for the stars That was my plan–for the stardom that's found in just being A MAN

I’ve taken two souls, and molded their lives, away from the flash, and the glitz, of the night. Two college age kids now view ME with awe. I now see in their eyes what that night HE saw.

Greatness is relative, I learned from THE MAN, through the glint in his eye, and his demeanor on stand. You don’t have to be famous to be someone grand, just pull up your trousers, and stand tall like a man.

It was KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM that night that I saw; the EXCELLENCE of DISCIPLINE that put in awe, of one humble spirit, so sweet and sublime, but a spirit that'll speak to all man for all time

So a droplet of beauty, from this “kid” to mankind; a pearl of wisdom, a wistful rhyme; some insight he gained as he bat away tears; might his essence endure through the unfolding years?

A journey began, on that faithful night, that moment a young set of eyes saw AFirst Light.@ When HE tapped out the rhythm to Africa Brass . . .

And my dream to see COLTRANE had come true at last.

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.

President Obama, Cornel West, and Poverty Pimps

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

President Obama, Cornel West, and Poverty Pimps

Many critics are pointing their finger at President Obama for failing to address various issues in the Black community, but that's not his job. The Black community is going to have to stop sitting around waiting for a Messiah to solve our problems. It’s the Black community’s responsibility to address Black issues, no one else’s. We are adults and the second largest consumer group in America, so we don’t need anybody to help us turn our community around. We have more than enough resources to do the job ourselves.

Now, that isn’t to say that we shouldn’t continue to fight to get our piece of America’s pie, but the only way that even that can be accomplish is to change our way of thinking. Our primary problem is, we’ve allowed self-serving poverty pimps to convince us that instead of becoming actively engaged in addressing our own issues, we need them to come to our rescue and twist political arms.

That’s exactly what we don’t need. We don’t need one voice speaking for millions; we need millions speaking with one voice. But their motive is obvious. Spokesman-n-Chief for the Black community is one of the best paying gigs in town. But adults don’t need that. Only children wait around for their daddies to get home to handle their problems. Adults handle their own business through mature and responsible action, and that includes taking the time to vote.

Is it Obama’s fault that instead of becoming involved in our children’s education we’d rather sit around and let them be corrupted by the values of hip hop videos? It is not. Knowledge is free. There’s just as much knowledge in the corner library as there is at Harvard University, and there’s even more on the internet, so how is our aversion to knowledge anyone else’s fault but our own?

Likewise, it’s not Obama’s fault that we refuse to vote. The primary reason that we can’t get any attention from politicians is because they can depend on one thing - given a choice, the vast majority of us would rather sit home and admire Kobe’s jump shot than get out and vote for a better future for our children. That accounts for why we have so many potholes in the hood, and little support for our schools. Why should politicians waste any money, time, or effort on us when they can spend those resources across town on people they can depend on to turn out and vote for them?

And finally, it is not Obama’s fault that we let jackleg preachers come in every Sunday and take badly needed revenue out of the community and into the suburbs, while during the week their “houses of God” sit there vacant. Society can’t make them open up those churches during the week and hire unemployed mothers to provide affordable childcare for working mothers. Neither society, nor Obama, can make them do that. That’s our job.

Now, with regard to Cornel West. I’ve lost a lot of respect for that man every since it became obvious that he’s sitting on Tavis Smiley’s knee with Tavis’ hand in his back. They didn’t even wait for Obama to be sworn into office before they started criticizing him - and their criticism had absolutely nothing to do with the Black community. Tavis’ criticism was ego-driven, and West, with all of his alleged intellect, chose to settle into his role of Tavis’ trusty sidekick.

Smiley and West took their show on the road right after Obama refused to appear on Tavis’ corporate sponsored dog-and-pony show to kiss Tavis’ ring. Tavis seemed to have been suffering from the delusion that he was some sort of self-appointed representative of the Black people, and that Obama had an obligation to go through him to gain access to the Black community. And just like a little lapdog, Cornel fell right in line, faithfully caressing Tavis’ delusion of grandeur.

That’s when I first began to recognize that Cornel’s intellectual competence couldn’t possibly be commensurate with the hype in the corporate media. The fact that I initially bought into that hype taught me a very important lesson, however. It taught me to keep my own ego in check, because it became clear that I obviously didn’t corner the market on wisdom, knowledge, or intellect myself. After all, I’d bought into the hype, and failed to take the time to choose and assess my own heroes. Just like the rest of the Black community, I made the foolish mistake of allowing others to do that for me. But I won’t make that mistake again.

Let’s take a look at these two gentlemen. Tavis has been going all over the country talking about accountability and making snide allusions to the fact that President Obama was lacking in that area. Cornel West was doing the same, but he also liked to talk about corporate plutocracies and oligarchies. Yet, even as Smiley was holding court in his “State of the Black Union” dog-and-pony show, the logos of some of the worst abusers of Black people - indeed, abusers of all of the poor and middle class in the country - were emblazoned all over the wall in the background. Tavis was also active in trying to get the people of Inglewood, CA to let Walmart come into the community, right along, I might add, with their anti union, anti medical benefits, and promotion of foreign products business philosophy - which of course, would have put many small and minority entrepreneurs out of business.

Where’s the accountability in that, and why didn’t the good “Brother” West discuss this issue with his buddy? He’s an intellectual, so certainly he saw the long-term impact of what Tavis was advocating would have on the Black community. But obviously, West’s personal interest was in conflict with the interest of the community, and the community lost.

So just because someone wears a natural, and is running around saying, “Brother, this and Brother, that,” that doesn’t mean that their personal interest and the interest of the Black community coincide. The same is true of people who or embraced by the very same media that’s dragging the Black community through the mud, or who go around saying “folk” instead of “folks” for effect. Many people like this tend to be more self-serving than they are servants of the community. Thus, these are the last people we should listen to, because in order to promote their own interests they tend to tell us what we want to hear, rather than what we need to hear.

And what the community needs to hear is, Obama’s shortcomings have nothing to do with any failings on his part in the Black community. Where Obama is falling down on the job is by failing to aggressively confront the most insidious enemy of the American people since the civil War - the modern GOP leadership. His tendency to think that “compromise” is the solution to every problem is allowing the GOP to drag America back into a corpo/fascist-inspired dark age. While his speech on the budget gives indications that he’s beginning to recognize that fact, it was conspicuously short on details, and as we all know, that’s where the Devil resides. So we’ll see.

But it’s important that we remain focused and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by either politicians, or poverty pimps. What we must all keep in mind is that race was the last war, while the war that we’re currently engaged in is about class. The GOP is coming after us all this time, and they’re not taking any prisoners. That’s what we should be focused on, and that’s the issue upon which we should hold Obama’s feet to the fire.

While Cornel West often speaks to this issue, we must remember that he has an agenda. His close association with Tavis Smiley gives him the credibility of a man ranting about fascism after just having lunch with Mussolini.

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.

I haven’t Totally Given Up on Obama, but as My Late Wife Used to Say, He’s Working My Last Nerve

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

I haven’t Totally Given Up on Obama, but as My Late Wife Used to Say, He’s Working My Last Nerve

I haven’t totally given up on Obama . . . yet.  But I thought I’d write this article just to ensure that there’s no need for speculation about how many of his more politically sophisticated base view the current political landscape.

I’m an Obama supporter, but I’m not an Obama cheerleader. While I agree that President Obama has done more for this country in the short time he’s been in office than any president since Franklin Roosevelt, presidents are not only assessed based on what they do, but also what they fail to do. So in spite of the fact that he’s saved America from a second Great Depression, his success in that area pales in comparison to what he’s failing to do - aggressively confronting America’s most insidious domestic enemy and the most serious threat to our democracy since the civil War, the current GOP.

President Obama made his first mistake when he said, “We should look forward, not back,” with regard to the Bush/Cheney war crimes in Iraq. First of all, the attorney general is supposed to be independent to decide what course to take in such matters, so Obama was supposed to simply keep his mouth shut and let his attorney general decide whether or not Bush and Cheney’s “alleged” war crimes warranted prosecution. By failing to do so Obama effectively established, and elevated Bush and Cheney to a class of people who are above the law - and that's not a good thing in any democracy. It was such a class in the Jim Crow South that allowed Black people to be lynched with impunity.

But in spite of that, many Obama apologists often argue that the president is only one man, so he can’t do everything. That’s an invalid argument. First, one man or not, the president sets his own agenda as to what he considers important to this country. And secondly, the president of the United States has the largest staff of lawyers and experts in the Western world, so why can’t he do everything? That’s his job. Even Obama himself said that the president has to be able to do many things at one time.

But even if the president can’t do everything, failing to aggressively confront the Republican Party constitutes neglecting the biggest threat to America in generations. The GOP is a bigger threat to the American way of life than Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda can only destroy buildings, but the GOP is on a single-minded mission to destroy the United States Constitution, and in his oath of office, the president swore to protect that precious document.

So those of us who are merely supporters of the president, as oppose to blind cheerleaders, understand that the primary reason this country is in its current mess is because the American people have been brainwashed into supporting politicians instead of principles. That’s why our system can be so easily controlled by money. Money is being used to brainwash us into loving politicians over principles. It’s the oldest game in the world. We are literally being pimped. It’s just that instead of selling our bodies, we’re selling our souls – and the souls of our children.

When we support politicians over principles we tend to ignore, or go into protective mode, when the politicians that we support go off course. That allows politicians to control us. On the other hand, if we supported principles over politicians, politicians would be forced to adhere to the mandate that got them elected, which would allow us to control them.

As I’ve pointed out many times in this column, the primary quality that should set progressives apart from all others is an affinity for humanity, independence of thought, and a fierce determination to remain a seeker of truth above all else, regardless to where that truth may lead. But those values no longer seem to be the case among many who define themselves as progressives today. Many contemporary 'progressives' tend to possess the very same rigidity of thought, and meanspirited, knee-jerk adherence to ideology that the progressive movement was created to combat. The response that many of these people bring to even the slightest divergence from their rigid ideological beliefs can only be described as one of radical reactionism.

That concerns me greatly, because while conservatives and today's so-called progressives remain completely divergent in their views toward governance, in terms of intellectual disposition they've become different sides of the same coin. I've often heard it stated that the regimented intolerance of reactionary conservatism is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. That may, or may not be true. But if it is, it must also be acknowledged that the intolerant regimentation of many contemporary radical 'progressives' represents the USSR at best.

Many modern 'progressives' have allowed themselves to become infected with the exact same kind of intellectual rigidity that we previously associated with the radical conservative mindset. In fact, many who define themselves as progressives today could very accurately be called latter-day conservatives. They have a slightly updated set of values, but their rigidity and rabid defense of their ideology will surely morph into the closed-minded conservatism of tomorrow.

While many liberals are busily distracted in fighting for the political fortunes of 'their man', radical conservatives are hard at work taking America apart, both brick and mortar. Thus, while the patient is lying on the operating table dying, the surgeons are engaged in a feud over what brand scalpel to use. And while we should be saying I love America, we’re being distracted by cheerleaders chanting, “I love me some Obama.”

I like Obama too, but not nearly as much as I love America. Thus, a politician should only be supported as long as he adheres to his mandate, no matter how warm his smile, or how nice a guy he is. If we’re looking for love, we should go out and find a lover, because if we want to maintain the kind of democracy in which we've become accustomed, when it comes to politics, there’s absolutely no room for blind love affairs.

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.

The Democratic Party is Either Asleep at the Switch, Intimidated, or in Collusion with the Domestic Enemies of America

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

The Democratic Party is Either Asleep at the Switch, Intimidated, or in Collusion with the Domestic Enemies of America

Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Democratic Party as the party of the people. Its primary mandate became protecting the average American from all those who sought to do them harm. But the current Democratic party is falling down in that regard in a very big way. When historians look back upon this period - and due to the election of the nation’s first Black president, they’re definitely going to scrutinize this period like no other - history is going to reflect that during one of the most brutal internal assaults on America since the Civil War Democrats were more interested in their individual careers than they were the American people. So at this point I’m going to do something that I’ve never done in print before - I’m going to speak strictly as a Black man.

I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster every since Barack Obama appeared on the American scene. I’ve gone from being hopeful when he threw his hat into the ring, to ecstatic when it became clear that he was a viable candidate. I then went from disappointed when he backslid on FISA, to solemn when America elected him. Then I became angry when he failed to adhere to the law and make Bush and Cheney answer for their “alleged” war crimes. Now the only word suitable to reflect the way I feel is embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that while Americans are under one of the greatest threats from a domestic enemy in our history, the most persistent word coming from the mouth of the nation’s first Black President’s is “compromise.”

Neville Chamberlain demonstrated conclusively leading up to WWII that you cannot compromise with a malevolent enemy, and that’s exactly what the GOP has become. They’ve demonstrated unequivocally that they have absolutely no regard for the American people, and they’re on a single-minded mission to utterly destroy the American middle class. Irrefutable evidence of that is in less than six months they’ve tried to throw America’s unemployed under the bus, along with first responders, police, firefighters, teachers, nurses and poor and middle-class children, while at the very same time they’re giving tax cuts, subsidies, and preferential treatment to the most profitable multinational corporations in the world.

While in terms of policy, I expect our presidents to simply be American and not cater to any particular racial, ethnic, or special interest group, I also expect them to bring the benefit of their life experience to the way they approach their job - after all, that’s why most Black people worked so hard to elect a Black president, so we would finally have someone in office who understood the Black experience in this country. But it seems that President Obama is so afraid that Rush Limbaugh is going to accuse him of liking Black people that he’s walking on eggshells. So not only is Obama NOT catering to Black people, but he’s overcompensating by going out of his way to negate his experience as a Black man.  As a result he’s doing a gross disservice to the American people as a whole.

Obama’s experience as a Black man would be invaluable in addressing the situation that the nation is currently facing. It has become clear that the GOP is undoubtedly on a mission to destroy the American middle class. To be graphically frank, the GOP leadership is on a fascist-inspired mission to make ALL of the poor and middle class, of every race, the new niggas.

But as the Tea Party clearly demonstrates, many White people can’t even visualize such a thing happening in America. Black people are under no illusions, however. We clearly see what’s going on. While most White people can’t even imagine a totalitarian situation being established in America, Black people not only know that it can happen, but that it’s happened before on a selective basis, because we’ve lived under Jim Crow. So by negating the benefit of his perspective, and his unique source of knowledge, Obama is doing the American people a very grave disservice. He’s not speaking out on a looming threat to American in fear of people misinterpreting his concern as a “Black thing” - or Black paranoia.

Thus, instead of saying “We should look forward, and not Back” with regard to Bush and Cheney’s war crimes in Iraq, as a Black man with a knowledge of the Black experience in America, Obama should have been in the very forefront of the fight to initiate an investigation, then prosecuting both Bush, Cheney, and everyone in the administration involved in that atrocity. Because by illegally instructing his attorney general to “not to look back,” Obama effectively relegated Bush and Cheney to a class that is above the law.

As both a Black man, and a constitutional lawyer, Obama should have recognized that the failure to follow the rule of law, and the establishment of a class that is above the law, is what led directly to Black people being lynched with impunity in the South. Now, as a direct result of his failure to take decisive action, the Republican congress, essentially, has an entire religion on trial as “Islamofascists.” That’s a very slippery slope. How far will it go? First, they rightly went after terrorists, but then it became all Muslims. Next it may be Black Muslims, then Black people as a whole, then liberals, then anyone who disagrees with them at all.

The GOP has a hidden agenda. That’s become abundantly clear by their concerted assault on middle-class workers across the country. They claim that their primary concern is the deficit and the welfare of the American people, yet they held the very survival of the families of unemployed Americans hostage to force a tax cut for the top 2% of the population that will exceed $4 trillion over the next ten years. They also claim that they’re for smaller government, yet Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan has hatched a plan to takeover every town and city in the state by installing “Emergency Managers” with the authority to cancel labor agreements and overrule the people by firing elected officials. And they say that they are for a strict constructionist interpretation of the constitution, yet the Republican congress has passed a bill saying that it will become law even without being ratified by the Democratic senate.

Every one of those actions are grossly un-American, and constitutes totalitarianism. Even the Tea party is beginning to see it, so where is the Democratic outrage?

So it’s time for the American unengaged to wake up, turn off Entertainment Tonight, and read a history book. It’s also time for the Democrats, including Barack Obama and his cheerleaders, to look past the next election and think about America for a change. That would be a change we could believe in.



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.

Love, Pain, Passion, and Lust

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

LOVE, PAIN, PASSION, AND LUST

Love, Pain, Passion, and Lust

                HER PAIN

                        .
She walks alone, sweet woman-child,
her sobs flow warm against the dark;
Her need is love, not merely passion,
a mighty fortress, her broken heart.
                         .
Quivering bodies and breathless moans,
she remembers with great delight,
but the heat of love is the only flame,
her lusting soul craves late at night.

.

Hungry arms yearn for her shuddering body, 

to embrace her tenderly with all their might;

Shivering lips lust for her succulent passion,

as she cries out desperately into the night.

.

But only true love can quench the thirst 

that burns red hot, and deep inside,

so she faces the pain, again and again,

and late at night she cries.

.

Masculine shadows of delusion and lust

caress their egos more than her pain,

for her convulsing body quivers not for them,

but for her fantasy 

of a warm and gentle man.

.

So, with head held high, by light of day,

but, mournful eyes, that do betray,

unspent love, and a breaking heart,

and the fear of sobs, when day turns dark.

HIS PASSION

.

She's dark, she’s passionate, and she's lovely,

but she doesn't know herself:

.

She doesn't know 

the extent her smiling eyes 

devastate this love-sick heart;

The way they dance in the moonlight,

subtly beckon, 

and betray the depth 

of her sultry passion.

.

She doesn't know 

the ecstasy of pleading moans 

on a humid, Summer night, or

the maddening pleasure of glistening bodies 

entwined in erotic flight.

.

And

She doesn't know

the hot breath of passion, 

as it whispers between her thighs;

The gentle kiss, the sting of bliss,

the pain of pleasure

that burns inside.

.

She doesn't know 

the agony of lust 

while suspended in endless time,

as she yearns for sweet release,

while desperately clinging to

the sweet sublime.

.

And

She doesn't know

of frantic begging 

for that of which she's run,

of the animal that leaps inside of her,

as flowing chills 

begin to come.

.

She doesn't know

the embrace of madness

as her trembling loins 

begin to spill . . .

.

She 

doesn't know of love, 

but on this night,

her pleading eyes,

say she will.

.

THEIR LOVE
.

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.