Could Somebody Please Tell Me The Difference Between Zionism And Routine, Garden Variety Racism?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Could Somebody Please Tell Me The Difference Between Zionism and Routine, Garden Variety Racism?

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I'm about to do something that I generally make it a point to avoid - discuss the collective nature of White folks. The reason I make it a point to avoid this subject is because I don't want to add to the disinformation disseminated by many Black racists (oh yes, racists come in Black too) that there is something more intrinsically evil in White people than there is in any other racial group.

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The fact is, just as intellect is distributed equally across our species, so is malevolence. We all have a tendency to be self-serving and corrupt given half a chance. The only difference between White people and any other group is that they have the power, thus opportunity, to reflect that side of their nature - and to anyone who wants to challenge my assertion in that regard, I invite you to witness the Black-on-Black mayhem that's currently taking place on the continent of Africa. Or take the police out of the Black communities of America and see the level of enlightenment that prevails - it would be the survival of the fittest within a week.
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So it seems that the common trait shared by all those who tend to be inhumane and corrupt is neither race, creed, nor color. What they all have in common is power, opportunity, and greed. And let there be no doubt about it, that's the source of all of the turmoil in the Middle-East - the power, opportunity, and greed of Israel, and the American military/industrial complex. But whenever anyone seeks to examine this issue they're immediately met with hysterical charges of being either unpatriotic, anti-Semitic, or both. So while everyone is aware of the problem, we tend to turn a blind eye to it.
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Zionism is nothing but a Betty Crocker-approved euphemism for bigotry, but if you speak to a Zionist he'll tell you, "That's not true. Jews simply want, and deserve, a Jewish homeland." But isn't that EXACTLY what Hitler said? - "I'm not a bad guy; I simply want an Aryan homeland."  It's the exact same thing, and based on the exact same pretext. No one group of people DESERVE any part of this Earth - which "God" set aside for ALL human beings in general - for themselves, and anyone who says differently, and is willing to kill for it, is a murderous warmonger, and full of crap.  If Jews wanted to return to Israel, or Palestine, they should have simply started immigrating to the region and tried to PEACEFULLY blend in with the indigenous people, not take over. If they had done that, and the indigenous people had been respected and given an incentive to accept them, we wouldn't have much of the hatred that we have in the region today.
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This is an issue that needs desperately to be addressed, because due to our failure to do so, American troops are dying, the United States treasury is being looted, and the entire world is being placed at risk. So enough with all of the name-calling and accusations. Israel's behavior needs to be scrutinized just like any other country in the world, because ironically, they're doing the EXACT same thing to the Palestinians that Hitler did to them. They've turned Palestine into a concentration camp, and whenever they feel the whim, they drop their ovens from the sky.
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Pure, objective, and unadulterated truth is not nearly as complicated or elusive as we try to make it seem in this country. But since truth doesn’t lend itself to being Black, White, Jew, or Gentile, when the truth comes up less than a perfect fit to our carefully constructed comfort zones, we tend to, distort, convolute, and try to beat it into submission for a more comfortable fit. In the process, however, we do ourselves a gross injustice, because no matter how you distort it, truth will always prevail in the end. That is the source of most of our problems in this world. We all seek to distort the truth in a way that is most palatable to our special interest - and this problem is magnified by the fact that our writers, political pundits, and politicians have a natural tendency to seek applause and self-interest over truth. So if we’re indeed dependent on the truth to set us free, let us not doom ourselves to a death, carnage, and intellectual bondage by living a lie.
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And the truth is, our poor and middle-class young people are being wooed by slick government commercials to become cannon fodder in a war for profit. But young people, take it from an old Marine, it’s all a lie. They're only showing you the benefits and upside of military life - with you standing proud and strong in your spotless uniform at home, with all the girls looking at you with admiring eyes. They’re not showing you the real picture - of you lying in 120 degree heat in agony thousands of miles from home, bleeding to death from the stub that use to be your leg, or looking at your foot in a bloody boot twenty-five yards away from where the rest of you lie dying. They’re being criminally remiss in not showing you that side of military life. Why do you think the children of the rich rarely come back in coffins?
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Now, don't get the impression that I’m a pacifist, or hate the military, however - I’m not. There IS a time when war is justified, but this ain’t it. You know it’s time to go to war when you’re prepared to see your own love ones become it’s first casualty, but it's abundantly clear that no one in our government has reached that point as yet. If they had, they'd be encouraging their kids to enlist.
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Where is Liz Cheney, or the Bush girls? They can drive a truck. But no, not on your life - they're idea of patriotism is cheering on the dying "little people" from the lobby of exclusive tennis clubs. So be all you can be, but don’t be a fool. You won’t be fighting for your country; you’ll be fighting for Exxon and Halliburton's collusion with Israel to rob the people of the Middle East and gouge the American taxpayer.
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The truth is, the dispute over Israel is nothing less than "The Manifest Destiny" being reenacted. When the Europeans came to America and began to strip the indigenous people of their land, they justified their unholy atrocities by declaring that it was God’s will that they settle and bring his word to this "uncivilized land"– it was their manifest destiny. So in true civilized, Christian fashion, they began to spread the Holy word of God through the hot muzzle of a Gatlin gun. It was a brutally unconscionable and gruesome event, but what could these good Christians do? After all, it was God’s will that they slaughter those "Godless savages." That is the exact same scenario that is currently taking place in the Middle East today. It began with the "creation" of the state of Israel in 1948, and the campaign continues as I speak - but this time, it’s called Zionism.
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In 1882, while Jews were being massacred throughout Russia, Leo Pinsker, the founder of the Zionist movement, published a small booklet entitled "Auto-Emancipation". It pointed out that Jews would never find equality in Russia, so it was necessary for world Jewry to establish their own homeland. At first he didn’t care where it was located - in fact, the area encompassing Zaire, Africa was even considered. But later, Pinsker recognized that in order to get Jews to immigrate in numbers large enough to establish a homeland, he needed a location that would inspire the Jewish soul, and no location in the world would suit that purpose like Palestine, the land of Zion - "the land that God had promised the Jews." The fact that there were indigenous people already living in Palestine never even crossed his mind. In addition, the fact that Netanyahu is STILL taking land and encouraging even more Jews to immigrate to this very limited geographical area makes his agenda clear.
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The ultimate goal is to expand into Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt - countries as far away as Turkey, Yemen and Oman aren't even safe. Israeli hardliners like Netanyahu envision the United States of Israel, and with the help of neocons, oil companies and war profiteers in America, that means endless war, and the death of hundreds of thousands - maybe even millions - of poor and middle class children yet unborn, because they're not going to send their kids. At this very moment the GOP led congress is making absolutely sure that that those kids are going to be in such dire economic straits that their only way of even getting an education is to survive the military. The reason that we can't see that agenda in this country is because the american people think in news cycles, while the war profiteers think in terms of decades. When I was waiting to be discharged from the Marine Corps during the Vietnam era, they had me stationed in Twenty-Nine Palms, California helping to train marines in desert warfare. The war profiteers NEED war to sustain their businesses.  That's why Netanyahu and the GOP are working hand-in-hand. That's also why we need a thorough congressional investigation into the GOP 47 treason letter. They're conspiring to needlessly kill our children to promote injustice and greed.

Zionism 

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Zionism as follows: "Zionism: An organized movement of world Jewry that arose in Europe in the late 19th century with the aim of reconstituting a Jewish state in Palestine. Modern Zionism is concerned with the development and support of the state of Israel."
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Thus, Zionism, by definition and design, is a doctrine dedicated to the taking of Palestine - and on May 14, 1948, European Jews did just that. Between 1944 and 1948, due to their experience with the Nazi’s, Eastern European Jews wanted to get off the European continent by any means necessary, so various Zionist organizations created the Bariha (escape) Organization that helped close to 200,000 Jews to leave Europe and settle in Palestine. Prior to that time, in July of 1922, the League of Nations (the progenitor of the United Nations) gave Great Britain a mandate to protect the people of Palestine, but on November 29, 1947 when the U. N. General Assembly passed a resolution to partition off Palestine between the Arabs and Jews, Great Britain announced that it was terminating its mandate. The end of the British mandate was to go into effect on May 15, 1948, but on May 14, 1948 the Zionists declared the creation of Israel, a Jewish state.
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But in order for the new State of Israel to have any legitimacy it had to be recognized by the United States. The U.S. State Department was less than enthusiastic about creating a Jewish state in Palestine, but shortly after President Truman took office, European Zionist, Chaim Weizmann, convinced the president that it was only just that the survivors of the holocaust would be given their own homeland. Truman agreed, and recognized the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, and all hell’s been breaking loose every since.
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The Israeli-American alliance was a match made in Hell from the very outset - they didn’t even trust each other. One of the largest units in the CIA is dedicated to the prevention of Israeli spying on the United States, and one of the biggest spy scandals in U.S. history involved an Israeli spy name Jonathan Pollard, an American of Jewish descent, born in Galveston, Texas. But in spite of that, Israel receives more U.S. foreign aid than any other country in the world, and we’ve made them one of the most formidable military forces in the world. The reason for that? - oil.
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Israel stands as an extension of the United States in the Middle East, within easy striking distance of Middle Eastern oil fields. So what we have in the Middle East is an unholy quid pro quo -The United States will help the Israelis steal Arab land, and the Israelis will help the United States steal the oil beneath the land.
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So the Israeli claim that their slaughter of the Arab people is simply an attempt to defend themselves is nothing but a farce. Granted, when someone invades your home you do have a right to retaliate against them, but Europeans have about as much right to call Israel their home as I’d have of tearing off a part of China simply because I converted to Buddhism.
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Far be it from me, however, to say who’s a Jew and who’s not, but I think we can all agree that European Jews are not the same Jews that were spoken of in the Bible. But, of course, you’re not suppose to even whisper such sentiments here in America. To say that European Jews don’t belong in Israel, or to speak out on any atrocity that the State of Israel might commit, is considered anti-Semitic in this country. But even that’s a farce. There’s a big difference between being anti-Semitic and anti- Zionist. To be anti-Semitic is to be against a people, while being anti-Zionist is to be against a philosophy. After all, all Jews are not Zionist. But there’s another issue here as well. How can you be anti-Semitic towards Europeans? They aren’t even Semites.
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The situation above describes exactly why we were in Iraq and are in Afghanistan today. Thus, all of the killing in the Middle East is about European hubris, injustice, and greed. The entire justification for Europeans being in the Middle East at all, is based on a lie - and that includes Europeans by way of America.
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How can you go into your neighbor’s home and kill his family, then call him the aggressor? And now they’re trying to undermine nuclear arms negotiations as a prelude invading Iran! It’s all about racism and greed. Think about it-- as bad as the Germans and Russians treated the Jews over the years, you’d think the Jews would have been given part of one of those countries. If they’d done that, European Jews wouldn’t have even had to leave home. But White folks don’t play that - no matter how much they hate each other.
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As I pointed out in my last article, you can't just TAKE land from someone else and then tell them that God wants you to have it. That pretext is not only blatantly ridiculous on its face, but insulting. So everybody knows what the facts are, and everyone knows how unjust it was, but no one wants to say it out loud because we've been indulging in a conspiracy of silence.  But we've got to address this issue, even though, at this point, we can't turn back the clock and get a do-over.  What's done is done. That was the mistake of another generation, and at this point there are two generations of Israelis who were born in Israel and have every right to call it home. But it's past time to start having an honest discussion on this issue and thinking about ways to compensate the Arabs for the hit that they took. That would undoubtedly go a long way toward healing longstanding wounds - and we should start by using that $3.15 billion a year we give Israel for their killing machines and use that money to make a better life for ALL Palestinians. 
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Yes, for once we should do something decent, and compensate the Palestinian people for the injustice we perpetrated against them, because continuing to buy Israel extermination machines is only making the situation worse. And another thing, trying to ignore injustice only allows it to fester and foster deep-seated hatred. We're seeing that scenario playing out right here in the United States among our own people.
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Eric L. Wattree
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.

Israel Has Become A Serious Problem That We Need To Address

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Israel Has Become A Serious Problem That We Need To Address

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Here are the facts. The United States CREATED some of the most severe problems currently going on in the Middle East by interfering in that part of the world and expecting the people in the region to just sit back and casually accept the U.S.' racist view of reality. For example, the way that the State of Israel was created in 1948 set into motion a policy of Manifest Destiny 2, and then it was shoved down the throats of the indigenous people in the region.
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As badly as the German people treated the Jews, why didn't they just break off a piece of Germany and give it to the Jewish people? I'll tell you why, because Germany is a White nation, so they felt that it was easier to simply go and TAKE a piece of land from "THOSE" non-White Arabs, and get the Jews out of our hair. As a direct result, we've had our hands full, and that rash decision has taken over our lives. We've paid out billions of dollars, made ourselves one of the most hated nations in the world among the Arab people, and young Americans have been senselessly dying and having their lives destroyed in the region every since.
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You can't just TAKE land from someone else and then tell them that God wants you to have it. That pretext is not only blatantly ridiculous on its face, but insulting. Everybody knows what the facts are, and everyone knows how unjust it was, but no one wants to say it out loud because we've been indulging in a conspiracy of silence.  But we've got to address this issue, even though at this point we can't turn back the clock and get a do-over.  What's done is done. That was the mistake of another generation, and at this point there are two generations of Israelis who were born in Israel and have every right to call it home. But it's past time to start having an honest discussion on this issue and thinking about ways to compensate the Arabs for the hit that they took. That would undoubtedly go a long way toward healing longstanding wounds. Trying to ignore injustice only allows it to fester and foster deep-seated hatred. We're seeing that scenario playing out right here in the United Stats among our own people.
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The Jerusalem Post quoted former Israeli Defense Force Commander-in-Chief Gabi Ashkenazi as saying,  U.S. taxpayers have contributed more to the Israeli defense budget than Israeli taxpayers in the past three years (http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Ashkenazi-Preserving-US-ties-a-security-necessity).  That fact is in dispute, but what's not in dispute is the United States is spending $3.15 billion per year from 2013-2018, even as Netanyahu comes over here, thumbs his nose in our president's face, and conspires to undermine our nation's interest. Thus, instead of spending that money on military arms and foreign aid to Israel, we should start spending the money on helping to make a better life for the Arabs in the surrounding area in compensation for the injustice they've endured as a result of our atrocious foreign policy.  And we should also start holding Israel's feet to the fire regarding their behavior in the region. Perhaps then it wouldn't be so easy for radical militants to recruit American and Jew-hating terrorists. In short, we need to use that money and SAVE lives, instead of enriching war profiteers and providing Israel with ever more weapons of mass destruction.
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The issues in the region could have been resolved long ago, but there are hard-liners, like Netanyahu, in Israel who don't want them resolved, because they want to use "security" as a pretext to continue their land-grab. But they, and we, are engaged in a global game of Israeli roulette, because everybody in the region hates the Israelis so intensely that they're prepared to die to strike a blow against Israel - and regardless to what we do, we're not going to be able to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle indefinitely.  Pakistan is already a nuclear power, so if Islamic extremists ever gain control of Pakistan, Israel is toast, because many of the people in the region feel so frustrated,  put upon, and filled with hatred toward Israel, they don't care whether they die or not. Martyrdom is a very significant part of their culture, so they'll consider it an honorable event to go out in a blaze of glory - and lets call a hat a hat, they feel that way with very good cause. Injustice will do that to you.
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So the entire world needs to come together and FORCE Israel to get its act together and start acting like a good neighbor and a responsible member of the world community instead of running around trying to sabotage peace agreements, because this is not just about Israel.  People like Netanyahu - with the help of other fanatics, on both sides, and the mindless greed of the war profiteers are placing the entire world - your family, and my family - in jeopardy, and personally, I don't appreciate it.
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Thus, the United States, and the rest of the world, needs stop playing footsie with Israel, and forge an agreement calling for EVERYONE to be treated with complete equality and stop trying to always give Israel a leg up.  Let's send nuclear arms inspectors into both Iran, and Israel, and destroy Israel's nuclear arms arsenal as well (Yeah, they've got 'em, and everyone knows it). Thereafter,  a treaty should be signed guaranteeing the security of both nations.
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Netanyahu would undoubtedly be totally against such an agreement, but so what?  What makes Israel more deserving, or trustworthy, with nuclear arms than Iran?  So if Israel refuses to go along with the agreement, we should push for a global embargo against Israel just like we would Iran. They can't survive in the desert alone, but the world can't survive much longer with them acting like sugar craving kids turned loose in an all-you-can-eat chocolate factory either.
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Israel has been getting a pass by the world as a result of the atrocities committed against Jews during WWII, but enough is enough. The Netanyahu incident, along with other information coming out regarding Israeli spying on the United States and conspiring with irresponsible individuals within our own government to undermine United States interests strongly suggest that it's time to rein Israel in, because we've created a monster. There's no such thing as an ally that you can't trust.
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THAT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY. THERE ARE HOMES, FAMILIES, 
AND INNOCENT CHILDREN DOWN THERE - AND THERE'S 
SHRAPNEL (BULLETS FROM BOMBS) 
FLYING IN EVERY DIRECTION. 

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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.

Taking Apart Cornel West's Boilerplate Mantra That President Obama Is A Baby Killer

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Taking Apart Cornel West's Boilerplate Mantra That President Obama Is A Baby Killer

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Cornel was recently on the David Letterman show spewing what has become his boilerplate mantra about President Obama being a baby killer again. Most Americans understand why President Obama think it necessary to use drones in Afghanistan, because they're thinkers. Cornel West is not - he's a regurgitator. His entire reputation is built around his ability to regurgitate the words of dead White men. That's not intellect. Intellect is having the ability to take the information being regurgitated and manipulating it in new and creative ways. Here are a few things that most of us clearly recognize but West is far too bitter, and/or shallow-minded, to see:
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Much like Ben Carson and Tavis Smiley,  Cornel West doesn't seem to recognize that he's destroyed his public image by allowing his self-serving agenda to take precedence over his common sense. Also like the two gentleman previously mentioned, he's dropped like a rock from a stellar personality that the Black community pointed to with pride, to a public embarrassment that many Black people wish would simply go away.
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One of the reasons that's the case with all three of these gentlemen are their public pronouncements that tend to negate the very intellectual excellence in which the Black community took such pride. In the case of West, he's mortally wounded his legacy in the Black community with his reckless, unscholarly, and unsubstantiated rants about President Obama. He also tends to be inconsistent. For example, while responding to a criticism lodged against him by comedian, Steve Harvey, he said, "When you are trying to talk about issues that affect the people, name calling gets in the way. Name-calling is nothing but another weapon of mass distraction."  Then later, he goes on to call President Obama - the first Black president of the United States - "a drone president, and a baby killer."  So in his own words, he's become "a weapon of mass distraction" - and one of the GOP's most effective weapons, a valuable tool for undermining the interests of the very people that he claims to love so dearly.

About Drones

When Tavis Smiley and Cornel West began to lose the confidence of the Black community, they tried to broaden their constituency by refocusing their criticism of President Obama from poverty to the war in Afghanistan. Time.com reported West as saying in 2012 that he didn’t vote. "I couldn’t vote for a war criminal," he said, calling Obama’s administration a "drone presidency."
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While I don't like killing machines either, I've had to take into account the fact that Obama is charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that Al Qaeda, ISIS, or no other terrorist group manages to get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal - and let us not forget that they located Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan living comfortably, and casually, within the shadow of that arsenal. So while West would have us believe that Obama is in Afghanistan just killing people for the hell of it, or for the oil companies, that’s a myth. He’s trying to make sure that YOUR family is not blown up by angry religious fanatics who think that God will bless them if they blow up the United States.
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So while war, and killing, is an ugly business, it is very much a reality in the world we live in. So as I see it, if we have to lob missiles into an area filled with innocent people - since hiding behind human shields seems to be the terrorists' preferred mode of defense - the drone is a far better alternative than simply firing missiles and such blindly.
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Consider this. If you were an Afghan and lived next door to a terrorist, would you want to have someone blindly firing missiles in your direction, possibly taking out your home and family, or maybe even the entire town just to get one man, or would you rather they sent in drones with television cameras where they can specifically target the person they’re after? One drone pilot said that they even wait for the target’s family to leave the house before they fire a missile to take out the target. So the fact is, if you have to go to war, drones often SAVE lives.
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So what is West jumping up and down about? This is one of the reasons that I often question the popular belief that West has such a powerful intellect. It’s one thing to have the ability to remember and regurgitate the words of dead White men, and yet another to be able to think for yourself and connect the dots. So on this issue, West is either grossly uninformed, has an inability to connect the dots, or he’s purposely trying to mislead the people (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/us/drone-pilots-waiting-for-a-kill-shot-7000-miles-away.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&).
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Cornel West's Gargantuous Ego

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The problem is, Cornel West has evolved into a bad joke - a raving hypocritical egomaniac and intellectual fraud -  and I know that with certainty, because I've done over 30 articles on him and his former road dawg, Tavis Smiley, so I've become one of the world's greatest authorities on both of them (If you ever want to know about either one of those two, just combine my name and theirs in Google).
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West seems to be so envious of President Obama that it's driven him out of his mind.  I think part of the problem is, West was a big shot Ivy League professor when Barack Obama was a skinny little college student, but then, Obama had the nerve to butt in line to become a senator, and then President of the United States.  That drove Cornel West crazy. West can't stand ANYBODY taking him out of the limelight - he even criticized Jay-Z's partial ownership of a sports team.  How dare Jay-Z be so arrogant! Doesn't he know that CORNEL WEST is the only Black man with gorilla nuts around here!!!? He's also gone after just about every Black news commentator on television - Al Sharpton, Melessa Harris-Perry, Michael Eric Dyson - and every one of them has more sense than he does. The man is simply a clueless egomaniac who thinks that Moses ordered the Red Sea to scoot over so Cornel West could take center stage. His attitude seems to suggest, "Who do you think you are, trying to upstage me? I'm Cornel West! I'm right up there with White folks, so stay in yo place, boy! - I mean, my dear and precious brother." He's become mesmerized by his own myth.
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And what about his reputation as a scholar?  A true scholar - or even an efficient-thinking high school student - should know that you never base your opinions on unsubstantiated assumptions. Yet, West is ALWAYS going around talking about what's on Obama's mind. How in the hell does he know what Obama is thinking!!!? He can't read Obama's mind - unless God gave him that skill as part of West's "Black prophetic tradition" and didn't tell anybody.  If he was as qualified to think as Barack Obama HE'D be president. But just the mere thought of that is an hilariously bad joke, because just like many Republicans, he carries himself like a recklessly irate child having a tantrum in a supermarket. Agree with him or not, President Obama is a thoughtful adult, while Cornel West thinks with the inefficiency of a irresponsible and reckless child. So he couldn't possibly know what's on Barack Obama's mind.
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I've made some serious allegations here, and on the surface it may seem like I'm doing the very same thing to Cornel West that he's doing to President Obama. But there's one huge difference. Unlike Cornel, my allegations are not just hyperbole, innuendo, and ad hominem attacks. My allegations and criticism of Cornel West are based on facts that I can fully substantiate, in the fact is, Cornel West is one of the major reasons the poor (who he claims to love so dearly) are in the situation they're in.
.After Ralph Nader was rejected for the 2000 presidential nomination by the Democratic voters, instead of acknowledging his rejection and falling into line to help defeat the Republicans, Nader went into a petulant snit and ran as a third party candidate. It was clear that he purposely ran as a third party candidate with the mean-spirited intent of sabotaging the Democratic effort, because third parties never win; the only purpose that third parties ever serve is to help elect the people that you like least, because they divide the vote of like-minded people.
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Cornel West joined Nader in this foolish - or treacherous, you make the determination - campaign, and as a result, George W. Bush won the election over Al Gore by winning Florida by a mere 537 votes. The Nader/West coalition peeled off 97,488 votes from Gore in Florida alone. So when I say that Cornel West is more than a little responsible for George W. Bush becoming President of the United States, and thus, your current economic condition, don’t take my word for it – you do the math.
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Most people, if they were sincere, would look at the disastrous results of their activities and be devastated. After all, causing Bush to be elected was the worst possible outcome for everything West is SUPPOSE to believe in. So most people would conclude that they had made a grave error, and that they would never do anything to divide the progressive vote again. But not Cornel , he teamed up with Ralph Nader yet again in the 2012 election against Obama, and tried do the very same thing that they'd done in the 2000 election that resulted in Bush's presidency. The only thing that stopped them was this time the people weren’t buying it.
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So as I pointed out above, either Cornel West is a grossly inefficient thinker, or there's a more malevolent agenda afoot. Did you hear him calling George W. Bush a baby killer?  Hmmm . . .
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The Gross Hypocrisy of Cornel West

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In addition to Cornel's outlandish public stupidity, he's also a hypocrite.  West said, “Regardless of your popularity, where’s your [Obama's] integrity?” Where's West's integrity?  He got a lot of publicity for going to Ferguson and being arrested, but doing 3 minutes in jail was worth it to him for the photo op and all of the valuable publicity. He was on a book tour, and he was going around the country undermining the Democratic efforts in the midterm elections at the time, so if they wouldn't have arrested him, just like they arrested those White folks, Cornel West would have filed a discrimination suit against the city - "Why couldn't I go to jail, just like those White folks?"
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On the other hand, where was he and Tavis Smiley during the demonstrations against Tavis Smiley's benefactor, Walmart? In spite of the fact that Smiley and West profess to be so concerned about the poor that they rode all across the country on a bus ranting about it  (again, during the 2012 election, thereby, helping the Republican Party - they tend to engage in this sort of Democratic sabotage every election)  they've ducked the Walmart demonstrations three (count 'em, 3) years in a row - and one demonstration was being held at a Walmart two blocks from Smiley's office! And Walmart is THE most egregious abuser of the working poor in America. I predicted, in print, two years in a row, that they weren't  going to show up - and sure enough, I was right:
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" Unlike most TV hosts, who simply do their jobs and collect a paycheck from a network, Smiley has to go out and raise most of the money for his program, which costs between $7 million and $8 million a year to produce. PBS generally contributes about $1 million of that sum. The rest comes from corporate sponsors, which Smiley has to round up himself.

"The sluggish economy and reduced corporate spending have threatened the show's viability. But luckily for Smiley, Wal-Mart, a longtime sponsor, stepped up again, this time with a three-year commitment. (PBS can only offer a maximum of two years on renewals because, as a government-supported entity, it must be periodically authorized by Congress.) But Wal-Mart covers only about a quarter of the costs" - Los Angeles Times  (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/12/entertainment/la-et-st-tavis-smiley-pbs-20131212).
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And then there was Tavis Smiley's involvement in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Scam," where over 30,000 minorities lost their homes and life savings. The Department of Justice said it was the second largest housing discrimination case in this nation's history. Wells Fargo ended up having to pay $175 million to settle the case, and Cornel West was attached at the hip with Tavis Smiley during that time. Yet, we didn't hear a "mumblin word" from West about the scandal ( http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-question-for-both-tavis-smiley-and.html).
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So where is Cornel West's integrity? Both Cornel West and Tavis Smiley have fallen victim to a very fundamental and common-sense rule of life - Before you point your finger at others, you should smell it first.

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RELATED CONTENT

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A QUESTION FOR BOTH TAVIS SMILEY AND CORNEL WEST

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

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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.

Conservatives Claim The GOP 47 Aren't Traitors Because They Didn't Send The Treason Letter By Mail

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

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Conservatives Claim The GOP 47 Aren't Traitors Because They Didn't Send The Treason Letter By Mail

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PROTECT OUR TROOPS FROM THE NEOCONS

When it comes to blatant hypocrisy - especially regarding their professed love for America - conservative Republicans tend to be a most rare and highly disingenuous breed. They live to wrap themselves in the flag as if it's their personal security blanket, yet, when it comes to their horrendous assault on the nation and the American people - like shutting down the government, refusing to support our vets (other than in the most weak and disingenuous Aphorisms), continually holding the American people hostage for the benefit of their wealthy cronies, and their blatant obstruction of any and every attempt to provide economic relief for the people - they're prepared to engage in the most ridiculously illogical contortions to try to justify their unconscionable behavior.  They treat the American people like we're stupid.  They'll slap us in the face, and then lecture us for causing them to injure their hand.
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Their latest affront to our common sense is in an article written by Deroy Murdock for the National Review. Mr. Murdock say's the following:
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"Cotton got 46 other senators to sign this letter in ink. “Because it was an open letter, it was not sent to Tehran but rather posted on Senator Cotton’s website and social-media accounts,” Caroline Rabbitt, Senator Cotton’s communications director, explained to me last week. Cotton & Co. never even dropped an envelope in the mail . . . Agree or disagree with that point, here is the inescapable truth: Tom Cotton and his Senate colleagues never contacted anyone in Iran. That fact alone should turn the Left’s fluttering “GOP = Treason” banner into a wet rag.(http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/415456/cotton-letter-was-not-sent-anywhere-especially-not-iran-deroy-murdock)
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Could this gentleman possibly be serious!!!?  Does he REALLY think that the American people are so stupid that we'd buy into as weak an attempt of trying to justify a treasonous act as that - that even though, in this age of mass communication, the Republican 47 posted their treasonous attempt to sabotage an ongoing United States negotiation on an official United States Senate.Gov website that these 47 traitors should be vindicated because they didn't buy a stamp!!!? This simply a variation on one of the weak defenses that's already bombed: "Oh, the letter was only addressed improperly. No big deal. My bad."  And there's one other thing. The defense is so disingenuously asinine that implicit within it is the admission that if the letter WOULD have been sent by mail, it indeed WOULD have been treason.
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If there hadn't been such an explosive outrage over their treasonous stupidity these 47 senators would be struttin' around like peacocks. For the GOP, life is not about what's proper, it's about what you can get away with - and we DEFINITELY shouldn't let them get away with this, because the next time they'll do something worse. These people are without limits, so they're constantly testing ours.
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So if Mr. Murdock truly believes that his latest concoction of a defense is gonna fly, we need to send the DEA over there to the National Review because they've GOT to be on drugs. perhaps someone over there has gotten into Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin stash.
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The Republican 47 didn't avoid sending their treason letter directly to Tehran because they were trying to observe any sort of protocol, or trying to avoid violating the law - they posted it on an official United States Senate.Gov website, and on official United States Senate stationary. In addition, the title makes it abundantly clear who it was addressed to:  "AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LEADERS OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN."  These 47 Republican senators posted their treasonous and ill-conceived letter online for two reasons - first, they wanted to embarrass President Obama; and secondly, in their stupidity, and bad judgment, they thought they were going to get a slap on the back and that the American people were going to give them brownie points for it.
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The action of these 47 Republican senators was not only stupid and ill-conceived, but also treasonous and threatens world security. It's a perfect example of why for the past one hundred years, EVERY time the Republican Party is trusted with any kind of power, they drag America down a rat hole.  The only exception to that was President Eisenhower's administration, who was a Republican in name only (a Rino), and as his very last act of office, warned America about the Military/Complex, and neocons just like these.
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Tom Cotton, the freshman senator who was the initiatior of this letter is the protege of Bill Kristol, one of the primary neocons who led us into the Iraq disaster. So either the 46 senior senators who allowed themselves to follow in lockstep behind this wet-behind-the-ears kid - who's only been in the senate a matter of DAYS - have incredibly bad judgment, or there has to be a malevolent agenda afoot. So there needs to be a thorough congressional investigation into this matter. We owe it to America, we owe to our troops, and we owe it to the world.

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ODE TO A CHICKEN HAWK 

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Oh,   

sweet patriot, square of jaw,  and demeanor of firm command,

how fearlessly you stand in defense of America,

and the savior of all God’s chosen men.

Anointed by God as his personal envoy

to all men, corrupt and blind,

and charged with the

swift and brutal destruction

of all "heathens" of other kind.

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You stand vigilant against all our enemies,

both foreign and imagined within;

You vigorously guard against all that is evil,

and all that you see as sin.

You define God’s needs and precious values,

in the most unambiguous tones,

and never once have you erred on behalf of truth,

to reveal "God’s values" as indeed your own.

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You lead our troops in fearless glory,

challenging Death to "Bring it on!"

Never once thrusting your sword 

on the field of battle,

you fearlessly lead the charge by phone.

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Oh,

sweet patriot, square of jaw,

and demeanor of firm command,

how selfless your will to guard America,

while hating the pillars upon which it stands.

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WANT TO CUT GOVERNMENT WASTE?  FIND THE $8.5 TRILLION THE PENTAGON CAN'T ACCOUNT FOR
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/want-cut-government-waste-8-5-trillion-pentagon-142321339.html

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.

It Is In The Best Interest Of The United States To Keep This Latest Act Of Republican Treachery On The Front Burner

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

It Is In The Best Interest Of The United States To Keep This Latest Act Of Republican Treachery On The Front Burner

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The Republicans love to investigate everything, and if ANYTHING calls for a congressional investigation, this does.  The instigator of the Republican 47 treason letter was freshman Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who received a campaign donation of a million dollars from a pro-Israeli organization, helping to make the GOP the majority in the United States Senate. Thereafter, the Republican majority in congress invited Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of congress to give a speech undermining the interest of the United States. Thus, these 47 Republican senators were acting against the interest of the United States government as AGENTS of a foreign power.  That's TREASON!
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We've got to stop this kind of thing dead in its tracks. How many more times are American troops going to be sent to die in foreign lands for political gain and the enrichment of the military/industrial complex? So there should be a public congressional investigation of the treason letter, the Netanyahu connection, and Sen. Tom Cotton's association with Bill Krisol, the neocons, and those who would send our troops to die in yet another senseless foreign war.
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One of the biggest problems that liberals and progressives have is they're not politically aggressive enough. They let things like this latest GOP treason be swept under the rug. They've got to stop that, and stop allowing these un-American fascists to wrap themselves in the American flag. That's what's allowed them to drag America perilously close to a fascist state, and I don't intend that as hyperbole. If America doesn't wake up - and fast! - these creeps are going to destroy this country.
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The GOP and their corporate cronies are in a no-holds-barred, single-minded struggle to subvert our democracy and turn this nation into a corporate feudalist state, and it shouldn't take but one more Republican stint in the White House. Due to the rapidly changing demographics in this country, the GOP and their filthy rich cronies have become desperate, and as we've just seen, they are ruthless, reckless, totally oblivious to both American law and tradition, completely devoid of a sense of limits. So if they EVER gain power again, they are NEVER going to give it up - regardless to WHAT they have to do. Think about the ramifications of that. It's chilling.
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And as I pointed out in a previous article, if you're a White social conservative who takes comfort in the ramifications mentioned above, don't, because the rich, fiscal conservatives, don't care any more about poor and middle class White people than they do Muslims, minorities, or gays. You're only being used to keep the working class divided, because the GOP's agenda is so toxic to the American people that their very viability is completely dependent upon maintaining an environment of hatred, animosity, and strife among the poor and middle class. So if they win, they're going to toss aside social conservatives with the tip of their thumb and forefinger like soiled toilet tissue. You heard Mitt Romney - he thinks you're dirt.
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And the Republican 47 Treason Letter isn't the first time the GOP has committed treason against this country, so it wasn't "an accident," and they're not sorry about it AT ALL. They're just sorry - AND SHOCKED - that (for once), it didn't get past the American people's attention.
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Can you just imagine what the Republican Party would do with this if this situation were reversed!!!? The Democrats need to take note - not just for political advantage, but in the best interest of the nation, because these people are further and further out of hand.
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Our young people had to pay a huge price at the hands of some of these very same people due to our ignorance and apathy regarding Iraq. Let's not let it happen again. We owe it to America, and we owe it to our troops.

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Here are other instances of Republican  treasonous behavior:

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The Republican Party's Treasonous and Un-American History

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2015/03/beneath-spineric-l.html

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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.

The Republican Party's Treasonous and Un-American History

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

The Republican Party's Treasonous and Un-American History

It's always a bad idea for a writer to overstate his or her case or deal in hyperbole. It causes readers not to take the writer seriously, so let me choose my words carefully. The Republican Party has morphed into a fascist, bigoted, un-American, and completely inept and irresponsible threat to world peace, with a pronounced tendency toward treason even as they wrap themselves in the American flag.  I could go on, but I want to be careful to remain "fair and balanced." 
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The GOP's thoughtless, greedy and uncaring policies toward the American people have been troubling since before the Great Depression. The only thing that keeps the GOP viable is once they're voted out the public tends to forget their previous atrocities during the four to eight years they're out of office. But our grandparent's generation, the generation we refer to as the "Greatest Generation" - those who suffered through the Great Depression and fought WWII - didn't forget. They wouldn't let Republicans even go NEAR the White House. There were two reasons for that. First, back then they had a functional educational system, and secondly, they suffered so horrifically at the hands of the Republicans that they couldn't forget. 

CHILD LABOR DURING
THE GREAT DEPRESSION

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In 1921 - eight years before the great depression -  Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations. The first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than anything other - scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States - until Nixon's, then Reagan's, and finally Bush's.
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Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to come. 
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Then in 1929 Herbert Hoover came to power. During his administration the stock market crashed, starting the great depression. In spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, Hoover and his Republicans just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. After all, they could afford to just wait it out; they weren't suffering, they could wait it out in comfort.  But during Hoover's administration 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property. 
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Finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal Democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. He immediately surrounded himself with a group of the finest minds in the country, including Columbia professors Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Rexford G. Tugwell, and Raymond Moley, known at the time as the "Brain Trust." After assembling these men and others he went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working class people of this country. 
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The New Deal had two components - one to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people and to insure that they would never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected workers rights and set a minimum wage for workers. But every since the New Deal was enacted, the abolishment of every one of its programs has been the Republican Party's reason for living.
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During the Great Depression there was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak to work they had no income so they had to depend on their children for support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they also had to support their parents. So there was often three generations of a family in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and wife, lived with the family.
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In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of the grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.
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They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, no paid vacation, and no sick leave, so workers had to choose between staying in bed with the flu, or feeding their families. In addition, since there was no child labor laws, if your boss didn't think you were being productive enough, he could insist that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot, in which case, your entire family - sick grandparents and all - would be thrown out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance.
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As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal mines and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
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Think back to the "Little Rascals" we used to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and would tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out in the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today. Those are the conditions that they’re FIGHTING to restore today.
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But by putting his "New Deal for the American people" in place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal," not only led this country out of the worst, Republican generated, crisis that this country has ever faced, but he went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained prosperity that the world has ever known. 

So the people of the "Greatest Generation" elected Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt into office an unprecedented four terms, from 1932 until he died in office in 1945. Thereafter, Republican nominee, Thomas E. Dewey, had to push for the Twenty-Second Amendment creating presidential term limits for a Republican to even get a whiff of the White House, and even then, a Republican wasn't elected until Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 - and he was only elected because he was the allied commander credited with winning WWII, and he was a Republican in name only.  He signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act, and sent troops into Little Rock Arkansas to integrate the schools.
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 In addition, as President Eisenhower's very last act of office he warned the American people of the military/industrial complex, or people like Dick Cheney and the kind of Republicans we have in office today. He described them as a threat to our democracy. Ike was nothing like the Republicans we see today. He would have summarily shot Dick Cheney had he been in office when Cheney allegedly outed CIA operative, Valarie Plame.
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So the "Greatest Generation" understood what we're only now finding out the hard way about the Republican Party due to the GOP's systematic dismantling of our information and educational systems - that their pronounced greed and lust for power has rendered them prone to being reckless, irresponsible, without limits, and a danger to our democracy.  We've had the opportunity to see all of these malevolent characteristics in graphic detail recently in the GOP's invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu, a foreign leader, to come thumb his nose at our President before a joint session of the United States Congress - and never once did one of them tell Netanyahu, "You lie." 
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The GOP also demonstrated reckless irresponsibility with the unprecedented act of  DIRECTLY intervening in the President's nuclear arms negotiations with Iran when 47 Republican senators signed a letter to the government of Iran essentially saying, "Don't pay this guy [THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!] any attention." That's the reckless, petty, and immature behavior of irate children who cannot be trusted with any sort of power.  They're either too dumb to understand, or too reckless to care that this nation has ALWAYS lived by the axiom that "Politics end at the water's edge." These 47 senators are in direct violation of the Logan Act and are guilty of treason. The Logan Act specifically state the following:
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"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
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In the 1936 Supreme Court case United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. Justice Sutherland wrote in the majority opinion that:
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"[T]he President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it."
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In a 1793 letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edmond Charles Genet, Jefferson points out the following:
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"He [the President of the United States] being the only channel of communication between this country and foreign nations, it is from him alone that foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation; and whatever he communicates as such, they have a right, and are bound to consider as the expression of the nation, and no foreign agent can be allowed to question it, to interpose between him and any other branch of Government, under the pretext of either’s transgressing their functions, nor to make himself the umpire and final judge between them."
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So to have 46 senior Republican senators to follow the lead of a freshman senator - who's only been in the senate for a matter of weeks - in violating tradition, protocol, and Constitutional law, betrays a level of recklessness, lack of statesmanship, ignorance, and pure stupidity, that's astounding!  Yet these very same people claim that we should give them the power to run the nation!!!?  The American people would have to be complete idiots.  

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So again, because it can't be repeated often enough, the GOP has clearly demonstrated that they are much too petty and dangerously irresponsible to be trusted with power. When they're in the minority they pout, throw tantrums, and leave no stone unturned to obstruct democracy when they can't get their way, and when they're in power they act with the reckless abandon of ravenously deprived children turned loose in an all-you-can-eat chocolate factory.  But unfortunately, it's always America who ends up with the belly ache. 
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The closest the GOP has come to dismantling the New Deal started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics" - and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.
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Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatch by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. The resulting broadened tax base would then not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. It's exactly the same plan the Republicans in congress are pushing today. But when the plan was first floated, even George Bush Sr., Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics."
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Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration - which led directly to the Great Depression. And as we saw in 1987 under Reagan, and the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, these Republican policies led to the very same result.
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Under Reagan, instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs as the American people were promised, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy-out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.
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 And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president in history, but he added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration COMBINED. And what did the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals was their "contract with America," a capitol gains tax cut - for the rich.
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Then in 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. Bush.  The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement.
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Then there was the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987, involving John McCain. The scandal was very similar to the one that played out on Wall Street in 2008. McCain was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.
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In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars.
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After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five - Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain - attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.
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Then came the George W. Bush administration that caused close to a million people to die uselessly in an illegal war in Iraq, robbed the American people blind, whose fumbling ignited the longest war in American history in Afghanistan, and whose greed came very close to sending the nation into yet another depression.
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Now, after all of their repeated efforts to deplete the national treasury, they're unanimously voting against every piece of legislation that the Democrats propose to repair the damage they created and bring relief to the American people. Then they have the audacity to claim that they're doing it because they're concerned about deficit spending. 

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They're against affordable health care for American families; they're against any kind of spending to put Americans back to work, and they're against extending unemployment insurance to relieve the burden of America's unemployed. What's particularly telling, however, is they're also against any kind of strong legislation to prevent the financial community (them) from being able to rob the American people in the future.
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Also interesting, considering their deep "concern" over the national debt, is the estimated $4 trillion Bush tax cut for the rich. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Considering  both the direct costs of the tax cuts and the associated increase in interest payments, the tax cuts would increase deficits by nearly $4 trillion between 2005 and 2014."
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1811
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So the fact is, what they really wanted prior to the 2012 election was to maintain the status quo, and make sure that the American people remained miserable, hungry, and divided until the elections so they'd have a better chance to regain power and raid the treasury again. Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was frustrated and reckless enough to say it out loud - "Our No. 1 priority is to make this president a one-term president" - not to save America, or to bring relief to the American people, but to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Flag pens in lapels and patriotic rhetoric notwithstanding, that says it all about the GOP's lack of concern for America, or the American people.
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After they lost the 2012 election, the Republican agenda shifted to making sure that President Obama was not successful, which is politispeak for making sure the American people continued to suffer.  The rationale behind their agenda is, if they allow President Obama to bring relief to the American people, and then you combine that combine that with the rapidly changing demographic, that could spell doom for the future of the GOP - and it should, because they're grossly out of touch with reality, and, America's best interest. That's why that's why the GOP is out to create a corporate feudalist society as soon as possible. They see time as running out on them, and that's what makes them so dangerous.
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The Middle Class Slide Since the Reagan Administration

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"In 1982, Forbes magazine began its now much-read annual list of America’s richest men and women. At the time of the first list, there were 12 billionaires in the country and fewer than 200,000 millionaires. By the year 2000, there were nearly 300 billionaires and about 5 million millionaires. Smith’s account of the rise of the rich and super-rich tells the story of five types of individuals: entrepreneurs, dealmakers, investors, tycoons (corporate executives, who are distinguished from
entrepreneurs), and entertainers."
http://www.beardbooks.com/beardbooks/the_rise_of_todays_rich_and_super_rich.html
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"No matter how you slice it, when it comes to income and wealth in America the rich get most of the pie and the rest get the leftovers. The numbers are shocking. Today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth (see the pie chart below) while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth. Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans — over 150 million people.".
A recent Princeton study Shows that America is no longer a democracy. We are now an Oligarchy, controlled by the rich. So it is essential that we wake up. Racism is no longer the war; racism is now merely a TOOL of war. We are now knee-deep in a CLASS WAR, and the American people are losing badly - ALL of the American people.
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Here’s the game that we're allowing the corporatists to run on us. They’ve convinced America that if we give the rich enough money, they’ll use that money to create jobs for the poor and middle class. Now, I don’t claim to be an intellectual giant, but it doesn’t take a great mind to understand that demand fuels supply, not the reverse. 
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If I made my living selling Gucci Bags, for example, I don’t care how much money you give me, I’m not going to hire anyone to produce any more Gucci Bags than I have in stock if I'm being forced to sell those bags in a homeless shelter. It wouldn’t make sense, because in a homeless shelter no one would have the money to purchase my product. The only way that you’re going to get me to hire people to produce Gucci Bags is if you gave that money to the people in the shelter so they’d have the money to buy my merchandise.
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That's exactly what's happening in America today. Corporate profits are at record highs, and the information and charts above clearly show that corporations and corporate executives are currently making more money than they've ever dreamed of in the past. So there's no reason for high unemployment. The rich are not putting that money into creating jobs; that money is going into offshore accounts, and we never see it again. That's why the rich are getting so much richer, and the middle class so much poorer.
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On the other hand, if the Republican congress would allow President Obama to create jobs to repair American's infrastructure - repair bridges, dams, and interstate highways and the like - that money would create jobs, just like it did when it brought us out of the Great Depression. Then, Americans would have money to spend on goods and services. They would go on vacations, so hotels and restaurants would have to hire people to accommodate them, and the food industry would have to hire people to process and serve their food. They would also buy bicycles and toys for their children, and that would create jobs, and they would buy more clothing, gas, and make needed repairs to their homes, and that would create jobs. And as a result of all those jobs being created, more revenue would come into the government in taxes, which would allow us to pay down the national debt.
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Again, think about it - the business community is making more profits than they've ever made in their history, so there's no logical reason for unemployment in America to be so high. The reason that unemployment is so high is because it's being kept high on purpose.
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Consider this. In the sixties, Howard Hughes was famous for being one of the richest men in the world.  He was considered so incredibly rich that they made movies about him. But compared to today's billionaires, he'd qualify for food stamps. Howard Hughes only had $4 billion, but today, Bill Gates has $79.1 billion, David Koch, of the infamous Koch brothers has $41.3 Billion, and even the young man, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, has $29.9 billion.  So there is absolutely no reason for the American people to be suffering so severely, and for unemployment to be so high - yet, they have us hating and pointing the finger at one another as the cause of our misery, when as pointed out above, the wealthiest 400 Americans have as much combined wealth as the 150 million poorest half of Americans.
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So it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see where the wealth of middle-class America has gone. It hasn't gone to "illegal aliens," or people requiring food stamps. Corporate welfare is nearly double the cost of all social programs. About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent nearly 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.  http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/
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The GOP's supposed concern for the national debt is only a pretext to block spending and keep unemployment high. They are purposely trying to turn America into a homeless shelter, because the GOP and its corporate cronies have a vested interest in keeping us angry, miserable, and divided.
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The GOP's motive is political - by keeping unemployment high and the American people miserable, it makes Obama and the Democrats look bad, and they're hoping that the resulting anger and division in the country will help them to get elected in a demographic that's shrinking to the GOP's disadvantage. And the corporatist are trying to squeeze the middle class. They’re trying to lower the American middle class standard of living to a level that conforms to the other countries in the global economy, where in many countries people make less per week than some middle-class Americans spend on lunch per day. So they're trying to squeeze the middle class to the point that it lowers our expectations, and we'll feel grateful for less.
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Their ultimate agenda is to turn America into a corporate feudalist state, where the American people are totally dependent on corporations for their survival. That will greatly enhance corporate profits, and essentially, allow them to control this nation. That's why the GOP is attacking unions, our educational system, and all social programs that prevent us from being totally reliant on the business community. They want to have complete control over our lives.
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GOP politicians just tend to lack common sense. Republican President Richard M. Nixon lacked the common sense to recognize that the President of the United States should not become an accessory to a common, street-level burglary, or place American citizens on an "Enemies List." Republican President Ronald Reagan lacked the common sense to realize that it was inappropriate to commit the treasonous act of going behind President Jimmy Carter's back and making a deal with a foreign enemy that was holding American citizens hostage to continue to hold those citizens hostage for political gain. Reagan also lacked the common sense to realize that it was inappropriate to flood America's inner cities with crack cocaine in order to finance his illegal war in Nicarauga. It was ruthless, immoral, and unconscionable, in spite of Nancy Reagan's warning to Black children to "Just say no." Republican President George W. Bush lacked the common sense to recognize that it was inappropriate to lie the nation into a multi-trillion dollar war with Iraq, killing over a million Iraqi citizens, and killing or wounding thousands of American troops for political gain and the enrichment of Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corp.  And Dick Cheney lacked the common sense to recognize that it was an act of treason to reveal the identity of an American CIA agent for spite, and that Americans don't engage in torture.  Thus, the Republican Party is turning America into an ugly place.  They're making America itself, un-American.
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Republican politicians and their cronies have a long history of pettiness, greed,  poor judgment, and a tendency to continually drag America down a rat hole to satisfy their selfish lust for wealth and power.  Thus, America needs to wake up and see these people for who they are, because 2016 is going to be a pivotal election. If the Republicans win they know that the demographics are against them, so they'll never relinquish power again - regardless to WHAT they have to do.  Think about the ramifications of that.
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And if you're a White social conservative who takes comfort in those ramifications, don't, because the rich, fiscal conservatives, don't care any more about poor and middle class White people than they do Muslims, minorities, or gays. You're only being used to keep the working class divided, because the GOP's agenda is so toxic to the American people that their very viability is completely dependent upon maintaining hatred, animosity, and strife among the poor and middle class. So if they win, looking into your dumb faces is going to be the only thing gratifying about it.
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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.