Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Tavis Smiley and Cornel West Need to Shut Up

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
Tavis Smiley and Cornel West Celebrates MLK's March on Washington With More Division
If Tavis Smiley and Cornel West don't have anything constructive to add to the national debate, they really need to shut up. They've lost all respect from over 90% of the Black community, yet, they continue to run their mouths in what seems to be a vain attempt to salvage any vestige of relevance that they might have left. But in the process they're only succeeding in coming off like the snake that bites himself after having his head cut off.

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Cornel West is quoted as saying the following with respect to the 50th commemoration of the March on Washington:
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"We had very low quality leadership today on the stage. We saw bona fide apologists for the Obama administration. There was no serious talk about Wall Street. There was no serious talk about the new Jim Crow, no serious talk about drones, no serious talk about the U.S. security state, no serious talk about the massive surveillance state. It was about just voters' rights and maybe some vague reference to jobs. Martin Luther King Jr. turns over in his grave. He turns over in his grave."
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"It was JUST about voters' rights and maybe some vague reference to jobs!!!!?" Is the man insane? Voters' rights is the very foundation of this democracy! And when he and Tavis Smiley were out hawking their books during their so-called poverty tour - which seemed to disappear as soon as the election was over - "jobs" seemed to be the most important word in their vocabulary. So why is the subject of jobs lest than important today?
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The fact is, the United States is currently knee-deep in a CLASS WAR. The corpo-Republican coalition doesn't care any more about poor and middle-class White people than they do Blacks, women, gays, or Hispanics. So they have a vested interest in keeping the American people miserable, angry, and divided in order to prevent us from coming together to mount an effective response to their agenda of 1). punishing America for electing President Barack Obama, and 2). lowering the American middle-class standard of living to conform to the new global economy. Therefore, anyone whose primary animus is to promote division in America without ever putting forward any constructive solutions to address our problems should be looked upon with deep suspicion, and that includes Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. 
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We should also take into account their history and associations. Tavis Smiley is closely associated with numerous ALEC-associated corporations such as Walmart, Exxon/Mobile, Nationwide Insurance, and Wells Fargo Bank, and the ALEC Consortium is leaving no stone unturned to promote national policies that are directly focused toward undermining the interests of the poor and minority, including obstructing our right to vote.
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Smiley was also involved in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loan" scam, where Wells Fargo Bank agreed to pay $175 million to settle the discrimination suit which, according to the Department of Justice, targeted over 30,000 Black and Hispanic borrowers for subprime loans with a higher interest rate than for similarly situated White borrowers between 2004 and 2009. According to the Department of Justice, it was the second largest housing discrimination case in United States history (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-question-for-both-tavis-smiley-and.html).
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As for Cornel West, he joined forces with Ralph Nader in the 2000 Presidential Election to help get George W. Bush elected. Bush became President of the United States by winning the state of Florida by 537 votes. In that same state, the Nader/West coalition tore away 97,488 votes from Vice President Al Gore. So when we consider the fact that our current economic condition is a direct result of the economic policies of the Bush administration, Cornel West is more than just a little responsible for the very conditions that he’s now complaining about (http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&fips=12).
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In addition, people like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins 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 is to get the Republican House to go along with him.
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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.
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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, 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."
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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?
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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 down President Obama, and that hurts you.
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President Obama is trying to help ALL of the people - and that includes you. So Tavis Smiley and Cornel West needs to shut up and cleanup their own act. Thus, Cornel West has a lot of nerve talking about Martin turning in his grave. The fact is, if and Martin could see the self-serving and petty demagoguery of these two, he wouldn't just be turning, he'd be spinning in his grave. And if there was any true justice in this world, Just mentioning the names of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X would cause Tavis and West's mouths to foam.
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RELATED CONTENT
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Eric L. Wattree
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Monday, August 12, 2013

When You’re Trying to Find God, Looking Towards Man is the Wrong Direction

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
When You’re Trying to Find God, Looking Towards Man is the Wrong Direction
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The primary reason that organized religion is one of the biggest problems in America is because it teaches its adherents to let other people do their thinking for them. When my family use to drag me off to church as a child, I learned two things - and neither was BECAUSE of the church experience, but IN SPITE of it. 1). Treat others as you would like to be treated, and 2). "Know the truth and the truth shall set you free."
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When I was a kid I’d be walking around bumping into trees because I had my eyes closed praying for God not to send me to Hell for having common sense. The church had me so afraid of the questions that were popping up in my head about what the preacher was telling me that didn’t make sense that I was sure that God was gonna send me to Hell for not being able to force myself to believe in walking dead men and talking snakes. I tried to be a good Christian, but I just couldn't. I’m just not wired to believe in nonsense - and I never was.
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But one day I said a prayer that set me free. I asked God to please help lead me, guide me, and help me to understand his will. Then, when I opened my eyes I was free. God gave me permission to think for myself, and I began to understood the importance of keeping man out of my relationship with God. I also learned that the only way that we can know God’s will is by what he has done - and he made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think.
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A BLACK PREACHER SPEAKING FOR GOD
("Why Blacks Just Don't Get George Zimmerman")


The Conversion
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"Come here nigga and let me teach yo crazy, animal ass about the Lord. The first thing you got to learn is to Love thy Neighbor . . . especially me." .
"Yes sir, Massa. Why would anybody not love you, Sir? You so good to me, Massa. Anybody don't love you needs to have dey ass beat real good, Massa."
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"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
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"Listen, you been blessed already, and you don't even know the Lord. The Lord made it where you don't have to worry 'bout a thing. I feed you, I put clothes on yo nasty ass, and I give you a shed to sleep in, and all you have to do is whatever the hell I tell you to. Do you know how blessed you are?"
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"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
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"Now, listen real good 'cause dis impotant. God said, thou shalt not steal from me, thou shalt not kill (unless I tell you to), thou shalt not stick another coon's wife (unless we tryin' to make some mo niggas), and nigga, whatever you do, thou shalt not even look like you want to stick a white woman, or we gon lynch yo black ass. You here me, nigga?"
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."Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
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"Dat means people, fool - real people! Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place."
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"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart."
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"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
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"The next thing you got to learn is, whatever happens on this plantation is God's will bein' done. And if you listen to me, you'll get to live like I do when you die and go to Heaven."
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"Live like you, massa? A nigga ain't got no business livin' dat good. What a Po nigga like me gon do with all this? You know I ain't got sense enough to run nothin' like this."
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"Just shut up, nigga!" When you dead you gon get some sense - the lord gon give it to you. The Lord can do anything, even give sense to a nigga. And he gon give you all the other niggas you gon need to help you in the fields, too."
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"Massa, you so good to me! Thank you for tellin' me all dis. I'm gon be a good nigga - the best nigga you ever seened. Look, I'm gon pray for you right now, and thank the Lord for givin' me so good a massa."
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"Shut up and get up off your knees, ya dumb nigga! The fields need tendin'! You pray to the Lord on your own time. God don't won't you talkin' to him when you s'pose to be workin'."
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"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
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"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
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"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
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"Now get yo ass out there in that field and let's get some work done around here . . . Oh, and Toby, have yo woman meet me in the barn. I need to tell her 'bout the Lord too."
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"Yes sir, Massa."
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"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
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"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
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"Just shut up, nigga, and do what I said! And tell Lou Ann to wear that pretty dress I like, cause we gon be talkin' 'bout the Lord, so it's gon be like chuch."
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"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . . "Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Black Racists and Their Thinly Veiled Racist Rants Against Obama

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
Black Racists and Their Thinly Veiled Racist Rants Against Obama
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In a comment on Electronic Urban Report (http://www.eurweb.com/2013/08/an-open-letter-to-tavis-smiley/#comme...), a gentleman by the name of Earl Wilkerson said the following:
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"Many of the arguments Mr. Smiley and Mr. West have concerning the African American community still exists and always will. Oh My how have we often forgotten President Obama Mother is a White woman to many this does not truly represents a African American fully. In fact, many may call him a half breed."
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Mr. Wilkerson’s "half breed" comment was nothing less than a not so thinly veiled racist rant, much like those of Cornel West. I found his allusion to "half breed" laughably ironic, since Barack Obama is perfectly symbolic of the African-American culture itself – part African, and part American. MOST African Americans are mixed, and a very short excursion among REAL and PURE Africans would clearly demonstrate that fact. Afros, Dashikis, and exotic-sounding names notwithstanding, we’re clearly not the genuine article.
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Our mixture may not be as direct as Obama’s, but I’d be willing to bet that as many as 90% of us have a "White boy" lingering somewhere in our family tree – I know I do, in spite of my large lips, kinky hair, and beautiful BROWN skin. And to listen to some of you – at least, with respect to your hostile attitudes towards Obama – it’s clear that more than a few of you not only have White boys lurking in your family trees, but those White boys brought their sheets along. Clear evidence of that is, instead of heatedly discussing the Republican attempt to reverse the Voting Rights Act, all of your anger is focused on the first Black President of the United States. No other culture in America would be that stupid – do you hear me, Smiley and West?
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And about President Obama’s seeming inability to part the Red Sea
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 Why is Unemployment So High?
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It is clear that the corporate/Republican alliance have decided that it’s in their best interest to keep unemployment artificially high. We know this is true because they’re making more profits than they’ve ever made in their history, so there’s no reason for unemployment to be so high. There are several reasons why it’s in their advantage to do so.
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1). It’s to their political advantage to keep the American people angry, miserable, and divided during the Obama administration. That’s why we have gridlock in congress.

2). They know that by allowing the poor and middle class to obtain any disposable income whatsoever it will stimulate the economy and create even more jobs, because the TRUE job creators are the poor and middle class. The poor and middle class create jobs when they have the disposable income to purchase goods and services, because that forces businesses to hire people to provide those goods and services.

3). The corporate/Republican Alliance doesn’t want the economy to be stimulated because their agenda is to place so much pressure on the American Middle class that they’ll be less resistant to accepting a lower standard of living, and thereby, be dragged down to a standard of living that conforms to the new GLOBAL economy where countries are paying their workers less per week than many American workers spend on lunch per day.
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So if that is the case, and the corporatists are REFUSING to hire, is there anything in a free society that President Obama can do to FORCE corporations to hire workers if they’ve decided that it’s not is their best interest to do so?
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You see, the problem with the thinking of people like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and other Obama critics is they seem not to recognize – or at least, don’t want the people to recognize – that Obama is merely the President of the United States, not the King of the United States. So these people are either not very bright, or they’re purposely trying to mislead the people – which do you believe it is?
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And by the way, it’s no accident that once Smiley and West lost the confidence of the Black community, they switched their strategy to start calling Obama a war criminal. By doing so, they’re trying to reach out to another constituency. Thus, while their lips say their interest is with what’s in the best interest of the Black community, their behavior clearly demonstrate two so-called brothers running all over the place trying to find ANYTHING that they can use to smear this Black president.
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Their antipathy towards President Obama is much like that of the Republican Party and social bigots - the only way the president could possibly appease their hostility would be to resign and apply for White House butler. So their behavior is not only embarrassing, but it’s disgustingly racist, and the Black community shouldn’t tolerate it.

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

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

About Independent thought

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
About Independent thought.

Michael, you said,
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"Aristotle is the father of Western logic. Everything you write about "efficient and logical" thought, you owe to Aristotle. He is one of if not the most brilliant human being in history. He could out-think and out-logic you all day long."
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You’re making several unwarranted assumptions. First, I’m the father of my ability to think, and I don’t owe Aristotle shit. I would think the exact same way that I do regardless to whether or not Aristotle ever set foot on Earth. Aristotle didn’t INVENT logical thought, he merely DESCRIBED it. So what you’re actually saying is, if I don’t except your definition of brilliance there’s a flaw in my thinking. In short, you're demanding that I embrace your intellectual heroes, or embrace the people who you've been indoctrinated to believe every "educated" person is required to embrace. But the fact is, I don't have intellectual heroes. The very first rule of independent thought is to become your own hero.
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You should NEVER give anyone else's ability to think priority over your own. Yes, you should objectively assess the point of view of others, and take any specialized knowledge that they may have into account, but you should ALWAYS connect the dots for yourself. Thus, from my point of view, your position represents the very height of presumptive hubris.  
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We should never assume that because a person is celebrated, that he’s brilliant. If you tell me a person is brilliant, and I later find out that he believes in talking snakes, I’m going to challenge your assumption. A brilliant person thinks brilliantly. That’s simple logic. So if the person is prone to make stupid assumptions - and a racist mind-set certainly falls into that category - BY DEFINITION, he's less than brilliant; I don’t care what his name is, or how celebrated he’s been throughout history.
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And further, just because a person has a given skill in one area, that doesn’t make him brilliant; it simply means that he's skilled in a given area. But based on what seems to be your definition of brilliance, I’d have to say that my mechanic is undoubtedly one of the greatest minds of all time.
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This is not the first time I’ve been involved in a debate regarding this issue. I’ve been in debates with people where they’d say something like, "Well, Martin Luther King said . . ." The implication is, because MLK said something that's at variance with what I’m saying, that should end the debate. But my response is, I don’t care what Martin said. I disagree with him.
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I’ll challenge the thinking of ANYBODY if I think they’re wrong. I don’t care if it’s Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Aristotle, or Jesus Christ. While you might consider that arrogant, I consider it independent thinking - and we need a whole lot more of it in this country.
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Thus, while I'll listen to Albert Einstein in the area of mathematics or physics, when it comes to any other area of knowledge, his opinion is no better than anyone else's, because I recognize that man is notorious for giving people more credit than they're due - especially after their dead. If you doubt that, go to any deadbeat's funeral. You won't even recognize who they're talking about.
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Taking that into consideration, Aristotle died 300 years before the birth of Christ, and every admirer who wrote about him over these two thousand years added to the myth of what he represented. So do I question his brilliance? You damn right I do. I question everything - that’s called critical thinking.
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Aristotle was just another celebrated writer - as was Voltaire, and/or Shakespeare. In fact, many consider Shakespeare the most "brilliant" writer in the history of English literature, but personally, I’d rather spend a day in jail than have to agonize through an entire day of his plays. At least in jail I could sleep through the day, or read Harpers or Time Magazine.
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But of course, there are many who would be shocked by that statement, and they’d write me off as uncultured. But from my point of view, that attitude betrays the fact that such people are more indoctrinated than they are educated. They’ve been taught WHAT to think, rather than HOW to think. If I was that narrow-minded in my thinking, I’d insist that anyone who didn’t appreciate Thelonious Monk was undereducated and without culture. But since I was educated in HOW to think whether than WHAT to think, I’m not that big a fool.
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Eric L. Wattree
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Closing the Books on Tavis Smiley and Cornel West

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
Closing the Books on Tavis Smiley and Cornel West
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I’ve been researching Tavis Smiley and Cornel West for over five years, and in that time I’ve written nearly thirty articles on those two, because I thought it was important to the Black community. In response, one diehard Smiley and West supporter said, "You haven’t presented any substantive criticism of Cornel West. You’ve just hypothesized about his motives." So I thought that I’d take a moment to accommodate him by giving my final take, and then closing the books on these two - providing they don’t do or say anything else stupid. I know, it’s wishful thinking. But, in any event, here’s my take on these two:  
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Cornel West is one of the primary reasons the country is in the fix that it’s in. The Black community was doing pretty well under Clinton. Then during the 2000 election Ralph Nader and Cornel West teamed up and got Bush elected.
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Clinton’s vice President, Al Gore, lost the 2000 election to Bush in Florida by 537 votes, and the Nader/West coalition peeled off 97,488 votes from Gore in Florida alone. So, again, West is one of the big reasons that the Black community is in the shape that it’s in today. Under Bush, the country was hemorrhaging 850,000 jobs a month. So by criticizing Obama about the condition of the country, Cornel West is like a guy who walks into a restaurant and shits on the floor, and then calls the Health Department because the owner can’t get it up fast enough. (http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&fips=12).
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And please keep this in mind – the worse the Black community is doing, the more money that Tavis and West makes talking about it, because Tavis owns a publishing company where he and West write books about it, a production company, where he and West do televisions shows about it, and he owns a speakers bureau, where Cornel West makes $30,000 a speech just to talk about Black misery.
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And isn’t it funny that Tavis and West seems to Talk about everything bad that’s happening to the Black community, EXCEPT, Tavis’ part in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loan" scam where Tavis helped to herd over 30,000 Black and Hispanic homeowners into where they lost their homes AND their life savings? The Department of Justice said that it was the second biggest housing discrimination case on record:
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"On July 12, 2012 Charlie Savage reported in the New York Times that Wells Fargo Bank agreed to pay $175 million to settle the discrimination suit which, according to the Department of Justice, targeted over 30,000 Black and Hispanic borrowers for subprime loans with a higher interest rate than for similarly situated White borrowers between 2004 and 2009."
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"Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw, according to Boston [host of "Moneywise"] and Keith Corbett, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, who attended two of the seminars. Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere… But what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth was actually just the opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of the "Wealth Building" seminar strategy, contained in a lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan" (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-question-for-both-tavis-smiley-and.html).
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In Addition, People like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins are playing on the ignorance of the people. They’re 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 is to get the Republican House to go along with him.
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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.
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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, 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."
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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?
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Take just a minute to ask yourself this one simple question – why aren’t they going after the Republicans?
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While these two are hard at work trying to divide the Obama coalition, the Republicans are actively engaged in trying to obstruct the Black vote, obstruct all legislation that could possibly provide jobs in the Black community and America as a whole, they’re trying to circumvent the United States Constitution and women’s right to privacy by invading a woman’s uterus, they’re trying to obstruct the rights of gays, they’ve disenfranchised Michigan voters by firing duly elected officials and replacing them with handpicked cronies who are completely unaccountable to the people, and they’re applauding the murderer of an innocent and unarmed Black child. I could go on for pages, but I’m sure I’ve made my point. The GOP is, literally, the domestic enemy of the American people, and Tavis and West are fixated on Obama?!!!
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With everything the Republican Party is doing to undermine the Black community, why would these two gentlemen be willing to defy the Black community - and risk destroying their careers in the process - to smear President Obama instead of going after the Republicans? There’s something not only problematic, but very suspicious about that. It just doesn’t make sense - at least, until you add the words of Raynard Jackson, a Black Republican activist, into the mix. Only then, do things begin to make more sense:
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FROM THE MOUTH OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN ACTIVIST
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In his article, "My Republican Party has Abandoned Me," Black Republican activist, Raynard Jackson, says the following:
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"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."  (http://www.freedomsjournal.net/2012/10/31/my-republican-party-has-abandoned-me/).
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Considering Tavis Smiley’s close association with Walmart, Exxon/Mobile, Wells Fargo, Nationwide Ins., and other ALEC-connected corporations, is he and Cornel West doing for free, what the Republican Party is willing to pay $20 million to have done? Hmmmmm . . . What do you think?
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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.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Russell Simmons/Don Lemon:The African American Black Man - The New Neanderthal? (Reprise)

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
 

Russell Simmons/Don Lemon: The African American Black Man - The New Neanderthal?
(Reprise)
  
I was in Los Angeles on the corner of Vernon and Central the other day, just after school let out. If it hadn't been for the fact that I grew up in that area and recognized my surroundings, I would have thought I was in Mexico. What use to be an almost exclusively Black community was now filled with happy, playful - and mannerly - Hispanic children coming home from school, and as I looked around, I saw thriving Latino businesses being patronized by poor, but thriving Latino patrons. I was intrigued, so I decided to take a detour through the neighborhood.
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Now, I don't know whether the area is primarily Mexican-American, or filled with illegal immigrants, but what was clear was that the area was changing. There was a new vitality there. I saw fathers and teenage boys in the yards, both at home and enjoying the love of family rather than hanging out in the street. I saw a neighborhood free of young men glaring at me, or waving me over as I drove by. The neighborhood was no longer threatening. It was a neighborhood that now said family, instead of gangster. It was a neighborhood that was clearly trying to make a comeback.
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It felt good to see my old stomping grounds rejuvenating itself, but I also felt a twinge of both guilt and envy. I felt guilt because my own teenage antics contributed greatly to dragging this very neighborhood down to its previous state, and envy that what comes so easily to most cultures seems to be so elusive to my own. I also felt more than a tinge of fear, because to anyone who's familiar with Charles Darwin's theory on natural selection, it's clear that the Black man is swirling around the event horizon of a massive black hole. If we don't do something to get our young people's attention real soon, at best, the Black man is going to become irrelevant, or at worst, the new Neanderthal.
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Far too often when well-meaning Black people suggest that we need to address this issue, they’re accused of "blaming the victim." They’re also often accused of aligning themselves with conservative critics of the Black community. That misses the entire point. No one is blaming anyone, and the primary reason that conservative critics are so quick to use this issue to denigrate the Black community is because it’s such a glaring area of dysfunction in our culture. So rather than ignore a dysfunction because our enemies are using it against us, that should give us MORE incentive to address the issue.
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So both of these arguments are nothing more than lame attempts to declare the cancer that’s growing on our culture a harmless mole. That may help to bring us comfort in the short run, but by continuing to ignore the truth, the cancer is going to metastasize, and eventually it’s going to kill us.
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According to Darwin's theory of evolution, which at this point is considered more fact than theory to most scientists, nature is in a constant process of selecting which groups or species will survive to perpetuate itself, and which will die out. The concept is called natural selection, or popularly known as the survival of the fittest. In order to insure that only the best, most adaptive, and strongest life forms populate the Earth, nature eliminates the weak to insure they won't procreate and contaminate the Earth with their weak offspring.
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The process of elimination starts even before an individual is born. Every individual starts out with as many as 40 million potential brothers and sisters, all scurrying towards their mother's egg. But most die off before they reach the mother's egg. Therefore, just the fact that you were born means that you're not just one in a million—you're one in 40 million. You were the strongest and most viable of over 40 million others.
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And nature takes the survival of the fittest very seriously. Anyone who has ever watched a dog or a cat give birth to their young have probably seen first hand how brutally serious nature can be in this regard. If you haven't, just ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a puppy born with a birth defect. If you have, it's very rare, because if an animal is born defective in any way, the mother will kill it on the spot—and in many cases eat it. Nature doesn't provide animals with a welfare office, so they know by instinct that they, and their young, must to be able to hold their own weight in this world, or die.
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But a life form doesn't have to have a physical defect for nature to weed it out. Nature will also weed out things that are maladaptive or have an inability to adapt to its environment - like many of us, for example. God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. If a bird refuses to fly, it cannot survive. If a fish refuses to swim, it will not survive. The very same rule applies to man. If a man refuses to think, he will not survive - and that has become a serious problem in the Black community. Many of our young Black men simply refuse to think.
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It's as though we're on a mission to ensure our own extinction. While the men of other cultures seem to have no problem in stepping up to the plate to solidify the family unit and ensure their children get a running start in life, we're abandoning our children, and referring to the very womb of our culture as "bitches and whoes"; and if we're not killing other Black men over drugs, we're killing ourselves with drugs - and then struttin' around braggin' about it! And even when we aren't killing ourselves, we're making dumb decisions that's causing us to have to spend years at a time locked up in jail like animals. Many of us have embraced a philosophy of manhood that enforces a moral obligation to be stupid. It's like, you're not a true Black man unless you take a pledge to remain ignorant.
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This is a sad state of affairs, because nature is already hard at work weeding the Black man out, and we're giving her all the help that she needs. Every time one gang member or drug dealer kills another, that's nature at work upgrading the gene pool. Every time someone dies of an overdose, nature's right there - "well, I don't have to worry about him fathering anymore weak minded people." And when you go to jail, that also takes your seed out of circulation.
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But the biggest impact is right around the corner. Look around you, Black man. While you're acting a fool nature is also selecting traits in Black women that's allowing them to do without you. Notice that while you're out there saggin' and getting dumber and dumber, Black women are becoming better educated, and getting good jobs. That's right, brother - nature is rendering you irrelevant. You are no longer a suitable mate, so nature is preparing the Black female to do without you - and it's happening right before your eyes.
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So if you're a young brother, you can just standby. That pretty young lady of yours may think your droopy pants are cool now, but as she becomes better educated and gets that good job that you're too maladjusted to be considered for, she's going to begin to see you for what you really are, a looser—and a broke one at that. She's going to realize you're not a suitable mate. And she's going to recognize that saggin' (spell it backwards) doesn't make you a man. In fact, it makes you an embarrassment in the world she wants to move into - and it's not because she's getting uppity, it's because it's true. She wants to live, and she wants her children to live and prosper, but she can't do that with you, because you're a dying breed. As a direct result, their very survival is going to require Black women to go outside of the Black race to find suitable mates.
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That's right - that beautiful young sister that you love so much is going to have to go out and find her a real man, one who's capable of survival in the real world. Then once that starts to happen, what was once a proud Black race is going to become less and less Black with every generation that passes, until the Black man, at least, as we know him, will only exist as pictures on the wall of natural history museums–a relic of the past.
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I can hear the anthropologists discussing us now - in the past tense, of course. They'll probably give us a scientific name like "Africantus Americana Fool". They'll be in the museum looking up at some brother that they found dead of a drug overdose in the snow and then had stuffed. Then the anthropologist will say to a class of visiting students, "You know, it's really amazing when you think about it. They had the intellectual potential to thrive, but they just didn't have any common sense. The major downfall of 'Homeboy' (a nickname they assigned to our species) was that he lacked a sense of community, and had less than rudimentary coping skills. But there's one thing you've got to give him - he was the coolest thing on the planet, while he was around. He didn't have much common sense, but the brother could sho'nuff sag."
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The upshot will be, we'll finally get the attention that we so passionately craved. But the downside is, it'll be on the History Channel.
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I Bear Witness
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I sit, I watch,
and I grow ever more obsolete
as I bear witness.
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I bear witness
to a once vibrant people greedily gulping down society’s hemlock. Even as they claim to be "keeping it real," they continue to maim, kill, and despise their own in hot pursuit of the prime directive with the passion of a sheetless Klan.
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I bear witness
to Black fists in the air in false solidarity promoted by self-serving poverty pimps as the world looks on and giggle at crooked fingers pointed elsewhere.
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I bear witness
to the superficial attempt to ban the “N-word” while the new "un-niggas" stand around watching children killing children and fathers drugging sons, as they celebrate, lionize, and enrich those who denigrate the very womb of their culture with impunity.
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I bear witness
to a generation of lost knowledge, cut off from its roots by Ronnie’s “Just say no” generation of crack, greed, death, and political corruption; A generation where the new N-word is pronounced “Responsibility” and the keepers of the flame completely ignore the destructive power of bitch, slut, whore, and tramp.
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I bear witness
to the reckless disregard of the words uneducated, irresponsible, and classless. Should we not ban these words as well, or should we ban banning words altogether as we celebrate their meaning?
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Yes, I do bear witness.
I bear witness to a new world -
a world where gross ignorance comes disguised as enlightenment, and funky sneakers look down with disdain upon the sweet smell of Florsheim; a world where saggin’ pants and gaudy glitter enable country bumpkins to masquerade as elegant, and the exquisite surrender of eloquence is the very essence of what it means to be hip.
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Where's Langston? Where's Baldwin? Where's Oscar Brown, Jr.?
We need you stormin' this beach, because . . .
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I now bear witness
to a world where motherhood stands alone, to be “dope” renders a smile, and posterity is forced to embrace the wind for paternal sustenance; A world where the walking dead strut about rapping the wisdom of idiocy, and we praise the illiteracy of vulgar nursery rhymes as profound; a world where the mother of salvation's final gasp is compared to the pigmentation of brown paper bags.
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Malcolm, Martin, where are you?
I once stood with a crowd.
Now seemingly alone,
I'm forced to bear witness -
horrific witness . . .
to the imminent demise of our people,
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And my heart bleeds.
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The Tail Wagging The Dog
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The focus of this article is a critique of the Black popular culture and the negative impact that it's having on Black youth - and through extension, the Black community as a whole - and not the vast majority of Black people who are fully functional and well adjusted. The reason we decided to emphasize the dysfunctional is, due to the focus of the media, the tail is wagging the dog. A 15% minority of the Black culture is dictating the trajectory of the remaining 85%  of the Black majority. So the tact taken here is designed to hold a mirror up to the more responsible segment of the Black community and wake them up to what we're allowing to happen to our culture. We would be remiss, however, if we didn't present at least a glimpse of the Black community that you don’t generally see in the media.
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FACTS THAT THE MEDIA DON'T TELL YOU
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The vast majority of Black people in this country are middle class or above. African Americans are the second largest consumer group in America with a combined buying power of over $892 billion currently and likely over $1.1 trillion by 2012. In 2002 African American owned businesses accounted for 1.2 million of the US's 23 million businesses, and 47% of Africans Americans own their own homes. - U.S. Census Bureau
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So again, the bottom line is, the media focuses on the 15% of Black people who are struggling, unemployed, and/or dysfunctional. But they never discuss the 85% who are gainfully employed, never go to jail, don't use drugs, and are living the American dream just like any other group of middle-class Americans:
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RELATED CONTENT
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 Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.