THE MODERN REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS MORPHED INTO THE DOMESTIC ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

 THE MODERN REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS MORPHED INTO THE DOMESTIC ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES

For the past thirty-five years the Corporate-GOP Alliance has been engaged in a brutal assault on the American people. They've sent our jobs out of the country, while at the same time, the Republican congress has blocked any funding for the government to create jobs by repairing the nation's badly deteriorating infrastructure, which was a highly successful tactic used to rescue the nation from the Great Depression. These actions have subjected the American people to needless suffering while corporations are enjoying record profits.

.
At the same time, they abolished the "Fairness Doctrine," which forced broadcasters to give equal time to opposing views, and then they completely took over the mainstream media, which allowed them to lie with impunity. Thereafter, they began to subject the American people to an intense campaign of corporate brainwashing and disinformation over the cause of their suffering, and they mounted a vicious attack on our educational system. Teachers are being demonized, elementary, middle, and senior high schools are being defunded, and the cost of college has been placed beyond the reach of the Average American without going deeply in debt. Then, to ensure these policies remained in place, the Republican led Supreme Court ruling on "Citizens United" gave a foreign CEO based in Singapore more control over the American political system than an American citizen.
.

All of this wasn't done without reason, and that reason is clear. The corporate establishment in this country is trying to create a permanent underclass that will be completely dependent upon their every whim.  By the time they're done, the options of the average working-class American will be few - they can either work for slave wages, or they can go into the military and lay their lives on the line in an endless string of wars to pad the pockets of a growing number of war profiteers. So they are forcing the poor and middle class to pay for the wars, and then fight the wars - because the children of the rich are no longer even expected to die for this country; that's the job of the 'little people'. Thereafter, while the war profiteers are raking in all the profits from poor and middle-class death and misery, when the veterans come home wounded or completely disabled, they call them deadbeats and cut their benefits. Those are not the actions of American patriots.

.

"In Congress, Republicans in both chambers have launched sweeping attacks on long-held centrist priorities and have renewed threats to block Obamacare. These attacks are seen in House bills slashing spending in almost every federal program except for the military [they didn't cut the military budget because that money is funneled back into the pocket of war profiteers] and domestic policing for the federal fiscal year starting October 1. Anti-poverty, education, human services, environmental protection, energy, labor, Wall St. oversight-all face cuts averaging 20 percent, although some areas face cuts by a third or more.
.
"Rabid Republicans are also acting with renewed zeal to roll back voting rights in key Southern states. In North Carolina and Texas, GOP-led legislatures are resurrecting a catalogue of Jim Crow-era barriers to minority voting, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning of the 1965 Voting Right Act's toughest enforcement provision. In North Carolina, the GOP wants to repeal 20 years of best practices that made North Carolina a model of fair and accessible elections. In Texas, the GOP wants to revise political districts to dilute minority representation and pass tougher voter ID laws."
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/18636-six-ways-rabid-republicans-are-declaring-war-on-america
.
Nevertheless, most Republicans tend to wrap themselves in the American flag and walk around with flag pins in their lapels, but their unconscionable assault on the American people is anything but patriotic. Their purposeful undermining and exploitation of the American people could only be perpetrated by a greedy, power-hungry, and self-serving domestic enemy of this nation. But due to the affects of corporate brainwashing, they have the American people divided and at one another's throat instead of seeing reality for what it is.
.
Americans aren't suffering because of their fellow citizens; they’re suffering because they’re being robbed blind by the Corporate-Republican Alliance. Undocumented workers aren’t taking their jobs; their jobs are being sent out of the country in order to make the American middle class more accepting of a lower standard of living. And labor unions are not what’s destroying jobs; jobs are being outsourced to destroy labor unions. Yet, corporate conservatives have a shrinking middle class railing against the poor, Blacks against undocumented workers, and Christians against any, and everyone, who doesn't look, think, and act like themselves. Thus, the most lethal weapons against American democracy - hatred, suffering, ignorance, and division - is being used against us, and the Corporate-Republican Alliance are using those weapons quite effectively in reverting a previously thriving American democracy into what is beginning to look ominously close to a third-world nation.

.

So it is essential that the American people open their eyes and take this threat to our democracy seriously, because this nation is sliding downhill, and very fast. Who would ever have thought that they would live to see a vice president of the United States outing an American CIA agent, or 47 American senators sending a treasonous letter to a foreign head of state in an attempt to undermine American diplomacy on behalf of a second foreign power. And who would have thought that we'd ever see in our lifetime a governor of a state knowingly exposing a city of 100,000 people to led poisoning, which will retard the intellectual growth of children and have a negative impact on their health for the rest of their lives? And considering the fact that the city is predominantly Black, and the minority of White people there are poor, it's Hitlerian in its ramifications. So Rick Snyder should not only be forced to resign, but he should be charged, at the very least, with criminal negligence, because every time we allow the Republicans to get away with something like this, they take it one step further. That's why the nation is sliding downhill so fast.
.

And again, the assaults being perpetrated against America listed above would have been unheard of in the United States just a short time ago, and it's all being done by greedy and self-serving Republican politicians who are completely disinterested in the interest of the American people. Their interest lie in America remaining miserable, angry, and divided, and they're doing everything in their power to keep us that way.
.
So these are not traditional American politicians that we're dealing with here. We're now in a class war, and these Republican politicians are the enemy's assault troops.  So regardless to your race, creed, or color, if you don't have a few million dollars stashed away somewhere, you're their enemy. These are the very "domestic enemies" of the United States that we were warned about in our founding documents.
.
And these people didn't just pop up out of nowhere. They've been around as "sleeper cells" since the very founding of this nation; they've just had to keep a low profile to carry out their agenda. Because many fiscal conservatives are not just racist, they're also class bigots. 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:
.

AND THESE ARE NOT JUST THE BENEFITS

OF MINORITIES OR

LIBERALS THEY'RE GOING AFTER

"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).
.
While Hamilton’s position was resoundingly rejected by the vast majority of the founding fathers - whose primary reason for coming to America in the first place was to get away from the European class system - there were many of Hamilton’s ilk who chose not to recognize the American ideal that "All men [and women] are created equal." Then they were later joined by Southern Dixiecrats, or social bigots, who also rejected the ideal of human equality.
.
But what social conservatives fail to realize is that the corporate conservative's rejection of human equality includes them. Corporate conservatives don't care any more about them than they do any minority.  They're just being used to keep America divided, but once the corporatists seize firm control over the government, and social bigots are no longer needed, they're going to be thrown onto a virtual plantation right along with everyone else. The attempt to hide that fact is what accounts for the corporate conservative's intense distaste for public education.

.
Corporate conservatives want to restore control over the American worker that they had during the Great Depression, and if you take a close look at the Republican platform it is clear that they're on a single-minded mission to do just that.  During the Great Depression there was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak to work, they had no income so they had to depend on their children for support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they also had to support their parents as well. So there was often three generations of a family in one household – and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and wife, lived with the family.
.
As a result, in some cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery – the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
.

In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of the grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them – and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.

They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, and no paid vacation. In addition, since there was no child labor laws, if your boss didn’t think you were being productive enough, he could insist that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot, in which case, your entire family – sick grandparents and all – would be thrown out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance.
.
Thus, corporate conservatives depend on a poorly educated public for their very survival, because even a rudimentary familiarity with history would reveal both their background, and agenda. They don't want you to know that the people who lived through the Great Depression and fought WWII, the people who we refer to as "The Greatest Generation," wouldn't let a Republican anywhere near the White House.
.

Our grandparents elected Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt into office an unprecedented four terms, from 1932 until he died in office in 1945. Thereafter, Republican nominee, Thomas E. Dewey, had to push for the Twenty-Second Amendment creating presidential term limits for a Republican to even get a whiff of the White House, and even then, a Republican wasn’t elected until Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 – and he was only elected because he was the allied commander credited with winning WWII, and he was a Republican in name only.  He signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act, and sent troops into Little Rock Arkansas to integrate the schools.
.
In addition, as President Eisenhower’s very last act of office he warned the American people of the military/industrial complex, or people like Dick Cheney and the kind of Republicans we have in office today. He had no use for them. Ike would have summarily shot Dick Cheney had he been in office when Cheney allegedly outed CIA operative, Valarie Plame.
.
So the “Greatest Generation” understood what we’re only now finding out the hard way about the Republican Party due to the GOP’s systematic dismantling of our information and educational systems – their pronounced greed and lust for power has rendered them prone to being reckless, irresponsible, without limits, and a danger to our democracy. That's why they Hate Donald Trump, because he's making all of their shortcomings and hidden agenda glaringly clear to the public.
.

DONALD TRUMP IS A CAPITIALIST AND A BAD JOKE, BUT HE SERVES A USEFUL PURPOSE - HE REVEALS HOW CONSERVATIVES REALLY THINK.

.
Donald Trump is an ignorant, mean-spirited, xenophobic, and self-serving racist who's willing to tell any lie he can conjure up to promote his own interest. That makes him the quintessential Republican, and that's exactly why he's leading in the Republican polls. But the Trump phenomenon says it all. While the GOP establishment is distancing themselves from Trump, it's not because they disagree with what he's saying, it's because he's either too dumb, or too self-serving to realize that he's not suppose to be saying what conservatives truly believe out loud.  While the Republican establishment has been saying the exact same things as Trump for years, they’ve been saying it in political code, and with a wink.
.

So the Republican establishment is afraid that this Trump episode will openly reveal their unspoken assault on the American people for decades, and the facts are simple - while the Corporate-Republican Alliance are all wearing American flag pins in their lapels and constantly paying lip-service to wanting to bring prosperity to the average American, an unequivocal historic record clearly demonstrates that this has never been the case, and not only that, it has never even been a part of the GOP's agenda.
.
So in the 2016 election the American people are going to be given a choice to come clean. Do they really want the kind of America that they're always bragging about and profess to believe in, or do they actually want a fascist nation that subjugates the working class, demonizes minorities, and supports a Gestapo-like police forces that kill innocent Black children on the street with impunity? For those rabid conservatives who feel like they could live with the latter, they should think long and hard, because as their current living conditions suggest, this time it's not about simply establishing an Aryan nation, it's about establishing a corporate feudalist oligarchy where poor and working-class White people and their families are just as meaningless as any minority. Think about it - did they only send Black jobs out of the country? I don't think so. Are they now, even as I write, trying to take away the Social Security and Veterans benefits of only minorities?  No they aren't. And did Gov. Rick Snyder only expose Black people to lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan? Not really. So the facts are clear.  If you’re a poor or middle-class White person who don't have millions of dollars stashed away in a foreign account somewhere, they intend to make you the new 'coon,' just like they did during the Great Depression.

A SOCIAL BIGOT

As a final comment to social bigots, while I would hate to see America come crashing down as a result of our own stupidity, if worse comes to worst, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I wouldn't get a certain measure of satisfaction out of watching bigots get just what they deserve. You see, Black people are accustomed to dealing with the kind of adversity that would befall this nation. During the Great Depression while White folks were jumping off buildings, Black people were partying through the Harlem Renaissance and enjoying one of the most productive and creative periods in our history. So the irony is, in many respects the Great Depression worked to the advantage of Black people, because it leveled the playing field. During the depression White people were force to live under the very same conditions that Black people have been forced to deal with all of their lives - both then, and now. But due to the affirmative action program that White folks have benefited from in this society over the years, they just aren't equipped to deal with adversity. If you're already out to sea, you don't even feel a tsunami beneath you, it is only those who are living warm and comfortable on land who experience the devastation of its impact. That explains why my grandfather never even mentioned the Great Depression to me, because for him, it was just business as usual.

A BLACK WOMAN 'STRUGGLING' THROUGH

THE GREAT DEPRESSION 

.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

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

Sphere: Related Content

DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON, A HUMBLE, BUT TRUE MAN OF GOD

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

.

Every since I wrote the column "Crabs in a Barrel," the gross hypocrisy of South Carolina State Senator, Rev. Darrell Jackson, has lingered with me. In that column I describe how the Black, South Carolina State Senator, who was also the pastor of the 10,000 member, "Family Way Bible Life Center Church," came out against Senator Barack Obama afer selling his support to Senator Hillary Clinton for $10,000 a month--a dollar amount that corresponded exactly with the number of members he had in his church.
.
Now, as I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent "houses of God" towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can't help but wonder how many of them are really doing God's work.
.
When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction--she was ill at the time, so she couldn't take me to "the big church" in which she was a member.
.
I'll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true "ordained man of God" was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone's living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
.
If I'd remained at that church, I don't know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn't care what a person was—if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
.
Looking back on it, I don't know where he found the resources. He certainly didn't get it from our little collection plate—we were so poor and so few in number he couldn't have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God--if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the "big church," and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day—in fact, though I must admit that I'm rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that's led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
.
The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheims, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place--you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.
.

And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed--the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I'd grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer, Billy Preston, was the church organist. In a church like this you didn't have to wait to get to heaven--every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
.
I've often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn't imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. But since he wasn't "ordained," it wasn't even an issue. He never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don't care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there–if Moses wanted to head the church, they'd want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher—politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.
.
And further, Elder Hampton wouldn't begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like this. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn't a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church's resources on the "no-account sinners" in the surrounding community.
.

He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn't be no time at all before he'd dig up the church's beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
.
Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he'd create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he'd be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It's no wonder he'd drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men and women to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
.
No, Elder Hampton's heart was in the right place, but he'd have been much too impractical to run a big church like this. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He thought when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
.
Yeah, Elder Hampton would have been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back--with Jesus.

*****

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."

Matthew 6:1-34

*

Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record your deeds, and to absorb your Godly essence. 

.

DEDICATED TO ELDER HAMPTON - A MAN OF GOD

.

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.

Sphere: Related Content

HOW A KID RAISED IN THE CHURCH CAME TO REJECT CHRISTIANITY

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

HOW A KID RAISED IN THE CHURCH CAME TO REJECT CHRISTIANITY

.

I was recently in a discussion with a gentlemen on religion and he asked me, "You say you believe in God, and you seem to have Christian values, so why do you say you're not a Christian?" My answer was very simple - because God blessed me with common sense, and while I do have values, they're nothing like those that I've seen from so-called Christians, or any other religion. So while I believe in God, I make it a point to keep the word of man out of anything that has to do with my spirituality.  For me, God is whatever force is responsible for creating what we call reality - period. That's all I have to know, and that's all I have to contemplate.
.
An individual's organized religious beliefs are merely an accident of birth, and a form of socialization. The very same man, who was born in Georgia, and who was raised to be a devout Christian, would more than likely be a devout Muslim if he'd been born in Iran, a devout Jew if he'd been born in Israel, or a devout Buddhist if he'd been born in China. So again, organized religion is nothing more, or nothing less, than a form of socialization, and it has absolutely nothing to do with God. In fact, religion is anti-God, because you can trace nearly every form of narrow-mindedness, hatred, and bigotry, directly back to man's religious beliefs.
.
Man uses religion to try to make himself feel special, as though he has some special connection to God, so by its very nature organized religion is discriminatory, not only toward other groups, but other creatures. From their point of view, it's not that they hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like themselves - it's just that God does. So their religious beliefs are used to both make themselves feel superior, and also, to validate their hatred and distrust of others unlike themselves.  But from my point of view, since God created all things, what makes man think that God loves him any more or less than he does a parakeet?  Thus, religion is nothing more than a reflection of man's arrogance.

.

That's why a person's religious beliefs are nearly inseparable from his or her political beliefs.  Many Christians don't believe in global warming, equality among people, that Jesus was Black (not that it matters, since he was just another insightful man, and nothing else), or that the Bible didn't prohibit the wholesale slaughter of up to 100 million native Americans, tying Black people up next to the mules, killing 6 million Jews, or dropping two atomic bombs on the innocent civilians of Japan. Christians claim that they did these things in the name of God. What they do believe in, however, is quietly allowing, and even supporting, the ascent of a nasty, bigoted, and un-Godly man like Donald Trump. Many Christians believe that Trump came into our midst as a result of the will of God, which is complete nonsense, but their religious delusions and myths justify their hatred, anger, bigotry, and greed.
.
Thus, religion is invariably used to validate the most malevolent part of man's nature. It allows his hatred, selfishness, and greed to be written off as God-approved, and with respect to Black people, it allows our apathy to be written off as justified - "All we have to do is sit and wait, because God is coming to our rescue." That was the position taken by many in the Black clergy who criticized Martin Luther King. They said his activity was stirring up unnecessary animosity toward the Black community, and that all he had to do was be patient and thing would work themselves out. 

.

In that regard, what about Black people - why do they embrace this nonsense, and in many cases, even more passionately than Whites?
.
Black people tend to be such devout Christians because they've been taught, first by slave masters, and then by rich, slick-talking Black preachers, that God's going to deliver justice upon them "by-and-by."  But what they don't understand is, God did his part when he gave us a brain, so "God helps those who help themselves." That's the way of nature - God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. So you either do what you were created to do, or you perish - period. That's a fundamental law throughout the universe for all things that exist.  If a planet drifts to close to it's parent star, it's over, and that's it. So as Black people, we are not going to be able to pray ourselves out of our current condition; we're going to have to think our way out of it, or we're not going to survive, because that's what God created man to do - think, not conjure up stories about a walking dead man coming to our rescue.  Dead men don't walk, and snakes don't talk in this universe - at least in our part of it. That's just not the way things work, and if you believe that it does, or even can work that way, you have more faith in what man says, than what God has done.
.
But what makes people so passionate about their religion is it allows them to believe what's convenient for them to believe. That's why in spite of the atrocities that has been committed by this so-called "Christian nation" that have been listed above, we have Americans walking around with tears in their eyes talking about "God bless America."  Such people represent a monument to man's capacity to delude himself.  If we do an objective assessment of the atrocities committed by the United States in its relatively short existence, it will become immediately clear that this has been the most brutal and un-Godly nation in the history of humanity. Our historic record would make one think that the United States was founded by a cult of Devil worshipers - and this comes from a man who loves America. But I love what it can become, not what it has been. So if we are ever to truly become the nation that our founding documents lie so eloquently about, it is a must that we begin to think clearly, and stop believing in talkin' snakes.    

.

Ephesians 6:5-9 says, "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ." Those are not my values - and for so-called "good Christians" to simply sit back and say, "We're praying on it" don't fly with me, because they’ve been "praying on it" for centuries now:

.

A PORTRAIT OF DELUSION

.
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."
.
"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."
.
"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
.
"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?"
.
"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
.
"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?"
.
"Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
.
"Dat means people, fool - real people! Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place."
.
"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart.".
"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
.
"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."
.
"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."
.
"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."
.
"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."
.
"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'."
.
"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
.
"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
.
"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
.
"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."
.
"Yes sir, Massa."
.
"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
.
"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
.
"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."
.
"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . . "Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."

.

How so many Black people can embrace this un-Godly hypocrisy, and a philosophy that promotes self-hatred is beyond my understanding. But what I do understand is that people believe what they’re taught to believe, including the misguided values of self-hatred, bigotry, and hypocrisy.  But I'm virtually certain that there are those who are going to want to challenge many of my assertions, but  before you do, be prepared to answer two questions. First, why is it that the more connected a Black person is to the South, the more apt they are to be a Christian? And secondly, why is the "Bible Belt" the most bigoted, narrow-minded, and mean-spirited part of this country?

.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND DAMN FOOLS: WAKE UP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND DAMN FOOLS: 

WAKE UP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
.

.

I'm against ALL racists, whether they be Black or White. One must be evenhanded in that respect, because one cannot claim to be against racists without being against RACISM in all its guises. Thus, in the most literal sense, I'm something of a bigot myself - I'm an absolute bigot against anyone who takes pride in their own stupidity - and that's exactly what ALL racists do, irrespective of their ethnicity as clearly evidenced by Rev. James David Manning in the video above.  He's what I call a "bligot" - a Black-on-Black bigot The irony of the video is, the good reverend fails to realize that he's been so traumatized by the very views that he's espousing that he's become a classic victim of the Stockholm syndrome.
.  

And there's a very good reason for that - Black people are the produce of the very same racist
environment her in America as White people, so as I constantly tell people, some of the weaker minded Black people in this country are just as bigoted toward other Black people as any barefoot Hillbilly. Racist attitudes toward Black people are so pervasive in this country that regardless to who you are, or how much effort you put into trying to avoid being racist, you have latent racist attitudes deep within your psyche. That account for why in spite of the fact that African-Americans control $1.1 trillion in spending power (equal to the gross national product of Germany - the third richest industrial nation in the world), they spend only 2 cents of every dollar with Black businesses.
.
In addition, anyone who has ever worked for the United States Postal Server will tell you that if you separate many Blacks from a group and give those individuals just a little bit of power, they'll be twice as brutal and unfair to Black employees than they are to any other group.  In fact, that tendency is so consistently reliable that the USPS has built a business tactic around it. They'll select certain Black employees - not the best and the brightest, but those who are the most self-serving, and have the least amount of character - place them in lower middle management, and then set unattainable goals for them.  Thereafter, all they have to do is sit back and watch them work they're employees like slaves to try to reach those goals. And what makes the tactic so perfect is, they can violate the civil rights of their employees with impunity, because it's next to impossible00 to for one Black person to file a successful Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against another person of the same race.
.

So if Black people are even racist toward one another, one can only imagine what it's like trying to deal with many White people.  But the good news is, Contrary to popular belief, things are changing between the Black and White racial dynamic very rapidly. The mere fact that Barack Obama was elected not once, but twice, is clear evidence of that. African Americans constitute only 13% of the population. If group in the population was allotted the number of votes that corresponded to their percentage of the population and Obama needed 51 votes to win, Black people would only be able to give him 13 votes. Where did the other 38 votes come from?
.
So in spite of what many say, the election results suggest that we indeed are living in a post racial American. But if that's the case, why are we seeing so much police brutality in society, in Ferguson, Los Angeles, New York, Texas, etc.?  The answer is very simple - because we're watching the dying gasp of Jim Crow. In short, we're witnessing the bigots' last stand.
.
For the most part, Americans are good and decent people who just want to live their lives and raise their families, but the corporate media has a vested interest in giving us the impression that America is in turmoil. So all they're showing us is the biggest fools in the country. The corpo-conservative coalition have both a business and political interest in keeping the poor and middle class hungry, angry, and hostile toward one another. That prevents us from coming together to defeat their agenda, which is to lower the standard of living to conform to the global economy where some workers make less a week than middle class Americans spend on lunch per day, and prevent us from using our higher demographic numbers to defeat them at the polls.
.
So it's not newly arriving immigrants that's taking away our jobs. Our jobs are being GIVEN away by self-serving and greedy billionaires sending them over seas so they can keep us divided here at home by forcing us to fight over scraps and crumbs that are left.  So we've got to stop letting ourselves be played
.

With regard to his message, in the fight against racism, and bigotry in general, we must have the presence of mind to distinguish between the delusions of racism and the discomfort of truth. Rev. Manning, shown above, is both a victim and a disseminator of racist, White male Anglo-Saxon Protestant bigotry based entirely on a deluded distortion of fact. He's an ideologue, who's clearly giving ideology priority over truth.

.

On the other hand, Rev. Jerimiah Wright has also been portrayed as a racist.  But Rev.Wright is not a racist at all. He simply held a mirror up for America to take a look at itself.  But since America is not use to such unvarnished honesty, it was simpler for the American people to spin Rev. Wright into a caricature that was more acceptable to American sensibilities - "It ain't nothing wrong with America; that's just the rantings of one delusional and unGodly preacher." But the fact is, even though America is filled to the brim with wonderful people of every race, the United States has been one of the most blatantly hypocritical, disgustingly greedy, and shamelessly barbaric nations that has EVER existed on the face of the Earth, and Rev. Wright, being a man of the cloth, merely told us so, just as Jesus Christ would have done had he been preaching in Wright's place. The facts are clear and undeniable:

--

Rev. Jerimiah Wright
.

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."

.

"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."

.
"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
.
"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?"
.
"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
.
"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?"
.
"Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
.
"Dat means people, fool - real people!  Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place."
.
"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart."
.
"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
.
"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."
.
"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."
.
"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."
.
"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."
.
"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'."
.
"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
.
"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
.
"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
.
"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."
.
"Yes sir, Massa."
.
"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
.
"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
.
"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."
.
"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . . "Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."

.

.

.

"ONE NATION

 UNDER GOD,

WITH LIBERTY,

AND JUSTICE,

FOR ALL."

Hmmmmmmmm . . . No shit?

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

DID HILLARY CLINTON TRY TO 'DOG-WHISTLE' BARACK OBAMA'S ASSASSINATION?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

DID HILLARY CLINTON TRY TO 'DOG-WHISTLE' BARACK OBAMA'S ASSASSINATION?

.

POLITISPEAK FOR 

YOU'RE STILL A BARRY GOLDWATER REPUBLICAN,

RIGHT DOWN TO THE REPUBLICAN TALKING POINTS - 

AND WHAT'S A "NEW DEMOCRAT?"

Once Hillary Clinton became desperate over her all but certain loss to Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries, she began to continually allude to the assassination of Robert Kennedy during the 1968 primary. She kept repeating that "Calling all wingnuts!" 'dog whistle' as justification for why she didn't simply get out of the race.
.
But the mere mention of this episode seem to drive Clinton supporters up the wall. They say it’s "water under the bridge," and others try to make light of it as though I’m some sort of crazy conspiracy theorist - "Was Hillary also responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania, and by the way, where's her birth certificate?" But the fact is, this issue is not funny, and it can't just be fluffed off as water under the bridge. It should be seriously examined, because it strongly suggests that there's a very dark sociopath lurking beneath Hillary’s public facade.
.
What made Hillary's remarks seem much more malevolent than a simple gaffe was, as pointed out in a Keith Olbermann commentary below, someone had obviously told her that her mention of the word "assassination" was inappropriate, since Sen. Obama had been receiving death threats every since the day he threw his hat in the ring to run for president, so Hillary stopped using the word - temporarily. But as her situation became more dire and it was all but certain that she was going to lose to Sen. Obama, she began using the word "assassination" again.
.
And later, on May 11th 2008, while appearing on Meet The Press, Hillary’s campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, made the same kind of statement to Tim Russert. He said that in order for Hillary to win the nomination "something big" would have to happen. Then Russett asked, "An act of God, or something catastrophic?", and he said, "Yes, something big would have to happen–absolutely."
.
So how much farther did they have to go, say, "Calling all wingnuts! If somebody - ANYBODY - doesn't hurry up and kill this guy America could end up with a Black man for president!!!?"
.
So why did President Obama make Hillary his Secretary of State? That’s very simple. Obama had the good sense to understand that he needed to heal the rift within the Democratic Party so he threw her a bone. But while Bill was pushing for Hillary to be made Vice President, Obama had much better sense than to place her one heartbeat away from the presidency, because there’s one thing Barack has never been accused of, and that’s being a fool.
.
But this episode clearly shows that Hillary Clinton would do ANYTHING, no matter how horribly unconscionable, to appease her own ambition, and that's not a good thing in any leader. It also shows that while Hillary saw fit to change her party to accommodate her ambition, she’s more than managed to maintain her Republican instincts - she has absolutely no hesitation to play dirty politics, and she also lacks a sense of limits. Those are distinctly Republican traits. 
.
Hillary is quoted as saying, "I’ve gone from Barry Goldwater Republican to a new Democrat, but I think my underlying values has remained pretty constant; individual responsibility and community. I don’t see those as being mutually inconsistent."
.

AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HILLARY CLINTON IS -

PART OF THE PROBLEM

That sounds innocuous enough - who can be against personal responsibility and community? But it’s actually politispeak, a coded message to her corporate supporters that says, "the people are on their own." Those exact words - "individual responsibility and community" - are a major part of the Republican mantra; they could have come from the mouth of Paul Ryan. It's a coded slander of Black people (like "welfare queen"), and it implies that anyone who expects government assistance - like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits or extended unemployment insurance - lacks personal responsibility. But what about corporate responsibility? "About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006" - and one of Hillary's staunchest corporate supporters, Walmart, is one of the biggest corporate "welfare queens" in the country.
http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/
.
So as is clearly demonstrated in this very article, one should listen to Hillary Clinton very carefully, because she's always been big on subliminal messaging, and she’s extremely condescending toward the average American. She thinks we’re dumb, and unfortunately, many of us are. Why didn’t Hillary simply say, I’ve gone from Barry Goldwater Republican to a Democrat? Instead she said a "NEW Democrat." It’s quite simple - because in the code of politispeak they have two very different meanings. So what does Hillary mean by a "new Democrat?" I took the time to look it up for its exact meaning:
.

According to Wikipedia, "New Democrats, also called Centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, Moderate Democrats, or Neoliberal Democrats, is an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election . . . The New Democrat Coalition is a Congressional Member Organization within the United States Congress made up of Democrats who support an agenda that the organization describes as moderate and pro-growth."
.
So it's Hillary's intent to come over from the Republican Party and redefine what it means to be a Democrat. She wants to push the party to the right so it will be more accommodating to the corporate agenda (or 1%ers), which also means, less accommodating to the people. Isn't that already the problem? Most liberals prefer the old Democrats, like Ted Kennedy and, yes, Bernie Sanders, who fight for the people. So liberal Democrats need to send a clear and unequivocal message by using the primaries to get rid of these so-called "New Democrats," because all they are, are just like Hillary - Corpora-Crats feigning to be Democrats in Democratic districts.
.

The fact is, both Bill, and Hillary, are Republicans in drag - and they always have been. While they talk and act liberal, whenever they walk away, they always tend to leave Republican policies behind, like NAFTA, that laid the foundation to outsource American jobs. They also managed to cut the throats of many poor Black, and White, welfare recipients and unskilled workers while in office.
.
"Clinton has been heavily criticized for overseeing the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which made it more affordable for manufacturing companies to outsource jobs to foreign countries and then import their product back to the United States. This policy caused a significant decrease in the amount of unskilled jobs in the United States." But When Clinton  signed NAFT into law (with a Republican majority), he said, "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement).  Nevertheless, we see how it turned out.
.
So the fact is, Hillary, just like Bill, cannot be trusted. At the very least, she’s a fiscal conservative, and the only thing that she truly cares about is her own unquenchable ambition. Her every action is staged to manipulate "the little people," and if you pay close attention, you'll notice that even when she laughs it sounds forced and disingenuous.
.
Consider this. At seventeen years old she was working for the Barry Goldwater campaign, who pledged that if elected he would abolish the Civil Rights Act. Then in college she was not just a member of the "Young Republicans," she was their PRESIDENT!
.

Hillary supporters claim that’s all irrelevant. They claim that she was only a child at the time. But when carefully considered, that makes it even more relevant. A teenager generally merely "leans" toward a particular political philosophy, but not Hillary. Hillary was so dedicated to the conservative Republican philosophy that she actually got involved in Barry Goldwater’s campaign before she was even old enough to vote, and then later in college - while most left-leaning students were demonstrating against the Vietnam war, and protesting for Civil and women’s rights - she was the president of the "Young Republicans." That not only showed a deep commitment, but a deep dedication to conservatism.
.
Her supporters also try to fluff that off by saying, "Well, people change." While that may be true, people rarely change a commitment that is as deeply ingrained in them as the commitment that Hillary demonstrated toward Republicanism. One’s politics is much like one's religion - most people carry their predisposition to the grave, and there are many indications that Hillary is also doing just that, like joining forces with the neocons in her support for the invasion of Iraq, and her appeal to the "hard-working White people" during her 2008 campaign against Obama, and her cozy relationship with the corporate 1%ers. In addition, during her 2008 campaign against Obama, while trying to get Ted Kennedy’s support, it was reported by the New Yorker that Bill Clinton said to Kennedy regarding Barack Obama, "A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags." True progressives don’t talk like that. He was sounding just like a White Southern politician behind closed doors - which is exactly what he was, and is - dark glasses and saxophone notwithstanding.  They don't call him "Slick Willie" for nothing.
.

Another indication of Hillary’s conservative predisposition could be observed in her behavior during her first high-profile position on the Board of Directors of Walmart. While she was in that position Walmart was undercutting labor unions, paying their workers slave-like wages, and discriminating against women by paying them less than they paid men for doing the same job, and Hillary didn’t say a word. The reason for that was simple - it wasn’t convenient for her to speak out at the time. Speaking out on behalf of women and the working class wouldn’t do anything to promote her ambition. It was a zero sum gain, and Hillary is not motivated by conviction; she's motivated by self-interest. But all of a sudden - now that she needs the votes of the working class - she’s trying to portray herself as a gladiator for the people, but that’ll only last until she gets into office. Then it’ll be business as usual - paying back political favors (like the $25,000 campaign donation that she received from Walmart), and building up future credits with other corporate elites for her next campaign.
.

A NO-LOSE ELECTION FOR CORPORATE ELITES
.
BILL 'SLICK WILLIE' CLINTON CALLS TRUMP

"A new Washington Post report reveals that Bill Clinton and Donald Trump had a private phone call weeks before Trump got in the presidential race, in which the former president reportedly “encouraged” Trump’s political efforts.
.
"Yes, this new report today from Robert Costa and Anne Gearan has people close to Trump and Clinton confirming they spoke some time in May.
.
"There was apparently no talk specifically of 2016, but the former president reportedly “encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party.” And while Clinton never explicitly encouraged The Donald to run against his wife, he also said Trump “was striking a chord with frustrated conservatives and was a rising force on the right.” http://www.mediaite.com/online/bill-clinton-and-trump-had-private-phone-call-weeks-before-trumps-2016-announcement/

.

So has Hillary Clinton really changed since her younger days of Republican activism? I don’t think so. I think that as an ambitious young woman of the sixties she saw what direction the wind was blowing. Thereafter, she made the cynical decision to switch parties in order to accommodate her ambition - Period.

.

.

Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

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

Sphere: Related Content