It has come to my attention that you’ve just adopted a rule requiring candidates to run, and serve, as Democrats. Such arbitrary rules are, by definition, undemocratic, and they’re also an insult to the voter. You’re trying to deprive the voters of their freedom of choice. Such an action is just as unconscionable as gerrymandering, instituting a poll tax, or a literacy test. It’s an attempt to give the candidates of YOUR choice an unfair advantage. The candidates who the voters choose to vote for should be the VOTER’S choice, not yours. So who wants to vote for - or even trust - people who try to deprive the voters of their right to choose? . Just the thought of your arrogant attempt at manipulation turns my stomach. That’s why I voted against Hillary Clinton in the last election - and that was in spite of the fact that I knew it could cause Trump to win. But I came to the conclusion that since I was being manipulated out of my right to choose, I would vote for democracy - and although I hate Trump intensely, I’d do the exact same thing again even if the election was being held tomorrow and my vote alone would determine whether the Democrats won or lost. Because as I see it, one group of scoundrels are no better than another, and I WILL NOT allow myself to be blackmailed out of my vote - and believe me, there are millions of other voters across this country who feel EXACTLY the same way I do. You’re trying to treat us like children, and personally, I don’t appreciate it a bit. .
One of your cultists asked me, "Didn't you learn anything from the 2016 election?" I did. I learned that many of the people who run the DNC are nothing more than corporate conservatives in drag, and thus, just as corrupt as any Republican. So while I hated seeing Donald Trump win the election, I would have been just as miserable if Hillary had won. At least Trump is serving to wake people up from their state of apathetic somnambulism, but with Hillary it would have been the quiet corruption of business as usual. I only agree with Trump in one regard - Hillary should have gone to jail over her emails, because the one and only reason she used a private server was to try to hide her corrupt pay-to-play schemes from the federal government: . "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 of the party. New Democrats dominated the party starting in the late 1980s after the U.S. electorate turned to the political right, until the mid-2010s following a rise in the Congressional Progressive Caucus." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democrats . And please don’t try to write me off as just another fanatical "Bernie Bro," because I’m not. I'm simply an informed American citizen who's highly insulted over being dealt with like I'm a clueless child, and people like me are growing with every day that's passes. It's time for the American people to send you arrogant bastards a message, and this is mine - you’re NOT our leaders, you’re our EMPLOYEES, and any one of you who don't understand that fact needs to be voted out of office. . So I sincerely hope you have the common sense to review your thoughtlessly ridiculous decision, because if you don’t, you can add Jesus to your ticket and I’d vote against him - and since he espoused honesty and fairness, I’m sure he’d be in my corner. . Sincerely,
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Sphere: Related Content
TAKING A STAND FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY:
I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED OUT OF MY VOTE
I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this election, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if we want to survive we've got to bring the corruption of our democracy to an end. So I'm taking a stand right here and right now - I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED OUT OF MY VOTE, and I'm not gonna let anybody send me on a guilt trip talking about Donald Trump. That’s political subterfuge, an attempt by the Clinton forces to Blackmail the electorate into voting for Hillary, whose history clearly shows that she's every bit as bad as Trump. The only difference between Hillary and Trump is Hillary has sense enough to tailor her lies on the issues in a way that accommodate the agenda of whoever she happens to be talking to at the time. In addition, we can only speculate about what trump might do, but we’ve already SEEN the atrocities that the Clintons are capable of committing against the Black community.
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. “But she won the nomination,” they say.
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No, she didn’t win the nomination - she stole it. When she hired Debbie Wasserman-Schultz she not only confirmed that fact, but she thumbed her nose at us in the process. I had planned to hold my nose and vote for Hillary, but the arrogance of the Wasserman-Shultz episode was the final straw for me. It said that the voice of the average citizen doesn't matter, and that’s a direct threat to our democracy. Why should I vote for a politician, or a party, who deprived me of my right to choose?
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And the Clintons have shown that very same kind of arrogant disregard for the people and our laws repeatedly - like when Bill showed up at a Massachusetts polling place (where you're not even suppose to wear a Clinton button) and began to electioneer; and again when he casually strolled in to visit Attorney General Loretta Lynch while Hillary was still under active investigation by the FBI; and now they hire the disgraced chairperson of the DNC who was forced to resign for corruption after handing Hillary the nomination. They think they're above the people, and above the law, so the Clinton/Democratic machine and their corporate cronies simply anointed Hillary the nominee just as surely as the U.S. Supreme Court anointed George W. Bush president after the 2000 election. If Barack Obama were running against Hillary Clinton today, he wouldn't have stood a chance - no one would. With their money, corporate ties, and control over the Democratic Party, the people no longer count.
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BILL CLINTON
CASUALLY - AND BLATANTLY - COMMITTING
ELECTION FRAUD AND THUMBING HIS NOSE
AT THE VOTER'S RIGHTS ACT WITH COMPLETE IMPUNITY - AND, IN A BLACK COMMUNITY.
WHAT IS HE DOING IN THIS POLLING PLACE?
Bill and Hillary Clinton have brought fraud, deceit and corruption to the Democratic Party just like they have to everything else they've ever touched in the past 25 years. So to simply sit on our hands and let this assault on our democratic system take place will set a horrible precedent from which the nation may never be able to recover. We should be in a complete uproar over this election fraud - after all, this is OUR VOICE they're stealing - so we should be demanding that everybody involved be run out of politics, if not jailed, not elect them president! This is not a hockey match; we're talking about our democracy here! - a democracy that many who were obviously much more informed and dedicated than we are, were willing to fight and die for. And now, we're just giving it away.
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If we allow Hillary to just slide into the presidency in spite of the now documented evidence of cheating and corruption, this unconscionable assault on our democracy won't just be an ugly aberration, we will be acknowledging it as an accepted practice, giving it tacit approval. Thereafter the corporatists will be able to anoint anybody president that they choose - and they'll be completely free to do so, because as this incident clearly shows, with the Clintons controlling the Democratic Party it's no longer liberals fighting conservatives in order to protect the interest of the people, it's now sibling rivals fighting one another over whose turn it is to exploit the people, so neither party will be willing to fight the excesses of the corporate elites. Thus, the people have simply got to stand up and say, "No, this is not going to happen. Hillary, you've got to step aside," and based on the exposed cheating and corruption the Clintons have engaged in, we have every right to do so. They've forfeited the right to the nomination, but we're just submissively going along with the program like a group of somnambulistic Stepford wives, and that's exactly why our political "employees" don't take us seriously.
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Political corruption is already changing the character of America. A Princeton University study found that the United States is no longer a democracy; it has now become an oligarchy. Researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page indicated that "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence." And again, clear evidence of the validity of that fact is after the Democratic Party did contortions to shove Hillary Clinton down our throats as the Democratic nominee, former DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Shultz was forced to resign for corruption. Thereafter, she immediately went to work for the Clinton campaign.
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Further evidence of the validity of the Princeton study is reflected in our double standard of justice. The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton was clearly a sham. Just imagine what would happen to you if you worked for the State Department and put classified files on your home computer. Do you think they would worry about your "intent?" I don't think so. What Hillary did is called "Gross (criminal) Negligence" and "Endangering National Security," both, very serious crimes. She should have, at the very least, lost her security clearance, but that would have prevented her from running for president. So in Hillary's case it was just fluffed off, while in another case, Sandra Bland was dragged from her vehicle, brutalized, and died under "suspicious circumstances" while in custody, for smoking a cigarette in her own car. That's the kind of double standard of justice(?) that Americans previously associated with "third world" countries. So now to reward Hillary Clinton with the presidency after she committed such an irresponsible act and then allowed to simply walk away, would send the integrity of our democracy spiraling down a rat hole.
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HILLARY SPENT 6 YEARS ON WAL-MART'S
BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND NEVER LIFTED A FINGER
TO HELP EITHER WOMEN, OR THE WORKERS
“But if we refuse to vote for Hillary, what about the Supreme Court?”
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What about it? Hillary would nominate someone who is just as corrupt as she is and would give her corporate supporters priority over the people. We have children and grandchildren to think about, so it's not enough to just defeat Trump, we must also defend the integrity of this democracy by defeating corruption - and corruption has been Hillary's stock and trade for decades.
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So I’m fighting Hillary just like I would fight David Duke if he'd been shoved down our throat, because Hillary Clinton is nothing short of David Duke in a pants suit and with a smile and a lie on her lips. Thus, if the DNC insists on trying to force-feed us Hillary Clinton, I’m going to vote Green Party, regardless of the consequences. I'll let God sort it out. While I’ll be voting outside the Democratic Party for the first time in my life, that’s their fault, not mine, because I refuse to be either manipulated, or blackmailed, into voting for the Clinton political machine. We May Have Bill Clinton to Thank for Donald Trump's Presidential Run. Bill gave Donald Trump a pep talk just weeks before Trump entered the race. Take a minute to think about that.
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In addition, and as I pointed out in a previous article, the Clintons were involved in Ronald Reagan’s scheme to flood the Black community with crack cocaine in order to fund his illegal war in Nicaragua. That one action completely destroyed hundreds of thousands of Black lives and is 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 affects of crack cocaine. As a direct result, instead of developing their potential and preparing for the future, many of these young people, who were literally raised by the corporate media, have 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. Yet, many Black people are falling all over one another to put two of the people who are hugely responsible for this state of affairs back into the White House. The situation is beyond sad, it's disgusting. So being forced to choose between Clinton and Trump is like having to choose between cyanide and strychnine.
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In June of last year Politico.com reported, “Donald Trump may be a Republican, but his favorite president of the last four is none other than Bill Clinton,” and that makes perfect sense, because Bill gave him a complete blueprint on how to handle Hispanics, Muslims, and other minorities. According to the United States Census, there were 3.2 million Black slaves in America in 1850. Today more than 4 million Blacks are involved with the prison industrial complex, either incarcerated or on parole. So the prison industrial complex currently controls the lives of more Black people than slave masters did 10 years before the Civil War. We have Bill Clinton (our so-called “First Black President”) to thank for that. Thereafter, the prison industrial complex became one of Hillary’s biggest contributors. Thus, the Clintons have brought a thousand times more harm to the Black community than David Duke and the Klan. If they had done as much harm to the Jewish community, Hillary wouldn’t have even been able to run.
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Therefore, I continue to point out at every opportunity that Bill and Hillary Clinton are conservatives in drag. They walk like liberals, and they talk like liberals, but they always manage to leave conservative policies behind. They've been more successful in passing fiscally conservative legislation than the GOP - the passing of NAFTA, allowing corporations to send $20 an hour jobs out of the country to be performed for $5 an hour in other countries; the gutting of Glass-Steagall, allowing commercial banks to gamble with our deposits, which led directly to the 2008 Wall Street crisis; the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, leading to the dumbing down of America and making propagandist networks like FOX News possible, etc., etc. In addition, their tacit participation in the Mena connection, and then subjecting the resulting victims of their flooding the Black community with drugs to mass incarceration is nothing short of gross bigotry. They're just bigots who keep a smile on their face so they can trot us out when they need us.
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Thus, the working class must come together and tell the corporate establishment that we’re not going to be manipulated or blackmailed into swallowing this tainted meat they’re trying to shove down our throats. If we fail to do so, our democracy may be lost to us forever.
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I can’t repeat this enough - Bill and Hillary Clinton are "Republicrats." Their primary mission in life is to drag the Democratic party to the right. Hillary is the same closet Republican that she’s always been (a Goldwater girl, and President of the “Young Republicans" in college), and Bill is a White Southern Dixiecrat. When Hillary was running against Barack Obama in 2008, in an attempt to get Ted Kennedy's support, Bill Clinton was reported to have said,"A few years ago this guy would have been carrying our bags." True liberals don't talk like that. In fact, the reaction of one of my White neighbors to the comment is how I found out about it. She called me screaming over the phone - "Did you hear what that racist bastard said about Barack Obama!!!?" So the Clintons are far from liberal; they're just calculating. They saw which way the wind was blowing during the sixties and then made the cynical decision to take advantage of it. Wikipedia puts it this way:
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“New Democrats, also called Centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or Moderate Democrats, is an ideologically 'centrist' faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are an economically conservative and ‘Third Way’ faction which dominated the party for around 20 years starting in the late 1980s after the US populace turned much further to the political right. They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition." So in short, they’re conservatives.
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The New York Times reports:
. "Mrs. Clinton’s dogged pursuit of Republican votes has especially rankled progressives, and highlights the divisions within the Democratic Party, even as they see a victory more likely. They have grumbled at her eager promotion of endorsements from veterans of the George W. Bush and Reagan administrations, including that of John D. Negroponte, a top diplomat and intelligence official under Mr. Bush. They worry aloud that Henry Kissinger, of whom Mrs. Clinton has often spoken fondly, could be next . . . 'Secretary Clinton’s decision to aggressively court Mitt Romney’s base has her looking more and more like Mitt Romney every day,' said Benjamin T. Jealous, a former N.A.A.C.P. president who initially supported Mr. Sanders. 'That’s not a good thing."'
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So Hillary Clinton fans, I don’t care what you say. Hillary and her New Democratic machine can shove it. If they're so concerned about Trump, they need to step up and tell Hillary Clinton to step aside. If enough of us do that she'll have no choice but to do so.
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CONGRESS ACCUSES HILLARY CLINTON OF PERJURY
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Hillary needs to be made to step aside for committing election fraud and trying to corrupt our democracy alone, but she also needs to step aside so she won't dump Trump right in our laps by default. The Democrats need to run someone with much less baggage than Hillary been has already been revealed to have, and the worst probably hasn’t even come out yet, because we don’t know what it was she was trying to hide with that private email server. But you can be assured that the opposition does, and they’re going to wait until just a few days before election day to drop it on us; then we’re going to end up with a President Trump. So if Hillary cares more about America than she does her own ambition (which I seriously doubt), she’ll voluntarily step aside. If it turns out that I’m right and she is more self-serving than patriotic, she doesn’t deserve to be president in the first place.
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Finally, I'm sure that a lot of Clinton lovers - both Black and White - are going to be absolutely furious at what I've said here. But that's only because it's absolutely meaningless to them what the Clintons have done to the Black community. That speaks volumes, and it also explains why Black lives don't matter, in spite of all the liberal rhetoric that we engage in. Here's where we've got to make Black lives matter, by bringing down corrupt politicians.
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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.
Subsequent to the August 12th runoff election for District 1 of the Los Angeles Unified School District where Dr. George McKenna defeated Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas aide, Alex Johnson, Journalist, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, commented that it was "Scary" how close the election was (53 to 47%), and attributed it to "low informed negroes."
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Even though McKenna did prevail, I'm feeling the very same kind of frustration as Hutchinson. Dr. McKenna should have won by a landslide, not only because of his depth of experience and national renown as an educator compared to the profound inexperience of Alex Johnson, but just as importantly, due to the political threat that Johnson/Ridley-Thomas’ supporters pose to the Black and minority community. .
So watching the community’s response to this election and their complete state of clueless ignorance regarding what was at stake was not only frustrating, but horrifying to watch. It reminded me of the fear and frustration that I felt when my kids were teens and I couldn't get them to see the potential threats and stumbling blocks to their well being in their path that was so crystal clear to me as an adult. So I'm in complete agreement with Ofari Hutchinson on the ramifications of how close this election turned out to be. It is absolutely horrifying that these demagogues got so many votes - and what’s just as horrifying is their respectable showing may encourage them to try to run again next year. .
That’s why it’s so important for Black journalists to begin to recognize the fact that, as Black journalists, we can’t allow ourselves the luxury of pretending to be detached when confronted with the blatant nonsense that has become so common in the mainstream media today. We have a unique and special mission. We are also educators, so in addition to reporting objective facts, we also have a responsibility to the Black community to help connect the dots - and to report the possible ramifications of what the facts reveal - for a community that is so distracted by the simple struggle to survive that many don’t have the time to sit around and analyze the motivations and ever-changing machinations of political predators for themselves. .
As Black journalists our job is every bit as important as Dr. McKenna’s. It’s George McKenna’s job to educate our children; it’s our job to educate their parents. Dr. McKenna is an educator, not a politician, so his sole focus is on educating our young people. Thus, he has neither the time nor inclination to have to contend with the constant maneuverings of power-hungry political predators as well. That job falls to us. That’s why the press is referred to as the fourth estate. Government cannot function effectively unless we keep the people informed.
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So between now and next year's general election, we’ve got to give the people a crash course in power politics, demographics, and political manipulation, because that’s what the charter school movement is all about. National demographics now threaten the power of those who control this country. The minority community is growing at a rate that will soon make us the majority, so the powers that be can no longer depend on racism alone to maintain their power base. That’s why all of a sudden they are so interested in the education of our children. Their very survival depends on their obstructing minority voters, corrupting our politicians, clergy, and community leaders, and gaining control over the minds of our children.
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As a case in point, Tavis Smiley is a graphic example of how our community leaders are being used to manipulate the Black community. What happen to the "Poverty Tours" now that President Obama has been reelected? And why did Tavis Smiley and Cornel West come up missing during the Black Friday demonstrations against Wal-Mart, never even issuing a statement of support? And speaking of Cornel West, why has he seemingly severed ties with Tavis Smiley? Previously he and Smiley were connected at the hip, but when was the last time you’ve seen them together in the past year? West didn’t even show up or issue a statement of congratulations when Smiley purchased his $30,000 star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame (and then claimed he didn’t know how he was chosen for the honor). The Black press should be all over these issues, because they speak directly to how social manipulators are using the greed and egos of many Black leaders to manipulate an under-informed Black community. .
Now, charter schools are being presented to a desperate and frustrated community as an opportunity for the minority community to obtain a better education for their children - and just like Tavis Smiley was used to rope in victims of the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Scam," and is currently fronting for Wal-Mart - Alex Johnson and Mark Ridley-Thomas are being used to front for these groups. Their pitch sounds good on the surface, but demagoguery always does. But as journalists, we’ve got to get the people to understand that the bottom line behind charter schools is to eliminate the public’s control over the education of our children - or essentially, to hand the minds of our children over to conservative mind-twisters. Charter schools will also reinstate segregation into our educational system in a routine and legally justifiable way as a matter of course.
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In addition, charter schools are also a slippery slope. Once the charter school industry gets a lock on our educational system, down the line they will start to charge fees, and that will lead to a society where education will only be available to those who can afford it. They've all but completed that mission at the college and university level.
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So our job is cut-n-dried, and it shouldn’t be that difficult achieve. We’ve simply got to get the people to ask themselves one question - when was the last time that rich, out-of-state billionaires showed any interest whatsoever in the education of Black and minority children? Thereafter, we’ve got to help the community to understand that those Black politicians who are in league with the charter school agenda represent a 400-year tradition of Black Judas goats who are out to feather their own nests at the expense of Black people as a whole.
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Alex Johnson’s undergraduate degree wasn’t in education, it was in political science, and he’s been all over the board in an attempt to promote his political ambitions every since. And Mark Ridley-Thomas is clearly on a fierce mission to increase his political power within the state. When Thomas was a city councilman and I was a union rep for the National Association of Letter Carriers, he came to one of our meetings trying to form an alliance with our branch - and not during an election period; he was just doing a drive-by, trying to gather and consolidate his political power. That's what caused me to begin to watch him initially. As I sat there listening to his inarticulations, I asked myself, what mutual interest could a city councilman and a national union possibly have other than Ridley-Thomas’ attempt to gather and consolidate political power?
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Thus, the Johnson/Thomas alliance has absolutely nothing to do with education, or, what’s in the best interest of our children. It’s about the consolidation of power, and feathering their own nests. Their passion isn’t limited to a seat on the LAUSD. They want ANY office, and we have to explain that to the people. We also have to get the people to understand that politicians of Thomas’ ilk will do anything in their power - including forging an alliance with the Devil - to obtain ANY office.
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So if we ever intend to become a healthy, viable, and prosperous community, it is incumbent upon us to immediately recognize such people and do everything we can to insure that they’re never allowed to obtain - or if already elected - maintain, political office. Because it was undoubtedly self-serving Black people just like these who sold us into slavery in the first place.
Tell Walmart's owners to end their attacks on public education.
The Waltons have spent more than $1 billion to push corporate-style education reform that has resulted in school closures and shifting much-needed resources from public schools to for-profit corporate schools. Meanwhile, the Waltons have pumped big money into fighting common-sense proposals like ensuring that all kids get access to free public pre-K education.
Teachers and parents are fighting back.
Teachers like Paul Kennedy are telling the Waltons to stop meddling with the future of our children. Kennedy, a Philadelphia teacher, knows all too well how the Waltons do business. When his brother worked as a Walmart manager, he watched how the company hurt its employees. Then after eight years with one school and set of students, he was forced to transfer when he and all of his peers were fired after the Walton family helped push for his school to be replaced by a private charter school. Click here to stand with parents and teachers like Paul in telling the Walton heirs to keep their hands off our schools.
We know that poverty is one of the largest single factors influencing whether a kid succeeds in school. As owners of the largest private employer in America, the Waltons have the opportunity to single-handedly help countless students by raising hundreds of thousands of moms and dads out of poverty. Instead, they’re lobbying to close the schools that serve those families, while continuing to pay most of their workers poverty wages.
How Did Tavis Smiley Get a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
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In a comment regarding his recent star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Tavis Smiley is quoted as saying, "I don’t know how this happened, but I’ll take it." For the first time in many years I completely agreed with Tavis. Considering the state of near infamy that Tavis has reached in the Black community as a result of his controversial involvement in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loan Scam," the curious relationship that he maintains with Wal-Mart, and the end of his "Poverty Tour," which seemed to come to an abrupt end with the end of the 2012 election, like Smiley I didn’t know how it happened either. But unlike Smiley, I wanted to find out how it happened, and why. So I did a little research.
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Initially, I thought that people received stars on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame because the powers that be in the Hollywood community deemed the recipient to be so loved, so famous, and such a superstar that he or she should be awarded a star in the interest of posterity. Based on that criteria, at least to my mind’s eye, Tavis Smiley seemed to be a very curious choice for such an honor. He seemed to fall way short in every area but one - people know who he is.
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Then upon further digging I found that the award isn’t quite as "honorary" as most of us might think. There’s no committee in the Hollywood community that nominates a recipient and says, in effect, "We deem this person to be so loved, so famous, and such a superstar that we think he deserves a star on the Walk of Fame in the interest of posterity." There’s a promotional - and/or political - element to it as well. In order to receive a star on the Walk of Fame, either the nominee, or someone representing the nominee, must apply - and then pay $30,000 thereafter, if the nominee meets minimum requirements and is then approved. The process is as follows:
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"Anyone, including fans, can nominate anyone active in the field of entertainment as long as the nominee or his or her management approves the nomination (a letter of agreement from the nominated celebrity or representative must accompany the application). Nominees must have a minimum of five years' experience in the category for which they are nominated and a history of ‘charitable contributions’." So Tavis was being disingenuous when he said that he doesn’t know how it happened, because he had to be an active participant in order to make it happen - but the question is, how active?
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Well, Tavis was very active according to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which administers the Hollywood Walk of Fame. According to the Chamber, Tavis Smiley’s own production company applied for Tavis to receive a star, and paid the $30,000 fee. So in effect, Tavis bought himself a $30,000 star. Yet, he came out and said, "I don’t know how this happened."
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Now, I wasn’t there to watch the transaction take place, but if the information provided by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is correct, and I have no reason to think that it isn’t, the level of self-promotion, self-idolatry, and the shear disingenuousness of Tavis Smiley standing in front of the cameras and casually claiming, "I don’t know how this happened," is mind-boggling - and it should give the community a tremendous amount of insight into this guy’s character, or lack thereof.
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And this is not the first time Tavis has sought to enshrine himself. In 2009 Texas Southern University stripped Tavis Smiley’s name from its School of Communication because Tavis failed to come through with the $2 million that he promised in order to have the school named after him. So a mere $30,000 for a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame is chump change to Tavis.
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What grabs my attention about this situation is the insight it gives into Tavis’ true motivation. I used to tell my son and daughter when they were teenagers to pay no attention to what people say; you should always watch what they do. I’ve found that to be a very good rule of thumb with regard to Tavis Smiley. Tavis is renowned for going all over the country, jumping up and down, and insisting to anyone who will listen how dedicated he is to helping the poor. Yet, what does he do? Instead of trying to feed poor people, or reimbursing the people who lost their homes and life savings as a result of his roping them into the Wells Fargo Ghetto Loan Scam, he throws away millions of dollars trying to aggrandize and enshrine himself by purchasing stars and placing his name on buildings. His behavior speaks volumes.
. Ordinarily I wouldn’t nitpick about this issue. I would simply congratulate Mr. Smiley on his star and move on. But I see this as a teaching moment. People of Tavis Smiley and Cornel West’s ilk have been preying on and undermining the Black community for over four hundred years, so it’s time to bring it to an abrupt end, just like he abruptly ended his "Poverty Tour" after he failed to get Mitt Romney elected.
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Open your eyes Black people. Tavis Smiley is intimately associated with Wal-Mart, one of the largest and most abusive manipulators of poor and middle-class working people in America. How can a person who is genuinely concerned about the poor and middle-class maintain such an association in good conscience?
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Until just recently, Wal-Mart was a member of "The American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC), going back to 1993, an organization whose primary purpose for existence is to abolish laws that protect America’s poor, middle-class, and minorities. Wal-Mart recently discontinuedits official membership in ALEC in response to public pressure against the organization’s support of "Stand Your Ground" laws around the country in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin murder - but thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, we don't know what role Wal-Mart is continuing to play in secret. Yet, Wal-Mart is Tavis Smiley’s primary underwriter. They keep him propped up so they can influence the opinion of the Black community through him.
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On her site, Legal Speaks, Attorney and former prosecutor, Debbie Hines says the following regarding Tavis Smiley’s association with Wal-Mart:
. ". . . Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are on a poverty tour crusade to speak out against the Obama Administration and in support of poor people’s rights. On the one hand, their actions might seem admirable. Many people seem to have forgotten to advocate for the least among us. There’s a lot of talk about the middle class but the word "poor" is rarely used. But here’s where the issue goes back to Stephanie Miller. The Tavis Smiley show is sponsored by Walmart, of all companies. And while Smiley and West have gone on poverty tours to bring attention to poverty and poor people, Walmart, by its own policies, is helping to cause poverty among its workers. Walmart assists poverty by paying substandard wages to its employees, paying little or no benefits including health benefits, decreasing hours to avoid paying benefits and working long hours on holidays. This past Thanksgiving, as if Black Friday was not early enough to start holiday sales, Walmart started with workers and stores opening at 8:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day—barely giving employees enough time to digest their turkey dinner.
. "Apparently, Tavis Smiley fails to see the hypocrisy in taking money from Walmart as a sponsor of the Tavis Smiley show while allegedly supporting and crusading for poor people. According to the Nation, "Walmart is one of the biggest recipients of government subsidies, receiving tax breaks, free land, cash grants and other forms of public assistance, in addition to paying some of its workers so little that they also turn to the federal government for programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)." http://www.legalspeaks.com/2012/12/can-a-poverty-tour-be-supported-by-walmart/
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So just ask yourself, how many millions of dollars would Tavis’ cronies at Walmart, Exxon/Mobile, and the other members of ALEC be willing to pay to bring down President Obama? Let me give you a little insight into that, right out of the mouth of an irate Black Republican operative. In his article, "My Republican Party has Abandoned Me," BlackRepublican activist, Raynard Jackson, says the following:
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"For many years, I have approached the party and its supporters about underwriting programs to bring together Blacks who are Republican or lean Republican so we can weave them into every facet of the party structure. The answer is always, no! But, twice this year some of these same people have approached me about funding for some election year tricks that they (White Republicans) have conjured up and simply need a Black face to execute the plan. On these two separate occasions, these funders were willing to spend upwards of $20 million to have me organize a national campaign to identify Blacks who would be critical of President Obama." http://www.freedomsjournal.net/2012/10/31/my-republican-party-has-abandoned-me/ .
It's the height of irony that prior to the 2012 election Tavis Smiley and Cornel West claimed to have such compassion for the poor and middle class that they felt compelled to ride all over the country on a bus to tell the poor how badly President Obama has fallen short on their behalf. But after the election, they couldn't bring themselves to come and lend support to the Black Friday demonstrations taking place against Wal-Mart right down the street from Tavis' office.
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So let there be no doubt about it - this star, which Tavis claimed not to have known anything about, serves a very specific purpose. It’s an attempt to elevate Tavis Smiley's severely damaged profile and give him the "star power" to continue to manipulate the Black community for his Wal-Mart and other ALEC-connected corporate cronies. In the past, his cronies propped him up in the community, but his image has now become so badly damaged in the Black community that he needed something to prop himself up so his corporate cronies won't begin to see him as a liability.
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If you need evidence of how badly damaged Tavis' image has become, just ask yourself one question - when was the last time you saw Cornel West? They used to be connected at the hip. Was he even at the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony? That wouldn't be like Cornel to miss a photo op like that. Hmmmmm . . .
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But on a serious note, we must bring this sort of community manipulation to an end, because there or other Tavis Smiley and Cornel West wannabes - like Boyce Watkins - waiting in the wings.
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Let’s end this pimp game once and for all.
If You Really Love Your People, Why Not Share
This Knowledge With Them Over the Internet -
For Free?
"One place to start might be with the political neutering of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was a radical freedom fighter who has been reduced to a snippet in a McDonald’s commercial. Dr. Cornel West has taken issue with the morphing of Dr. King and is speaking regularly to resurrect the real Dr. King from the spiritual grave. Despite being hit by propaganda of the worst kind (most of those who try to write off Dr. West as worthless aren’t actually listening to his speeches), Cornel West continues with a kind of persistence that has to be admired. If anything were to undermine the legacy of this extraordinary scholar, it would be that the purity of truth is just too much to digest in a world that is built on hurtful and ugly lies." .
Dr. Watkins, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
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The Black community wasn’t doing great under Clinton, but we were doing a lot better than we are today. And one of the primary reasons that we find ourselves in the condition that we’re currently in is during the 2000 election Ralph Nader and Cornel West teamed up and got Bush elected.
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Clinton’s vice President, Al Gore, lost the 2000 election to Bush in Florida by 537 votes, and the Nader/West coalition peeled off 97,488 votes from Gore in Florida alone. So, again, West is one of the big reasons that the Black community is in the shape that it’s in today. Under Bush, the country was hemorrhaging 850,000 jobs a month. So by criticizing Obama about the condition of the country, Cornel West is like a guy who walks into a restaurant and shits on the floor, and then calls the Health Department because the owner can’t get it up fast enough.
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And please keep this in mind - the worse the Black community is doing, the more money that Tavis and West make talking about it, because Tavis owns a publishing company where he and West write books about it, a production company, where he and West do televisions shows about it, and he owns a speakers bureau, where Cornel West makes $30,000 a speech just to talk about the Black misery that he helped to create.
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It’s easy for West to espouse his intellectually pure, but existentially impractical ideals that divide the people by advocating that we be so demanding of the Bogeyman that we promote the Devil. He doesn’t have to live with the disastrous results. Once he and Ralph Nader helped to get Bush elected in 2000, West simply slithered back into his Ivy League cocoon while the Black community went through eight years of pure Hell under Bush, and continue to suffer the consequences.
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In addition, Cornel West preaches a better sermon than he’s willing to live. In spite of all of his rhetoric about his love for Black people and the community, he's never taught at one Black school, or even a school that the majority of young Black people can even afford to attend, or even go to have lunch at without mortgaging their family’s home, in his entire life. If West truly loved Black people like he claims, he’d be teaching third grade in the hood, or at the very least, teaching at one of our great Historically Black Colleges or Universities. Black colleges and universities are good enough to drive by and pickup bloated speaking fees, but beneath his stature when it comes to teaching at one of them. His ego requires that instead of living among the people and teaching Black students, that he don the costume of the resident "Negro radical" and tap dance and gesticulate at Harvard or Princeton for the entertainment of the children of the very corporate manipulators that he’s railing against. Hypocrisy doesn’t come any more glaring than that. But, believe it or not, it gets worse.
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Isn’t it also funny that Tavis and West seems to Talk about everything bad that’s happening to the Black community, EXCEPT, Tavis’ part in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loan" scam where Tavis helped to herd over 30,000 Black and Hispanic homeowners into a situation that led to the lost their homes AND their life savings? The Department of Justice said that it was the second largest housing discrimination case on record - and this from two individuals who try to associate themselves with Martin Luther King.
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"On July 12, 2012 Charlie Savage reported in the New York Times that Wells Fargo Bank agreed to pay $175 million to settle the discrimination suit which, according to the Department of Justice, targeted over 30,000 Black and Hispanic borrowers for subprime loans with a higher interest rate than for similarly situated White borrowers between 2004 and 2009."
. "Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw, according to Boston [host of "Moneywise"] and Keith Corbett, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, who attended two of the seminars. Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere... But what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth was actually just the opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of the "Wealth Building" seminar strategy, contained in a lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan." http://wattree.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-question-for-both-tavis-smiley-and.html
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But in spite of these isues, in response to President Obama's remarks on race in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict, Tavis Smiley tweeted, "Took POTUS almost a week to show up and express mild outrage. And still, it was as weak as pre-sweetened Kool-Aid."
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That was a very curious remark considering the fact that Tavis Smiley and Cornel West traveled all across the country on a bus under the pretext of being so passionately concerned about poverty in America that they just HAD to take a stand - but of course, that was BEFORE the election, and when they had books to sell. But after the election was over, and they didn’t have any new books to sell, they couldn't bring themselves to walk down the street from Tavis' office to support the Black Friday demonstrations taking place all across the country against Wal-Mart - Tavis' major sponsor, a member of ALEC, and the biggest abuser of the working class in America today.
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And not only did they fail to attend ANY of the demonstrations taking place across the country against Wal-Mart, they didn't even issue a comment of support. All we've heard coming from the Smiley/West camp are crickets - and as everyone knows, that's extremely uncharacteristic of Cornel West, who's renown for being willing to trade a kidney for a sound byte. Thus, that just about says it all about those two. All subjective assessments aside, the facts alone suggest that Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are two of the most blatantly self-serving hypocrites that the Black community has ever suffered.
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According to Scott Collins in his article, Tavis Smiley's bumpy 10th anniversary with PBS, in the Los Angeles Times:
. "Such is the life of a public-television personality. Unlike most TV hosts, who simply do their jobs and collect a paycheck from a network, Smiley has to go out and raise most of the money for his program, which costs between $7 million and $8 million a year to produce. PBS generally contributes about $1 million of that sum. The rest comes from corporate sponsors, which Smiley has to round up himself. .
The sluggish economy and reduced corporate spending have threatened the show's viability. But luckily for Smiley, Wal-Mart, a longtime sponsor, stepped up again, this time with a three-year commitment. (PBS can only offer a maximum of two years on renewals because, as a government-supported entity, it must be periodically authorized by Congress.) But Wal-Mart covers only about a quarter of the costs. (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-tavis-smiley-pbs-20131212,0,6312121.story#ixzz2ndW5CAp5).
. And therein lies the problem - and, the reason for the prescription in the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics that "Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know." You cannot serve two masters. In the instance above, Tavis Smiley had to choose between the public's right to know, and his personal self-interest, and the public lost - and it's not the first time the public lost to Smiley's self-interest.
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Now add the following to the mix. In his article, "My Republican Party has Abandoned Me," Black Republican activist, Raynard Jackson, says the following (http://www.freedomsjournal.net/2012/10/31/my-republican-party-has-abandoned-me/):
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"For many years, I have approached the party and its supporters about underwriting programs to bring together Blacks who are Republican or lean Republican so we can weave them into every facet of the party structure. The answer is always, no! But, twice this year some of these same people have approached me about funding for some election year tricks that they (White Republicans) have conjured up and simply need a Black face to execute the plan. On these two separate occasions, these funders were willing to spend upwards of $20 million to have me organize a national campaign to identify Blacks who would be critical of President Obama."
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Now, you do the math.
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A CALL FOR BOYCE WATKINS TO COME OUT OF THE REPUBLICAN CLOSET
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Boyce (Let’s lay the Marcus crap to rest. I know who you are),
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I’m not a shill. I have absolutely nothing to hide. I’m flat-out against the Republican Party, and any Black man who can’t see why is a fool. Only an idiot would condemn the Bogeyman to embrace the Devil.
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But speaking of shills, when are you coming out of the closet as the Republican you are. As long as you don’t, everything you do or say is a fraud. If you profess to be “The People’s Scholar,” the people have a right to know your political persuasion. You might as well come on out with a sense of dignity, because if you don’t, I’m going to put the evidence together and drag you out of your Republican broom closet – in fact, I fired the opening salvo today. (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-message-to-dr-boyce-watkins.html).
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People have been begging me to do it for well over a year now, but I’ve been reluctant to do so, because I don’t believe you’re PURPOSELY trying to deceive the people to feather your own nest like Tavis and West. I think you’re simply deluded in your beliefs, and you don’t have the courage of your convictions.
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And finally, please don’t take this in the wrong way. I know how this sounds, but it is NOT my intent to threaten you in anyway. It’s just my way of giving you a heads-up on what’s on the horizon, because in spite of everything, including the fact that I view you as grossly naïve, I still sorta, kinda, like you.
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So I’m putting you on notice, brother. Well-intentioned or not, by not telling the people who you are, and what you truly believe, you’re engaging in a form of deception – and I’ve made it my personal mission to make deluding the Black community a thing of the past, and other writers have agreed to joined me on that mission. So if you don’t come out of the closet on your own, and have to be dragged out, you’re going to lose all of your public credibility – just like Tavis and West are in the process of doing right now.
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So there you have it, something to think about.
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Peace, brother.
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Here's the follow-up on yesterday's discussion that I promised you. Yes, I'm on an absolute mission, and if I'm successful, which I intend to be, I will have made a huge contribution to the Black community. So this has gradually become a life's mission for me. As I mentioned in our discussion last night, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West represent the very same kind of Black people who delivered African-Americans into slavery when we were in Africa: "Hurry, everyone, and bring your children! The nice White man wants to take you for a boat-ride!" And these are not opinions I'm putting forward here - these are facts. Thus, anyone who wants to argue this point, can argue with the facts.
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So, for me, the exposure of Tavis Smiley and Cornel West as frauds represents a debt that's way past due. And they need much more than to simply be admonished. They should to be completely, and permanently, boycotted by the Black community. Everything they touch, or is associated with should be boycotted. Because as long as Black people continue to give them a platform, they'll continue to be used by Wal-Mart, ALEC, the GOP, and other enemies of the people to undermine the Black community. So they need to be made an example of, as a warning to anyone who may be contemplating following in their footsteps. We've got to make pimping the Black community an act of treason against the community, and we should bring it to an end, once and for all. Four hundred years is long enough to tolerate such nonsense.
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BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
The Real History of The Poverty Tours .
Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Smiley/West Wannabe
The hostility that Tavis Smiley and Cornel West have for President Obama is so transparent that if it were glass we would have walked right through it and cut ourselves to shreds. These two are shameless, and it’s not only a national disgrace how the establishment media is allowing them to prance around posing as the savior of the poor and middle class, but they're actually helping them to perpetuate this fraud by providing them constant coverage and millions of dollars worth of publicly supported air time.
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These two thought that they were gonna become the Grand Dragons of the Black Community - which is a very profitable gig when you’re in the business of selling ALEC-connected corporations access to the Black community like Tavis Smiley. Tavis is the biggest corporate shill in the Black community. He fronts for Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, Exxon/Mobile, Allstate Ins., Nationwide Ins., etc. - a veritable who’s who of the corporations that are most responsible for victimizing the poor and middle class in the country, and who are spending millions of dollars to obstruct minority voter rights. That’s what makes it so ironic that they’re trying to portray themselves as the saviors of "the poor minorities."
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During Obama’s first campaign for president Smiley and West had already hitched their wagons to Hillary Clinton. She was 37 points ahead of Obama in the Black community at the time, so they were all set to gain the clout, prestige, and riches of having presidential access and being acknowledged as the new grand viziers of the Black community. But then, Obama won the election - in spite of their most ardent efforts - and caught them by surprise. In fact, Cornel West tried to jump the fence and began campaigning for Obama when it became clear that Obama might actually win, but Obama wasn’t having it. That's what caused the controversy over West not being invited to the inaugural celebration.
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At the time, West tried to frame the issue like Obama was an ingrate for not inviting him to the inauguration after he campaigned for him. But he failed to mention the fact that less than an hour after Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States West went on national television and told the Black community that Obama couldn’t be trusted.
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That’s right - on the very day that Obama went to Springfield, Illinois to maximize the historic significance of announcing his candidacy for president in the shadow of Lincoln's former statehouse instead of coming on Tavis' "State of the Black Union" jibfest, West stood up and did an impassioned rant indicating that Obama couldn’t be trusted to be president because he didn’t come on the Tavis Smiley show, as though Tavis was the gatekeeper of the Black community - and all the while Tavis is standing there grinnin' like a chess cat as though they'd caught Obama committing some sort of unconscionable act.
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Look at the video below and notice how entitled West sounds, as though it was more appropriate for Obama to come kiss Tavis’ ring than to announce his candidacy in the shadow of Lincoln’s former statehouse. I remember becoming slack-jawed at his unmitigated arrogance. Up until that moment I had been a big fan of both Tavis and West, but that was when I first realized that they were egomaniacal fools. That was also the morning that I started investigating them, and I’ve written nearly 30 articles on them since.
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The video is also ironically prophetic. Notice how even as West is lecturing the nation on how Obama is surrounding himself with people who can’t be trusted, you can see Wells Fargo and Exxon/Mobil logos floating by in the background behind him. What makes that so prophetically ironic is Tavis was later involved in the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Loans" scam, where Wells Fargo ended up having to settled a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice agreeing to pay poor and middle-class minorities $175 million as a result of the scam. This is the biggest scandal EVER perpetrated by a Black man on the Black community, but the establishment media is refusing to cover it. That’s why I’ve become so fixated on bringing the machinations of these two demagogues to the attention of the Black community.
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As This Video Was Being Recorded Tavis Smiley Was Knee-Deep in a scam
that Roped 30,000 Poor and Middle-Class Minorities into the Wells Fargo
subprime loan scheme, or "The Ghetto LoanScam,"
That Would Cause Many of Them to Lose Their Homes
and Life savings.
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So the Bottom Line is this - when people like myself criticize Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, or Boyce Watkins, we’re not criticizing them because they’re critical of President Obama; our problem with them is they’re cherry-picking their facts and telling half-truths to promote their own agenda.
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HEY, AREN'T YOU THE SAME GUY WHO SAID I COULDN'T BE TRUSTED?
A prime example of that is they are going out of their way NOT to tell the Black community that the United States Constitution gives sole control of spending to the United States House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republicans. So the only way that President Obama can spend any money to assist the Black community, or anyone else, is to get the Republican House to go along with him.
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That’s why it’s so important for the president to hold together a coalition of Blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, and every other segment of the American population. He needs ALL of us to place pressure on the Republicans to loosen the purse strings in order for him to get anything done. So anytime you hear Tavis, West, or Watkins pointing their finger at what President Obama is doing for any other segment of the population, they’re doing you a disservice.
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Here’s how politics works - "you support me when I need you, and I’ll support you when you need me." So whenever President Obama does anything for other segments of the population, he’s building up political capital so he can help you. But, of course, he doesn’t discuss what he’s doing for the Black community for a very good reason - as Cornel says himself (when it’s convenient), "Race Matters."
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These gentlemen know full well that if President Obama runs around bragging about what he’s doing for the Black community, the Republicans are going to use that as leverage to tear his coalition apart. They would tell women, gays, Hispanics, and everyone else in America that Obama doesn’t care about them; all he wants to do is help his own people, and that message hurts the Black community. Don’t these so-called intellectuals recognize that? If they don’t, they’re dumb. If they do, that means that they’re purposely trying to mislead you. The question, then, is why?
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So the fact is, when people like Tavis, West, and Watkins run around telling you that the proof that President Obama is not working for you is that he refuses to throw his fist in the air, these people are working against you, not for you - and they know it. You see, their primary agenda is NOT about helping the Black community. Their agenda is about tearing President Obama down, and again, that hurts you. But they don't care - and that's the problem.
Eric L. Wattree Http://wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Strive To Become Your Own Hero... Then Let No One Remove Your Cape.
BIO
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."
Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.
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