Attention Tea Party and Black Radicals: Either Fight as Allies, or Fall as Fools

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Attention Tea Party and Black Radicals: Either Fight as Allies, or Fall as Fools

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 Retired army general, and FOX News analyst, Paul Vallely, is quoted as telling Arizona Tea Party Patriots, "I had a call this afternoon from Idaho. The gentleman said, ‘If I give you 250,000 Marines to go to Washington, will you lead them?’" Vallely said as the group laughed and gasped. "I said, ‘Yes, I will. I’ll surround the White House and I’ll surround the Capitol building, but it’s going to take physical presence to do things."  

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POWER TO ALL OF THE PEOPLE

I'm just as angry and disgusted over what Black people have been forced to endure in this country as anyone else, but there are two reasons why I don’t spew bitterness. First, I can see beyond my anger, so I recognize that there are issues that are much more important than my right to vent that need to be considered, and one of the most important of those issues is - at least, in terms of the Black community - by constantly venting into the ears of our youth, we give young Black people a convenient excuse for failure. The fact is, some of us are lazy and less than ambitious anyway (just like many in every other group), so when young people are constantly bombarded with a message that says that the White man is evil, conniving, and intent on holding Black people down, it makes it much too easy for them to say, "Why even try? The White man ain't gon' let me move forward anyway." We don’t need that. On the contrary, we need to inspire our young people and instill a sense of confidence and determination in them. We are what we think, so the very last message that we want to send to our youth is one of impotence and defeat.
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The second reason that I don’t indulge in spewing anger is because it plays into the hands of the enemy. We’re currently knee-deep in a class war, and we’re facing an enemy who doesn’t care any more about poor and middle-class White folks than they do Black people. Yeah, they want to keep Black people down - at least, poor and middle-class Black people - but their ultimate mission is to undermine and subjugate ALL poor and middle-class people of EVERY race, creed and color. And keeping us divided is their most potent and effective weapon in doing just that. So when we’re constantly going around talking about the White man this, and the White man that, we're not only being ignored by those people (including some Blacks) who are actually trying to undermine us, but we're alienating White people who want to be, and should be, our allies in the struggle for universal justice. So why cut our own throats just for the satisfaction of venting our anger?
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The poor and middle class in this country have been under a brutal and growing assault for the past thirty-five years. It has been documented that Ronald Reagan flooded the inner cities with crack to support his illegal war in Nicaragua (in which we’re still suffering the ill affects, and he should have been both impeached and jailed for); our public educational system has been underfunded and under assault, leaving many of us incapable of accurately assessing our political environment; organized labor, the first line of defense for keeping the poor and middle class out of total destitution, has been all but decimated; and now, these malevolent forces are aiming at the middle-class safety net - programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance - which were initiated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to protect the poor and middle class from literal starvation during and after the Great Depression.
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So this is no time for the poor and middle class to be divided. It is essential that we ALL come together to protect our collective interests. If we don't, we’re all going to find ourselves enslaved under the yoke of corporate feudalism - and yes, it can happen here, and that reality looms closer than most people think. Actually, there’s a very strong possibility that it could be as close as one successful Republican election away, because the demographics are against the GOP, so they’re in a panic, and they’ve clearly demonstrated that they’re without limits. So if they ever manage to regain control of government, they’re not giving it up again - regardless to what they have to do.
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Retired army general, and FOX News analysis, Paul Vallely, is quoted as telling Arizona Tea Party Patriots, "I had a call this afternoon from Idaho. The gentleman said, ‘If I give you 250,000 Marines to go to Washington, will you lead them?’" Vallely said, as the group laughed and gasped. "I said, ‘Yes, I will. I’ll surround the White House and I’ll surround the Capitol building, but it’s going to take physical presence to do things" (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/27/fox-news-analyst-tells-tea-party-group-he-can-lead-a-military-coup-against-obama/).

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So it behooves poor and middle-class Black and White people to wake up, put our petty differences aside, and come together as a viable political force that’s ready to pitch a tooth-and-nail battle for the future of this nation. If we don’t, the Tea party and the Klan, the Black Guerilla Army, and the Mexican Mafia, are all going to find themselves shoulder-to-shoulder picking virtual cotton on the very same plantation. 
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Ironically, many White people already recognize this fact - that’s why Barack Obama is President today. But due to our unique historic background, lack of formal education, the proliferation of urban legends disseminated by poverty pimps, and lingering bitterness, many Black people are resistant to this reality. 
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While it is undeniable that some White people are dogs (just like some Black people), we now have undeniable evidence that MOST of them are good people who just want to live and let live in peace and harmony. If that were not the case, Obama wouldn’t have been elected president - twice. No, Obama’s election doesn’t mean that this is a post-racist society, but what it does say is, bigotry is being maintained and perpetuated by a minority of the White community.
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Consider this - even if they had allowed us to stay home, and they automatically posted the vote of every Black man, woman, and child in America for Obama, there still wouldn’t have been enough of us to elect him President of the United States. Black people are only 13.6 percent of the population. So if only one hundred votes were being cast to determine the presidency, and every group was given the number of votes that corresponded to their percentage of the population, Black people would only be given 14 votes. But in order for Obama to become president, he needed 51 votes. Where did those other 37 votes come from? I’ll tell you where they came from - many of them came from White people. Obama could never have been elected president without them. So that’s in direct conflict with the message that the majority of White people are racist bigots. Numbers don't lie, so while it may satisfy the anger of those who allege that to be the case, the numbers simply don't validate their claim.
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In addition, even during the Civil War, as brutal as this country was toward Black people, there were enough White men of good conscience around who decided to leave the love, advantage, and comfort of their homes and families to engage in the most brutal war that this country has EVER engaged in to free Black people from bondage - yes, there were other issues involved, but I’m not going to entertain a lot of nitpicking on this issue, because I see through it, just like I see through the racist arguments of White bigots.
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Well, maybe I'll address the most prominent argument -  that this was not about slavery for these people; it was just a matter of citizens falling in step behind their government. The biggest obstacle to that argument is, we know that the Civil War involved much more than just a routine conflict between opposing government policies. The reason that we know it involved deeply felt, soul-searching, and moralistic passions, was because fathers were fighting sons. That fact alone speaks volumes. Personally, I can't even imagine a cause that I would be so passionate about that I would take up arms against my son. But these people did find such a cause.
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The bottom line is, the ultimate impact of these people's sacrifice brought slavery to an end. That’s a fact that cannot be denied. So when we run around talking about "THE White man's a racist dog," that not only implies, but specifically states, that ALL White men are racist dogs, which constitutes the very worst kind of profiling of, for my money, some of the finest and most selflessly courageous people who ever lived. Black people might STILL be on a plantation - YOU might still be on a plantation - if it were not for these morally courageous people. So by broad-brushing ALL White people it represents the thumbing of our noses at many people, and their families, who made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. So to lump such people in with racist bigots, is the very height of ingratitude.
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Thus, as I see it, we who truly believe in justice, and not JUST-US, and are not just using the word "justice" as a pretext to spew garden variety racism, should be just as dedicated to ensuring justice for those who didn't just pay lip service to the concept, but who actually sacrificed their lives for the cause of justice. They had our back, so we should have theirs, and the backs of the descendants that they left behind.
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For that reason, I asked a very good friend of mine to focus on solutions rather than bitterness when posting to my Facebook wall, because when I say I believe in justice, I mean it. I seek justice not only for Black people, but for ALL people. Therefore, I’m not going to tolerate racism or bigotry of any kind on my wall - regardless to which direction it comes from - and I was very gratified to find that my friend understood that fact by indicating that we were on the same page, because there's a word for the concept of justice for some - hypocrisy - and it's poised to destroy us all, and this nation.

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LOOK AT HOW LONG THE GOP HAS BEEN TELLING THE SAME LIE

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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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TAP DANCING FOR THE KLAN

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

TAP DANCING FOR THE KLAN
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I'm not here to defend President Obama, because as I pointed out in previous articles, I have an issue or two with some of his policies myself, just like I've had with EVERY White president. But I think we owe this brother the benefit of the doubt. He's plagued with enough problems in having to deal with world affairs and our domestic crisis, while at the same time, having to fight off racist Republicans and envious, self-serving turncoats like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. So we shouldn't add yet another problem to his plate by forcing him to have to worry about whether he has the support of his own people.
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To be quit frank, I think there are only two kinds of people in this world - good people, and bad people. In addition, I believe the battle over race was a part of the last war. Those who are enlightened recognize that the current battle is over class, because the current powers that be don’t care any more about poor and middle-class White folks than they do Black people. Most White people recognize that fact. That's why Obama is president.  So while I often write about what’s in the best interest of the Black community as a whole, I rarely make race a part of my personal political calculations.
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But I consider the presidency of Barack Obama a unique situation, and what we’ve been watching with respect to many Black Obama critics should be regarded as a teaching moment, because it represents a cultural dysfunction that’s been played out thousands of times over the past four hundred years. Many of us have heard stories about Black self-hatred all of our lives, but due to President Obama’s high profile we now have the opportunity, as an entire culture, to see it being played out in all of its ugliness for the very first time.
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But of course, there are going to be a few of Obama's critics who are going to ask, "What are you saying, that Obama should be above criticism just because he’s Black?" Of course not, and the people who pose such a ridiculous question know that’s not what I’m saying before they even ask it. But just asking such a disingenuous question should also serve as a teaching moment - it shows the extraordinary lengths that such people will go to mask their "bligotry."
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Questioning President Obama’s policies is not the problem - it’s the mean-spirited way in which it’s being done. In fact, Black haters are not merely questioning Obama’s policies at all. More often than not these people are simply using policy differences as a pretext for making slanderous assertions about the president’s character as a whole - he’s a "war criminal," "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats," "a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface," and even, "He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination" [WHAT!!!?].  Notice that three out of the four slanders are racial in nature, and these quotes are from just one man - Cornel West.
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None of the criticisms above were legitimate attempts to address the president’s public policies. They were racial slanders, clear and simple. That clearly demonstrates that many Black Obama-haters are not nearly as interested in addressing public policy as they are in attacking the man himself. These slanders also demonstrate the fallacious allegation that people who object to their criticism are merely Obama cheerleaders. That's simply not true - what we’re against is what we’ve always been against - racist attacks.
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But even those haters who have the good sense to refrain from blatant, racist attacks often make themselves known by going over the top in their allegations regarding policy. They’ll often say things like, "Obama is a part of the machine." But since we’re not privy to the information that Obama is basing his decisions upon, nor his motives for making any given decision, any allegation being made about his being a part of any "machine" are wholly without supporting substantiation at best. Critics who suggest this are merely commenting on what things LOOK like to their jaundiced eye - or what they're trying to convince you to think they look like - without having a shred of evidence to support their views. Their allegations have no more basis in fact than that of the birthers.
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The reality is, being the first Black President of the United States, Obama can’t approach the nation’s problems in the same way that they were approached by his White predecessors. In many cases he has to take a circuitous approach to addressing issues in order to prevent the GOP from mischaracterizing his efforts with their very special kind of malevolent spin. Thus, the way that things may look, may not always be what they seem. So anyone who would lend comfort to the most steadfast enemies of the Black community by helping to drag this Black man through the mud is on what my good friend, Playthell Benjamin, would call, a fool’s errand. 
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There were people in the Tea Party who were consistently calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer, right up until he brought Osama Bin Laden’s head home in a bag. Bush spent nearly eight years and close to a trillion dollars trying to pull that off with no success, but Obama did it with three helicopters and a handful of courageous men without busting a sweat bubble - and he did it while America thought he was just kickin’ it.
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So this brother ain’t no punk, and he’s not the kind of person we should second guess without very good cause.  So yes, I think everyone in the Black community should get behind this brother - period. If we have a comment on policy, we should voice our concern, but we should do it politely, and very respectfully. Because while Obama is, and should be, the president of ALL of America, he is also the most high profile representative of the Black community in the entire world. So to be disrespectful of him, is to be disrespectful of us; and his success, is our success. 
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With regard to Cornel West, I can only say this - any Black man who tries to publicly engage in the Dozens against the first Black President of the United States cannot be regarded as a serious intellectual. He deserves very close scrutiny, because his behavior is not only disrespectful of the president, but it betrays a gross disdain for the Black community as a whole. So he can say whatever he likes about his motives, but his behavior lends comfort to the most dedicated enemies of the Black community. Thus, the issue is not even debatable - the stupidity he’s engaged in amounts to tap dancing for the Klan.

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

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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

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How Do Politicians Get People to vote Against Their Own Interests

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

How Do Politicians Get People to Vote Against Their Own Interest?

I was watching the Republican debates the other night and it astounded me to see how many people were applauding proposed policies that would cut their throats. During the debates I watched people whose very lives are dependent on social security applauding enthusiastically in support of the views of Rick Perry, Republican governor of Texas, a man who is on record as saying he believes that social security is unconstitutional.

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So how do politicians get people to vote against their own interest? A classic example of the technique at work can be found in how the Republican Party manipulated the American people during the sixties. When you consider how methodically conservatives went about mounting their assault on the liberal agenda you can't help but recognize that it was a stroke of genius.
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Ironically, the conservatives took the Democratic Party's strength and made it a political liability. First they took the party's penchant for being concerned with the plight of the downtrodden and coined phrases like "bleeding heart liberals" and "tax and spend Democrats." They then played on the frustration of the middle class by tying civil rights legislation, welfare, and crime together as the source of middle class woes; then they attributed all of these problems to what they called the Democrat's tendency to be " bleeding heart liberals". Once the connection was made between minorities, welfare, crime, and the liberal agenda, it was then just a matter of repeatedly hammering the message home. Thereafter, whenever they mentioned the word "liberal," a sizable portion of the American people heard "minorities, welfare, and crime."
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So, by simply associating the word liberal with any policy or individual, that policy or person became toxic, because through extension, the public associated it or them with all the things they'd been conditioned to hate. The GOP has used this technique very effectively to play on their constituency’s prejudices and to whip them into a frenzy against their own interests.
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The effectiveness of that campaign can still be seen today in the Tea Party. The primary reason that the GOP dubbed healthcare reform "Obamacare" was to play on the prejudices of their base. By calling it Obamacare it distracts their base from the recognition that healthcare reform is a policy that would not only benefit, but protect their families. But instead of recognizing that glaring fact, all they’re thinking about is their hatred of Barack Obama, and as a result, act against their own interests.
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Demagogues within the Democratic Party has learned this technique well. Tavis Smiley and Cornel West have used that very same technique to undermine President Obama and to promote their own political agenda. When Cornel West decided to mount his attack on Obama, instead of addressing specific policies, which would have been the responsible thing to do, he started attacking Obama’s overall character by indicating that Obama was somehow uncomfortable with "free Black men," and then went on to associate him with the White power structure - "plutocrats and oligarchs."
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Just like the Republicans, West was attempting to circumvent the peoples’ minds, and appeal directly to their emotions and the negative attitudes that many Black people and White liberals harbor toward the White power elite. That way, instead of having to substantiate his claims, all he’d have to do thereafter was use buzz words like "oligarchs" and "plutocrats" to stir the people’s emotions, much like the Republicans use the word "liberal."
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But you can always see these people coming and identify who they are by asking yourself one simple question - is this person appealing to my ability to think, or simply trying to inflame my emotions?
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If you’ll notice, neither the GOP nor Smiley and West ever have any positive ideas to add to the political debate. All they ever talk about is what they don’t like. Neither do they ever offer any alternative suggestions on how the current policy can be improved. Everything they do or say is designed to provoke anger and hostility, because rational thought is their enemy.
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The GOP doesn’t want to discuss the pros and cons of healthcare reform. All they want to do is attack it as an overall policy that’s "un-American." They’ll say something like, "Obamacare is un-America. The liberals are engaged is a socialist plot to protect your family."
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The same is true of Smiley and West. Instead of addressing specific policies or how they can be improved, all they want to talk about is why Obama is no good - and when interviewed, they speak in gross generalities, and the fact that they haven’t been invited to the White House will invariably be mentioned. But we have yet to hear them discuss anything concrete. If you don’t like President Obama, who should we run instead? They don’t want to address these sort of issues, because that might get the people thinking again.
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So the American people need to understand that they're being manipulated by demagogues of every stripe. Therefore, if we ever want to improve our current condition, first, it is incumbent upon us to stop depending on others to do what we need to do for ourselves; and second, we need to start doing a lot  less feeling, and a whole lot more thinking.
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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

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

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Eric L. Wattree

http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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

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The Corpo-Political Scamming of America

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

The Corpo-Political Scamming of America

Our political class is failing us miserably - both Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans are leaving no stone unturned to further enrich those who are already filthy rich, and the Democrats are throwing us crumbs while the middle-class standard of living is being aggressively chipped away to conform to the standards of the new global economy.

The GOP calls any program that helps the poor and middle-class socialist in nature and an intolerable waste of public funds. Yet when it comes to helping the rich and corporate class, no expenditure is too great. Now, I'm generally not one to buy into conspiracy theories, but there comes a time when if you fail to take council from your lying eyes you're simply a fool, and I think we've reached that point.

I have a friend and fellow vet in Texas who's a confirmed teabagger. The only thing we agree upon is that we like and respect each other, but other than that, we come from two different planets. Previously, I could simply write off Teabaggers as ignorant and insincere racists. But I happen to know for a fact that Tom is neither ignorant, insincere, nor a racist, so he represents a profound philosophical problem. What box am I supposed to drop him into? I haven't been able to find one. So since I have no box to conveniently dispose of his position, I have no choice but to seriously examine his concerns.

After agonizing over the dilemma for several months, I've come to the conclusion that both the left and the right - at least, the rank and file liberals and conservatives - are correct in their anger, because both are being manipulated by the political class system.

The answer is quite simple. The corporatists and their political cronies have us so busy hating one another that we're too distracted by that hatred to see what's being done to us all. And since liberals and conservatives have been led to believe that our respective miseries are a direct result of the other, it's become self-perpetuating. We've come to hate one another so much that we eagerly embrace anything negative placed in the mix by our manipulators.

So when Tom and I get into a debate, it rarely comes down to assessing the facts. It invaribly degenerates into who's worse, liberals or conservatives, and that what's going on across America.  But the fact is, this country is engaged in a struggle that has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism. We're engaged in a class war, the corporate class against the poor and the middle class. So while they have us busy fighting the last war - racism on the left, and communism on the right - the corporatists are busy cutting all of our throats.

And while we've been distracted, our politicians who are supposed to be protecting our interest, have become a class unto themselves. They've become the political class, which is an essential part of the corporate class, and I'll be further addressing below. When viewed from that perspective, there's no wonder the nation is so divided. The bottom line is, we're depending on those who are exploiting us to protect us from exploitation. So like Houdini, they have us looking at their left hand, each other, while we should be looking at their right hand, them.

Clear evidence of that is while both political parties agree that bringing down the deficit must be one of the nation's top priorities, they both also seem to agree that the only way to address the problem is by placing the burden of sacrifice on the backs of the poor and middle class, while they continue to live high on the hog.

In addtiton, in spite of the "dire effects" of our national deficit, neither party seems to be the least bit concerned about the two billion dollars a month that we're paying for the nonproductive wars that we're engaged in?  No expense is too great in that regard. The reason for that is because they're so profitable to the corporate class.  They're forcing the poor and middle class to both fight the wars, and pay for them. But of course, their families are not impacted. The rich are no longer expected to die for this country - that's the job of the "little people." Ask Dick Cheney.

Yet they claim that the deficit is so severe that they're "forced" to cut part of the safety net from under poor and middle-class Americans, programs like medicare and social security, while at the same time they insisted on giving the top 2% of the population a tax cut, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is the least efficient use of the nation's revenue.

According to the Center for American Progress, "The Congressional Budget Office evaluated a variety policies earlier this year based on their ability to boost overall economic growth and employment. The number one thing Congress can do, according to the report, is to increase aid to the unemployed. Other efficient ways to give the economy a jolt include additional investments in infrastructure and more aid to states. The least efficient? Extending the tax cuts."

CAP goes on to point out, "In its January report, 'The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020,' the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] projects that a full extension of the Bush tax cuts, plus a permanent fix to the Alternative minimum tax, will cost $3.7 trillion over 10 years, not including debt service costs."

Thus, our political class has convinced us that if we give Gucci enough money we can get him to hire workers to produce Gucci bags that he's limited to selling in a homeless shelter. That's counterintuitive. Why would Gucci throw away perfectly good money to produce a product that he can't sell? He's only going to take that money overseas and produce his bags in a market where people have the money to purchase them. Thus, the only way to stimulate the economy is to put money in the pockets of the people in the homeless shelter. That's the only way we can provide Gucci with a market of people with the resources to purchase his goods.

Another glaring example of gross political hypocrisy took place just last year. While this nation was drowning in the second worst economic crisis in its history, and American citizens were losing their homes and jobs, congress voted themselves a $93,000 a year raise, each - and not a raise in salary, but in "petty cash," to spend anyway they see fit. And then, of course, there's Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.). He should go down in history as the quintessential example political hypocrisy. Rep. Harris is the newly elected, Tea Party supported congressman who ran on the abolishment of "Obamacare." But in spite of that, he began demanding his governmet run health care before he was even sworn into office.

So I'd like to address this to my good friend, Tom. Let's lay that socialist thing to rest. The entire socialist controversy is nothing but conflated politispeak designed to get you to work against your own interests. If we ever want to control our own destiny, it's incombent upon us not to allow ourselves to be manipulated through knee-jerk emotionalism. While you might say that rabid socialism is bad because it led to communism, I could just as easily argue that rabid capitalism is bad because it led to slavery. So we've got to learn to engage in nuanced thinking.

Social Security and Medicare are both socialist programs, yet I don't know of any average citizen - either Democrat or Republican - who want to give either ofthem up. So Tom, it's true. We do need to take our country back, but not from one another. We need to take our country back from those who are manipulating us both.

So I have a suggestion, instead of fighting one another, let's make a deal - you handle your hypocrites on the right, and I'll handle mine on the left. Then let's all come together and handle the corporatists who are pulling all of our strings. After all, these are not Americans - they're globalists, with a vested interest in making us hate one another.

We're bein' played by the oldest political ploy in the book - divide and conquer.

This is the one who's dangerous 

 

Eric L. Wattree

http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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

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