It’s time for President Obama to Clearly Define himself

BENEATH THE SPIN * ERIC L. WATTREE

It’s time for President Obama to Clearly Define himself

The spontaneous demonstrations that are taking place on Wall Street and across the country should be seen as both good news, and bad news for President Obama. On the one hand, they indicate that the people are waking up to reality, but on the other, it means that they’ve come to the conclusion that if they want to survive they can’t depend on the help of politicians - and that includes Obama.

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So it’s time for Obama to wake up as well. The time has come for him to open his eyes to an ugly reality - we’re knee-deep in a class war. So if he intends to win the coming election it is incumbent upon him to make a clear distinction between himself and the GOP. If he fails to do so, the next election is going to be a toss up.
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The days of compromise and bipartisanship have past. The GOP has long since made it abundantly clear that they’re on a single-minded mission to lower the standard of living of the American middle class. So at this point in our history, the people don’t need a calm and reasonable diplomat; they’re in desperate need of a no-nonsense, fire-breathing general at the helm.
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Earlier in his administration when he tried to appeal to the GOP's "good sense and responsibility," many might have disagreed with his approach, but they gave him the benefit of the doubt because they assumed that he was trying to raise the level of statesmanship in Washington, D.C. But now, after the GOP has made it clear that they’re willing to hold the entire nation hostage in order to get the most minor of perks for those who are already filthy rich, to hear the President of the United States running around Washington asking "Can we all get along?" makes him look like the quintessential wimp, and the American people don’t like wimps - that’s one characteristic that ALL Americans have in common.
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Thus, while many of us breathed a sigh of relief when the president introduced his jobs proposal, it was only because we were encouraged by seeing a little starch in his spine. But the fact is, just like in his stimulus package, he’s not going far enough. He's still trying to straddle the fence. All that's going to do is keep everyone upset with him. He's tried appealing to those who hate him and all that did was make him look weak. Now it's time to appease his base, if it's not too late. After all, those are the ones who got him elected.
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As any marine - or anyone who grew up in the ghetto - can tell you, it's useless to try to engage in half-a-fight. You have to either go for broke, or run. Thus, since regardless to what kind of proposal Obama puts forward the GOP is going to fight it tooth-and-nail, the president might as well tell them he’s not going to sign any bill that places the poor and middle class in any further distress, he’s going to bring these senseless wars to an end, and he's going to completely abolish the Bush bonuses to the rich. If he did just those three things, it would place the nation back on an even keel, and he'd regain much of his base. But if he fails to do so he's going to go into the 2012 election as a man without a solid constituency, and that's not a winning strategy.
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You see, what the nation is currently going through is a manufactured crisis. The GOP purposely dragged the country under the bus in order to justify attacking the programs put in place under the New Deal and later legislation. Programs like Social Security, Medicare, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, that protect the interest of the poor and middle class, have been a thorn in the GOP’s side for over seventy years, but the programs were much too popular among the people to attack head on. So under Bush, they ravaged the treasury by literally throwing away money in Iraq - there are billions of dollars that’s still not accounted for - and at the same time, they gave the rich the biggest tax cut in the nation’s history. Now, they’re claiming that we’re so broke that they’re FORCED to make the poor and middle class suffer to get us out of it. That’s ridiculous! Why should the poor and middle class suffer while the top 1% of the country is enjoying a bonus?
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In addition, the GOP is now trying to justify this totally unconscionable situation by claiming that it makes perfect sense, because "it is the rich who create jobs." That’s even more nonsense. Jobs are created by the poor and middle class when they spend money on goods and services. It doesn’t matter how much money we give the rich, if average people don’t have money in their pockets to buy goods and services, the rich aren’t going to hire anyone to produce goods and services. If you make widgets and no one has the money to buy them, are you going to waste your money hiring people to make them? Of course not - it doesn't matter how big a tax cut they give you. Clear evidence of that is the fact that the economy tanked, and no jobs were created under President Bush, who promoted the very same policies that the GOP is advocating that we go back to.
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And the GOP knows they're scamming the American people.  That's why they're determined to see to it that the poor and middle class don’t have two extra nickels to rub together, because the Republicans know that if the people are allowed to get their hands on any money from any source, they’re going to spend that money, and that’s going to create jobs, and the jobs will generate tax revenue that will help relieve the deficit, and that in turn, will cause the GOP scam to completely unravel. Because, you see, the GOP has a vested interest in keeping the American people miserable, angry, and divided until the next election. That’s their only chance to regain power. That's also why Governor Rick Perry,  Republican of Texas, literally threatened Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bodily harm if he printed any more money between now and the election. Perry said, "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."
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So President Obama needs to stop playing footsy with these people. He should stand firm, start educating the people, and begin systematically unraveling this Republican scam. Then, if the GOP begins to obstruct, they’ll also be revealing their treachery against the American people.

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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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Herman Cain: Black People Are Brainwashed? Please!

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Herman Cain: Black People Are Brainwashed? Please!
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Herman Cain claims that the reason that black people won’t support him is that they’ve been brainwashed. And many conservatives are saying Cain is President Obama’s worst nightmare. I would have loved to have been in the White House when those statements came out. In spite of Obama’s laid-back demeanor, I’d be willing to bet that he was laughing so hard that he was rolling on the floor of the Oval Office in tears.
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One would think that this man would have sense enough to know that no one takes him seriously - and especially the GOP. And if the GOP had ever taken the time to truly get to know the Black community, they’d know that the only thing more toxic to Black people than a flat-out racist, is a Black conservative (with the notable exception of Colin Powell, because he’s not really a conservative - he was just smart enough to flimflam the overseer, instead of the reverse).
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Most Black people have very little use for Black conservatives. It's not that we disagree with everything they say, but because we’re suspect of the reasons they're saying it. With the possible exception of those who believe in talkin’ snakes, virtually without exception, every Black conservative I've ever known was a self-serving  opportunist. Their conservatism tends not to be so much grounded in their actual philosophy, as it is an opportunity to gain exposure and wealth. They realize that conservatives are looking high and low for Black people willing to step forward to validate their views toward the Black community. So they gleefully allow themselves to be used in return for personal wealth, position, and notoriety.
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Clarence Thomas is a case in point. There is no way that a man of his renowned level of mediocrity should be sitting on the highest court in this land - in fact, he shouldn't even be allowed to sit in traffic court. But due exclusively to his willingness to validate the conservative view of Black America, he's been given one of this nation's highest honors. Thus, Thomas' very presence on the Supreme Court is a stain on American values, our fidelity to jurisprudence, and an unabashed affront to every Black person in America.
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Clarence Thomas is allowing himself to be used as a national monument to every negative stereotype of Black people ever put forward - grinnin’, subservient, lazy, White-woman-lustin’, treacherous, dishonest, and ignorant. Then every time there’s a State of the Union address, Black people are forced to sit and look at his lecherous ass.
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So the Black community looks upon Clarence Thomas in precisely the same way as White Americans look upon a man guilty of treason against the United States - and other Black conservatives are not far behind. Why? Because most of these people would have happily voted against the Civil Rights Act in order to promote their own personal interest if they'd had the chance. And to demonstrate how transparent they are, Thomas took the unprecedented action of lobbying his colleagues to except what has  now clearly been demonstrated to be a meritless challenge to Barack Obama's eligibility to become President of the United States, while he didn't say a word as the Supreme Court casually APPOINTED George Bush president after he lost the 2000 election. And with respect to the challenge to Obama, it took his colleagues, some of the most conservative White men in the country, to tell Thomas that he was going too far - and now Herman Cain says it is Black people who are brainwashed?
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People like Thomas and Cain tend to be self-serving accommdationists who are wholly lacking in character. Black people have suffered a long history of such people, going all the way back to slavery - in fact, it was probably a Clarence Thomas clone who sold us into slavery in the first place. These were the very same people who would informed on slaves who were trying to escape to freedom: "I don't know what's wrong wit him, boss. Ya jest can't get him to appreciate nothin' you do for us. What he needs is a real good beatin'. Want me to do it? I’ll do it real good for ya, boss."
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So having Clarence Thomas sitting on the Supreme Court, with his happy, grinnin’ face, his eager to please attitude, and his quintessential ignorance, is a bad joke at the expense of the Black community. His presence is the equivalent of giving every Black person in America the finger. It wouldn’t be any more insulting to Black people if they chiseled a picture of Buckwheat on the Supreme Court seal.
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And now we have another ‘happy face,’ in the person of Herman Cain, saying that Black people won’t support him and his fascist overseers because we’re brainwashed? And worse, we get this from a Black man whose advice to Black people during the deepest recession since the Great Depression is to, "Get a job!"  Please! This is an absolute idiot.
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Get out the whip, Rush - it sounds like Herman's been into your stash.

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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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Once Again Nader and West Team to Elect a Republican President

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Once Again Nader and West Team to Elect a Republican President

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WEST SUCKIN' UP -

BUT LOOK AT OBAMA'S FACE

So Ralph Nader and Cornel West have teamed up yet again to sabotage the Democratic Party. They’re currently canvassing the country for Democratic opponents to challenge Obama in the primaries. According to Nader, "Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored." And he goes on to say, "The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters."
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If my grandfather was still around he’s say, "These two fools have more nerve than a brass-ass monkey." And he would be right. I’m shocked that either of them have the nerve to even open their mouths, because the last time they teamed up during the 2000 election to "excite the voters," they excited the Democratic Party right out of office. I used to jokingly tell friends that after Bush was sworn in, his very first act as president was to take down a picture of George Washington and replace it with a picture of Ralph Nader in the Oval Office.
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Admittedly, many of us are frustrated by President Obama’s lack of assertiveness toward the GOP, but the point of an election is to vote your interest, not your frustration. If you were Jewish in pre-Nazi Germany and frustrated with the administration in office, would you squander your vote to vent your frustration at the sitting administration, or would you vote to make damn sure that Hitler didn’t win the election? That’s the situation that we’re currently in here in the United States.
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I’ve written several articles criticizing of Barack Obama, but I’ve always tried to remain constructive, and I’ve limited my criticism to specific issues instead of launching unsubstantiated attacks on his overall character. As I see it, that’s the difference between attempting to have a positive impact on policy, as oppose to engaging in the destructive practice of pursuing a personal agenda.
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Obama has caused me tremendous frustration on several issues, but simple common sense dictates that my being frustrated is far preferable to allowing the GOP to come into power and turn the United States into a nation of corporate feudalism. That’s a level of common sense that Ralph Nader, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West seems to be lacking. Tavis seems to be keeping a low profile in this effort, by the way, but somehow I still visualize West sitting on his knee with Tavis’ hand in his back.
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Isn’t it curious how all of their criticism is directed at Obama while, this point, it has become abundantly clear that the GOP has turned into a group of radical lunatics with absolutely no sense of limits, or any respect for the United States Constitution?
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The GOP literally stole the 2000 election, invalidating the votes of literally millions of Americans; they invaded an innocent country, killing over a million Iraqi citizens – the majority of whom were innocent women and children; they’ve thrown away the lives of thousands of our troops in pursuit of corporate greed; they ravaged our economy and are using it as a pretext to abolish Social Security and all other elements of the social safety net; their radical Supreme Court has given multinational corporations more control over our electoral system than American citizens, and they’ve effectively turned the state of Michigan into Michighanistan by taking away the citizens’ right to self-determination. Yet, Nader and West would risk turning the nation over to these people, yet again, because they’re personally irritated with Barack Obama?
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Anyone – and I do mean ANYONE – who would do that is either stupid, insane, think they’ll benefit from a GOP victory in some way, or are so blinded by an oversized ego that they’ve lost all connection with reality. It is clear to most thinking people that President Obama, flaws and all, is our best defense against turning the nation over to a GOP who want’s to drag us back into the Middle Ages. If that wasn’t the case, Nader and West wouldn’t have to mount a talent search. Thus, it’s one thing to have individual principles, but placing the entire nation in jeopardy to indulge those principles suggests an egomania that, at the very least, borders on psychosis.
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It’s time for Nader and West supporters to realize that neither of these two individuals are grounded in reality. They both have a proven track record of being politically naive, at best, and delusional at worst. They both fail to recognize that while it’s an admirable ideal to want to vote one’s conscience, that’s all it is – an ideal. Politics is about being practical, and the inescapable fact is, their consciences can’t hold political office – and even if they could, I wouldn’t want to rely on the consciences of men with such poor judgment in the first place. So while they might want to fall on their swords in the name of political purity, the rest of us would rather settle for a functional democracy.
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Again, this is not the first time that Nader and West have engaged in this failed strategy. West supported Nader in his self-serving and childishly petulant campaign during the 2000 election that led to the appointment of George W. Bush. So while West is running around claiming to be so outraged over the economy and lack of jobs for the poor and middle class in this country, he’s partially responsible for it. In a previous article,
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The Tavis/West Poverty Pimp Tour, I point out the following:
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"Those of us who are students of political history have seen this Tavis/West demagoguery before. They’re following directly in the footsteps of Ralph Nader, one of the worst turncoats in American history.
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"Nader should have pushed his agenda during the Democratic primaries, then if his position was rejected, he should have fallen in line and supported the Democratic candidate, if for no other reason than to support the public good. But instead, when his position was rejected, he took it as a personal rejection and acted like a petulant child. He ignored the greater good and purposely sabotaged the Democratic agenda – along with all of the causes that he was supposed to be so passionate about all of his life – and took his ball (and votes) and went home.
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"By doing so, Nader negated everything that he ever accomplished in his life. He also betrayed the fact that everything he ever accomplished was done purely for self-promotion and not for the public good, as we had previously assumed. His miserable act of treachery during the 2000 election was purposely designed to help George Bush to win that election in order to deny the Democrats after rejecting him as a candidate. That makes him just as culpable as Bush and Cheney for the death of over a million Iraqi citizens, the maiming and death of thousands of American troops, and even the nations current economic condition, which is a direct result of the Bush administration’s purposeful plundering of the United States treasury. Nader supporters would say that he stood on principles, but his "principles" have led to the death and misery of literally millions of innocent people. Thus, Ralph Nader should be remembered as one of the most miserable and self-serving snakes in all of U. S. History.
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"Tavis and West are engaged in the very same sort of treachery as Nader, and it may very well lead to the same result, or worse. Because you see, this time we’re going to be left with a fascist state."
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But if you confront members of the Nader/West coalition with these facts, they’ll immediately begin to obfuscate and engage in intellectual gymnastics in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the horrific fate that they brought upon the country. They’ll say things like, "It’s not our fault that Gore lost. He just didn’t fight hard enough for a recount." But by using such arguments what they’re actually saying is, "Gore just didn’t work hard enough to undo the damage that we’d done." But the bottom line is this – 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 don’t take my word for it – you do the math.
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/

Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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The American People Are being Flimflammed, Bamboozled, and Hornswoggled by the GOP

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

The American People Are being Flimflammed, Bamboozled, and Hornswoggled by the GOP

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At the very outset I’d like to make an unequivocal assertion - entrusting our economy and the wellbeing of the poor and middle class to the GOP is like entrusting the well being of a child to a convicted child molester. If you think that’s hyperbole, simply ask yourself who was the last Republican president who didn’t drag our economy into a ditch. If you want to say Ronald Reagan, forget it. In spite of the fact that Reagan ran on a platform of limited government and economic responsibility, during his tenure he not only tripled the national debt, but did more spending than all of the presidents who preceded him - COMBINED.  In addition, he effectively destroyed our industrial base in the process.

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The GOP is only good at two things - propagandizing, or reframing their message to put the best face on their grossly malevolent agenda, and squandering our national resources in pursuit of that agenda. You see, they love the economy just the way it is - the rich are making money hand-over-fist, the government doesn’t have the resources to sufficiently regulate their activities, and the poor and middle class are in such dire straits that instead of making demands, they’re fighting among themselves for any crumbs that the rich are willing to throw at their feet.
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In short, the GOP is engaged in the process of lowering the standard of living of the American middle class in order to make their corporate friends more competitive in the new global economy. So if they have their way, our current condition will never change. In fact, they intend to make it a lot worse.
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And why shouldn’t they? After all, the recession isn’t having a negative impact on them or their corporate constituency - they’re doing better than ever. It’s only the poor and middle class that’s suffering, and once they get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and the unions, we’ll be totally dependent on the corporate class for our very survival. Then they’ll be right back up in the catbird seat, just like the good ole days, before they had all these pesky rules and regulations, and before that "socialist," Franklin Roosevelt, decided the American people needed to be protected. "Let ‘em protect themselves; that’s the American way, survival of the fittest - cope or die" It’s interesting to note, however, that they didn’t feel that way when their corporations were in trouble.
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It is in pursuit of this agenda that Grover Norquist, one of the most powerful men in the GOP - a man who’s gotten virtually every Republican in congress to sign a pledge to NEVER vote to raise taxes - indicated that he wanted a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. Specifically, he said, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
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Thus, the GOP wants a government just large enough to protect the interest of their corporate cronies around the word, send American youth to their death in pursuit of their corporate greed, and large enough to cover their gambling losses on the global market. But they want that same government to be too small to protect the American people from contaminated food, drugs, and water, and much too small to protect us from corporate manipulation, and safety, health, and fairness issues on the job - and they certainly want it too small to administer programs like Social Security and Medicare.
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This is a totally un-American and ruthless bunch. Norquist is also quoted as saying, "Our goal is to inflict pain. It is not good enough to win; it has to be a painful and devastating defeat. We're sending a message here. It is like when the king would take his opponent's head and spike it on a pole for everyone to see." The opponent that Norquist is talking about is the well being of the American people, and all those who advocate in their interest.
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Take a moment to consider the ramifications of his pledge to never raise taxes. That permanently protects the rich from having to pay their fair share of any burden, regardless of the national emergency. Thus, no matter what tragedy might befall this nation, if we can never raise taxes, that means that the burden of addressing that emergency must come out of the pocket of the poor and middle class in the form of fewer governmental services and protections. That’s their way of attacking the poor and middle class safety net. Since Social Security and Medicare are much too popular among the American people to attack head on, their strategy is to ravage the United States treasury in order to make them too expensive to fund.
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We currently see this strategy at work in congress as we speak. Republican House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, is refusing disaster relief funding for states hit by Hurricane Irene without being offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Talking Points Memo reports that Laene Fallon, a spokesperson for Cantor, said that "We aren't going to speculate on damage before it happens, period. But, as you know, Eric has consistently said that additional funds for federal disaster relief ought to be offset with spending cuts."

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This episode betrays much about the GOP mindset. First and foremost, it clearly demonstrates that the GOP leadership couldn’t care less about the welfare of the American people. Secondly, it clearly illustrates their gross hypocrisy. They claim that they’re so concerned about the national debt that they’re willing to deny disaster relief to Americans suffering the ravages of a hurricane, yet, they’re not so concerned that it prevents them from giving trillions of dollars away to the top 2% of the population.  Thus, by their demonstrated behavior, the GOP has betrayed their belief that subsidizing the wealth of the wealthy should take priority over relieving the suffering of poor and middle-class Americans - and these people are asking us to turn the government over to them? Please.  
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And Mr. President, the facts presented above are exactly why it’s so important that you refrain from confronting your base with terms and phrases like 'compromise,' 'bipartisan,' and 'shared sacrifice' for the rest of your days in office. Your base is sick to death of hearing them. We’re not stupid, and we understand that the American people have been compromised to the hilt. And engaging in bipartisanship with the GOP constitutes nothing less than consorting with the enemy of American democracy.
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As for "shared sacrifice," that’s really a joke. What you’re asking us to do is cut a pie into ten pieces, give the GOP nine of them, and then engage in negotiations over the sliver that's left. Give us a break, Mr. President. Stand up and fight. Give the American people a clear choice, and start lecturing the GOP like you did the Congressional Black Caucus.
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Oh, and one more thing. Get that quiver out your voice. We know you ain’t Martin Luther King, and we also know you’re in campaign mode, so don’t insult our intelligence. It’s disrespectful.
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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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President Obama: Protect America From Economic Terrorists

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

President Obama: Protect America From Economic Terrorists

The primary reason that the American people are suffering is because President Obama is allowing the GOP to define our priorities. The very worst thing that could ever happen to the Republican Party is for the economy to improve, people to start going back to work, and for the American people to be happy during the next election. So the GOP has a vested interest in seeing to it that the American people are hungry, miserable, and divided until after the 2012 election. 
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In fact, the plan is to keep us hungry and miserable beyond the 2012 election, because the overall game plan is to lower the American middle-class standard of living to conform to the new global economy. Instead of enhancing economic uniformity by fighting for the rights of workers around the world, as we've done in the past, they've now decided that it would be easier and much more profitable to simply lower the American standard of living.
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The GOP is accomplishing this agenda by turning common sense on its head. They’ve been running around telling any and everyone who will listen that the way to improve the economy and create jobs is by funneling all of the nation’s wealth to the rich, and then cutting spending - that’s politispeak for cutting all programs that will put a dollar in the pocket of the poor and middle class. But that’s exactly what we don’t need, because jobs are not created by the rich. Jobs are created by the poor and middle class spending money on goods and services. That results in businesses having to hire workers to produce those goods and services.

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For this reason, Republicans are in Washington blocking any and everything the president does to stimulate the economy, and at the same time voting for every measure that they can come up with to keep money out of the hands of the American people. They’ve voted against extending benefits for the unemployed, they’ve voted against funding benefits for 9/11 first responders, and House Republican Leader, Eric Canter, has even threatened to block disaster relief for states hit by Hurricane Irene unless President Obama agrees to more budget cuts to offset any emergency funding. They know that as long as the American people don’t have money to spend on goods and services, unemployment will stay high and they’ll have a much better chance of regaining power. So essentially - no, literally - the GOP's best interest lies in engaging in economic guerilla warfare against America. Rush Limbaugh said it most plainly -"I want President Obama to fail." So in short, they want America to fail.

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The GOP is engaged in a confidence game against America, but a grossly uninformed American public keeps going for it over and over again. Once one generation finally catches on, the GOP will simply wait eight years and run the very same game all over again on the next generation. They’ve been running the very same game for at least a hundred years. They’re currently telling the American people the very same lie that Ronald Reagan told us thirty years ago.

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I pointed out the pattern in my article, "The GOP: A One Hundred Year Record of Swindling the American People":

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"One would think that conservatives would have seen the light, but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes seems to supersede all logic. Therefore, from the moment that the New Deal went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they've come to succeeding started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics" - and the battle is currently raging in Washington, D.C. as we speak.

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"Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatch by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. The resulting broadened tax base would not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. When the plan was first floated, even George Bush, Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics."

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"Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration. What actually took place, however, was even more like the Coolidge era than planned.
.

"Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.

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"And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president, but he also added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration combined. And what does the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals was their "contract with America," a capital gains tax cut - for the rich.

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But what’s so curious about the current situation is, this time, even though we have extensive video and internet documentation of the disaster that took place under both Ronald Reagan, and later, George W. Bush, both Obama, and the news media, are simply ignoring it as though it doesn’t exist. They’re simply sitting around debating this Republican scheme as though it's a perfectly legitimate and viable option, while they have unequivocal proof that's it's nothing but a scam against the American people, and has been proven as such time and time again for decades.

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They could blow GOP claims completely out of the water with just one carefully edited video. They don't even need a video - everything the GOP is proposing was in place during the Bush administration, yet Bush's eight-year reign created the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression. So it’s extremely curious to me why neither Obama, nor the news media, will simply say, these people are running a game on you - look. 

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While I’m not prone to buying into conspiracy theories, this an issue that we really need to take a look at. Why are both political parties, and the media, going out of their way to completely ignore facts that are so glaring that we have to shield our eyes to keep from going blind?

.


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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 ENCOUNTER

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

THE ENCOUNTER

"Momma! There's a man at the door."

"Who is it"?

"He said his name is Gerry."

When Vern got to the door, she couldn't believe her eyes. Why, it was Gerry Minyard. She and Monty hadn't seen him in over 10 years, and she knew when Monty found out that Gerry was here he would be delighted. She also knew that now that Gerry had shown up at their door after so many years, it meant the end of their plan to leave for San Francisco that evening. But she didn't mind. She loved seeing Gerry, and she couldn't wait to see Monty's face when he found out he was here.

"Gerry! How are you? We thought the world had swallowed you up."


Gerry just sort'a smiled and said, "you know, you wouldn't have been too far off. You know how I am, here a day, there a day, never in any one place too long."

"Well, I gotta tell you, Gerry, you are the last person that we thought we would see out here. Just before we moved here to Covina, Monty tried to find you to give you our new address, but they told him that you had quit United and had left town."

"Yeah, I got tired of staying in one place, and after Monty left United to go to work at Rockwell, I ran out of Liberals to argue with, so I got bored and left."

Vern laughed as she said, "Yeah, I can see how that would really be a hardship on you, Gerry.

Have a seat, Gerry. I know I don't have to tell you to make yourself at home. You're like family, so this is your home. Let me get you a beer."

"That sounds good, Vern. Where's the big shot?"

"He's in the shower..."

At just that moment Monty yelled from the bathroom. "Vern! what time does the plane leave?"
Vern put her fingers to her lips warning Gerry not to say anything. She wanted to surprise Monty.

"We're on Trans Western flight 301. It leaves LAX at 6pm."

Monty walked into the living room wearing slacks and a T-shirt, but he had a towel over his head drying his hair, so he didn't see Gerry. "Baby, I can't wait to show you this little place on the Wharf..."


Then Gerry said, "and I can't wait to see it, darlin'."

Even before he brought the towel down, Monty was yelling out Gerry's name. "Gerry, Gerry, GERRY! How the hell are you man?"

As Monty grabbed and hugged Gerry and began to go through all of the questions that one asked a close friend that one had lost touch with, Vern began to reflect on this most unusual friendship.


Monty and Gerry met about 15 years ago while they both worked for United Office Equipment Company. Monty had just graduated from college, and was coming into the company as an assistant warehouse manager. Gerry had already been working for the company for a couple of years, but as a casual laborer. The company had offered Gerry a regular job but Gerry turned them down. He said he would rather work on a day to day basis, that way he wouldn't feel tied down.

What made this friendship so endearing to everyone who witnessed it is the fact that it was so unlikely. Monty is a 37 year-old college educated black man whose politics is left of center. Gerry, on the other hand, is a 57 year-old Irishman. A Reagan conservative, who may, or may not have finished high school. They don't agree on anything. Every night they would sit up over a bottle of gin and argue about politics until well into the night. If a person didn't know 'em they'd think they were bitter enemies. Gerry would call Monty A subversive commie sympathizer, and Monty would call Gerry a reactionary, brown shirt fascist. Yet, they have an affection for one another that defies description. It went beyond politics. Monty, who's kind of distant toward people by nature, loved Gerry like family, and it was clear that Gerry felt the same way toward him. Vern always felt that Gerry sort of adopted them as the family he didn't have--or, at least, never spoke about.

Gerry lived a hard, but romantic life. He reminded Vern of one of Steinbeck's characters. He seemed to have stepped right out of The Grapes of Wrath--A tall, slim, Irish drifter with handsome, but rugged features. He never stayed in any one place too long. Vern suspected he just didn't want to develop any lasting affections like the one he had stumbled upon with them. For that reason, she suspected, he wasn't above hopping a freight train and traveling to the next state on just a whim. He traveled real light, but he certainly wasn't a bum. If he made eighty dollars a day working one of his many day-jobs, forty of it would go in the bank. He had helped Monty and Vern out of some really tough spots when they were younger--and wouldn't allow them to pay him back. "I don't lend money to people I care about--I give it to them. Besides, I don't ever remember you charging me for dinner when I eat up your food."  He's a unique individual.

"So you're going up to Frisco, uh? Nice town--I spent five years up there one day."

Monte said, "What?"

"Aw, it wasn't nothing," said Gerry. "I'll tell you the story one day. I was passing through there one day and got into a barroom brawl that got a little out of hand, but that was another time and place." Then as though snapping himself back into the present he said, "Maybe I should have called before I came by."

Monte said, "Don't be ridiculous, Gerry. We were just going up to the bay area because we have a little time on our hands, and we didn't have anything else to do - not to mention that it gave us a chance to get away from our little darlin's for awhile," and he cut his eyes over toward the kids.

Just then Vern came from the rear of the house. "I just called the airline and canceled our flight until tomorrow night."

Gerry said, "You didn't have to do that for me. I didn't intend to come here and ruin your plans."

"Gerry," said Vern, "if we had known we were gonna to see you this weekend, we never would have made plans in the first place--and besides, we have two months to go any place we like. Now, I'm going to make you some of my famous enchiladas that you use to love so much."

Gerry's eyes lit up and he said, "Now I can live with that," as his eyes followed Vern as she headed for the kitchen. "You're a lucky man, Monty."

"I know. It's almost as though we were made for one another."

Gerry said, "Actually, I think you were."

But Monty didn't hear him. He'd become wrapped up in his thoughts of how perfect life had been since he and Vern had been married.

"Gerry," said Monty, assuming that expression of total seriousness that Gerry had come to know so well, " it's almost like divine intervention. Every since we've been married it seems that our life had taken on a life of it's own. Even when we do something stupid, it seems to turn out right."

Vern stuck her head out of the kitchen. "You know, Gerry, Monty's right. Take the kids, for example. We got married as soon as Monty got out of the service. We were babies ourselves, and we didn't know a thing about bringing up kids, and yet, our two kids have been nothing but a joy to us. We haven't had one problem out of either of them."

"Have you ever thought,"" said Gerry, "that it just might be divine intervention?".

"There you go," Monty broke in, "still tryin' to save my soul. Man, you ain't been here ten minutes and you tryin’ to slip Pat Robinson through the backdoor already. Don't you know by now that you ain't gon' ever sell me on that Moral Majority stuff? Those people are neither moral, nor a majority--their most earnest prayer is that I drown tryin' to swim my way back to Africa--and the way you drink, smoke and cuss, you can’t believe that stuff yourself."

Gerry fell-out laughing. Monty really had a way with gettin' to the bottom line, but Gerry was determined to get his point across in this decade old debate between them.

"Listen Monty, I'm not a part of any Moral Majority--I don't care for them myself. I've come to agree with you over the years on that issue. But don't you think, organized religion aside, that there just might be some force in the universe that lends a hand to prevent man from destroying himself?"

"Yes. I do believe that," Monty replied. "In fact, I believe that the universe itself, and everything that is a part of it, is God. Where I have a problem is when man tries to make God in man's image. They try to make him look like us--or, at least y'all. They try to make him think like us, and try to make him as silly as us. God doesn't have to be a person, he could be the universe itself. So I don't have to have faith. People who claim to have ‘faith’ don’t have faith in God. They’re faith is in man, and what he tells them about God. But I know there's a God, because as far as I'm concerned, God is whatever force that put all of this in motion, and a sin is when you do anything to violate the laws of nature.

They went on like that for some time, until Vern interrupted saying, "You guys are getting a little heavy in there. Come on and eat. The food is ready. Taylor , Lil' Monty! Come and eat your dinner."

When Taylor and Lil' Monty got to the table, Gerry said, "Man, these don't look like the two babies that I remember. And why are you calling this man Lil' Monty? He's as tall as his father."

Taylor said, "Taller. He's an inch taller than my father, and he's only 14 years old."

"I see you're still proud of your little brother. I remember when you two were about two feet tall--well, he wasn't but about a foot and a half. Even then, you used to say, "My little brother can count to ten. My little brother can say his ABC's."

Taylor began to blush.

"Don't be ashamed. There's nothing wrong with loving your brother. That's one of the things that sets this family apart, makes it special--you’re full of love. Most of the world is full of something else, but we won't get into that."

After dinner, and after Gerry finished raving over Vern's enchiladas they went back into the living room to have a few beers and laughed and talked the night away. Monty had persuaded Gerry to stay over, promising to take him back to L.A. on the way to the airport.

Monty said, "I see you're still smoking those old nasty Pall Mall Reds."

"If I remember correctly", said Gerry, "they didn't use to bother you that much when you were bumming ‘em off me at United. I had to bring an extra pack every morning just for you. I bet you owe me 32 thousand dollars, just in cigarettes."

They all started laughing, then Monty said, " Aw man, you're making me sound like a bum. The only reason that I use to ask you for cigarettes is because I was trying to quit smoking."

"Yeah", said Gerry, "and from the cigarette in your hand, I see you're still trying." He look up toward the ceiling and said, " ten years later, Lord, and he's still trying to quit--but, at least he has his own cigarettes."

That's when Vern chimmed in, "uh uh Lord, 'dem my cigarettes."

"Take it from an old red-neck", said Gerry, "he'll never change, Lord." Then they all fell out laughing.

They stayed up laughing and partying until the wee hours of the morning. It had been years since Monty and Vern had enjoyed anyone so much.

******************************************************************************
The next morning Vern got up early. She thought it might be nice if they all got up to an early breakfast and maybe take Gerry on a little outing. Maybe they could go to Puttingstone Reservoir, he'd probably like that. They might even be able to persuade him to stay another day. She'd like that. She couldn't remember when she had enjoyed a house guest so much.

When she got up and went into the kitchen she was surprised to find that the kitchen was spotless. When she went to bed it was a mess. She was enjoying Gerry so much that she hadn't found time to get to it. She knew the kids hadn't done it because they were already asleep, and it was after 3 in the morning when Gerry, Monty, and herself had turned in. Maybe one of the darlings had gotten up early to do it, knowing she had stayed up late and might be too tired to face it this morning. She loved those kids, they were so thoughtful.

She went to Lil' Monty's room to check on them. Lil' Monty had bunk beds, so whenever a guest stayed over the guest used Taylor's room, and Taylor would take one of the bunks in her brother's room.

"Monty, Monty!"

LiL' Monty looked up sleepily from his bed.

"Where's your sister, Monty?"

"She's in her room."

"She can't be in there. Gerry's in her room."

"Who's Gerry, momma?"

"You know, your daddy's friend--the one who stayed over last night."

Lil' Monty was becoming wider awake, now. "Momma, there wasn't anyone over here last night."

"Monty! the man who had dinner with us last night!" Vern was becoming irritated, now. The boy must still be asleep.

Lil' Monty was wide awake in earnest, now. He looked concerned. "Momma, nobody had dinner with us last night. You and daddy were supposed to be going to the airport, but when daddy got out of the shower you guys went in the room, laid down, and went right off to sleep. We tried to wake you, but we couldn't, so we just let you sleep. We put a pizza in the oven and watched T.V. for a while, and then we went to bed."


"Wait a minute, damn it! I know I ain't crazy." Vern rushed to Taylor's room and opened the door. Taylor was in her bed sound asleep. "Taylor! wake up!"

"What’s the matter, momma?"

"Taylor, don't you remember answering the door for Gerry yesterday?"

"Who?"

"Gerry! Your daddy's friend!"

"I did'nt answer the door for anybody yesterday." Taylor looked over at her brother with a bewildered expression on her face. Lil' Monty started laughing.

"Momma been dreamin'." Now they both started to laugh.

"Naw, naw--hell naw! That whatn't no damn dream. Go wake up your daddy!" The kids went into the bed room to wake their father.

"Daddy, daddy. Wake up daddy. Momma wants you to come to Taylor's room."

"What's wrong?"

"Momma said to come there for a minute." When Monty walked into Taylor's room he immediately asked, "Where's Gerry?"

"DAMN IT! I KNEW I WASN’’T CRAZY!"

Vern began to relate to Monty what had happened that morning. In spite of the fact that the kids insisted that nobody came over the night before, they were sure that Gerry had been there. At first they thought the kids were playing games with them, but the enchiladas were still in the refrigerator, untouched, and wrapped in foil. And another thing, when Monty woke up he was still wearing the towel he placed around him when he'd gotten out of the shower.

Just then, the phone began to ring. Taylor went over and picked it up. She said, "They're here...no...they fell asleep." Then she turned around and said, "Granny's on the phone crying. She said turn on the TV."



Monty went over and switched on the TV. When the TV came to life it showed the picture of a smoking plane crash. Dan Rather was saying, "Trans Western flight 301 between Los Angeles and San Francisco lost power and crashed into a schoolyard shortly after takeoff from LAX, killing everyone aboard."

Varn just collasped onto the sofa in shock. "That's the plane we would have been on if Gerry hadn't..."


Monty and Vern could only look at each other. Both knew what the other was thinking, but the words wouldn't come out.

"Vern, tell your mother you'll call her back. I'm gon'na call Carl."

Carl had worked at United Office Equipment with Monty and Gerry. Maybe he had Gerry's phone number and they could figure out just what was going on.

Vern was relieved when she heard Monte exchanging pleasantries with Carl. She wasn't sure Carl had the same number--they hadn't spoken to him in over seven years. But the conversation seemed endless. She wanted Monty to get off the phone so they could get to the bottom of this strange occurrence. Finally she heard the conversation winding down.

...."Are you sure about that, Carl? Ok. Thanks."

When Monty hung up the phone he had tears in his eyes. He told Vern to sit down.
"Gerry died three years ago. Carl and Rudy went to his funeral. They tried to contact us but our name wasn't in the Los Angeles directory. We must of both had Gerry on our minds yesterday and had similar dreams."

"Similar my ass," said Vern, "It was the SAME dream, buddy!"

"Well", said Monty, stranger things have happened."

"Monty, you're always trying to be so clinical."

"That's because there's a logical explanation for any and everything that happens in life", said Monty. Vern was seated and looking down at the floor with her hands between her legs. When she looked up, she had a distant, but knowing look in her eye. She said,"Oh yeah, then explain this." She brought her clasped hands from between her legs to reveal a brand new pack of Pall Mall Reds.


At just that moment, the vertical blinds began to rattle from a pronounced breeze that whipped through the house. Monty wiped the tears from his eyes, looked up at the ceiling, and said, "Still a ham, uh Gerry?"

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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Tavis/West: We Know We're Hurting, Now Tell Us the Truth About Why

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Tavis/West: We Know We're Hurting, Now Tell Us the Truth About Why

This is a reprise of an article that I did back in December of 2005.  At the time, I pretty much predicted what we’re going through today. No, I don’t claim to be a prophet, but the writing on the wall was so clear back then that anyone with common sense could easily connect the dots. The very same is true today. That’s why it is so hard to fathom why Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are spending so much time and effort stating the obvious instead of telling us what we need to hear as a people, and then coming up with a plan of action - that is, unless you take their own self-interest into account:

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Wake Up, My People

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I went to view the remains of Stanley Tookie Williams last week-- he went to Washington high school with my late wife. When I went inside the mortuary’s Slumber Chamber where Tookie’s body lie in repose, there was a lady sitting in the front pew crying, presumably a member of Tookie’s family. It was obvious that the lady was in great pain, so in spite of the fact that I didn’t know her, I offered her my condolences. The chamber was quiet and solemn. Then I walked out the side door of the mortuary—and into an absolute zoo.
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In the parking lot next to the mortuary there was a crowd of people partying like it was New Years Eve–the music was blasting, one car was on lifters so high that it seemed to be standing on end, and three sisters were dancing in a heated frenzy before a crowd of maybe a hundred people shouting, “Go ba-by! Go ba-by! Go ba-by!” It was unbelievable. But the scene outside the mortuary that night served to reinforce a point of view that I’ve held for many years now--it's time for our people to wake up and sniff the funk, because the fumes are emanating from all around us, and it’s coming at us from every direction. That goes for the American people in general, but black people in particular.
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As black people, we have a beautiful and festive culture, and I realize that in the past that festive spirit has been used to great effect as a defense against pain. But times are changing in this country, and they’re changing faster and more drastically than we’ve ever known before. So, if we are to survive as a people, we must adapt to that change--and we’d better do it real fast.
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Looking at the United States today, one can’t help but recognize that it’s become reminiscent of Germany during the 1930s, just prior to the rise of fascism. We have a regime currently in power that’s stolen two elections and has taken over every branch of government; they invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses and they’re saber rattling towards others; They’ve set up concentration camps all over the world, and they’re torturing innocent people. As we party, they’re not only passing laws that will allow them to spy on American citizens, but arrest those citizens, while denying them rights supposedly guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States.
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We’ve got to start thinking the way this government thinks (notice that I didn’t say “the White man”, because if a White man happens to be poor or middle class, he’s in trouble too). We‘ve got to start thinking ahead. When I was in The Marine Corps way back in 1971, even then, they had me out in Twenty-nine Palms training reservists in desert warfare. So you see, while we’re living in the moment, this government is thinking ahead. And when you consider the fact that Bush is now spending 2 billion dollars a week in Iraq, and sending this country into so much debt that it precludes our funding education, Medicare, most entitlement programs, and possibly, even Social Security, you’d better believe they have a game plan in mind. They have to have one, just to deal with the resulting social upheaval that is sure to result—and they are practicing that game plan in Iraq as we speak. So it is past time for black people to set our party shoes aside, at least for the moment, and embark on a very serious and sober reassessment of where we stand in this country today.
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Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-America--I Love America. America has provided me and my family with a way of life and opportunities that we might not have found in any other place in the world. But what I love most about America is the American ideal, those ideals that we may not always live up to, but we aspire to. It is the American ideal that makes America special, and it is the assault on those ideals that makes me very nervous about the Bush administration. Under Bush, we seem to be losing sight of what America stands for. He claims that the terrorist hate us because of the American ideal of freedom, justice, and equality. But if that is indeed the case, the terrorist are clearly winning this war, because with every day that passes those ideals are being whittled away.
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When Bush invaded Iraq in response to 9/11 he demonstrated very clearly his propensity for venting his hostility towards people of color. In spite of the fact that all available evidence pointed to the fact that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with attacking this country, his invasion of Iraq seems to say, “Oh well, one Arab is just like another—they’ll do.” That is not the American way.
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And as a result of that policy, United Press International reported on July 12, 2005 that according to an Iraqi humanitarian organization, 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003. The report goes on to say, “chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women, and children aged 12 and under.” Thus, according to this report, more women and children are being killed in Iraq than anyone else--and that, is not the American way.
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In addition, it has now come to light that the Bush administration has been spying on Muslims in their homes, businesses, and mosques, without warrant, since September 11, 2001. Conservative spin masters try to justify this policy by saying that this fudging of the Constitution only affects
0.1% of the people, so those of us who don’t have anything to hide don’t have anything to worry about. But the fact is, these violations set a precedent that sends the nation down a slippery slope that affects us all. It’s not only a gross violation of an entire community of people, but a corruption of the United States Constitution that places us all in jeopardy. That is not the American way.
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So it is clear that our government, under Bush, has no understanding, nor respect, for limits. Since he's already demonstrated his propensity to paint all people of color with the same brush, it’s not a very big leap from terrorist, to Muslim, to Black Muslim, to black people in general. While that's not the American way, it's a glaring reality.
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So, again, it is past time for the black community to turn down the music for a minute and get serious. The Cabbage Patch can wait, because if there has ever been a time in our history where it is incumbent upon us to focus, educate ourselves, and become politically engaged, it is now. We’ve demonstrated over the years that we can party hardier than any group of people in the world, but at this point in our history, we have nothing to party about. Tookie’s body should attest to that fact.
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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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U.S. Postal Service: Is the Budget More Important Than Employees Exposed to TB?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

U.S. Postal Service: Is the Budget More Important Than Employees Exposed to TB?

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On Tuesday, August 2, 2011, when the employees showed up for work at the United States Postal Service’s Los Angeles International Service Center (LAXISC), they were greeted by a note on the time clock instructing them to gather in the main conference room at 3:30 p.m. After all of the employees assembled, along with some military personnel and personnel from the Center for Disease Control, they were informed by the plant manager, a Mr. Holden, that they had been exposed to tuberculosis. They were told that an employee had contracted the disease about a year earlier and they had just been informed by the CDC.
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According to a rerliable source, Mr. Holden then went on to inform the employees that only "high risk" personnel would be tested. When asked why wasn’t everyone being tested, a repreesentative from the Los Angeles County Health Department indicated that the budget precluded them from testing everyone.  Manager Holden later went on to suggest that if the employees had any concerns they should contact their private physicians and arrange to be tested. Thereafter, they tested all of the managers and just a few of the employees that they considered high risk.
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The source also indicated that the APWU’s presence was all but nonexistent at the meeting. The source said:
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"The local president, John Driver, and none of the local officers bothered to come to the meeting. Instead, the treasurer, Darryl Brown, came and did not even ask any questions or voice any concerns about the situation. Is this what our president and local think of us whereas we are not even important enough for them to be present to see about our safety and welfare regarding an employee being diagnosed with TB that we all may have come in contact with and may even have exposed our families to?"
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Subsequently, it was found that the employee that caused the exposure died on July 8, 2011. Of twenty-six employees tested as of last week, thirteen tested positive. So here are a few questions just begging to be asked:
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1. If thirteen of the twenty-six employees that’s been tested so far tested positive (half), isn’t that cause for concern? Wouldn’t it be prudent to put budgetary concerns aside, if for no other reason than to protect the health of the employees, and their family, friends, and neighbors?
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2. Since all of the employees at that facility were potentially exposed to TB on the job, why do they have to incur the expense of going to their own physician? Isn’t that considered a job related hazard, and isn’t it the postal service’s responsibility to protect the job-related threat to the health and safety of it’s employees and their families? 3. Since all of the employees worked in one facility and the postal service has no idea how the employees came into contact with one another in commons areas, lunchrooms, restrooms, etc. How did they determine who was "high risk?"
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4. How does the postal service justify testing all of management and not the employees who are in much closer contact with one another?
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5. Where’s OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) in all of this? Don’t they have a role in seeing to it that the postal service doesn’t give their budget priority over the safety, health, and welfare of their employees?
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6. Why would the Health Department representative speak to budgetary issues?  It is the postal service's responsibility to protect both, its employees, and the public, from this deadly disease.  
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7. And where are the unions? Why aren’t they in there demanding that the postal service test every employee in that facility to ensure that they are free of a virulent disease that can kill not only them, but their children?
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This situation is a prime example of the fact that apathy on the part of the American people has allowed both the business community, and our government, to write the poor and middle-class off as expendable and secondary to profits. We see it everywhere, including on the battlefield, with the endless wars that use poor and middle-class troops as cannon fodder to promote the interests of war profiteers and oil companies. As we speak the oil companies are rushing into Lybia to divide up the spoils that poor and middle-class troops have died for while thinking they were defending the interests of our country.
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And the irony is, the children of the people who benefit most from the death of the poor and middle class troops, the rich, are no longer even expected to defend this country. Dying for this country is now considered the job of the “little people.” The job of the rich is to merely sit back and reap the benefits of our sacrifices.
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We saw the very same scenario in play when the 29 coal miners were killed in West Virginia on April 5, 2010. Hubpages.com reported:
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"29 COAL MINERS DIE in COAL MINING EXPLOSION
The Massey Energy Company of Montcoal, West Virginia ignored violations and warnings that the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine which they own, was not safe for coal miners to be working in."
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Then just weeks later, on April 20, 2010, eleven oil workers were killed in a horrific explosion on an oil rig run by British Petroleum. In the aftermath of the disaster The Daily Beast reported:
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"A document obtained by The Daily Beast shows that BP, in a previous fatal disaster, increased worker risk to save money."
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has known about the threat to public health of the job-related transmission of TB for some time:

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"The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is proposing a health standard, to be promulgated under section 6(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. 655, to control occupational exposure to tuberculosis (TB). TB is a communicable, potentially lethal disease that afflicts the most vulnerable members of our society: the poor, the sick, the aged, and the homeless. As many as 13 million U.S. adults are presently believed to be infected with TB; over time, more than 1 million of these individuals may develop active TB disease and transmit the infection to others. TB remains a major health problem with 22,813 active cases reported in the U.S. in 1995. A number of outbreaks of this disease have occurred among workers in health care settings, as well as other work settings, in recent years. To add to the seriousness of the problem, some of these outbreaks have involved the transmission of multidrug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which are often fatal. Although it is the responsibility of the U.S. Public Health Service to address the problem of tuberculosis in the general U.S. population, OSHA is solely responsible for protecting the health of workers exposed to TB as a result of their job.
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"OSHA estimates that more than 5 million U.S. workers are exposed to TB in the course of their work: in hospitals, homeless shelters, nursing homes, and other work settings. Because active TB is endemic in many U.S. populations, including groups in both urban and rural areas, workers who come into contact with diseased individuals are at risk of contracting the disease themselves. The risk confronting these workers as a result of their contact with TB-infected individuals may be as high as 10 times the risk to the general population. Although the number of reported cases of active TB has slowly begun to decline after a resurgence between 1985-1992, 16 states reported an increase in the number of TB cases in 1995, compared with 1994. Based on a review of the data, OSHA has preliminarily concluded that workers in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and certain other work settings are at significant risk of incurring TB infection while caring for their patients and clients or performing certain procedures. To reduce this occupational risk, OSHA is proposing a standard that would require employers to protect TB-exposed employees by means of infection prevention and control measures that have been demonstrated to be highly effective in reducing or eliminating job related TB infections. These measures include the use of respirators when performing certain high hazard procedures on infectious individuals, procedures for the early identification and treatment of TB infection, isolation of individuals with infectious TB in rooms designed to protect those in the vicinity of the room from contact with the microorganisms causing TB, and medical follow-up for occupationally exposed workers who become infected. OSHA has preliminarily determined that the engineering, work practice, and administrative controls, respiratory protection, training, medical surveillance, and other provisions of the proposed standard are technologically and economically feasible for facilities in all affected industries.

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"DATES: Written comments on the proposed standard must be postmarked on or before December 16, 1997 and notices of intention to appear at the informal rulemaking hearings must be postmarked on or before December 16, 1997."

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Now, in spite the stern warning of a sister agency regarding the importance of controlling the spread of this virulent disease in the workplace, we see the United States Postal Service all but ignoring the possibility that their employees could take a deadly, and possibly incurable, disease home to their families, neighbors, and friends just to save a dollar. And just as telling, the employee unions are simply standing by mute, watching this unconscionable, atrocious, and flagrant act of irresponsibility like it's business as usual. What more do we have to see to understand that it's time for American workers to stand up and retake control of their lives?
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It’s time for American workers to wake up and begin to realize that their apathy is allowing them to be written off as expendable. It's time for them to change that by using the political clout of their numbers to make themselves heard. It’s past time for them to realize that they're knee-deep in a class war that they’re losing badly.
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The idea that we can simply vote people into office and depend on them to protect our interests is a myth, and the institutions that are supposedly setup to protect our interests are actually designed to protect the status quo by giving us the illusion of justice - anyone who’s ever tried to sue a corporation for its misdeeds can attest to that. All of these institutions are myths designed to allow the few to control the many.
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History is clear. There is no example in the history of mankind where justice has simply been bestowed upon a people. The only way to obtain justice is to be strong enough to take it, and then steadfast enough in your vigilance to hold on to it. So the bottom line is, you cannot depend on politicians, union representatives, or anyone else to defend your rights without seeing to it that they have something to lose by failing to do so. Thus, the only defender of justice that we can truly depend upon is just us.
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The U.S. Postal Service is a United States government agency, so if this nation truly believed in justice, the U. S. postal service would be in the very forefront of the fight to protect employee rights. But instead, the United States Postal Service, one the few, if not the only, government agency actually mentioned in the United States Constitution, is more hostile to workers’ rights than any agency in any dictatorship anywhere in the world.
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We’ve got to bring this fact to President Obama’s attention, because as chief executive officer, he’s the head of that agency. How can we commit the lives of American troops to fight for the rights of people in other lands, while their parents are working on a plantation here at home?
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So it’s time for not only postal workers to wake up, but for poor and middle-class workers all across this country to come together and flex their political clout. If we are to survive as a nation, poor and middle-class workers must begin to understand that they will never again be secure in their jobs or their way of life until they come together to ensure that their politicians, union officials, and employers are insecure in theirs.
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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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