BLACK PEOPLE CAN'T BE RACIST!!!? THE CONTENTION ALONE IS RACIST

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Black People Can’t Be Racists!!!? Give Me A Break!!!
The Contention Alone Is Racist

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  Bro. Dyson,

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While I fully embrace the overall point you're trying to make, you’re misinforming our people with respect to Blacks not being able to be racist. You're indulging in twisted logic, and as a result, when your Black followers run around quoting you on this issue, they’re making themselves look like unthinking idiots.  Black people can be anything White people can be - good, or bad. To deny that is to play right into the hands of racist bigots, because it suggests there's a fundamental difference between different races of people.  Racism is a state of mind, not just the power to PROJECT that state of mind.  Thus, the racist mindset comes first, and only then, the social injustice derived from that mindset.
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You enjoy a measure of respect in the Black community, so along with that respect should also come a measure of responsibility. Thus, one would expect that you would use your position of honor in the community to help teach our people to think efficiently and with precision. So here’s the position I recently took with one of your adherents:

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Being a racist is a state of mind, so it doesn't require power, all it requires is ignorance. According to your logic we also have to say that a Black person can't be a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, or even an asshole because he doesn't control the system. And what about those who have racist attitudes in OTHER countries (like Israel and Muslim nations) where they don't control the system?  Are they not racists, or do they get a pass because they don't control the country?  And finally, what constitutes power?  What if a Black criminal pulls a gun on a White man?  Does he only become a racists after he pulls out the gun?  After all, the gun gives him the ultimate "POWER" over life and death, so to his victim he's the most powerful man in the universe.  So when did this Black man become a racist, when he decided to single out his White victim, or not until he pulls out his weapon of mass destruction, giving himself the "POWER" of life or death?
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"Racist" and “racism” are two entirely different words. One, racist, describes a person's mindset, and racism describes the activity resulting from that mindset. So a person can be a "racist" by attitude and predisposition without actually practicing "racism" as a way of life, or conversely, a second person can adhere to racist conventions (like working in a bank that refuses to give loans to Black people) without being a racist by either nature or mindset. Your argument fails to take those distinctions into account, and that’s where it’s flawed. To be a racist is a state of mind, which is one thing, but to act on that state of mind is racism, which is another.  So while you are correct that in most cases Black people don't have the power to engage in institutional racism, they are perfectly free to have a racist mindset - which makes them a racist.
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So the point you seem to be TRYING to make is that Black people don't have the power to EXPRESS their racism as effectively as White people because we don't have the power to employ INSTITUTIONAL racism. But to extend that to say that Black people can't be racist AT ALL is not only a gross corruption of common sense, but it defies the very definition of the word. It’s what’s called a "factoid" - a lie that’s been told so often that people begin to accept it as fact. Because the fact is, we not only have racists in the Black community, but we also have "Bligots," those who harbor racist attitudes towards their own people - Clarence Thomas, Larry Elder, Omarosa Manigault, and Ben Carson just to name a few.
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So it’s one thing to express your views, but when you do it, you should make every effort to express them with precision. Don’t try to corrupt the English language in an attempt to make it mean what you want it to mean; the only thing you accomplish like that is instead of helping people to understand your point of view, you cause most thinking people to dismiss you as an idiot.  Thus, you’re defeating your own purpose.
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The primary reason I'm even bothering to address this issue is because I love Black people, and I know that many Black people listen to people like yourself because some of us tend to confuse credentials with intellect.  I also know that many people like yourself are given to telling Black people what they WANT to hear instead of what they NEED to hear. As a result, they go around regurgitating this nonsense and make themselves look like damn fools. So personally, I don’t care what you believe, but I hate it when Black people follow your lead in making comments like the one under discussion and I have to look at the smirks of satisfaction on the faces of White bigots,  because whenever Black people make ridiculous statements like the one above, it tends to reinforce the position of White bigots that Black people are just a bunch of ignorant and undereducated idiots. 
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Have you ever noticed how when the news media wants to interview a Black person they seem to look around for the most ignorant, inarticulate, and uneducated Black person they can find?  They do that because they're looking for a sensational level of stupidity; people who give adrenaline priority over intellect; and people who will say EXACTLY the kind of thing that we’re discussing here. They’re looking around for someone who will validate the position that Black people are stupid.  I don’t like seeing that, or seeing Black people being used in that way. That’s the one and only reason that I’ve wasted even one brain cell on this silly nonsense. I don't like seeing Black people being portrayed as stupid, and by regurgitating the utter mindlessness that you're spewing, it helps the malevolent do just that.

QUESTION

"Eric, who is responsible for crafting the dictionary definition of racism? As you correctly state, Eric, bullshit in, bullshit out. Dr. Neely Fuller's stance regarding what constitutes a racist/racism closely mirrors that of Dr. Dyson and Dr. Anderson. Do you submit they too are full of lies?"

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In a word, yes - they're either full of lies, or the rumor of their powerful intellects has been greatly exaggerated. The handful of so-called "learned" individuals who are going around spewing the myth that Black people can’t be racist are doing much more harm to the Black community than good. First, their position is a corruption of common sense and defies the very definition of the word "racist," and secondly, it antagonizes potential allies by sowing division during a time when the poor and middle-class, of every stripe, are in dire need of unity to fight off the neo-fascist agenda of Donald Trump and his corpo-Republican alliance.

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The English language is what it is, and so is the definition of the word racist. As for who compiled the definitions in the dictionary, that’s irrelevant, because the dictionary doesn't DETERMINE what the English language is, it merely INFORMS us of how the English language is used. So the fact is, the "learned" gentlemen that you cite are not simply lying, or either grossly out of touch with reality, but again, they're doing the Black community a horrible disservice. It makes us look like we're so undereducated that we don't know the difference between common sense and fiction.  Yes, we do live in a racist society. But a racist society is made up of various kinds of racist individuals - including racist Black people.  Dyson is trying to split hairs in order to promote his flawed point of view, but the English language is clear - if you're a racial bigot or prejudice, you're a racist, period. A clear definition of the word "racist" is in the dictionary.
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Noun: racist; plural noun: racists

1.

a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.

"[Her] comments have led to her being called a racist"
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But in spite of this clear and concise definition of what constitutes a racist, if these “learned” individuals insist on holding to their self-serving, ad hoc position on this issue, they should consider the following. With every yin to an argument, there’s also a yang. So if they insist on taking the position that Black people can’t be racist like White people due to our position in society, the flip side of that is, neither can we be as brilliant, creative, or intelligent as White people for the exact same reason.  Because who we are as individuals is either innate, or defined by the individual, or forged by society. We can’t have it both ways. Being "equal" means we’re just as good as White folks, but also, just as bad.  If we're not, we're not "equal." 
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And no, I'm not missing the point. I fully understand the technicality that Dyson's argument is based upon, but it's dumb nevertheless. He's saying that Black people can't be racist because our behavior, regardless to how prejudice or bigoted toward others, doesn't promote the White supremacist agenda of this society. Thus, a Black bigot can have the exact same character flaws as a White bigot, but it has to be called something else other than racist since it doesn't promote White supremacy.  But the flaw in that argument is this - the term "racist" doesn't just refer to an individual's promotion of the WHITE supremacist agenda, it refers to the promotion of ANY form of racial supremacy. Just because White supremacy is the prevailing form of bigotry in this particular society, that doesn't mean that it's the ONLY  form of racism. So yes, a Black bigot is also a racist, he's just a different kind of racist - he's a BLACK supremacist as oppose to a WHITE one. Whether or not  his preferred form of bigotry is the prevailing form of racism in this country is meaningless, he's a racist nevertheless, he just happens to be on the opposing team.  In other words, just because the visiting team doesn't control the ball park, that doesn't mean that they're not baseball players.
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So we've got to be careful when we  go around trying to change the definition of words and redefine reality "all willy-nilly," because Black people have already been there, and done that. We already know what a serious impact the meaning of words can have on our lives.  What if they decided to change the definition of "human" to exclude all people with Black skin, and then began to claim that Black people aren't human? That could very easily be done by using the exact same kind of word manipulation that Dyson is trying to employ here. So he's opening up a can of worms that many thoughtful Black people have been fighting for centuries:  
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"The myth of genetic inferiority of people of African ancestry is centuries old, tracing back to when the first slave boat arrived on our shores in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. The myth of genetic inferiority of people of African ancestry not only legitimatized slavery, but also biblically sanctioned it. It was aided by people like Nobel Laureate William Shockley, who in 1956 voiced his theory of a genetic basis for racial inferiority. As part of his theory on the biology of ethnicity, Shockley stated that people of African ancestry belonged to a lower species of humanity, and deserved sterilization."  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/theory-of-blacks-intellec_b_589916.html
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So the very last thing that Black people want to do is to reignite a debate on what Black people can and "can't be." Dyson should know better.  Even though Black people can more than hold their own in such a debate, its mere existence could have a negative impact on the Black community. It could have a negative impact on our ability to find employment, for example, because as we see in the case of Dyson supporters, people actually believe this nonsense.  So it wouldn't be outrageous to see signs like "NON-HUMANS  NEED NOT APPLY." And with this conservative Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas would be the very first one jumping up to claim that non-humans lack legal standing in bringing discrimination cases before the court, and a policeman can’t be charged with murder for the killing of a non-human. So no, we don’t want to start tinkering with the meaning of words, and somebody needs to send Michael Dyson that message.
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It's very important - especially in a racist society - to establish that Black people can be anything White people can be - good, or bad, and that there is no fundamental difference between Black people and any other race other than our culture and the color of our skin.  So yes, we can be racist just like anyone else, but the key to growth is to enlighten our minds to the point where we're above such ignorance.  That's the key to being special.  We don't want to be known as the people who can't be racist, we want to be known as the people who have risen above it.   

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TRUTH IS TRUTH AND A LIE IS A LIE, AND THAT WILL ALWAYS BE THE CASE People tend to confuse themselves by trying to make truth much too convoluted. They do that in order to try to contort truth into a configuration that lends comfort to their preferred way of viewing reality.  But all they're doing in the end is deluding themselves. Truth is truth, and if you have to spend time tweaking it, what you're actually doing is trying to tweak truth into a convenient lie, and  that's exactly what's being done in this controversy. . The simple fact is, a racist is a racist, and that includes ANYONE who is bigoted toward people of another race - period.  Anything that you try to add or take away from that very simple definition is a distortion of truth and too convoluted to be viable. Truth is simple. John Coltrane played saxophone - PERIOD!  Case closed.  Simplicity is the key to efficient thought, but we now have a group of people who went out and picked up a receipt for sitting up in a class that they didn’t fully understand, and then became so full of themselves that they think they’re now qualified to redefine reality in a way that lends comfort to their political point of view - “All dogs have fleas, and my cat has fleas, therefore, my cat is a dog.” They then expect us to accept their pompous pontifications based on a receipt they picked up somewhere saying that they’re “learned.” . Unfortunately, some of us buy into that, but I don’t.  I say their corruption of truth is ridiculous, and the emperor has no clothes.  Truth will always be truth and it's inalterable, and trying to do so turns it into a lie.  A German Shepherd is a dog, the Sun is hot, and a racial bigot is a racist. Those are immutable facts, and they always will be, regardless to how many letters are behind the person’s name who’s either lying, or deluding him or herself into trying to prove otherwise. . THE EULIPIANS So while you may not have been able to go to college, you should never confuse credentials with intelligence. Knowledge is free, and some of the greatest minds I've ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lot of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I've ever known roamed university campuses in pursuit of credentials attesting to an intellect that their minds were far too weak to substantiate.  So it is incumbent upon us to learn to think for ourselves and never sell ourselves short, because the adversity that you've endured also constitutes an education, an education that should never be underestimated.  . While you may not realize it, adversity has made you more, rather than less.  So use your adversity like a slingshot, and allow it to hurl you into a world of wisdom, knowledge, and excellence.  You don't need the White man to educate you. Who says he corners the market on knowledge and wisdom?  And neither do you need some Black man waving a receipt from the White saying he's been approved to educate you.  Dyson was "educated" by the very same White man he is now trying to criticize, and the only reason he's allowed to do so is because he's playing into the hands of that very same White man.  Cornel West also has a tendency to do that.  So seek to become a "Eulipian" and base your assessment of reality on independent and self-cultivated knowledge. Always be independent of thought, and embrace the power of your own intellect, because that's the only knowledge, wisdom, and intellect that we can trust. Group-think is not thought at all.  It's an accommodation, and more often than not, the very source of societal dysfunction. .

And in that regard, what makes the self-serving stupidity being propagated by these pseudo-intellectuals so horribly egregious is the fact that this nation is currently knee-deep in a CLASS WAR in which the enemy's most potent weapon - their ONLY weapon - is division.  So by running around spewing this nonsense to the unthinking, Dyson and company are lending comfort to the enemy. They're helping to keep people who are normally of good will,  and who SHOULD be our allies in this war against corporate feudalism, hostile, antagonistic, and throwing spitballs at one another.  That's dumb, and if Dyson were actually the powerful intellectual that he seems to think he is, he'd recognize that fact, but that seems to be yet another truth that has managed to allude him. The fact is, if Dyson wasn't disseminating this counterproductive nonsense for free, the Koch bros. would be willing to pay him to spew this reckless and unsubstantiated stupidity. 

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As Black people, we can't out-scream the White establishment, because they control the media, and we can't out-fight them, because they control the police and military, so our only option is to out-think them, and we have the intellectual creativity to do just that - and they know it.  The very same creativity that went into the making of a Ray Charles, an Areatha Franklin, or Charlie Parker can very easily be redirected toward math, science, and social development. They recognized that while we were in slavery - that was one of the reasons they established a Jim Crow society in the first place, and it's also why so many conservatives hate Barack Obama so intensely, because he's walking, breathing evidence of that fact.  So instead of going out of our way to antagonize potential allies, we should use our natural creativity to first, educate ourselves, and then educate the public to the fact that the new paradigm in this country is not about race, but about class. 
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Racism is simply a man-made construct designed to keep the poor and middle class divided. So we shouldn't buy into this lunacy. ANYBODY can be a racist if they're ignorant enough, and Dyson is inadvertently proving that fact with his racist assertion. But wouldn't it be ironic if the people brought over here in chains ended up teaching America how to survive?  So we shouldn't be telling America what Black people "can't be," because we can be anything we decide to be.  We should be showing the entire world what we can be.  So we need to trade in our reputation for being soulful victims for one of being brilliant educators. Instead of teaching America how to dance and shoot jump shots, we need to be teaching them how to think. That's what we should be focused on throughout the Black community - knowledge, not nonsense.

Not All White People Were Created Equal: White Privilege in America 

             

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During WWII, even the United States and the Soviet Union had sense enough to put their differences aside long enough to fight off Nazi fascism, but these so-called learned individuals who are running around spewing this stupidity have obviously learned absolutely nothing from history. The current GOP represents nothing short of creeping fascism. They don’t care any more about poor and middle-class White people than they do Black people. So people like Dyson should be educating the public to the dire need for the people to come together to fight off a common and insidious foe instead of stirring up division among the poor and middle-class for their own selfish benefit.
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DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE ENOUGH "POWER"

TO BE RACIST?

By going around spewing the myth that Black people can’t be racist, Dyson is placing his own desire to gain personal street creds above what’s in the best interest of the Black community. Black people make up only13% of the population, so if we intend to make any progress in this country whatsoever, it is essential that we seek out allies, not go around spewing antagonistic nonsense. And beyond that, politically motivated claims such as this serve no useful purpose. If Dyson's contention had any validity, and by having that knowledge it would benefit Black people in some way, that would be one thing, but his ridiculous assertion has absolutely no remedial value in addressing the current conditions being faced by the Black community - in fact, it only serves to stirrup anger and hostility, so rather than being remedial in nature, it actually makes things worse.  What benefit can we possibly derive from going around claiming that Black people can't be racist (like the White man)?  It may make us feel good, and justify our hostility toward White victims of this society, but other than that, the only purpose it can possibly serve is to turn off badly needed allies who could help us to improve our lives, and the lives of our children. Thus, our ignorance is killing us.

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SCOTT WALKER: REPUBLICAN STRATEGY

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AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP.

MANY OF THE PEOPLE THIS POLITICIAN INTENDS TO
"DIVIDE AND CONQUER"
VOTED FOR HIM, AND BLACK PEOPLE SHOULD BE USING OUR CREATIVITY
TO MAKE AMERICA AWARE OF THAT FACT. 
SO WE SHOULD BECOME EDUCATORS, NOT ANGRY VICTIMS.

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Thus, while we should never bite our tongue when it comes to speaking truth to power, before we start shooting off our mouth, we should make absolutely sure that it is, indeed, truth that we're speaking, and not counterproductive stupidity that plays right into the hands of our enemy.
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I've Known Bullshit
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In
Every newspaper, every nook,
I see blatant bullshit wherever I look.
Prolific bullshit,
pro and con,
Man deceiving man,
like human pawns.
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We
Bullshit our children
whenever we can
On the role of government,
and the sojourn of man;
We bullshit the people
regarding their lot,
While failing to address
the conservative plot.
And now I hear even Santa's a myth,
So even my mother was touched by his kiss.
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So,
My threshold for Bullshit is extremely low,
I sense him wherever he hides;
While Langston Hughes has known his rivers,
I've known Bullshit in every disguise.
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I've
Known bullshit lovers of innocent women,
Who fades with a piece a ass,
I've known bullshit preachers who loved the Lord,
But not nearly as much as your cash;
I've known bullshit politicians,
who "Just want to help"
Right up til they get your vote,
Then after reciting their bullshit oath
can't wait to start cuttin' your throat.
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Yes,
Bullshit's' a stalker, who seems to haunt me;
I see him wherever I go--
On the street, in the store,
In the eyes of my lover,
Though I try to deny that it's so.
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I used to
Simply shut my eyes,
so I wouldn't see him no more,
But my ears betrayed me and--
Knock, Knock, Knock--
"It's Bullshit. Open the door!"
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So
I came up with a plan to take a stand, and
Confront Bullshit wherever he hides;
Like the terrorist he is, you must weed him out,
By confronting him where he resides.
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I learned
That shit will be shit because shit is shit's nature,
So it's really not Bullshit's fault;
It's the fault of society for embracing ignorance,
For the enemy of Bullshit is thought.
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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.

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THE MODERN REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS MORPHED INTO THE DOMESTIC ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

 THE MODERN REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS MORPHED INTO THE DOMESTIC ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES

For the past thirty-five years the Corporate-GOP Alliance has been engaged in a brutal assault on the American people. They've sent our jobs out of the country, while at the same time, the Republican congress has blocked any funding for the government to create jobs by repairing the nation's badly deteriorating infrastructure, which was a highly successful tactic used to rescue the nation from the Great Depression. These actions have subjected the American people to needless suffering while corporations are enjoying record profits.

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At the same time, they abolished the "Fairness Doctrine," which forced broadcasters to give equal time to opposing views, and then they completely took over the mainstream media, which allowed them to lie with impunity. Thereafter, they began to subject the American people to an intense campaign of corporate brainwashing and disinformation over the cause of their suffering, and they mounted a vicious attack on our educational system. Teachers are being demonized, elementary, middle, and senior high schools are being defunded, and the cost of college has been placed beyond the reach of the Average American without going deeply in debt. Then, to ensure these policies remained in place, the Republican led Supreme Court ruling on "Citizens United" gave a foreign CEO based in Singapore more control over the American political system than an American citizen.
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All of this wasn't done without reason, and that reason is clear. The corporate establishment in this country is trying to create a permanent underclass that will be completely dependent upon their every whim.  By the time they're done, the options of the average working-class American will be few - they can either work for slave wages, or they can go into the military and lay their lives on the line in an endless string of wars to pad the pockets of a growing number of war profiteers. So they are forcing the poor and middle class to pay for the wars, and then fight the wars - because the children of the rich are no longer even expected to die for this country; that's the job of the 'little people'. Thereafter, while the war profiteers are raking in all the profits from poor and middle-class death and misery, when the veterans come home wounded or completely disabled, they call them deadbeats and cut their benefits. Those are not the actions of American patriots.

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"In Congress, Republicans in both chambers have launched sweeping attacks on long-held centrist priorities and have renewed threats to block Obamacare. These attacks are seen in House bills slashing spending in almost every federal program except for the military [they didn't cut the military budget because that money is funneled back into the pocket of war profiteers] and domestic policing for the federal fiscal year starting October 1. Anti-poverty, education, human services, environmental protection, energy, labor, Wall St. oversight-all face cuts averaging 20 percent, although some areas face cuts by a third or more.
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"Rabid Republicans are also acting with renewed zeal to roll back voting rights in key Southern states. In North Carolina and Texas, GOP-led legislatures are resurrecting a catalogue of Jim Crow-era barriers to minority voting, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning of the 1965 Voting Right Act's toughest enforcement provision. In North Carolina, the GOP wants to repeal 20 years of best practices that made North Carolina a model of fair and accessible elections. In Texas, the GOP wants to revise political districts to dilute minority representation and pass tougher voter ID laws."
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/18636-six-ways-rabid-republicans-are-declaring-war-on-america
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Nevertheless, most Republicans tend to wrap themselves in the American flag and walk around with flag pins in their lapels, but their unconscionable assault on the American people is anything but patriotic. Their purposeful undermining and exploitation of the American people could only be perpetrated by a greedy, power-hungry, and self-serving domestic enemy of this nation. But due to the affects of corporate brainwashing, they have the American people divided and at one another's throat instead of seeing reality for what it is.
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Americans aren't suffering because of their fellow citizens; they’re suffering because they’re being robbed blind by the Corporate-Republican Alliance. Undocumented workers aren’t taking their jobs; their jobs are being sent out of the country in order to make the American middle class more accepting of a lower standard of living. And labor unions are not what’s destroying jobs; jobs are being outsourced to destroy labor unions. Yet, corporate conservatives have a shrinking middle class railing against the poor, Blacks against undocumented workers, and Christians against any, and everyone, who doesn't look, think, and act like themselves. Thus, the most lethal weapons against American democracy - hatred, suffering, ignorance, and division - is being used against us, and the Corporate-Republican Alliance are using those weapons quite effectively in reverting a previously thriving American democracy into what is beginning to look ominously close to a third-world nation.

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So it is essential that the American people open their eyes and take this threat to our democracy seriously, because this nation is sliding downhill, and very fast. Who would ever have thought that they would live to see a vice president of the United States outing an American CIA agent, or 47 American senators sending a treasonous letter to a foreign head of state in an attempt to undermine American diplomacy on behalf of a second foreign power. And who would have thought that we'd ever see in our lifetime a governor of a state knowingly exposing a city of 100,000 people to led poisoning, which will retard the intellectual growth of children and have a negative impact on their health for the rest of their lives? And considering the fact that the city is predominantly Black, and the minority of White people there are poor, it's Hitlerian in its ramifications. So Rick Snyder should not only be forced to resign, but he should be charged, at the very least, with criminal negligence, because every time we allow the Republicans to get away with something like this, they take it one step further. That's why the nation is sliding downhill so fast.
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And again, the assaults being perpetrated against America listed above would have been unheard of in the United States just a short time ago, and it's all being done by greedy and self-serving Republican politicians who are completely disinterested in the interest of the American people. Their interest lie in America remaining miserable, angry, and divided, and they're doing everything in their power to keep us that way.
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So these are not traditional American politicians that we're dealing with here. We're now in a class war, and these Republican politicians are the enemy's assault troops.  So regardless to your race, creed, or color, if you don't have a few million dollars stashed away somewhere, you're their enemy. These are the very "domestic enemies" of the United States that we were warned about in our founding documents.
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And these people didn't just pop up out of nowhere. They've been around as "sleeper cells" since the very founding of this nation; they've just had to keep a low profile to carry out their agenda. Because many fiscal conservatives are not just racist, they're also class bigots. One of the founding fathers of conservative thought was Alexander Hamilton. He was an aristocrat who advocated that poor and middle-class Americans should be relegated to second-class citizenship, and the GOP has fully embraced his agenda. Hamilton said the following:
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AND THESE ARE NOT JUST THE BENEFITS

OF MINORITIES OR

LIBERALS THEY'RE GOING AFTER

"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government." Debates of the Federalist Convention (May 14-September 17, 1787).
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While Hamilton’s position was resoundingly rejected by the vast majority of the founding fathers - whose primary reason for coming to America in the first place was to get away from the European class system - there were many of Hamilton’s ilk who chose not to recognize the American ideal that "All men [and women] are created equal." Then they were later joined by Southern Dixiecrats, or social bigots, who also rejected the ideal of human equality.
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But what social conservatives fail to realize is that the corporate conservative's rejection of human equality includes them. Corporate conservatives don't care any more about them than they do any minority.  They're just being used to keep America divided, but once the corporatists seize firm control over the government, and social bigots are no longer needed, they're going to be thrown onto a virtual plantation right along with everyone else. The attempt to hide that fact is what accounts for the corporate conservative's intense distaste for public education.

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Corporate conservatives want to restore control over the American worker that they had during the Great Depression, and if you take a close look at the Republican platform it is clear that they're on a single-minded mission to do just that.  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 as well. 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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As a result, in some cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds 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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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.

They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, and no paid vacation. 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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Thus, corporate conservatives depend on a poorly educated public for their very survival, because even a rudimentary familiarity with history would reveal both their background, and agenda. They don't want you to know that the people who lived through the Great Depression and fought WWII, the people who we refer to as "The Greatest Generation," wouldn't let a Republican anywhere near the White House.
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Our grandparents 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 had no use for them. Ike 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 – their pronounced greed and lust for power has rendered them prone to being reckless, irresponsible, without limits, and a danger to our democracy. That's why they Hate Donald Trump, because he's making all of their shortcomings and hidden agenda glaringly clear to the public.
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DONALD TRUMP IS A CAPITIALIST AND A BAD JOKE, BUT HE SERVES A USEFUL PURPOSE - HE REVEALS HOW CONSERVATIVES REALLY THINK.

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Donald Trump is an ignorant, mean-spirited, xenophobic, and self-serving racist who's willing to tell any lie he can conjure up to promote his own interest. That makes him the quintessential Republican, and that's exactly why he's leading in the Republican polls. But the Trump phenomenon says it all. While the GOP establishment is distancing themselves from Trump, it's not because they disagree with what he's saying, it's because he's either too dumb, or too self-serving to realize that he's not suppose to be saying what conservatives truly believe out loud.  While the Republican establishment has been saying the exact same things as Trump for years, they’ve been saying it in political code, and with a wink.
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So the Republican establishment is afraid that this Trump episode will openly reveal their unspoken assault on the American people for decades, and the facts are simple - while the Corporate-Republican Alliance are all wearing American flag pins in their lapels and constantly paying lip-service to wanting to bring prosperity to the average American, an unequivocal historic record clearly demonstrates that this has never been the case, and not only that, it has never even been a part of the GOP's agenda.
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So in the 2016 election the American people are going to be given a choice to come clean. Do they really want the kind of America that they're always bragging about and profess to believe in, or do they actually want a fascist nation that subjugates the working class, demonizes minorities, and supports a Gestapo-like police forces that kill innocent Black children on the street with impunity? For those rabid conservatives who feel like they could live with the latter, they should think long and hard, because as their current living conditions suggest, this time it's not about simply establishing an Aryan nation, it's about establishing a corporate feudalist oligarchy where poor and working-class White people and their families are just as meaningless as any minority. Think about it - did they only send Black jobs out of the country? I don't think so. Are they now, even as I write, trying to take away the Social Security and Veterans benefits of only minorities?  No they aren't. And did Gov. Rick Snyder only expose Black people to lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan? Not really. So the facts are clear.  If you’re a poor or middle-class White person who don't have millions of dollars stashed away in a foreign account somewhere, they intend to make you the new 'coon,' just like they did during the Great Depression.

A SOCIAL BIGOT

As a final comment to social bigots, while I would hate to see America come crashing down as a result of our own stupidity, if worse comes to worst, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I wouldn't get a certain measure of satisfaction out of watching bigots get just what they deserve. You see, Black people are accustomed to dealing with the kind of adversity that would befall this nation. During the Great Depression while White folks were jumping off buildings, Black people were partying through the Harlem Renaissance and enjoying one of the most productive and creative periods in our history. So the irony is, in many respects the Great Depression worked to the advantage of Black people, because it leveled the playing field. During the depression White people were force to live under the very same conditions that Black people have been forced to deal with all of their lives - both then, and now. But due to the affirmative action program that White folks have benefited from in this society over the years, they just aren't equipped to deal with adversity. If you're already out to sea, you don't even feel a tsunami beneath you, it is only those who are living warm and comfortable on land who experience the devastation of its impact. That explains why my grandfather never even mentioned the Great Depression to me, because for him, it was just business as usual.

A BLACK WOMAN 'STRUGGLING' THROUGH

THE GREAT DEPRESSION 

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Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

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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.

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BLACK LIVES MATTER - DON'T LET YOURSELVES BE PLAYED AND MISS THE BIG PICTURE

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

BLACK LIVES MATTER - DON'T LET YOURSELVES BE PLAYED AND MISS THE BIG PICTURE

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RM,
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I know you're a big supporter of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, and as a Black man myself, it's easy to understand why. They reflect our frustration at repeatedly seeing Black people shot down, beaten, choked to death, and possibly even lynched while in police custody. And then if that's not bad enough, we're being forced to endure juries and agencies across this country treating these heinous crimes as though the alleged perpetrators are performing a public service. It's unconscionable and almost more than one can stand. So I'm definitely in full support of BLM's "professed" agenda.
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But I'm also quite concerned about how BLM is going about trying to achieve their objectives, and whether or not they've been infiltrated by right-wing operatives who are instigating a level of stupidity that's not only sabotaging BLM's professed agenda, but is allowing the organization to be used to undermine other progressive activists - So far, Bernie Sanders, Al Sharpton, and Mike Malloy - activists who should be considered allies. They settled for a quiet little chat, behind the scenes, with Hillary Clinton. Hmmmmm . . .
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Writer and political commentator, Brian K. Pinaire, Ph.D. , describes the the BLM takerover of Bernie Sanders' Seattle event as follows:
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"We'd been waiting for nearly two hours by the time he finally took the stage. We'd been approached by a few dozen petition-circulators, button-sellers, pamphlet-distributors and sign-holders. We'd heard a few songs by a group called the "Raging Grannies." And we'd listened to the usual array of warm-up speakers, local candidates and activists gathered for this event at Westlake Center in Seattle. Now, it was finally time for the man of the hour--or the two hours, actually. Until all of a sudden it wasn't.
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"Just as Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was beginning his speech, protestors representing "Black Lives Matter" took the stage, screamed at Sanders and commandeered the podium at what was supposed to be a celebration of the birthdays of Social Security and Medicare. I watched all this occur in real-time, but I was also capturing it on video. And I am glad I did, because not enough has been said of the insulting manner by which these individuals addressed everyone within earshot.
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"Demanding to speak, and to do so before Senator Sanders, Marissa Janae Johnson, a self-described co-founder of the Seattle group, began by telling us all "You guys are full of bullshit with your black lives matter!" Even though the crowd had cheered earlier speakers who'd mentioned the movement, Ms. Johnson seemed distraught that some people were chanting "Bernie!, Bernie!" after she'd taken over the stage.
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"Why was the crowd chanting "Bernie! Bernie!"? you might ask. Because they came to see Bernie Sanders speak about Social Security and Medicare.
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"This was when Ms. Johnson reprimanded the crowd even more--a crowd whose average age was easily more than twice that of her own--by announcing "You're never going to hear Bernie speak unless I get silence here now." Yes, she was scolding people of her parents' and grandparents' generations who had come to hear about how we might make lives better for the poor and elderly. And now she was also holding Senator Bernie Sanders for ransom." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-k-pinaire-phd/feel-the-bern_b_7963688.html)
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So again, RM, while I share your frustration, I'm greatly concerned over BLM's behavior, because nobody can be as stupid as they've been by accident, and  as a child of the sixties, I learned very early in life to never allow myself to be blinded by circumstances. No matter how frustrating and unconscionable the situation, we must always remain vigilant for hyper-ideologues engaged in reckless and unnecessary stupidity.  CointelPro 101.
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The minute I witnessed what BLM did to Al Sharpton and Bernie Sanders I cringed, because it was like "deja vu all over again." It was immediately clear to me that behavior such as that is the primary reason we're still fighting the very same battle 50 years later.
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Both Sharpton and Sanders were on the right page and using the perfect tactic - educating the people and gaining their empathy and support. Then hot-heads professing to be from BLM jumped on stage using exactly the wrong tactic - snatching the mic and shaking their fist at the very people who they should be trying to recruit as allies. They weren't scaring nobody; they just pissed people off - including me, and I'm an old-school revolutionary.
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People are tired of publicity-seeking fist-shakers creating public distractions and wasting our time. Fist-shakers are generally just looking for applause, so they should go somewhere and learn to tap dance and get it legitimately. We're looking for thinkers who can seriously, and effectively, address our problems, not overbearing and obnoxious, "look-at-what-I'm-doing" type entertainers. This situation is much too serious for such self-serving and childish behavior. All they've done is become a distraction. Instead of talking about how Black lives truly do matter, all we're discussing is BLM's childishly disgusting behavior; and instead of promoting the perfect declaration - again, that Black lives matter - whenever thousands of people hear the phrase, the first thing they'll experience is their anger over BLM's silly antics. Our enemies are dead serious, so this is no time to jump on stage auditioning for fame.
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In response you said, "Since the NYPD is using COINTELPRO against BLM, doesn't that make BLM legit? If BLM is COINTELPRO,  did Obama authorize the operation?"
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You're missing the point. When CointelPro is mentioned, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the exact same government-initiated program that it was during the Civil Rights Movement; what I'm suggesting is BLM's attack on Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rev. Sharpton (both allies) struck me as CointelPro-LIKE.  During the sixties Howard Hughes was world famous for being considered one of the riches men on Earth as a result of his $2.5 billion fortune. But today's billionaires could leave that kind of chump-change as a tip. So today the Koch Bros., ALEC, and their billionaire friends can finance programs that not only rival CointelPro, but much more - and they often do.
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In today's world there is no such thing as a group being "legit" or "illegit".  I'm sure that the 99% of the people involved in BLM are perfectly legitimate and their primary concern is protecting Black lives, but how can we prevent the Corporate/GOP Alliance, with all of their vast wealth and resources, from sprinkling illegitimate infiltrators among BLM's ranks to instigate ill-advised - in fact, stupid - behavior that not only sabotages BLM's agenda, but also undermines other progressive activists and/or candidates?  The fact is, we can't. So again, all we can do is remain vigilant for inappropriate behavior and be discrete, but thorough, in monitoring and looking into the background of people who are over-the-top and who suggest such behavior. People like that are either Judas goats, or not level-headed enough to be in positions of responsibility.
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That's why it's so important for the the working class to come together and pool our political resources instead of going our separate ways as single-issue, fanatic-prone, factions. We cannot win this CLASS WAR by trying to fight it as single-issue factions. Black people, at 13% of the population, are going to be crushed trying to fight injustice by themselves. The same is true of union workers, women, gays, or undocumented immigrants, because the Corporate/GOP Alliance is going to use their vast wealth to manipulate us and turn us against one another. They're going to turn Blacks against immigrants, union workers against non-union workers, and Christians against anybody who doesn't look, think, and act like their particular denomination.  In short, we're going to continue to see repeat performances of the way BLM turn on Bernie Sanders while he was TRYING to tell us what we were up against: "Aw man, Get off the stage! We don't want to hear all of that. We want to know what you're going to do about Black injustice!!!" The fact was, he was trying to tell 'em, but the hot-heads among them weren't listening - or thinking. They didn't understand what any mildly competent chess player knows - sometimes you have to address an issue through a circuitous route.
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You see, many people tend to be so blinded by anger over their single issue that they fail to see the big picture. So the Corporate/GOP Alliance will stirrup anger among Black people, and then do the same thing with other factions - women, gays, workers, immigrants, etc - to keep us so focused on, and fighting over, whose single issue is going to be given priority that we're completely oblivious to the fact that they're hard at work cutting ALL of our throats.
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Factional injustice is merely a distraction to keep us angry, frustrated, and divided. The end-game is actually about abolishing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, The Fair Labor Standards Act, etc.  In short, they're trying to lower the standard of living of the American middle class to a level that coincides with third world countries of the new global economy, where many workers make less a week than many middle-class Americans spend on lunch per day.
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Thus, it is absolutely essential that we wake up and stop being so blind and single-issue oriented. Yes, absolutely, we should continue to be aggressive in addressing issues of injustice, but we must organize and address all  matters of  injustice AS A CLASS, and not as a multitude of fractious and undisciplined factions. Currently we're trying to fight a class war against the most insidious domestic enemy in the history of the United States as a multitude of clueless platoons, each headed up by a corporal, and without sufficient resources. The Corporate/GOP Alliance, on the other hand, is a well funded and organized army headed by a four star general - and he has a bird's eye-view of the entire field of battle. That's unacceptable, and it's political suicide.
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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.

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What's Wrong With America - We’ve Turned Our Political ‘Employees’ Into Aristocrats (Reprise)

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

What's Wrong With America - We've Turned Our Political 'Employees' Into Aristocrats 

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I often hear people complaining about how our system has broken down. As a solution they generally propose that we put term limits into place, and/or institute government-financed elections. I’m all for the latter, but I’m totally against term limits because it takes away the citizens’ right to return people to office who represent them well. I’m against any measure that takes away a citizen’s ‘right to choose.’
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But the assertion that the system has broken down begs the question. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the system as it is. WE are the problem, not the system. We are negligently apathetic. Those of us who even bother to vote and keep ourselves informed about what’s going on around us assume that we can simply vote for the politicians we like then go on about our business and allow the politicians to run the country, but that’s not how it’s supposed to work.
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The United States is a huge corporation, we’re the Board of Directors, and politicians are our EMPLOYEES, not our leaders - we’re THEIR leaders, and we’re doing an absolutely horrible job of leading. So again, the system is not the problem, we're simply an incompetent board of directors.
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Instead of staying on top of the day-to-day activities of our corporation as any competent board of directors would do, we’re choosing to remain at home watching BET, MTV, ESPN, and allowing our employees a free hand to run our valuable corporation as they see fit, and as a direct result of our gross negligence, our employees are doing what unsupervised employees are prone to do - taking advantage of the situation by giving themselves undeserved raises and perks, doing favors for family, friends, and favored associates, and generally squandering the corporation's assets.
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So we need to get a handle on this, and we can do just that very easily - and without changing one law. All we have to do is decide that enough is enough, and start firing employees. Corporation's don’t control this government, we do. But the problem is, we’re allowing corporations to control us by using their wealth to influence our thinking. That’s the one and only thing that gives money clout in our political system, it’s being used to influence our thinking. So we’re right back to square one - we’re being manipulated because we’re refusing to educate ourselves and we’re ALLOWING ourselves to be. We are, LITERALLY, allowing snake oil salesmen to come into our homes and convince us that we’re un-American if we don’t buy their snake oil.
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We’ve allowed the Supreme Court to tell us that a non-citizen head of a foreign corporation has as much of a right to the freedom of speech in OUR political system as an American citizen, and we're merely accepting that - and virtually, without even a whimper. That is patently a corrupt and ridiculous ruling. So of course the system is breaking down, because we, as the nation's  board of directors, are being stupidly incompetent and unassertive. 
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Again, even if we were talking about exclusively American corporations, that ruling is corrupt and ridiculous, and we need to be taking aggressive action against it. Because the fact is, the only reason a corporation is a corporation in the first place is so its members can avoid personal responsibility, and liability, for its missteps. So the members of the corporation can’t have it both ways. If a corporation is a person, then EVERY person that is a part of that corporation should be held PERSONALLY responsible if it pollutes half the Eastern seaboard due to an oil spill, or causes an earthquake due to fracking, or causes devastating hurricanes due to heating up our environment. And another thing that makes the ruling ridiculous is EVERY member of a given corporation ALREADY has the freedom of speech as individuals, so by also allowing them to assert their will, or speak, as a corporation, is by definition, giving them more rights than the average American citizen. While we may shout, this conservative Supreme Court has given corporations, including foreign corporations, a megaphone. 

So what can we do to turn this situation around?

In order to turn this situation around, we must, first, educate ourselves and change our mindset. We must make pouring tons of money into a political campaign a liability rather than an asset in our political process. If we see that any politician or political initiative is being backed by a huge political war chest of funds, we should simply assume that the politician is in the pocket of some corporation or entity that’s not working in the best interest of the people, and the same is true of any political initiative.
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If the people would simply tune-in to the fact that corporations are trying to buy the government, then vote any politician out of office who supported them, and thereafter, exact a pound of flesh from the corporations in the next congress for even attempting to manipulate the system, we wouldn’t have to change one law - even Citizens United. That is the way this system is supposed to work, and that would make money meaningless in politics. Thus, we should seek out our political information through research and grassroots sources, because ultimately, education is the key to resolving all of our problems - at least, the systemic ones.
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Secondly, we must bring the political perks and salaries of politicians back into line with the median income of the American middle class. As I continually point out, America is currently knee-deep in a class war. A study done byPrinceton University declares that America is no longer a democracy; it is now an oligarchy, completely controlled by the wealthy, and easily researched facts bear that out. Even since the attached chart was produced the numbers have changed.  Today, the top 10% of the people in this country control 90% of the wealth, while the bottom 90% of Americans only control 10% of the wealth. Once that percentage dwindles down to 5%, and then 2%, we’ll be virtual slaves. As I’ve mentioned before, the only difference between the condition we’re going to find ourselves in and actual slavery is we’ll have to provide our own housing. 
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Yet, we’re paying the people who "represent" us such huge salaries and perks that we’ve elevated them into the class that seeks to enslave us. We’ve got to correct that situation, because our so-call representatives are doing so much better than we are that even if they wanted to, they can no longer identify with us, and many of them no longer even try. So we need to place a ceiling on their salaries and perks not to exceed the median range of the American middle class, and also attach them to a given percentage above the minimum wage.
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And finally, we need to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine in order to curb the flood of demagoguery and disinformation that’s completely overwhelming truth in our political system.
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The Fairness Doctrine provided that if any television or radio station in America broadcasted a purely partisan perspective on a public issue, they had to provide equal time to the opposing point of view. The doctrine’s purpose was first, to keep the American people informed, and secondly, to prevent the demagoguery that we see today on Fox News, and it served its purpose well. It provided endless public debate on every public issue, and that, in turn, served to keep the nation informed of every side of every issue. In addition, a person like Rush Limbaugh couldn’t have existed under the Fairness Doctrine, at least, not without having a liberal sitting right next to him who could challenge every lie he told. But some stations found that too combative, so they simply gave a liberal a show with equal time that immediately followed shows like Rush Limbaugh's. 
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Some suggest that the Freedom of Information Act abridges a network's right to freedom of speech, but I contend that no network should have the right to corrupt the system with lies.  That's akin to shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater - or worse, because we're not simply talking about bringing possible harm to a room full of people, we're talking about bringing DEMONSTRATED harm to an entire nation.
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But conservatives found that when the people were informed of the facts, the conservative point of view always fell short. That’s why it became so important to them to abolish the doctrine, so they could spew their lies and propaganda with impunity - and that’s exactly what came to pass. Immediately after Ronald Reagan abolished the doctrine, conservative-leaning corporations began to buy up most of the media outlets across the country, effectively shutting out the liberal perspective from the American people. That monopoly, and the ability to corrupt public discourse, must be brought to an end.
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So the only thing left to discuss at this point is how are we going to get politicians to conform to our wishes. That one’s easy - we vote ‘em out of office if they don’t. 
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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.

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