The African American Black Man: The New Neanderthal?
I was in Los Angeles on the corner of Vernon and Central the other day, just after school let out. If it hadn't been for the fact that I grew up in that area and recognized my surroundings, I would have thought I was in Mexico. What use to be an almost exclusively Black community was now filled with happy, playful - and mannerly - Hispanic children coming home from school, and as I looked around, I saw thriving Latino businesses being patronized by poor, but thriving Latino patrons. I was intrigued, so I decided to take a detour through the neighborhood.
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Now, I don't know whether the area is primarily Mexican-American, or filled with illegal immigrants, but what was clear was that the area was changing. There was a new vitality there. I saw fathers and teenage boys in the yards, both at home and enjoying the love of family rather than hanging out in the street. I saw a neighborhood free of young men glaring at me, or waving me over as I drove by. The neighborhood was no longer threatening. It was a neighborhood that now said family, instead of gangster. It was a neighborhood that was clearly trying to make a comeback.
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It felt good to see my old stomping grounds rejuvenating itself, but I also felt a twinge of both guilt and envy. I felt guilt because my own teenage antics contributed greatly to dragging this very neighborhood down to its previous state, and envy that what comes so easily to most cultures seems to be so elusive to my own. I also felt more than a tinge of fear, because to anyone who's familiar with Charles Darwin's theory on natural selection, it's clear that the Black man is swirling around the event horizon of a massive black hole. If we don't do something to get our young people's attention real soon, at best, the Black man is going to become irrelevant, or at worst, the new Neanderthal.
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According to Darwin's theory of evolution, which at this point is considered more fact than theory to most scientists, nature is in a constant process of selecting which groups or species will survive to perpetuate itself, and which will die out. The concept is called natural selection, or popularly known as the survival of the fittest. In order to insure that only the best, most adaptive, and strongest life forms populate the Earth, nature eliminates the weak to insure they won't procreate and contaminate the Earth with their weak offspring.
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The process of elimination starts even before an individual is born. Every individual starts out with as many as 40 million potential brothers and sisters, all scurrying towards their mother's egg. But most die off before they reach the mother's egg. Therefore, just the fact that you were born means that you're not just one in a million—you're one in 40 million. You were the strongest and most viable of over 40 million others.
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And nature takes the survival of the fittest very seriously. Anyone who has ever watched a dog or a cat give birth to their young have probably seen first hand how brutally serious nature can be in this regard. If you haven't, just ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a puppy born with a birth defect. If you have, it's very rare, because if an animal is born defective in any way, the mother will kill it on the spot—and in many cases eat it. Nature doesn't provide animals with a welfare office, so they know by instinct that they, and their young, must to be able to hold their own weight in this world, or die.
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But a life form doesn't have to have a physical defect for nature to weed it out. Nature will also weed out things that are maladaptive or have an inability to adapt to its environment - like many of us, for example. God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. If a bird refuses to fly, it cannot survive. If a fish refuses to swim, it will not survive. The very same rule applies to man. If a man refuses to think, he will not survive - and that has become a serious problem in the Black community. Many of our young Black men simply refuse to think.
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It's as though we're on a mission to ensure our own extinction. While the men of other cultures seem to have no problem in stepping up to the plate to solidify the family unit and ensure their children get a running start in life, we're abandoning our children, and referring to the very womb of our culture as "bitches and whoes"; and if we're not killing other Black men over drugs, we're killing ourselves with drugs - and then struttin' around braggin' about it! And even when we aren't killing ourselves, we're making dumb decisions that's causing us to have to spend years at a time locked up in jail like animals. Many of us have embraced a philosophy of manhood that enforces a moral obligation to be stupid. It's like, you're not a true Black man unless you take a pledge to remain ignorant.
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This is a sad state of affairs, because nature is already hard at work weeding the Black man out, and we're giving her all the help that she needs. Every time one gang member or drug dealer kills another, that's nature at work upgrading the gene pool. Every time someone dies of an overdose, nature's right there - "well, I don't have to worry about him fathering anymore weak minded people." And when you go to jail, that also takes your seed out of circulation.
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But the biggest impact is right around the corner. Look around you, Black man. While you're acting a fool nature is also selecting traits in Black women that's allowing them to do without you. Notice that while you're out there saggin' and getting dumber and dumber, Black women are becoming better educated, and getting good jobs. That's right, brother - nature is rendering you irrelevant. You are no longer a suitable mate, so nature is preparing the Black female to do without you - and it's happening right before your eyes.
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So if you're a young brother, you can just standby. That pretty young lady of yours may think your droopy pants are cool now, but as she becomes better educated and gets that good job that you're too maladjusted to be considered for, she's going to begin to see you for what you really are, a looser—and a broke one at that. She's going to realize you're not a suitable mate. And she's going to recognize that saggin' (spell it backwards) doesn't make you a man. In fact, it makes you an embarrassment in the world she wants to move into - and it's not because she's getting uppity, it's because it's true. She wants to live, and she wants her children to live and prosper, but she can't do that with you, because you're a dying breed. As a direct result, their very survival is going to require Black women to go outside of the Black race to find suitable mates.
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"Jun 3, 2016 - Black women are now the most educated group in US, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Between 2009 and 2010, black women earned 68 per cent of associate's degrees, 66 per cent of bachelor's degrees, 71 per cent of master's degrees and 65 per cent of all … .
. "The percentage of black students attending college has increased from 10 per cent to 15 per cent from 1976 to 2012, while the percentage of white students fell from 84 to 60 per cent.
By both race and gender, a higher percentage of black women (9.7 per cent) is enrolled in college than any other group, including Asian women (8.7 per cent), white women (7.1 per cent) and white men (6.1 per cent)."
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So, that's right - that beautiful young sister that you love so much is going to have to go out and find her a real man, one who's capable of survival in the real world. Then once that starts to happen, what was once a proud Black race is going to become less and less Black with every generation that passes, until the Black man, at least, as we know him, will only exist as pictures on the wall of natural history museums–a relic of the past.
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I can hear the anthropologists discussing us now - in the past tense, of course. They'll probably give us a scientific name like "Africantus Americana Fool". They'll be in the museum looking up at some
brother that they found dead of a drug overdose in the snow and then had stuffed. Then the anthropologist will say to a class of visiting students, "You know, it's really amazing when you think about it. They had the intellectual potential to thrive, but they just didn't have any common sense. The major downfall of 'Homeboy' (a nickname they assigned to our species) was that he lacked a sense of community, and had less than rudimentary coping skills. But there's one thing you've got to give him - he was the coolest thing on the planet, while he was around. He didn't have much common sense, but the brother could sho'nuff sag."
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The upshot will be, we'll finally get the attention that we so passionately craved. But the downside is, it'll be on the History Channel.
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I Bear Witness
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I sit, I watch,
and I grow ever more obsolete
as I bear witness.
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I bear witness
to a once vibrant people greedily gulping down society’s hemlock. Even as they claim to be “keeping it real,“ they continue to maim, kill, and despise their own in hot pursuit of the prime directive with the passion of a sheetless klan.
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I bear witness
to Black fists in the air in false solidarity promoted by self-serving poverty pimps as the world looks on and giggle at crooked fingers pointed elsewhere.
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I bear witness
to the superficial attempt to ban the “N-word” while the new "un-niggas" stand around watching children killing children and fathers drugging sons, as they celebrate, lionize, and enrich those who denigrate the very womb of their culture with impunity.
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I bear witness
to a generation of lost knowledge, cut off from its roots by Ronnie’s “Just say no” generation of crack, greed, death, and political corruption; A generation where the new N-word is pronounced “Responsibility” and the keepers of the flame completely ignore the destructive power of bitch, slut, whore, and tramp.
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I bear witness
to the reckless disregard of the words uneducated, irresponsible, and classless. Should we not ban these words as well, or should we ban banning words altogether as we celebrate their meaning?
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Yes, I do bear witness.
I bear witness to a new world -
a world where gross ignorance comes disguised as enlightenment, and funky sneakers look down with disdain upon the sweet smell of Florsheim; a world where saggin’ pants and gaudy glitter enable country bumpkins to masquerade as elegant, and the exquisite surrender of eloquence is the very essence of what it means to be hip.
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Where's Langston? Where's Baldwin? Where's Oscar Brown, Jr?
We need you stormin' this beach, because . . .
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I now bear witness
to a world where motherhood stands alone, to be “dope” renders a smile, and posterity is forced to embrace the wind for paternal sustenance; A world where the walking dead strut about rapping the wisdom of idiocy, and we praise the illiteracy of vulgar nursery rhymes as profound; a world where the mother of salvation's final gasp is compared to the pigmentation of brown paper bags.
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Malcolm, Martin, where are you?
I once stood with a crowd. Now seemingly alone, I'm forced to bear witness -
horrific witness . . .
to the imminent demise of our people,
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And my heart bleeds.
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The Tail Wagging The Dog
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The focus of this article is a critique of the Black popular culture and the negative impact that it's having on Black youth - and through extension, the Black community as a whole - and not the vast majority of Black people who are fully functional and well adjusted. The reason we decided to emphasize the dysfunctional is due to the focus of the media, the tail is wagging the dog. A 15% minority of the Black culture is dictating the trajectory of the remaining 85% of the Black majority. So the tact taken here is designed to hold a mirror up to the more responsible segment of the Black community and wake them up to what we're allowing to happen to our culture. We would be remiss, however, if we didn't present at least a glimpse of the Black community that you don’t generally see in the media.
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FACTS THAT THE MEDIA DON'T TELL YOU
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The vast majority of Black people in this country are middle class or above. African Americans are the second largest consumer group in America with a combined buying power of over $1.1 trillion. In 2002 African American owned businesses accounted for 1.2 million of the US's 23 million businesses, and 47% of Africans Americans own their own homes. - U.S. Census Bureau
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So again, the bottom line is, the media focuses on the 15% of Black people who are struggling, unemployed, and/or dysfunctional. But they never discuss the 85% who are gainfully employed, never go to jail, don't use drugs, and are living the American dream just like any other group of middle-class Americans.
Is the President of the United States Engaged in a Covert Conspiracy Against Tavis Smiley, or Has Tavis Finally Made it to Never-Never Land?
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It seems that Tavis Smiley believes that he’s so important that the President of the United States is engaged in a covert conspiracy against him.
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Michael H. Cottman reported in his BlackAmericaWeb.com commentary,"Tom Joyner’s Opinion on Tavis Smiley’s White House Accusations," that "Smiley told the Associated Press that members of the Obama administration, whom he didn’t identify, have successfully convinced sponsors to stop funding Smiley’s ventures, including his anti-poverty initiatives."
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As Cottman alluded to in his commentary, the mere fact that Tavis failed to identify exactly who in the Obama administration "convinced sponsors" to stop funding his ventures, and exactly which sponsors he’s talking about, is particularly telling. That’s not like Smiley. If he had any evidence whatsoever to support his allegation he’d be holding one of his PBS "gibfests," complete with "expert analysis" by the prince of gesticular verbosity, Dr. Cornel West, pointing his finger at the president, and condemning the people in the administration who were involved.
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Because the fact is, even if the corporations involved didn’t want to reveal themselves, he could have at least attributed his allegation to "a source who wants to remain anonymous."
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But why would Tavis’s corporate benefactors even want to hide the fact that they were being pressured by Obama? Trying to put pressure on Walmart, Nationwide Insurance, or Exxon/Mobile would not only be extremely dumb on the part of the administration, but it would be a gift from God to Tavis’s ALEC connected corporate benefactors. Can you just imagine what Darrell Issa could do with something like that in his House Oversight Kangaroo Committee? He’d turn it into Watergate.
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So it seems that yet again Tavis is being deluded by his overblown ego - the same ego that made him assume that Obama had an obligation to come on his "State of the Black Union" show to be anointed by Tavis to run for president; the same ego that made him think that he’s been slighted when Obama failed to do so; the same ego that caused him to go all over the media complaining that "For the very first time in my career I haven’t been invited to the White House;" and the very same ego that made him think that he had enough clout in the Black community to challenge the first Black president of the United States.
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The fact is, President Obama hasn’t given either Tavis Smiley, or Cornel West, a second thought since he’s been in office. He hasn't had to, because he, like just about everyone else in America - at least, with good sense - could see that he didn’t have to. Tavis and West were making themselves look like perfect fools on their own accord, so the president didn’t have to say, or do a thing. All he had to do was sit back and watch them implode - and that’s exactly what he’s done.
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It’s a monument to Tavis’ lack of foresight that he couldn’t see this coming. In October of last year in an open letter to Pacifica Radio I wrote the following:
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"Tavis and West have become the new Amos & Andy of the Black community, and their trajectory is identical. They not only fail to represent Black interests, but they've become a major liability and embarrassment to many in the community. This will become more readily apparent as they begin to lose the major corporate sponsors currently propping them up - corporations that make it their business to know what’s going on in the community. Once these major corporations begin to see that these two have become liabilities rather than assets, they’re going to drop them like hot rivets. They probably already see it, but Tavis and West are still of marginal value - at least, until after the election." http://wattree.blogspot.com/2012/10/an-open-letter-to-pacifica-radio.html . And later on the Smiley and West website I wrote,
. "The only thing that Tavis and West have to sell is the Black community, and once they lose that, which they’re currently hemorrhaging, they become a liability rather than an asset to their corporate benefactors. At that point, they become irrelevant. http://smileyandwest.ning.com/forum/topics/tavis-smiley-and-cornel-west-going-down-like-the-titanic.
. So if I could see this coming over the horizon, why couldn’t Tavis? It’s quite simple - because his all consuming and gargantuan ego blinded him to reality.
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Eric L. Wattree Http://wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com
What Do Conservatives Really Mean When They Spit Out the Word ‘Liberal?’
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The one factor that contributed most to the downfall of the Democratic Party during the seventies and eighties was allowing conservative Republicans to seize control of the political rhetoric. During that period, much like today, the Democrats simply sat back and allowed themselves, their constituency, and their agenda to be redefined in the eyes of the American people by conservative "spin doctors" without rebuttal. As a direct result, they've allowed the term "liberal" to become a bad word in the political lexicon.
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When you consider how methodically the conservatives went about mounting their assault on the liberal agenda you can't help but recognize that it was a stroke of genius. Ironically, the conservatives took the Democratic Party's strength and made it a political liability. First they took the party's penchant for being concern with the plight of the poor and downtrodden and coined phrases such as "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 into one neat bundle 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 just a matter of repeatedly hammering the message home.
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In addition, conservatives used such tactics as spitting out the word "liberal" as though they were saying rapist. In that way they not only implanted a negative attitude toward liberalism in the mind of the voter, but it was said in such a way that the implication was made that it went without saying that all the negative stereotyping of liberalism was true. Or in other words, their attitude seems to suggest, "I could substantiate what I'm saying about liberals, but I don't think it's necessary, since we all know what they're like." And in the election that spawned the "Republican revolution" the voters said, "Yes, we do."
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Through these strategies conservatives accomplished three goals with one ingenious stroke - they defined minorities as slovenly criminals, they define liberal Democrats as "soft on crime," and they allowed themselves the freedom to place these thoughts in the American psyche without having to substantiate their facts. Moreover, they accomplished all this in every sound bite, and without seeming to be racist, with the use of just one word, "liberal." In fact, conservatives have been so thorough in their disparagement of liberalism that at this point the word "liberal" is treated like vulgarity, and simply referred to as "the L word."
. But don’t be fooled. The word "liberal" as used by the GOP is political shorthand for "nigga lover." That’s why it’s repeatedly used, and used with so much venom - and we’re doing ourselves a grave injustice by tap dancing around the issue, just as the middle class is doing itself a grave injustice by denying that we’re currently knee-deep in a class war. By turning a blind eye to these issues we’re, literally, sharping the knife that conservatives are going to use to cut our throats.
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If people would actually take the time to look these terms up instead of deriving their definitions from the implication of Rush Limbaugh’s intonations, they would begin to realize that "liberal" and "conservative" are not so much fixed political philosophies as they are personal predispositions, so they can only be defined in the context of the political environment in which they’re being used. In the United States, conservatism relegates women and minorities - especially Black minorities - to a subordinate stature in society, and anyone who doesn’t recognize that is either blind, or a fool.
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But "liberal" actually means open to change, and "conservative" means dedicated to "conserving" tradition. Thus, a conservative in a country with liberal traditions would be predisposed to conserving those liberal traditions, and a liberal in that same country would be more open to considering traditions that we in this country would consider more conservative, because, by dictionary definition, a liberal is open-minded, while a conservative is dedicated to tradition.
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So, again, the only way that you can ALWAYS tell the difference between liberals and conservatives, in ANY political context, is to understand that liberals tend to be open-minded, and conservatives are dedicated to maintaining tradition - if a conservative is not a traditionalist, by definition, he’s not a conservative.
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But the issue becomes more complicated when we add religion to the mix, because major religions cross geographic and political boundaries. Religious conservatives are predisposed to strictly adhering to their respective religious tenets, while liberals tend to be either areligious, or open to varying forms of religions. That’s how a handful of more fanatical Black people find themselves defending, and even advocating, conservative traditions that are dedicated to subjugating them, and everything they represent. They give they’re religious beliefs priority over their common sense. While time has erased the memory of the event, here’s how Black people were initially indoctrinated into the religious conservative mind-set:
The Conversion .
"Come here nigga and let me teach yo crazy, animal ass about the Lord. The first thing you got to learn is to Love thy Neighbor . . . especially me."
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"Yes sir, Massa. Why would anybody not love you, Sir? You so good to me, Massa. Anybody don't love you needs to have dey ass beat real good, Massa."
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"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
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"Listen, you been blessed already, and you don't even know the Lord. The Lord made it where you don't have to worry 'bout a thing. I feed you, I put clothes on yo nasty ass, and I give you a shed to sleep in, and all you have to do is whatever the hell I tell you to. Do you know how blessed you are?"
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"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
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"Now, listen real good 'cause dis impotant. God said, thou shalt not steal from me, thou shalt not kill (unless I tell you to), thou shalt not stick another coon's wife (unless we tryin' to make some mo niggas), and nigga, whatever you do, thou shalt not even look like you want to stick a white woman, or we gon lynch yo black ass. You here me, nigga?"
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"Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
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"Dat means people, fool - real people! Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place."
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"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart."
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"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
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"The next thing you got to learn is, whatever happens on this plantation is God's will bein' done. And if you listen to me, you'll get to live like I do when you die and go to Heaven."
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"Live like you, massa? A nigga ain't got no business livin' dat good. What a Po nigga like me gon do with all this? You know I ain't got sense enough to run nothin' like this."
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"Just shut up, nigga!" When you dead you gon get some sense - the lord gon give it to you. The Lord can do anything, even give sense to a nigga. And he gon give you all the other niggas you gon need to help you in the fields, too."
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"Massa, you so good to me! Thank you for tellin' me all dis. I'm gon be a good nigga - the best nigga you ever seened. Look, I'm gon pray for you right now, and thank the Lord for givin' me so good a massa."
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"Shut up and get up off your knees, ya dumb nigga! The fields need tendin'! You pray to the Lord on your own time. God don't won't you talkin' to him when you s'pose to be workin'."
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"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
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"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
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"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
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"Now get yo ass out there in that field and let's get some work done around here . . . Oh, and Toby, have yo woman meet me in the barn. I need to tell her 'bout the Lord too."
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"Yes sir, Massa."
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"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
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"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
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"Just shut up, nigga, and do what I said! And tell Lou Ann to wear that pretty dress I like, cause we gon be talkin' 'bout the Lord, so it's gon be like chuch."
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"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . . "Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."
. The indoctrination process above is what makes the concept of a Black conservative so ridiculous. It's also why over 90% of the Black community don't trust them. The minds of Black conservatives are so warped that they even spew slanderous conservative talking points against their own people. According to them, Black people align themselves with the Democratic Party because they're lazy, and they want something for nothing.
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That's not why Black people support the Democratic Party at all. The truth is very simple - Black people support the Democratic Party because we're not damn fools. How can ANYONE want to align themselves with a group that is philosophically dedicated to ‘conserving’ a tradition that relegates them to the status of second-class citizen at best, and an animal, at worst? Black conservatives, for the most part, have been transformed into trained seals. The link below is the result of that process. The speaker below is Bishop E.W. Jackson, the Republican nominee for Lt. Governor of Virginia.
Let’s Get Real - What We Call ‘American Ideals’ Are a Sham
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While this country professes to honor the ideals of freedom, independence, liberty, and justice, that's just lip service. We have a long history of stifling each and every one of those ideals, and anyone who doesn't believe that should simply try suing a major corporation for an injustice, or try embracing the "freedom" to live an unconventional lifestyle. This country frowns upon those things just like any other country. Gays and women are learning that lesson as we speak.
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All of the institutions that are supposedly designed to protect our freedom and justice are nothing more than facades that are actually designed to give us the ILLUSION of freedom and justice. While I don't want to throw a monkey-wrench in anyone's comfort zone, it's very important for us to wake up and be realistic about what we DON'T have, in order to work towards actually achieving what I choose to call "The American Wish List."
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According to "TakePart.com, "In 2008, eight states had no laws requiring students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school. That number has recently dwindled to five, with Nebraska being the latest state to adopt a statewide mandate."
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Many conservatives enthusiastically advocate that children be mandated to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Conservative talk show host, Sean Hannity, said, "Why wouldn’t anyone want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, unless they detested their own country or were ignorant of its greatness?” Notice that even in Hannity's statement advocating the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, which guarantees "Freedom and Justice for all," you can hear a clear indictment against those who may choose not to recite the pledge.
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That's the kind of gross and narrow-minded hypocrisy that makes people not want to recite it in the first place - "I love the freedom, liberty, and justice in America so passionately that I'm willing to take it from you to get you to love it like I do." That's also what makes us look like the Beverly Hillbillies of the "free world" - rich and powerful, but as presumptuous, backward-thinking, and unsophisticated as they come.
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The problem with many conservatives like Hannity, Limbaugh, and other's is they're so blind that they fail to even see the hypocrisy of their position. Thus, as a middle-class African American male - in fact, as a human being of good conscience - I take great exception with making it mandatory for our children to recite a lie as fact at a time in their lives when their thinking is being molded without their consent, or the consent of their parents. Because the Pledge of Allegiance represents the worst kind of hypocrisy, and it serves no useful purpose other than to brainwash the nation's children.
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One would think that as a conservative Mr. Hannity would recognize that the very essence of freedom is the freedom of parents to raise their children according to the philosophy that they see fit. Therefore, forcing a pledge down the collective throat of America's children constitutes an unconscionable intrusion by government on a family's rights. It's un-American by definition, and it violates the very pledge that our children are being forced to recite.
. A mandatory pledge is a blatant act of indoctrination. What other motive can we have for forcing children to recite a pledge that they don't even understand? When I was a kid coming up during the height of the civil rights struggle, I was forced to pledge my allegiance to a nation that frowned upon everything I represented, and was dead set on thwarting anything that I ever hoped to become.
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At the same time, so-called "patriotic Americans" - while enthusiastically insisting that we recite The Pledge - simultaneously lynched African Americans, bombed black children in church, and formed angry mobs to show up and jeer black children attempting nothing more than to go to the school of their choice.
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And shortly before that, these same "patriotic Americans" forced Black WWII heroes (the Tuskegee Airman) returning from Europe to give up their seats to German prisoners of war. Yet, there I was, standing there reciting the Pledge of Allegiance - "and to the republic for which it stands" - every morning. Even as a child, if I had understood the meaning of the words that I would later have to dredge from my brain just to be able to think clearly, I would have refused to recite them - regardless of the consequences.
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And beyond the pledge being morally disingenuous and a monument to the worst kind of hypocrisy, the entire text is, literally, a lie: ". . . One nation under God." In light of what I've just described, what is that supposed to mean? "Indivisible." The Civil War demonstrates that's a lie. "With liberty and justice for all." I won't even waste the ink to address that issue. So again, other than brainwashing, what other motive could we possibly have for requiring our children to start off every morning with a lie of that magnitude?
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Now, I realize that I sound like a wild-eyed radical, but if I do, it's only because I have a very low threshold for bullshit. I love this country, but I love truth and clear thinking much more. So I'm eclectic in my views. I believe in clear, unadulterated thought, and addressing every issue on its own merit. As a result, sometimes I agree with liberals, and at other times I agree with conservatives. That doesn't always make me very popular, but I'm more than happy to forego popularity in return for moral and intellectual clarity. I was taught that's what it means to be an American. Maybe I'm naive, but I took that lesson seriously.
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I'm in pursuit of truth, not an agenda. For that reason I stand with conservatives on issues like set-asides based on race, because moral and intellectual consistency dictates that if you're against discrimination, you must be against all discrimination. Thus, if we're going to set aside resources for the poor, those resources should be available to all of the poor, regardless to race, creed, or color. Our failure to recognize that fact ran a lot of White people who marched with King right into the arms of the Republican Party during the Affirmative Action controversy.
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Yet, I stand with liberals in being against vouchers. The mere fact that conservatives want to create an entitlement program "in the best interest of minorities" immediately sends up a red flag for me. Creating schools run by corporations is the fastest way that I can think of to create young fascists who are running around speaking in fundamentalist tongue.
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A voucher system would also lead to a two-tier society. What would happen to low and middle-class children if private schools raised tuition beyond their parents' reach and the public school system have been destroyed? I'll tell you what will happened - the parents would be chained to corporations to work for crumbs just so their children could learn to read and write.
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Proponents of a mandatory pledge contend that our children should be taught to love and respect our country. It is my position that too much nationalism and not enough principle is what caused the kind of animosity toward this country that led to 9/11. We need to teach our children to embrace high ethical standards and principles, and then if the leaders of our country followed suit, the nation would benefit from the uncoerced love and respect of its citizens and the world.
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Thus, the Pledge of Allegiance should not be a pledge at all. It should be presented as a goal. Then instead of lying about who and what we are, it would encourage us to focus our energies on actually becoming the society that we profess to believe in. Maybe then we'll create the kind of nation where brainwashing our children for their allegiance won't be necessary.
. Tupelo, Miss. Judge Jails Attorney for Refusing to Recite the Pledge of Allegiance. . 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
Socrates was indeed the hood rat of antiquity. He had absolutely no stature in society, and he never wrote a thing for posterity. To modernize his own words, his sentiments were essentially, "My thing is simply hangin' out on the block and discussing reality." So we wouldn't have even known who he was if it weren't for "youngsters" like Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon, who spoke of him in their writings.
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So when I think of Socrates, it brings to mind some of the older brothers in the neighborhood that I grew up in, and who were very much responsible for the awaking my own mind. They used to sit around for hours on end pontificating on everything from political science to the origin of the universe. While they held absolutely no formal "credentials" to validate their knowledge, their legitimacy was girded firmly in place by their wisdom, insight, and tremendous intellect alone. These were the Eulipians:
THE EULIPIANS
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Some of the greatest minds I've ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lot of ghetto liquor stores. At their feet I embraced the love of knowledge, and through their tutelage defined self-worth In my own terms.
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These were the "Eulipians" - writers, poets, musicians, painters, and uncommon drunks - those shade-tree philosophers who contemplate the fungus between the toes society; Who dance with reckless abandon, unfettered by formal inhibition through the presumptuous speculation of the ages; and who live in county jails, cardboard boxes, alley ways, and luxury Apartments - insignificant here in Great Bruteland, but of ultimate significance in the eyes of God.
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While these obscure intellectuals stand well outside the mainstream of academy, I’ve watch with astonished delight as they sang, scat, and scribed their various philosophies into the mainstream of human knowledge.
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Miles, Bird, Trane, Langston Hughes, Eulipians all. I’m a Eulipian. We’re easy to spot, because we all sing but one song - "Knowledge is free, thus, will transcend all attempts to be contained through barriers of caste and privilege, leaving man's innate thirst for knowledge free to someday overwhelm his passionate lust for stupidity."
On September 15, 2002–six months and four days prior to the Iraqi invasion--I published an article entitled "Would Bush's Saber Rattle as Loudly Against China?" in the Portland Independent Media Center http://Portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/09/21292.shtml–no one else would publish it at the time–that said the following:
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WOULD BUSH'S SABER RATTLE AS LOUDLY AGAINST CHINA?
. Now that we've reached the anniversary of 9-11, I am consumed by one thought--in light of what I've seen over the past year I find myself much more afraid of Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft than I am the Al Qaeda. While I understand that terrorists strike without warning to destroy life and property to promote their own agenda, it has become increasingly clear that Bush and his cohorts threaten to be even more destructive by attacking life, liberty, and the very foundation of this nation in the promotion of theirs.
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Over the past year these conservative war mongers have been playing the American people like a fiddle. Now they want to sacrifice American lives for nothing more than their own political advantage. Just ask yourself, what does Saddam Hussein have to do with 9-11? Absolutely nothing. Evidence of that can be found in the fact that if Saddam had been involved in 9-11 the administration would have gone after him initially.
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So why is it suddenly so imperative that we invade Iraq now? I'll tell you why. Since Bush was unable to produce the head of Osama Bin Laden, he now needs another villain to take Bin Laden's place in order to keep his numbers up in the polls-- and if that means having to sacrifice a few American lives and ignite even more terrorist activity on American soil in the process, so be it.
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It is a well known political fact that the American people tend to rally around the president when the country's at war. That's why the Bush Administration fell all over themselves after 9-11 to declare "a war against terrorism." And the American people reacted just as planed-Bush's numbers immediately went up in the polls. But now with the mystery surrounding the fate of Osama Bin Laden, the administration has found itself without a war to sustain those numbers, so now they have to create one.
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While I'm not prepared to say that the Bush Administration allowed 9-11 to take place, it is clear that the timing of the 9-11 tragedy was without a doubt the best thing that could ever happened to Bush's presidency.
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Bush was a lame duck the minute he was sworn in. It seems that as soon as Bush entered The Oval Office the stock market began to falter and the economy started to weaken. And whenever he spoke, the next day's news was not so much what he said, but whether or not he got through the speech without falling on his face. In addition, his big tax cut that was touted as the key to boosting the economy turned out to be a bust, and he was so inept in dealing with congress that a Republican senator changed parties costing Bush control of the senate. As a result, when 9-11 took place, it was embraced by conservatives more like it was a football rally than the sober occasion that it was--thus, all the flag waving, ceremonies, and strutting about.
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But where was all that bluster prior to 9-11? ABC News reported on May 16th of this year [2002] that the Bush Administration acknowledged that U.S. Intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before 9-11 that Osama Bin Laden's terrorists might try to hijack a plane. It was also reported that Bush privately alerted transportation officials and security agencies, but other than that, simply sat on the information.
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The administration claims that the information they received was non-specific, but one would think that even if they couldn't determine exactly when and where the attack was going to take place, at the very least they could have warned the American people. If they had, maybe some of the people who died would have chosen not to fly-or possibly, chosen to leave their children behind. But no, this president who now claims to be so concerned with protecting our welfare that he feels compelled to launch an unprovoked attack against Iraq, was at that time more interested in the impact that warning us would have on the airline industry.
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What the American people needs to understand is that the power elite in this country doesn't view the United States in the same way as its citizens. They see the United States as a huge corporation, with its various industries as its subsidiaries. They see American citizens, particularly the lower and middle class, as simply pawns to be cajoled and manipulated in whatever way is necessary to meet the goals of the corporation. Therefore, they didn't view the tragedy of 9-11 in the same patriotic way as the average American citizen. After the initial shock, they saw 9-11 in terms of dollars and cents. Ultimately, it was viewed as an assault on their corporate superstructure. Later they recognized that the incident could be used as a distraction for the American people, and still later, an opportunity to move on Middle Eastern oil interests.
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So let there be no doubt, all of the flag waving, ceremonies, and patriotic speeches have nothing to do with 9-11; they are designed to whip the American people into such a frenzy that they're blinded to Bush's actual agenda. And that agenda includes the following:
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1). Committing America (and American lives) to a war in order to get
himself re-elected.
2). Taking control of Iraqi oil fields to benefit his friends in big business.
3). Keeping the American voter distracted from considering the ramifications of the recent corporate scandals.
4). Keeping the American people from recognizing how inept he is as president.
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The rest of the world sees Bush's agenda for what it is, and the American people would too if they'd stop waving their flags long enough to consider the flag's true meaning. The American flag represents freedom and justice, not trying to dictate who should lead other countries. It represents the open debate of issues, not intolerance to any and everyone who disagrees with your point of view. It represents the guarantee of personal freedom, not the suspension of the Bill of Rights.
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If the American people would just stop to consider these facts, it would become clear that even while Bush and his conservative cohorts are frantically waving our flag, they are simultaneously waging war against the very values that the flag and this great country represent.
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These issues can, and will, be debated ad nauseam, but the American people need only ask themselves two questions to put all of the administration's nonsense into perspective. First, would the administration be so anxious to go to war if we were talking about China as opposed to Iraq? And secondly, do we think that invading Iraq will make us more, or less safe from terrorist attacks? If we answer those questions honestly, it becomes clear that the administration is being disingenuous at best.
. So what I'd like to know is this--if a shade tree "journalist" sitting up in his den in the heart of a Los Angeles ghetto could see what was going on, why couldn't the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CNN and all of the networks; Harvard, Yale, and the various and sundry Ph.D.s from the other great institutions of learning; the nation's think tanks, all of the nation's political scientists, the United States Congress and Hillary Clinton couldn't figure it out? . It kinda makes you wanna go, hmmmmmmm.
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Eric L. Wattree
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE THIS POEM OF YOURS
This poem of yours,
it represents
more truth than I can bear.
So please stop speaking of horror and death,
I don't want to hear it no more.
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I want to see an evil enemy,
not babies crushed and torn;
I want to see pictures of angry infidels,
not of mothers as they mourn.
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How do you expect me to support
our troops if you keep talking
to me this way?
Now whenever I sing
America the Beautiful
decaying corpses get in my way.
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Stop this!
It's un-American,
to bring on this brutal truth.
Please don’t tell me justice
is just a myth;
You wouldn’t do that,
Would you?
A gentleman by the name of James W. Lewis recently commented on my article, "Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?" In his comment he posed a question which under ordinary circumstances would seem to be very reasonable, and one that seems to currently be on the mind of a surprising number of younger Black people. He asked the following:
. "There’s one thing that has always bothered me about black folks. We constantly battle trying to prove we’re not all the same, especially what’s portrayed on television. We come from a variety of backgrounds, and our unique upbringings shape our beliefs, including political beliefs. If that’s the case, why do we ALL have to be Democrat (or even Independent)? The Democratic Party was once pro-slavery with obviously no, to very little African American support. The shift began in the 1940s with FDR’s New Deal. African Americans have been generally pro-Democrat ever since. If African Americans can change the face of the Democratic party, can’t the same be said for the Republican party?"
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James, in a word, no.
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People often suggest that I tend to advocate for the Democratic Party over the GOP. In response to that, first, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not a Democrat, and I haven’t been since my early twenties. I’m a independent progressive thinker, as oppose to a liberal or conservative. There is a difference.
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Liberals and conservatives are both ideologues, and as such, tend to be different sides of the same coin. They both have a propensity to give ideology priority over unadulterated truth. So when truth fails to conform to their particular ideological position, they both have a tendency to try to bend and contort the truth in order to mold it into a more comfortable fit within their political philosophy.
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Progressives, on the other hand, are non-ideological. We believe in following truth wherever it leads and regardless to who’s ox it gores. Truth is our only constituent, so we tend to look upon the political landscape as though we’re observing an ant farm, rather than from a partisan perspective.
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At this point it must be granted, however, that progressives do generally come down on the liberal side of the ledger, but there’s a reason for that, and since we believe in truth, that reason should be obvious. The current Republican Party has become a refuge for scoundrels for some, and a refuge from reality for many others. So while I’m not advocating FOR the Democratic Party, I routinely and vociferously advocate AGAINST the Republican Party with my every keystroke, because the current GOP is filled to the brim with some of the most dangerously malevolent people in this country.
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Simply ask yourself, when was the last time a party had to, literally, hide their last president and vice president during an election? Granted, I’m not a historian, but I can’t think of another time in our history. But the Republican Party had to do it twice - in both the 2008 and 2012 elections - and with good reason.
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George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spent their entire eight-year reign enriching their cronies. In addition, during their time in office they didn’t do one solitary thing to help America, or the American people, and that’s been the Republican record for nearly ONE HUNDRED YEARS. The GOP has a clear and irrefutable one hundred year record of swindling the American people, which I clearly lay out in the following link. (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2010/10/gop-one-hundred-year-record-of.html).
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Thus, the GOP has clearly become the domestic enemy of the United States. So to even try to be nonpartisan with this group would constitute colluding with the enemy against the American people.
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Am I engaging in a hyperbolic rant? I don’t think so. Let me prove it: Who was the last Republican president who didn’t drag America under a bus? That’s a real brain teaser isn’t it? Now try to name one good thing that the GOP has done for the American people in the last 30 years. Let me answer that for you - Absolutely nothing.
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Rush Limbaugh was foolish enough to make his feelings known out loud - "I don’t want Obama to be successful" - and as everyone knows, Rush speaks for the Republican Party.
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Thus, Rush gave the Republican Party their marching orders at the very beginning of President Obama’s administration - that the GOP should do everything in its power to prevent America from succeeding, regardless to the level of suffering that the American people may have to endure, and they've stood steadfast to that agenda.
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In yesterday's vote on gun control, in spite of the fact that a majority of 54 senators voted to approve the measure, the Republicans used the threat of filibuster to block true democracy and thumbed their nose at nearly 90% of the American people in favor of their corporate cronies. That, is the literal definition of a domestic enemy.
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The History of the Republican Party
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One of the founding fathers of conservative thought was Alexander Hamilton. He was an aristocrat who advocated that poor and middle-class Americans should be relegated to second-class citizenship, and the GOP has fully embraced his agenda. Hamilton said the following:
. “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.” (Debates of the Federalist Convention, May 14-September 17, 1787).
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The founding fathers rejected Hamilton's position in laying out the blueprint for this nation, but the arrogance of Hamilton's philosophy continues to exist, even to this day, in our politics - and it was exactly that arrogance that we witnessed in the Republican Party in yesterday's vote on gun control - "To Hell with the people; we're talking about my reelection here!"
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The modern Republican Party is a coalition between fiscal conservatives, or big business, and social conservatives, or social bigots. Even though these two factions don’t even like each other, they have one thing in common – they both have a vested interest in undermining Black people.
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Big business has a vested interest in not only lowering the standard of living of Black people, but the entire American Middle class in order to become more competitive in the global market against countries who pay their workers less per week, than the average middle-class American spends on lunch per day. And the great American bigot simply hates Black people in general. The most benevolent of them think that Black people should be relegated to shining his shoes.
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But it is true that most Black people used to be Republicans immediately after the Civil War up through the Civil Rights Era – Martin Luther King was a Republican. But the Republican Party was different back then. They represented the business community of the North, and the Democrats, or Dixiecrats, represented the farmers of the South. That was one of the reasons for the Civil War. The Civil War wasn't actually about freeing the slaves; it was actually a dispute between the big business Republicans of the North, and the Southern Democrats that represented the farming interests. Black people just happened to benefit from the dispute, and during the industrial revolution big business could use the additional manpower.
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But during the Great Depression the two parties began to change their alliances dramatically. After Democrat president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, turned on big business to help the poor and middle class with his "New Deal" for the American people during the Great Depression, working-class people began to gravitate to the Democratic Party. Then during the Civil Rights Era of the sixties when John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson began to support Black civil rights, many more Black people migrated to the Democratic Party, and southern racists began to move to the Republican Party. So, essentially, a complete shift took place in party alliances.
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So when you hear someone from the Republican Party saying that it was the Democrats who kept Black people in slavery and formed the Klan, they’re trying to play on your ignorance of history. A much better way of keeping track of those who victimized Black people is by following political philosophy. It was conservatives who victimized Black people, and those conservatives currently reside in the Republican Party - and as we speak, they’re desperately trying to obstruct our right to vote.
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But the Republican Party is currently in a state of turmoil. Every since social conservatives sought out refuge in the GOP subsequent to the Civil Rights Era, there’s been an uneasy alliance between the corporatist conservatives like Mitt Romney, and social bigots like Rick Santorum.
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So once again there’s a dispute between the interest of fiscal conservatives, or big business, who benefit from a more practical approach to social policies - and who would love to bring in as many undocumented workers as possible as potential customers, and to lower the cost of wages; and social conservatives, the social bigots - who, if they had their way would send all undocumented workers back to their respective homelands. So a second Civil War is brewing, but this time it’s going on within the Republican Party itself, and it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
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But the bottom line is this - the bigots within the Republican Party hate Black people even more than they do undocumented workers, liberals, and gays; and the corporatists hate the entire poor and middle-class population. You heard Mitt Romney talking to his homies – he thinks nearly half of the American people are scum – Black and White.
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Thus, any Black person, regardless to who he or she is, who think that Black people can find a comfortable fit in the churning cauldron of Republican hatred, bigotry, and self-interest, has got to be a fool - a damn fool.
It’s scary how easily the American people can be manipulated to the point that they find the death of entire families a hoot; How we can sit in front of the tv set with chili dogs and fries and cheer on the death of others like we’re watching the Super Bowl. And it’s a tribute to psychosis how America can unleash mass destruction in "an attempt to prevent mass destruction," in the name of God.
Can’t you see that many of "those towel-heads" are children just like your own? You didn’t really think the U.S. could unleash destruction like we saw and not kill children did you? Rumsfeld said, "Well, [shit] happens." But shit doesn’t just happen--you allowed it to happen. You made it happen. You cheered it on! Consider that as the children bleed and you're admiring the beauty of "Shock and Awe."
Think about your own children as "collateral damage." Think about them screaming in horror while you're helplessly watching their limbs being blown off. Think about them desperately reaching out to you for comfort as life slowly drains from their tiny bodies. Think about foreign boots kicking down your front door, and strangers walking through your home systematically killing every man, woman and child. Imagine the last sight you ever see on this Earth is of your loving child with her brains spilling from her tiny little head. Think about that picture, America--then ask yourself, who's really the terrorist?
Where has America gone? Who’s left to standup for justice and humanity? You say, God Bless America? You'd have to be a fool to think God is gonna bless America after what we’ve done--for choosing Standard Oil over Justice, and Exxon over God himself. In God we trust? How dare you blame this atrocity on God! It is in Bush you trust:
You trust Bush that God has entrusted you to blow off Iraqi arms and wrap them around you to enable them to embrace your benevolence. And you trust Bush that you must lovingly pluck out Iraqi eyes to enable them to see the wisdom of viewing the world through your own. And you trust Bush that in the name of all that is good you must slaughter their children in a desperate attempt to provide them with a better future. You also trust Bush that you must rape their land and steal their wealth in order to allow them to choose the government of their choosing-- (so long as they choose the government that Bush chooses for them to choose). And you trust Bush that you do all this in the name of American charity.
You also trust Bush that God will bless America--but this Ain’t America. America is the land of the free, and home of the brave, the land of just souls who freed their slaves. No, this is not America, this is Bushland–the land of small pox infected blankets; the land of public lynchings and church–place bombings; the land of imprisoned Japanese-Americans, and corporate murderers.
Yeah, God Bless Bushland! The land of the free and home of the slave; the land of My Lai, and Calley’s mass grave. And you trust that God will bless Bushland?
Well, trust this–You are blind, my friend.
... and those who do make it home are denied a living wage
Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?
Many conservatives - including a few Black accommodationists - are saying that Black people are being bamboozled into voting nearly exclusively for the Democratic Party. This is clearly a republican talking point - either that, or they believe that Black people are so stupid that they can be convinced to vote for people who have left no stone unturned to deprive them of their right to vote, and who repeatedly try to portray them as lazy criminals and dope fiends who are content to vote for anyone who will allow them to spend their lives on welfare. When placed in that context it makes one wonder, what could Black people possibly be thinking? How could they not want to vote for a group of people who portray them in that way?
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It seems to me, however, that a more pertinent question is how any Black person in America could proudly, or even quietly, declare themselves a conservative, or even think of voting for a Republican - any Republican?
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After all, the Republican Party has clearly demonstrated themselves to be the domestic enemy of the United States, with their policies, their governmental obstructionism, and with their seeming determination to hold America hostage to accommodate their corporate cronies. They’re, literally, trying to punish America for electing President Obama under the pretext of addressing a national crisis that they created, just like every other economic crisis that the nation has experienced over the past one hundred years (The GOP: A One Hundred Year Record of Swindling the American People ).
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In addition, any Black person with even a casual understanding of the English language would recognize that "conservative," by its very definition, means that they’re aligning themselves with people who are dedicated to "conserving" the values and traditions of the past. That alone represents a malevolent agenda for all Black people. Thus, any Black man who supports that agenda is either dumb, or self-serving. Period.
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But I have a theory about those who cave-in to become Black conservatives. I think they suffer from a form of "Stockholm Syndrome." Stockholm Syndrome is a psychiatric concept named to describe the psychological response of hostages who were locked in a bank vault for five days during a robbery in Stockholm, Sweden between August 23rd and 28th of 1973.
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Some of the hostages were so traumatized during their ordeal that they began to confuse relief from blatant abuse with an act of kindness. As a result, they began to empathize with their captors. Many became so attached to their captors, in fact, that they refused assistance and even defended the criminals after they were released.
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We saw the very same effect in Patty Hearst after she was kidnaped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and also in Black collaborators during slavery - "Dim niggas talkin’ bout burnin’ our house down, Massa." Such people have an overwhelming need for acceptance by the people they perceive to have power over their lives.
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The Stockholm Syndrome is consistent with what we’ve suggested many times before - that since Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White people, many Black people, of weaker character, have become just as racist towards other Black people as any mouth-foaming, sheet-wearing, White bigot. Any Black person who has ever worked for the United States Postal Service will eagerly attest to that. In addition, the epidemic of Black-on-Black crime in our inner cities and the lack of darker skinned Black women in entertainment videos will also attest to this fact.
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Further, over the years many Black people have been conditioned to believe that having "arrived" means that you live as far away from other Black people as you can get, and that you assume as many White attributes as you can accommodate without bleaching your skin - and some have even gone so far as to do that. Then there's a small minority of Black people who feel that the ultimate proof that they’ve arrived is to assume conservative values - values that are renown for looking upon Black people, and the Black culture in general, with disdain.
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There are also Black people who go conservative, even at the expense of the Black community, for personal gain. In his article, "My Republican Party has Abandoned Me," Black Republican 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."
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Most Black people understand these facts intuitively, so no matter how many Herman Cains or Dr. Ben Carsons the Republican Party trots out, they’ll never obtain the Black vote. In fact, trotting out such people only serve to stoke the flame of their animosity even further, because it's clear to them that the GOP is not only trying to insult their intelligence, but they’re manipulating the very least among them to try to achieve that goal - even when they have to resort to the lunatic fringe:
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.