THE CLUELESS DR. W. GABRIEL SELASSIE

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

THE CLUELESS DR. W. GABRIEL SELASSIE

DR. W. GABRIEL SELASSIE

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W Gabriel Selassie I:

December 14 at 9:12am ·
Them: Michelle Obama for President.
Me: What qualifies her other than sleeping with a President?
Them: You ignorant. Stop being fake Black Person. You think you so smart, but you dumb.
Me: Please tell me what she has done that qualifies her to be President.
Them: "silence"
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THE HEAVY PRICE OF ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM
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Dr. Selassie, you recently posted a comment to one of my posts where I suggested that Michelle Obama be drafted for president.  In your post, you said, “I don’t vote for people based on who they slept with. Tell MO to go get a day job.”  Then you went on to ask, what qualifies Michelle Obama to be president? You said, “Tell me what MO has done concretely that qualifies her to be President of the United States?”
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That was THE most uninformed, sexist, and bigoted comment that I’ve heard coming from any Black man since I’ve been posting to the internet, and I’ve been posting to the net since it was called a bulletin board. What makes you assume that Michelle’s only significance as a human being is the fact that she slept with Barack Obama, because she’s a woman?  So, once again, Selassie, you've managed to shock me beyond belief with one of your blindly bigoted, and recklessly unwarranted assumptions. The last time I heard anything even approaching your level of cluelessness was in 2008 when Hillary Clinton betrayed a similar kind of condescension against Barack Obama.
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In her 2008 run against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said, “He’s [John McCain] never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002." In other words, what kind of life experience could an ignorant coon possibly have that would qualify him to be President of the United States?  That's exactly the kind of attitude you're bringing to the table with respect to Michelle Obama. The irony of the Hillary Clinton episode was, in the end, it turned out that it was Hillary herself, with all of her "lifetime of experience," that ended up being the only smudge on President Obama's record after eight years in office. But in spite of that glaring irony, I'll respond to your question anyway, because you're obviously in dire need of an education.
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Michelle LaVaughn Robinson-Obama attended Princeton University and graduated cum laude in 1985. She then went on to earn a degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. Thereafter, she went to work for the Chicago office of the Sidley Austin law firm, where she met Barack Obama and was assigned as his mentor. She also worked as an assistant to Mayor Richard Daley, and later as the Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development for the city of Chicago. So based on just those qualifications alone, even then - before she became First Lady - Michelle was twice as qualified to be President of the United States as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was only self-taught as a lawyer, while Michelle Obama graduated from both Princeton and Harvard. In addition, she didn't just sleep with the president, she was his mentor - she was responsible for SCHOOLING him right after he graduated from law school.  And another thing, she’s certainly more qualified than either George W. Bush, or, Donald Trump. Charles Ogletree, a Harvard professor who taught both Michelle and Barack Obama, said recently of Barack, "you know his wife should have been president, absolutely." So tell me, Selassie, what in your eyes makes Michelle any less qualified than any one of these gentlemen, the fact that she’s a woman, or because she’s a Black woman?
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Your comment clearly demonstrates that your perception is based more on Michelle Obama's race and/or gender than the facts, and there's a phrase for people who go around recklessly spewing such flawed and unwarranted assumptions as you've done here - the phrase is "narrow-minded bigot," whether you're cognizant of your bigotry or not.  It's not as though you initially asked whether or not Michelle was qualified, you simply made the assumption that she wasn't, just like Hillary Clinton did in the case of Barack Obama - and by the way, you can't be trained to become President of the United States, you simply have to have the knowledge and intelligence to learn on the job as you go along, and Michelle has more than proven that she has everything it takes in that regard, and more.  Look at what we currently have in the White House - a man who is both unqualified, and untrainable, because he has an inability to grasp complex ideas, and has the attention span of a tick.  Yet, you question the fact that this highly educated Black woman could do his job.  That's unbelievable.
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BLACK WOMEN HAVE BECOME THE MOST EDUCATED GROUP IN THE UNITED STATES | The Independent
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Black women are now the most educated group in the US, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Between 2009 and 2010, black women earned 68 percent of associate's degrees, 66 percent of bachelor's degrees, 71 percent of master's degrees and 65 percent of all doctorates awarded to black students.

www.independent.co.uk › News › World › Americas Jun 3, 2016
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 And in another thoughtless comment, you said, “I am not sure if Black people were ever behind neoliberalism. Can you explain?”
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That’s yet another ridiculous statement.  It was Black people who got behind Hillary Clinton to get her the Democratic nomination during the 2016 primaries, and it was also Black people who were running around calling Bill Clinton “Our first Black president” - even as he was creating the Prison/Industrial complex which ended up negatively impacting the lives of more Black people than there were slaves in all of America in 1850 - and the Clintons virtually INVENTED neoliberalism.  So how can you say Black people weren’t behind neoliberalism?  Most Black people are into personality politics rather than movements, so they're into whatever their favorite politician is into, a flaw in our thinking that we're going to have to correct, because the Clintons were the very face of neoliberalism due to their closet conservatism.  The fact is, I’m still fighting many Black people over their mindlessly unwarranted love of the Clintons for that very reason:

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A MESSAGE TO HILLARY CLINTON CULTISTS

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Whenever Clinton cultists try to point their finger at those of us who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton it makes me want to throw up. They shouldn’t point their finger at those of us who refused to vote for this woman, but look to themselves for being so delusional that they thought they could force the most hated and distrusted Democratic nominee since the Civil War down the people’s throat.
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The Democrats didn’t lose to Trump on election night, Trump became the President-Elect during the Democratic primaries due to the unrealistic, short-sighted, and uninformed stupidity of Clinton cultists during the Democratic primaries. They didn’t have sense enough to realize that trying to force America to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was like trying to force INFORMED Americans to choose between cyanide and strychnine. In addition, they failed to realize that conservatives who claimed not to like Trump, secretly loved everything he stood for, so when they went into the voting booth, they secretly voted for him.
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On the other hand, trying to get INFORMED progressives to vote for Hillary Clinton - who, again, was the most lying, distrusted, and hated Democratic nominee since the Civil War - they were asking progressives who were much more informed than themselves to vote for David Duke, since the Clintons have done a hundred times more damage to the American middle class, minorities, and the Black community than the Klan has ever done. So they need to put that dumb-ass bullshit to rest. We have Trump as a direct result of Clinton cultists’ closed-minded lying, deceit, corruption, and uninformed determination to shove Hillary Clinton down America’s throat in spite of the fact that we said we didn’t want her.
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The Clintons walk like liberals and talk like liberals but they always seem to leave conservative policies in their wake. They've been more successful in promoting the conservative agenda and destroying the American middle-class way of life than any administration in American history, including Ronald Reagan's. They're responsible for NAFTA, which allowed $20 an hour jobs to be sent out of the country to be performed by people who make less per week than many upper-middle-class Americans spent on lunch per day, and they gutted Glass-Steagall (which President Roosevelt put into place to prevent Wall Street greed from plunging the nation into a second Great Depression), which led directly to the 2008 Wall Street crash. Clinton also abolished the Fairness Doctrine (no, it wasn't Reagan as many people think. Reagan simply prevented it from being elevated from a regulation to a law, but Clinton abolished it outright). That led to the creation of the corporate media culture and propaganda machines like Fox News that were then allowed to spew conservative propaganda and disinformation with impunity.
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Clinton's "Welfare Reform" led to the undue suffering of millions of poor Americans. And then, after colluding with Ronald Reagan to flood the Black community with crack cocaine while governor of Arkansas, after becoming president - even as Black people were running around calling him our “first Black president” - Clinton signed the most draconian crime bill in United States history to incarcerate on a massive scale the very victims of the crime that HE committed, just to prove to Republicans that he wasn’t “soft on coons” - and he actually paid states EXTRA to give those victims longer sentences. And again, as a direct result, today there are more Black people under the control of the prison/industrial complex than were enslaved in all of America in 1850, a decade prior to the Civil War, and that very same prison industrial complex became one of Hillary Clinton's largest and most prolific political contributors.
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Thus, as a direct result of Clinton’s unconscionable actions, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Black people have been completely destroyed - and it’s still having a negative impact on Black people today. There's currently a huge part of an entire generation of young Black people who don't know anything about their culture, and don't really know what it means to be Black, because the people who were responsible for teaching them were either dead, in prison, or mentally disabled by the effects of crack cocaine. As a result, instead of developing their potential and preparing for the future, many of these young people, who were literally raised by the corporate media, has been conditioned to believe that their role in life is to be criminals, drug addicts, and at the very bottom of society. In addition, they're being mesmerized by the media by being fed a constant diet of music that celebrates drug use, killing one another, and referring to the very womb of their culture as "bitches and hoes." So their fate is all but sealed. And worse, they're unfit parents for the generation that's coming up.
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So if a new election were being held tomorrow and my vote alone would determine the outcome, I'd still vote against Hillary, Trump, or noTrump. It’s much easier to fight a bloviating idiot than it is the insidious treachery of a Hillary Clinton, because she's more subtle, and not in your face. We have the entire country up-in-arms against Trump, but with Hillary it would have been business as usual, because she would cut our throats with a scapel instead of a hacksaw.
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"New Democrats, also called Centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or Moderate Democrats, are a relatively centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. Describing themselves as "centrist", they are an economically moderate to conservative and "Third Way" faction which dominated the party for around 20 years, starting in the late 1980s after the US electorate turned to the political right. They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition."
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New Democrats - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democrats
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So Dr. Selassie, if you profess to be an educator, you really should bone up on what’s going on around you, or at the very least, put more thought into what you say before you say it.  Because, again, the comments you’ve made above are absolutely ridiculous, and as a so-called educator, you’re not only embarrassing yourself, but you’re embarrassing the Black community as a whole. Many in this White supremacist society already think we’re ignorant, so please don’t add to that perception, because as we should be able to see, such perceptions are deadly. We can't out-scream 'em, because they control the media, and we can't outfight 'em, because they control the military and police, so our only alternative is to out-think 'em.  That's where our educators should come in, but you're absolutely worthless until you train yourself to think efficiently, and I'm not seeing that here. What I see is a lot of very sloppy thinking.
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So I’m keeping a list of some of the more outrageous comments being made by politicians, ministers, and so-called Black intellectuals for a book on “THE PRICE OF ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM,” and I can see now that you're gonna be featured quite prominently, because it's very important for the Black community to understand that the primary reason that Black people can’t find justice is because we aren’t respected, and the reason we’re not respected is because far too few of us are using our creativity and powerful intellect for anything other than singin’, dancin’, and running with a ball.
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Due to a system filled with shallow-minded, uninspired, and tribalist educators, our educational institutions are conferring advanced degrees upon people who are actually moderately educated 9th graders who fail to understand that no one can educate you. You must educate yourself. For that reason Black people can't afford to just think as a hobby, we must make thinking a way of life.
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But unfortunately, many of us in the Black community would rather be seen as cool, than knowledgeable - we're not as interested in actually seeking knowledge as we are wearing the robe across the stage to get a receipt from the White man attesting to the fact that we've been through his brainwashing  academy- and we’re paying a heavy price for that.
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So do the Black community a favor - if you choose to be an educator, dedicate yourself to being a real educator. Don't just stand before a class and regurgitate the words of dead White men, teach students to think for themselves; and don't just collect a check for keeping our young people ignorant and uninspired, teach them to be careful, thoughtful, and creative thinkers.  If you're not doing those things, regardless of what you're being paid for, you're not an educator, you're a fraud - just another Cornel West, with his "prophetic tradition" and advanced degrees in talkin' snakes. 
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"The Prophetic tradition?" That's laughable. Prophecy and all other unfounded beliefs are the very antithesis of knowledge. It translates into Voodoo. Truly learned individuals believe in efficient thought, not prophecy or any other unfounded beliefs, and what seems to be your trove of unexamined assumptions fall right into that category.  Instead of examining the facts, you indulged your sexist and/or racist mindset to simply assume that Michelle Obama doesn't possess the wherewithal to be  President of the United States.  But if you were truly a man of knowledge and wisdom (putting your PhD, receipts, and all other accoutrements of alleged knowledge aside for the moment), immediately after making such a baseless assumption, your very next thought should have been, "What evidence do I have of that?" That, in turn, would have led to your doing at least a minimal amount of research, which would have helped to inform you, and it would have prevented you from making a public fool of yourself.
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You once told me that you didn't answer one of my questions because since I didn't have a PhD in psychology you thought it would be a waste of time.  But as I told you on that occasion, Socrates was a mere stonemason, yet, by many, he's considered the father of modern thought, and he educated some the greatest minds of his time, including Plato. So you should never confuse education with intelligence.  While I haven't been anointed by the White man with one of his PhDs, nevertheless, I'm something of an educator myself, so I sincerely hope you have the innate intelligence to embrace the following axiom: Arrogance betrays itself. If you possess the kind of brilliance that warrants arrogance, you should also possess enough wisdom to avoid it.
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And let me leave you with this bit of knowledge.  It involves two very simple concepts. First, never rely on a receipt from the White man to attest to your intellect. That's a form of worship, because you can't worship a document without worshipping the man who conferred it upon you. Your PhD has absolutely no value unless you assume that the man who conferred it upon you is superior to yourself.  Thus, you're relying on the fact that the man who conferred your receipt upon you is not an idiot himself. There are enough advanced degrees in congress to be used as toilet paper, yet congress is undoubtedly among the most dysfunctional institutions in America. Think about that. It speaks volumes regarding the relative value of credentials as opposed to intellect.
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And second, always make sure you know what the hell you're talking about before you start shootin' off your mouth.  That'll prevent you from embarrassing yourself in the future. Always avoid the tendency to jump on your high horse, because it's inevitable that you're going to come across people capable of dragging you off of it. Instead, you should always think of yourself as a student of knowledge, intent on sharing what you've learned with your peers, because in the final analysis, that's what we all are - students.

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CORNEL (THE PROPHET) WEST ON THE VERY MORNING THAT BARACK OBAMA ANNOUNCED HIS CANDIDACY

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THE VERY SAME CORNEL WEST SUCKIN' UP - AND LEAVING MESSAGES AND PRAYERS
OVER THE PHONE - AFTER OBAMA WON 

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NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

AND FORMER OBAMA CRITIC

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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Religious Hatred and Bigotry: Would A Loving God Do This To Us?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Religious Hatred and Bigotry: Would A Loving God Do This To Us?

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In God We Trust.  REALLY!!!?

Many people who profess to be “of faith” are involved in religion for the wrong reasons. They're not about love; they're about hating everybody who don't think exactly like they do. They use religion to justify their bigotry, as a "God-approved" reason to hate everybody who's not on "their team," or who is different from themselves.
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In fact, religion FUELS every other form of bigotry there is. If you look at ANY form of bigotry, you’ll find religion at its root. As we saw in Paris, France, ORGANIZED religion is the most prolific instigator of hatred in the world. Just think about the irony of a military Chaplain - “Dear Lord, please help us to kill more of them than they do of us. Amen.”
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Would God bestow such a malevolent force of hatred upon man.  I don't think so. When God created human beings, we weren't created to require either a "User's Guide," soothsayers, or other "anointed" men to tell us how to conduct our lives. We were given individual intellect and a conscience to help us navigate our way through life.  As I've pointed out many times before, when my neighbor is at work and his beautiful young wife comes out in the yard and flashes her beautiful smile in my direction, I don't need a book or a preacher to tell me what's appropriate conduct and what's not. The minute my mind goes astray I can hear God's voice - "Now, Eric, you know what you're thinking is not right, so just wave, go in the house, and take a cold shower." And in response, I do just that - problem solved.
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And if you look at nature, even a dog will look over his shoulder before he steals a chicken wing off a table. So even he has a sense of right and wrong. In addition, Whales and other aquatic animals have an innate sense of when to migrate to other waters and where to go to spawn. And migratory birds don't need a calendar and compass to know when to fly South, and in which direction it lies. It was built into their DNA. The same is true of man.

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Man was created with an innate sense of spirituality, and a knowledge of how he should live his life. The problem is, man is in transition. We were created to grow into much more enlightened beings, but at this point in our development the animalistic emotions triggered by our still very active brain stem are in direct conflict with our higher cognitive sense of self and the world around us. As a result, instead of using our growing cognition to seek enlightenment, many of us direct our intellectual energy toward satisfying our more basic, and animalistic needs, or the seven deadly sins - Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony.
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That's where organized religion comes in. It reflects man's attempt to control the minds of other men in order to more efficiently pursue his baser needs. They promote wrath among their fellow men through the use of creed in order to promote their greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. And while I don't intend to become blatantly political here, I'd be remiss by not pointing out that every one of those "deadly sins" are uniquely characterized by the Religious Right and the GOP - especially wrath, greed, and gluttony.
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But of course, not all people of faith are bad. I know wonderful people of many faiths, but they're generally the ones who are more spiritual than dogmatic. But many of these Bible-thumpin’, Amen-Corner kind of people better HOPE that Hell’s a myth, however, because if it’s real, God’s going to be dumpin’ them in there by the church-loads.
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If God intended to hand down religion to guide us, wouldn't he have sense enough to just create ONE religion so his word would be clear and we wouldn't have anything to fight over? Religious organizations were organized by man for the expressed purpose of saying, "We’re Godly, and we’re God’s chosen people. Everyone who's different from us and who don’t adhere to our creed are heathens. They're not of God. They're evil, so we have God's permission to destroy them." It's that attitude that is the source of the world’s hatred and animosity.
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A loving God wouldn't put anything that caused that kind of hatred and division on Earth. It would contradict his purpose, and God's not stupid. He'd know that creating more than one religion would be in direct opposition to the Biblical prescription to "Love thy neighbor." Just imagine what the world would be like if there was no such thing as Christians, Muslims, or Jews, and if all the people of faith in the world were simply spiritual and embraced the wonder of creation. The world would be a much better place, because it would simply be broken down into good people as oppose to bad people, and there would be no creeds for the demagogues to use to divide us. Now, THAT, would be the work of God.   
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So if Americans truly believed in the Bible, they would demonstrate that fact by reading and adhering to ALL of the Bible, and not just those parts that they find convenient. But it's clear that just about every church in America has missed the part below. If they followed the scripture below, there'd be no screaming and begging preachers, and there'd be no Bible-thumping  hypocrites - in fact, there wouldn't be a such thing as ORGANIZED religion, because everybody would simply be spiritual. But don't take my word for it. After all, as many preachers would no doubt say, I could be "working for the Devil."  But here's what the Bible says, in clear, and unequivocal prose:

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."
Matthew 6:1-34
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Is that clear enough?  So who are you going to believe, your silver-tongued, big car driving pastor, or the Bible?
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God, Creation, And Man

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So does God even exist? Yes, and I can prove it. God is whatever force is responsible for what we define as reality. So if reality exists, God must exists. That definition changes the discussion of whether or not God exists, to one of defining the nature of his existence (I'm simply using "his" as a convenient chauvinistic pronoun to avoid having to struggle with the question of whether God is a male, female, or simply an it). But I don’t believe that God is directly interacting with man, or anything else in the universe that he created. For me, God, Nature, and the Universe are one and the same, so everything in the universe, including man, is a part of God, and we can only know his will by his nature, and what he has done.
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What Does This Have To Do With God?

Thus, what "people of faith" call "faith," is not a faith in God at all, it's a faith in what another man has TOLD them about God, so it's actually a faith in man. What most people have "faith" in is merely a parochial accident of birth. The very same person who has "faith" in Christianity in Georgia, would have "faith" in Islam if he'd been born in Iran, or "faith" in Judaism if he'd been born in Israel. In short, we have "faith" in what we were taught, not God.  God is simply what we use to JUSTIFY our "faith."
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God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to THINK, not to have "faith" in the contrived delusions of other self-serving and/or superstitious men. Every other species on Earth has sense enough to adhere to their nature but man, and if you'll notice, man is also one of the few species who can't live in harmony within his environment. In fact, our idiocy threatens to destroy ALL life on this planet.
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Man is on a huge ego trip. There are over 200 billion stars in just this speck of a galaxy, and even though it is a speck in terms of the universe, you'd have to travel 186,000 miles every second for four and a half YEARS just to get to the next closest star in our galaxy - and again, there are over 200 billion of them, and there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies just like ours in the universe. So believe me - God is not as fixated on man as man would like to believe. In cosmic terms of significance, man is not even one thousandth as significant as one grain of sand on all of the beaches on Earth and beneath the sea.
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Thus, it is only man’s arrogance and tremendous ego that makes him think that God is more concerned about him than he is anything else he created in the universe? Consider this - did he send his "Only begotten flea" to save all the fleas in the world? If not, why not? What makes man think he’s more important than anything else that God created?
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Another thing that betrays man's gross arrogance is our belief that we’re so important that God is going to jump through hoops to gain our favor. God’s not stupid. He's no more going to do magic tricks and jump through hoops to get man to worship him than any man would tap dance and do headstands to get the germs under his toilet seat to worship him. Yet, countless men, women, and children are dying every year in the ridiculous conviction by many that they’re acting on God’s behalf.
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When I was a young kid, I would be walking into trees because I had my eyes closed praying that God wouldn't condemn me to Hell for the common sense - that he gave me - that kept popping up in my head. As much as I wanted to be "a child of God," I just couldn't get myself to believe in talkin' snakes - and I wasn't a big enough hypocrite to try to lie to him about it. So I had a problem. My religious training had me CONVINCED that I was doomed to go to Hell because I couldn't bring myself to believe in that nonsense. But at about the age of ten I said a simple prayer that freed me of that burden: "Lord, Please give me the wisdom to know the truth, and give me the strength and determination to carry it through."  It was a childish prayer, and not very eloquent, but it did the trick. That was one prayer that God definitely answered, because when I opened my eyes, I was free of preachers. It freed me to think for myself, and while you'll never see me in church, I still say that prayer every night . . . if I haven't drank too much gin.  So yeah, I'm flawed, but I'm sure God knows my heart is in the right place, and that's what counts. 
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And finally, before you write me off as an agent of the Devil, you should ask yourself the following - when was the last time that Satan sent a message to mankind to stop killing each other?  And if God indeed "works in mysterious ways," how do you know it wasn't God's will for you to read this message?  And the basic message is short and sweet - we need to wake up, rein in our egos, and come to terms with our gross stupidity regarding God.

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Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
John 8:32
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THE BLIND FAITH OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF GOD

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-blind-faith-of-organized-religion.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.

Sphere: Related Content

THE BLIND FAITH OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF GOD

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

THE BLIND FAITH OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF GOD

If God knows all, and he knows a billion years before Billy is born that Billy is going to end up in Hell, is there anything Billy can do in life to make God wrong?

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The above question is designed to point out two things - first, it points out that much of the religious doctrine that we’ve been taught is a myth that can’t stand up to logical examination. Secondly, I intend to argue that we can only know God’s will by what God has done - and what he has clearly done, was made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, not to rely on a "user's guide" to inform our lives.

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Irrefutable evidence of that is the fact that when God placed man on Earth, he placed us here as necked apes. We weren’t as strong as the elephant, as ferocious as the lion, nor could we fly above danger like the eagle. So the cards were stacked against our ultimate survival - except for one thing. God provided man with a unique tool for survival - the human mind.
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Now, as a direct result of the effective use of that resource, we have built machines that can crush any elephant, slaughter the most ferocious lion, and fly far beyond the domain of the most dedicated eagle - in fact, we’ve now soared beyond the clouds, and on to explore other worlds.
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That's a powerful indicator of God’s will. It clearly demonstrates that God intended man to be a logical, thinking, being. On the other hand, God has done absolutely nothing to suggest that he intended to relegate mankind to being ignorant and superstitious victims, cowering in fear of the unknown, and obliged to be reliant upon "faith" in the words of "anointed" others to guide our existence. That’s not God’s will; that's man’s will. So the fact is, having more "faith" in what man tells us about God than we have in what God has actually done, is a slap in the face of God himself. Because the bottom line is, that's not faith in God; that's faith in man.
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THE INQUISITION WHEEL

That explains why we're living in a constant state of anger, hatred, and turmoil. We’re living against God’s will. Our attempt to survive on faith rather than the logic and intellect that is our God-given nature is as contrary to the natural scheme of things as a bird who refuses to fly, or a fish who refuses to swim - and the chances of our ultimate survival under the current circumstances are just as slim.
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So while I don't have a problem with the church, per se, I do have a severe problem with blind faith. Therefore, I asked the above question regarding Billy’s ultimate fate in order to demonstrate that, for the most part, religion is not only based on superstition rather than the sound logic and common sense upon which God blessed mankind, but it’s own dogma is self-contradictory. It is also my intent to argue that the only reason that many of us believe what we believe is because we choose to believe it, regardless to whether it makes sense or not - and since what we choose to believe is both toxic and intrinsically hostile to harmonious existence, it has led to man's plague of seemingly intractable problems.
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The primary problem is, instead of adhering to our nature - to be logical and independent thinkers - we insist on worshiping totem poles. And instead of being practical in addressing the issues that plague mankind, we remain fixated on meaningless dogma, superficialities, and rituals. In short, we’re being stupid, and stupidity has nothing to do with God. Our gross stupidity only serves to promote one purpose - the needs of greedy, evil, and power-hungry men.
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Do I believe in God? Yes I do, but that doesn’t mean that I believe in Voodoo, talking snakes, and walking dead men. For me, God is whatever force that is responsible for the existence of the universe - or to be more precise, existence itself. So I can see my God, since, from my point of view, God, Nature, and the Universe are synonymous.
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Thus, God is not a speculative concept for me. If "I think, therefore, I am;" I am, therefore, God is. For there cannot be creation without a creative force, and whatever that force is, as far as I'm concerned, it constitutes God. Thus, the question is not whether or not God exists, but rather, what is the nature of God's existence?
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So by giving my own God-given ability to think priority over faith, with respect to my personal beliefs, that frees me from having to be reliant upon the words, and fees, of so-called "anointed" men. It also gives me a leg up on atheists, because while atheists take the position that those of us who believe in God have no evidence to show that God exists, my position is, the existence of the universe gives me concrete evidence of God's existence, while they're left with mere opinion, and even that - the proposition that something came from nothing - strains conventional logic.
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The biggest problem that I have with organized religion, however, has nothing to do with the existence of God. My problem with religion begins and ends with the blatant manipulation of mankind in the name of God. The greed, self-service, and shameless hypocrisy of man have turned what should be a spiritual experience into something that’s ugly, divisive, and malevolent - and all of that starts with the concept of blind "faith."
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Man has a vested interest in controlling other men, so he uses the concept of faith to coerce the masses into accepting man himself as the spokesman for God. He does that by laying out written tablets, then convincing the masses that these tablets represent the "word of God." He then goes on to convince them that God has appointed him to ensure that "God’s word" is followed to the letter, and any deviation from the word of God, or even a second’s doubt that the book - in this case, the Bible - indeed, represents the word of God, is an act heresy, which will result in the most hideous punishment known to man - and, it will endure throughout eternity. Once demagogues got the masses to accept that, they literally took control of your minds. So for all intent and purpose, they became your God.
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It is precisely because of this ploy that we often hear people using the Bible as a metaphor for God. They don’t ask, "Do you believe in God?" They ask, "Do you believe in the Bible?" Their question implies that it goes without saying that the Bible is the word of God. That’s what allows the social manipulators to come in with the Bible under their arm and set themselves up as the spokesmen for God. That’s also why so many preachers are driving around in big cars - because the people think that by making the preacher rich, they’re gaining favor with the Supreme Being. It’s the biggest scam on the face of the Earth.
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What a great racket, this organized religion game - and the people never stop to think for a minute that the "faith" that they embrace so intently, is not a faith in God at all. Their putting their faith in man, and what corrupt men are telling them about God. And since the people have been taught, literally from birth, that questioning what they’re being told by these "God-anointed" men is an assault on God himself, these charlatans, and their scam, are completely insulated from the ravages of a sudden plague of common sense.
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So, carefully consider the question that I posed above, for it pits the common sense that God gave us against the contrived nonsense that man would have us believe. It both, points out a major flaw in the dogma that’s being forced down the people’s throats, and it clearly demonstrates that many of us can no more substantiate the validity of what we choose to believe than a child can substantiate the existence of Santa Claus.
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Our belief system has absolutely nothing to do with either morality, or, our love of God. We believe what we believe for one of two reasons - since organized religion never fails to support the status quo, if you’re a part of the ruling class, it rigs the system in your behalf, and if you’re of the subordinate class, you’re afraid not to believe it, so it doesn’t matter whether it’s factually valid or not.
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In addition, one of the first things we learn as we’re being indoctrinated as children is how to avoid the reality of common sense. In order to insulate religion from our common sense seeping through to suggest that snakes can’t talk, and that dead men don’t just get up and walk away, we’ve been taught that any flash of insight isn’t common sense at all. It's evil. It’s actually the Bogeyman whispering in our ear, trying to steal us away from God. Thus, we've literally been threatened not to acknowledge the common sense that God bestowed upon us.
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So instead of giving truth priority over ideology, we learn early in life to distort truth in order to make it conform to what we want to believe. That, in turn, is what makes it much easier to indulge in hatred, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and endless wars. Thus, instead of being a part of the solution, organized religion is invariably one of man's biggest problems.
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It’s no accident that the Klan originated in the Bible Belt and the most religious parts of the world are also the most brutally intolerant. Religion is THE most morally efficient form of segregation. It allows one to validate one's self as part of a special order of human being - or, one of  God's "chosen people" - while invalidating others as flawed. Thus, every since it's inception, religion has served as a God-approved justification for hating our fellow man - or at the very least, looking down upon them. It allows us to say, "it’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me - it’s just that God does." 

The Conversion
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"Come here nigga and let me teach yo crazy, animal ass about the Lord. The first thing you got to learn is to Love thy Neighbor . . . especially me."
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"Yes sir, Massa. Why would anybody not love you, Sir? You so good to me, Massa. Anybody don't love you needs to have dey ass beat real good, Massa."
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"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
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"Listen, you been blessed already, and you don't even know the Lord. The Lord made it where you don't have to worry 'bout a thing. I feed you, I put clothes on yo nasty ass, and I give you a shed to sleep in, and all you have to do is whatever the hell I tell you to. Do you know how blessed you are?"
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"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
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"Now, listen real good 'cause dis impotant. God said, thou shalt not steal from me, thou shalt not kill (unless I tell you to), thou shalt not stick another coon's wife (unless we tryin' to make some mo niggas), and nigga, whatever you do, thou shalt not even look like you want to stick a white woman, or we gon lynch yo black ass. You here me, nigga?"
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"Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
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"Dat means people, fool - real people! Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place.".
"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart."
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"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
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"The next thing you got to learn is, whatever happens on this plantation is God's will bein' done. And if you listen to me, you'll get to live like I do when you die and go to Heaven."
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"Live like you, massa? A nigga ain't got no business livin' dat good. What a Po nigga like me gon do with all this? You know I ain't got sense enough to run nothin' like this."
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"Just shut up, nigga!" When you dead you gon get some sense - the lord gon give it to you. The Lord can do anything, even give sense to a nigga. And he gon give you all the other niggas you gon need to help you in the fields, too."
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"Massa, you so good to me! Thank you for tellin' me all dis. I'm gon be a good nigga - the best nigga you ever seened. Look, I'm gon pray for you right now, and thank the Lord for givin' me so good a massa."
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"Shut up and get up off your knees, ya dumb nigga! The fields need tendin'! You pray to the Lord on your own time. God don't won't you talkin' to him when you s'pose to be workin'."
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"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
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"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
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"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
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"Now get yo ass out there in that field and let's get some work done around here . . . Oh, and Toby, have yo woman meet me in the barn. I need to tell her 'bout the Lord too."
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"Yes sir, Massa."
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"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
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"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
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"Just shut up, nigga, and do what I said! And tell Lou Ann to wear that pretty dress I like, cause we gon be talkin' 'bout the Lord, so it's gon be like chuch."
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"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . . "Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."
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Thus, many of man’s most severe problems will continue to be intractable until we learn to use our intellect - that quality that makes us most human - instead of caving in to our emotions - which coincide with our most primordial and animalistic nature. Unfortunately, too few of us are prepared to recognize that fact. Instead, we insist on whining about how poor we are, even as we continue to buy preachers big cars and lavish homes.
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Well, here’s a message from God (common sense) to the Black community, and America as a whole - You will never be free, as long as you continue to allow your minds to be enslaved.
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Amen.

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

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

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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over

BENEATH THE SPIN * ERIC L. WATTREE

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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over

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While I clearly understand that I'm at severe risk of beating a dead horse, I'm still being emailed by a few diehard Cornel West supporters who have been so captivated by his performances over the years that they can't see why he's under such intense criticism. So for their benefit, I thought I'd take the time to do the Mr. Rogers version of current events:

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The first thing that needs to be made clear is that the current uproar is not in reprisal to West's criticism of President Obama. Every politician bears watching, and that includes Obama. The firestorm against Dr. West was ignited by two factors.  First, many resent the totally disrespectful and hypocritical tone of his criticism. The implication seemed to have been,  "Who does that jigaboo think he is?" And secondly, other critics took offense at the blatantly transparent and self-serving motivation behind West's remarks.
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Carnel West, along with his buddy, Tavis Smiley, have been using the umbrella approach in criticizing President Obama. Instead of criticizing specific policies when needed, they've been attaking his overall character, and thereby, his fitness to be president as a whole. It must also be understood that long before Obama even became president, Smiley and West suggested that the Black community ask him "how much do you love your people," suggesting, thereby, that he didn't.

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They've been at this since the day Obama made the mistake of announcing his candidacy for president on the same day that Tavis threw his annual State of the Black Union soirée. In their eyes, what the impudent young Senator Obama did was unforgivable. You see, he engaged in a serious breach of protocol. He was supposed to come kiss Tavis' ring, and get Tavis' blessing as the self-appointed grand potentate of the Black community before he presumed to run for President. How dare he embark on such an ambitious endeavor without paying homage to the Grand Poobah?  So of course, he had to pay a price for these serious breaches of protocol, and President Obama has been under the gun of these two self-appointed icons of the Black community every since.

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So who are these two iconic giants of the Blackness who see themselves as so important that they can dictate policy to the President of the United States?
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Tavis Smiley is a television dicjockey with a genius for self-promotion.  He specializes in promoting corporate influence in the Black community in exchange for corporate sponsored tours to promote his books on political accountability.
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Dr. Cornel West is a self-described "Socratic scholar" with a doctorate that embraces the proposition that Moses parted the Red Sea. He's also renowned for trying to be the coolest person in the room, and taking a long time not to say much. He specializes in telling anyone who will listen, or who happens to have a camera, a mic and an extension cord on hand, about his deep disdain for the oligarchs and corporate plutocrats.  He also has a fondness for the syncopated rhythms of multi syllabic words - he thinks it makes him sound like King Pleasure, so it enhances his street creds. They also serve to mask the vacuous content of his message.
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So these two impressive personages have now come together as best friends.  They co-host a radio show together, and have declared themselves the self-proclaimed, and hip hop inspired, saviors of the poor, middle class, and minorities. They're sorta like the Dynamic Duo of the hood, or Mutt and Jeff, as it were.

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But there's only one chink in their armor (and as you know, all superheroes have a chink - Superman's was Kryptonite). While Tavis is suppose to be fighting for accountability, and Cornel is suppose to be protecting us from the oligarchs and plutocrats, they're both irretrievably wedded to the very same people they're suppose to be protecting us from.  So they're like Batman and Robin with a crack habit. You see, Tavis is one of the most pronounced corporate shills in the Black community.  He has a tremendous jones for Walmart, Nationwide Insurance, and various other corporate entities.

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Do you really believe that Nationwide is on the side of the Black community, or the poor, or the middle class?  Somehow, I don't think so. So these two superheroes have about as much credibility as a man ranting in the street against fascism after just having lunch with Mussolini.

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There's a photo on my site of West suckin' up to Obama after the election - and this, after he and Tavis had been doggin' Obama all during the campaign. I haven't seen that kind of skinnin'-n- grinnin' since they took Amos n' Andy off the air. But the look that Obama is giving West says it all. It speaks volumes, and clearly shows that Obama has had West's number for some time. So one has to wonder how West could even have expected tickets to the inaugural or returned phone calls when he'd been jumping back and forth over the fence depending on which way the wind was blowing.

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But I want to make it clear to all those people who think that West should be given a pass in the name of brotherly love, that it is not my intention to be vindictive. While I'm undoubtedly engaging in ridicule, it's not to be mean-spirited. As I see it, we shouldn't waste this disgusting moment in history without benefitting from it in some way.  So I see this as a teaching moment.  This is our opportunity to show our young people the importance of independent thought.  I also see it as an opportunity to demonstrate to all would-be opportunists among us that's it's no longer acceptable to try to demagogue the Black community. That gig has gone the way of the wagon train mechanic.

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In addition, we should all use this moment as a lesson in why we should never take society's symbols and the accoutrements of knowledge and power at face value. We also need to recognize that we should never give anyone's character or ability to think priority over our own. Once we learn those lessons we'll render ourselves much less vulnerable to political manipulation. 
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We should walk away from this moment with the clear understanding that Just because a person has letters behind their name, teach at a prestigious university, favor a garbled multi syllabic tongue, or host a television show, that doesn't mean that they have any more intelligence, or any more character than we do. We should always ignore the superficial, and assess the quality of a person on our own terms, and not allow the system to shove its carefully selected  "heroes" down our throats. 

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And finally, we should allow this episode in our history to mark the moment where the crabs-in-a-barrel syndrome comes to an abrupt end in the Black community. The game that Smiley and West have been playing has been holding Black people down for centuries. So now's the time for it to stop, and we should mercilessly banish from our midst anyone we find engaging in it. Let us make it abundantly clear, that the reign of fools is over.
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Dr Cornel West and Intellectual Rice Cake

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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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Does the West/Obama Controversy Constitute Blacks Airing Dirty Laundry?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
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Does the West/Obama Controversy Constitute Blacks Airing Dirty Laundry?

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There are some in the Black community who feel that the controversy ignited after Dr. Cornel West slandered President Obama is counterproductive. Dr. West of Princeton University accused President Obama of being “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” He then went on to say that Obama was  threatened by “a free Black man.” Critics of the resulting firestorm against Cornel West dismiss it as nothing but an exercise in Black intellectual elitists contemplating their navels and airing the Black community’s dirty laundry in public.
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In her article,“Cornel West: The Fallout Continues Over Obama Comments,” that appeared in TheRoot, Dr. Nsenga Burton says the following:
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“Isn't it interesting that black male commentators are using stereotypes ascribed to black males to critique West, and diminishing his intellectual contributions in the process? Instead of a 'bloody lip,' in the game of dozens when one goes too far, West's virtual 'bloody lip' is the result of blogosphere gone awry.”
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The above take on this issue is so far off the mark on so many levels that I feel obliged to address much of it in the first person.
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While admittedly, many of us will feel an innate visceral attachment to Dr. Burton's argument, our commitment to logical thought should force us to reject it out of hand. First, every debate is a source of knowledge, so to say that any source of knowledge has “gone awry” is counterintuitive on its face. Secondly, I personally reject the entire concept of fixating on Black stereotyping. Allowing ourselves to become consumed by this issue is a gross waste of intellectual energy, since we should never allow our concern over what other people think to overwhelm our vision of how we see ourselves.
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Instead of becoming obsessed with how others portray us, our energies should be directed toward living above any kind of negative stereotyping. That’s one of the things that Obama does so well, and it’s the primary reason why he’s hated so intensely by his enemies - both Black and White. To my knowledge, Obama hasn’t said a word in response to Dr. West’s tirade. He’s handling it just like he handled Donald Trump - instead of preaching us a sermon, he’s living us one. While there's room to criticize any president, and I too have criticisms of Obama, every person in America should take great pride in the way that young brother represented this nation during his recent trip to Europe. That's the way you address negative stereotyping, through excellence.
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But even if we do take stereotyping into consideration, I don’t see what calling an idiotic statement idiotic has to do with Black stereotyping, that is, unless we consider Cornel West's behavior representative of the quintessential Black man. If we do, and we feel that we have to hide it as "dirty laundry,"  that suggests we feel that Black people corner the market on idiocy, a position that I would vigorously reject.
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Dr. Burton’s position also seems to suggest that the ongoing debate occupies intellectual terrain that is somehow remote from the average Black person’s frame of reference. That's the worst kind of stereotyping. Such a position is not only condescending to the Black community, but it also betrays an intellectual elitism that grossly underestimates the intelligence of the Black community.
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She quotes me in the Black Star News as saying,
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"The fact is, anyone who considers West's remarks toward President Obama merely an objective and scholarly critique of the political environment needs to go back and take a refresher course in both freshman English and forensics. The comments directed at President Obama by Cornel West was nothing short of a racist and petty personal tirade by a woefully presumptuous and undisciplined mind. His comments were not only less than constructive and nonspecific, but they were also saturated with unsubstantiated personal attacks against the president. They were, indeed, Palinesque in both nature and intent."
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I stand by every syllable unequivocally, and I challenge anyone to show me where I was in error. Yet, Dr. Burton says the following regarding my comments, and the comments of others, attendant to this controversy:
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“But we do hope that this plantation narrative that is spiraling out of control in the new-media space will right itself and become a discussion about something meaningful - explicit policies to protect the poor - as opposed to an abundance of attacks on a brother, even West, who admittedly was dead wrong. Bashing West the same way that he bashed Obama is hypocritical and is not moving the discussion, the intellectual community or this country forward.”
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I find Dr. Burton’s position quite curious. Why is it that every other group in America feels free to debate and criticize one another ad nauseam, yet the minute we point out that Cornel West made a damn fool of himself it becomes “plantation” mentality? If we are ever to move forward in the Black community, we must feel just as free as any other segment of the population to call a hat a hat, and a fool a fool. If we embrace that as a tradition, maybe the next Cornel West will be much more circumspect before making a foolish and self-serving idiot of himself.
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Thus, instead of refraining from criticizing fellow Blacks, we should do it much more often. If we’d spoken out more aggressively against Clarence Thomas we probably wouldn’t be suffering from his ignorance today. And frankly, I don’t see a discernable difference - a demagogue is a demagogue, regardless of political persuasion. If Obama would have embraced West after his election, believe me, West would have undoubtedly been one of Obama's most enthusiastic cheerleaders. He's clearly demonstrated his character in that regard.
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So the fact is, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I’d been even more critical. Because if West is indeed as concerned about the Black community as he claims, he needs to resign from the rarified environment of Princeton and come teach third grade in the hood. If that's too big a price to pay for the people he claims to love, he needs to just shut up and write a book; that way we'll have a choice as to whether or not we want to listen to him.
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And by the way, I am far from an Obama cheerleader: http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/01/obama-supporters-vs-cheerleaders.html. The only reason I have to point that out is because Tavis Smiley and West have muddied the waters so badly that when we speak out, we must now convince one another that we’re not just lackeys for either one side or the other. That’s a gross disservice to both the Black community, and America.
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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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Is the Attack on Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Article Criticizing Prof. Cornel West Due to Male Academic Cronyism?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
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Is the Attack on Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Article Criticizing Prof. Cornel West Due to Male Academic Cronyism?

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It is a curious yet instructive phenomenon watching Black male academics rush to the defense of Dr. Cornel West after he called President Obama a “Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs.” They also stood by when West went on to say that “Obama has a certain fear of free black men.” They said that it was perfectly legitimate for West to comment on the political environment as he saw it. But when Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, West’s female colleague, indicated that West’s comment “smacks of birtherism,” they recoiled in shocked horror. How dare she publicly attack her colleague in that manner? They accused her of being motivated by either soar grapes or professional envy.  Hmmm, ok. But tell me, what makes Cornel West more sacrosanct than the President of the United States?

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The fact is, anyone who considers West’s remarks toward President Obama merely an objective and scholarly critique of the political environment needs to go back and take a refresher course in both freshman English and forensics. The comments directed at President Obama by Cornel West was nothing short of a racist and petty personal tirade by a woefully presumptuous and undisciplined mind.
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His comments were not only less than constructive and nonspecific, but they were also saturated with unsubstantiated personal attacks against the president. They were, indeed, Palinesque in both nature and intent. Thus, his behavior was both unprofessional and disrespectful to not only President Obama, but the office of the president itself. Then when you take into account that there is ample evidence that he was motivated by what he, in his own words, considered a personal slight, then combined that with his close association with Tavis Smiley - who is also smarting from what he considered a personal slight by the president - it is more than reasonable to view West’s behavior as the irate petulance of an embittered egomaniac.
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On the other hand, Prof. Perry couldn’t avoid attacking West’s character, because it was his character that was at issue. So the fact is, Prof. Perry’s criticism of West was the more legitimate. Considering West's behavior, Prof. Perry's remarks constituted a detached and clinical assessment of the facts.  Her position was reasoned, specific, and substantiated with undeniable facts, while West’s criticism of Obama was reckless, overly broad, and filled with gross and unsubstantiated generalizations.
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Yet, in his article, Melissa Harris-Perry’s Attacks on Cornel West: Melissa, Are You Hiding Something?, Dr. Boyce Watkins says,
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“One of the interesting things about all the criticism being thrust at Professor West is that much of it presumes that Cornel is attacking President Obama for personal reasons. There are rumors that he is angry that he was never invited to the inauguration, or that he felt dismissed because the administration won’t return his phone calls. There is no end to the reasons that people are coming up with to explain why Professor West has done what he’s always done, which is to advocate for black, brown, poor and working class people.”
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But the “rumors” that Dr. Watkins speak of are not rumors at all. West is quoted as saying the following:
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“I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back. And when I ran into him in the state Capitol in South Carolina when I was down there campaigning for him he was very kind. The first thing he told me was, ‘Brother West, I feel so bad. I haven’t called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re busy.’ But then a month and half later I would run into other people on the campaign and he’s calling them all the time. I said, wow, this is kind of strange. He doesn’t have time, even two seconds, to say thank you or I’m glad you’re pulling for me and praying for me, but he’s calling these other people. I said, this is very interesting. And then as it turns out with the inauguration I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration. My mom says, ‘That’s something that this dear brother can get a ticket and you can’t get one, honey, all the work you did for him from Iowa.’ Beginning in Iowa to Ohio. We had to watch the thing in the hotel.”
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So I don’t see how the fact that Prof. Perry worked down the hall from West at Princeton has any bearing on this matter. If Dr. Watkins is suggesting that she had an ulterior motive, what evidence does he present to support that claim? Absolutely none. That makes it clear that Watkins is stretching for an equivalence that’s just not there. On the one hand, Prof. Perry presents direct evidence from the mouth of West himself that clearly substantiates her position that West felt slighted by the president, which ultimately led to his reckless behavior, while on the other hand, Dr. Watkins doesn’t present a shred of evidence leading to the conclusion that Prof. Perry had an ulterior motive for her criticism of Dr. West. The only thing he presents is gross speculation and vapors.
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I’m not surprised at all that Dr. West has engaged in such reckless behavior. His fixation on personal affectations suggests the vanity of an undisciplined mind. And apparently I’m not alone. Syndicated columnist Stanley Crouch pointed out in the “Daily News” that “serious black intellectuals privately dismissed West many years ago as no more than an academic loudmouth with a good show business game.”
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But with respect to Dr. Boyce Watkins, I am indeed shocked to see a respected scholar engage in such sloppy thinking. His article suggests the following syllogism: All dogs have fleas. My cat has fleas. Therefore, my cat is a dog. What kind of logic is that?
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Thus, at the risk of being presumptuous, I’d like to pass on to both of these gentlemen a piece of advice that was given to me by the very demure Ms. Immel in my freshman English class many years ago, and I quote: “Eric, if you expect to survive this class, every time you make an assertion, I expect you to start backing it up with compelling facts in the very next sentence, or no later than the following paragraph.”
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That advice has served me well over the years, and it seems to me that both West, and Watkins, might benefit from it as well.
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Dr. Cornel West and Intellectual Rice Cake

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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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