ORGANIZED RELIGION IS EVIL - AND TRUMP PROVES IT

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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ORGANIZED RELIGION IS EVIL
THAT’S WHY SO MANY RELIGIOUS FANATICS SUPPORT TRUMP AND OTHER DEMAGOGUES

God works in mysterious ways. So maybe God did send Trump here, but he sent him here to warn us of the gross hypocrisy that the many so-called "Godologists" have brought into our lives. Look at all the misery, murder and mayhem going on around the world in the name of religion. One man in the Middle East even cut his wife’s lips off because she had the audacity to try putting on lipstick. Such people don't bring the love and goodness of God into our lives, they bring hatred and narrow-minded idiocy into our midst.
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Thus, organized religion is nothing short of the pure ignorance and autocratic stupidity of man trying to shove his beliefs down the throats of other men through the use of dubious ancient scriptures.  But God speaks to us through common sense, not the superstitious rantings of 3000-year-old dead men. Such men didn't know any more about God than we do - which is absolutely nothing. They were simply the Pat Robertsons of their time.
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You don’t have to be a part of a religious cult to love and worship God, so while I’m a firm believer in God, I have neither the superstitious nature, inclination, nor the desire to embrace any form of religious Voodoo. Through the simple use of the common sense that God bestowed upon me, it has always been clear to me that Jesus didn't die for our sins. Jesus died because he was stabbed, just like any other human being would. Case closed.
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And not only that, why would God send his "only begotten son" through all that suffering? He's God - he could have simply forgiven us for our sins without sending his son through all that unnecessary suffering and mayhem, wouldn't you? So it sounds to me like the followers of Jesus had to come up with a justification for how the man they claimed was the son of God could be killed. So they waited 7 days, and then when nobody was looking, they stole his body from the tomb and claimed he got up and walked away (they must've been Republicans). Now, that makes much more sense, doesn't it? So don't be idiotic enough to buy into all the Voodoo. It'll only keep you blind and broke, while your preacher rides around in a Cadillac.
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I was raised in church, and even as a child I didn’t like the gross hypocrisy I saw there. Some of the most evil and self-righteous people I've ever met I met in church. These people weren't interested in bringing the love of God into my life, they were control freaks, so they were more interested in trying to tell me how to live my life. And to accomplish that goal they tried to insult my intelligence with ridiculous stories of walking dead men and talking snakes to scare me into compliance. They should have simply been content to teach me to respect the wisdom of Jesus (which I do), instead of trying to convince me that he was a superhuman being who could walk on water, which is pure nonsense. So when it comes to religion I’ve been there, and done that, and I came away highly insulted by the experience. 
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While I'm the product of one of the most religious families I know, and I'm extremely spiritual, even as a child I wasn't an idiot. I just couldn't get myself to believe all the supernatural nonsense they were trying to shove down my throat. So at 14 years old I shook the dust from my feet, left the church, and I haven't lightened their door since - and now, even as an adult, I've instructed my family not to let any preacher preach over my body upon my death. They've been instructed to simply cremate me and sprinkle my ashes in the ocean. 
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There are over 4200 different religions on Earth. If God had anything at all to do with any of them, there'd be only one. So religion is nothing more than a form of social manipulation to convince the people of a given society that they hold a favored place in the heart of God, and thus, the leaders of that society speaks for God, which is a blatant lie.
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If Americans actually cared anything at all about Christianity, there never would have been either slavery, bigotry, or the genocide of over 200 million Native Americans. But as we currently see during this Trump era, religious fanatics only believe in "The Word of God" as long as it's convenient. When it becomes less than convenient, they toss it aside like a used Tampon, and instead of loving their neighbors, they put them in cages.

Organized religion is at the very root of 99% of all of the bigotry, evil, murder and mayhem in the world today. So those religious fanatics who support Trump, only support him because he promotes their brand of bigotry, greed, and hatred of all those who don’t look, think, and act like themselves. Clear evidence of that fact is their willingness to turn a blind eye to all of the ungodly flaws in Trump's character. Jesus Christ would undoubtedly condemn the man, but due to their own bigotry and self-interest many White Evangelists have chosen to overrule Jesus and give Trump a pass.  
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So whenever you see a "Christian for Trump", regardless to what their justification, you know you're looking at a hypocrite that's destined to burn in Hell. Because while they may be able to fool themselves, one another, and the gullible, they can't fool God.

BAD NEWS FOR REV. GRAHAM:

I HATE TO BREAK THIS TO YOU THIS REV. GRAHAM, BUT YOUR SON, FRANKLIN, HAS CHOSEN A SEXUAL PERVERT OVER JESUS CHRIST.  

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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EVANGELICAL PUBLICATION FOUNDED BY BILLY GRAHAM CALLS FOR TRUMP’S REMOVAL FROM OFFICE

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

EVANGELICAL PUBLICATION FOUNDED BY 
BILLY GRAHAM CALLS FOR TRUMP’S REMOVAL FROM OFFICE

"None of the president's positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character."
-Christianity Today.

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A TEST OF FAITH:

DO YOU FOLLOW JESUS

OR

SATAN’S APPRENTICE?

CHRISTIANITY TODAY
INTERVIEW
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CHRISTIANITY TODAY

EDITORIAL

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, ANDINDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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A MESSAGE TO CJ GOODE III, KANYE WEST, AND ALL OTHER BLACK BIGOT-HUGGERS

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

A MESSAGE TO CJ GOODE III, KANYE WEST, AND ALL OTHER BLACK BIGOT-HUGGERS

TRUMP IMPEACHMENT PLACES CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRISY ON FULL DISPLAY

There’s an age-old axiom that says that one should ignore what people say, and watch what they do. The truth of that axiom is on full display during this Trump impeachment effort. In spite of the fact that conservatives have a long tradition of wrapping themselves in the flag, wearing flag pins on their lapels, and claiming unfettered patriotism and loyalty to our Constitution, now, when push comes to shove and their self-interest is on the line, the truth of their grossly flawed character has come to the fore, and that truth is, their only true loyalty is to the maintenance of their power, bigotry, and greed. 
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The very word “conservative” in a political context means that a person is dedicated to “conserving” past traditions, and in America, that means the preservation of White supremacy at any cost – and that’s exactly why conservatives are fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. Many of them don’t even like him personally, because they know that he’s neither conservative nor liberal. His one and only philosophy is promoting Donald Trump. But the GOP and over 81% of White Evangelicals have entered into an evil alliance with him to protect Trump, as long as he protects them from their waning power due to the rapidly changing demographics that threatens their grip on power over the country.
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That explains the fanatical fixation that conservatives have on so-called "security" on our Southern border. Their fixation is not on national security at all, it’s actually about White security, and disallowing any more non-White people into the country. If their concern was actually about national security, why aren’t they just as concerned about our Northern border, where hordes of White people cross into the country illegally? It doesn't make sense. Why put bars on your back door and leave your front door wide open?
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And if White Evangelicals are actually following the teachings of Jesus, how could they possibly turn a blind eye to Black people being murdered by rogue cops on the street, and in their homes, and be completely accepting of the atrocities being committed against non-Whites on our Southern border? If they truly viewed America as "That shining light on the hill", and truly followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, they wouldn't tolerate the abuse of another human being. They'd rise up in protest. Melania Trump protested her son, Barron's, name being even brought up in the impeachment hearings, while she hasn't said a word about her husband literally tearing the children from the arms of immigrant mothers and putting them in cages - and she's an immigrant herself, but she's a White immigrant.
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Melania got into the country on an "Einstein Visa", the EB-1, reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field - the government cites Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners as examples - as well as respected academic researchers and multinational executives. Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I fail to see any special talents that Melania possesses, other than the talent to maneuver her way into bed with a billionaire, which probably wasn't very hard with Donald.
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So the fact is, so-called Evangelical Christians and patriotic conservatives only adhere to their highfalutin Christian and patriotic values as long as it’s convenient. When it becomes inconvenient they revert back to the selfish and animalistic nature that allowed them to enslave and brutalize millions of Black people and commit genocide against 10 generations of Native Americans. So the gullible and/or self-serving Black people who either collude with these people, or just sit back and refuse to vote, are literally suffering from a mental illness at worst, or gross stupidity at best.
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And poor White conservatives are no better, because the people who lead the conservative movement don’t care any more about them than they do non-Whites. Poor Whites are simply manipulated as “useful idiots” whose anger, fear, and votes are being used to promote the rich and powerful, or the conservative agenda.
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When conservatives first arrived on these shores, they brought with them the European notion of class distinction. They have always suffered from the distinctly undemocratic attitude that the only inherent value of the average American is as servants to cater to the whims of the upper class.
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Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s conservative founding fathers, believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be given a permanent share in government. He said:
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“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.”
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Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President (after being selected by congress, instead of the people). Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!?  But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
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Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class system was resoundingly defeated in favor of an unfettered democracy, but that didn’t mean that people of Hamilton’s point of view would quietly go away. Instead, they became the conservative coalition, and lowered their profile as blatant aristocrats, and continued to pursue their agenda by using their wealth, power, and various other strategies to divide the people to achieve their agenda, and that’s what we see today.  That accounts for why conservatives tend to be specialists in obstructionism and division, and why the American people ALWAYS suffer under conservative governance.

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The Great Depression

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In 1921 -- eight years before the great depression -- Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations, the first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than any other -- scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States -- until Nixon's (Watergate), then Reagan's (Iran\Contra), and finally Bush's (Iraqi War).
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Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to follow.
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In 1929 during Republican, Herbert Hoover’s administration, the stock market crashed - much like under the Bush Administration - starting the Great Depression, but back then there was no Barack Obama to come to the rescue or mitigate the damage early on. So in spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Herbert Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. Much like Republicans of today, Hoover and his Republican Party had absolutely no compassion for either the plight of the American people, or America’s veterans who had put their lives on the line for this country.
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During Hoover's administration, 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.
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The conditions were horrific. 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. So three generations of a family could be living in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and the wife lived with the family.
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In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of 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 They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 and no paid vacation. In addition, since there were 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.
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As a result, in many 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.
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Think back to the "Little Rascals" we use to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come-up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out in the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today. At this very moment the Republican Party is attacking Social Security, Medicare, Education and many other programs to force the poor and middle class to pay for the huge deficit created by their $1.8 trillion tax cut for the rich.

THE NEW DEAL

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But finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. He immediately surrounded himself with a group of the finest minds in the country, including Columbia professors Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Rexford G. Tugwell, and Raymond Moley, known at the time as the "Brain Trust." After assembling these men and others he went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working- class people of this country.

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The New Deal had two components - one, to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people and to ensure that they would never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected worker’s rights and set a minimum wage for workers, and all of these programs are under brutal attack by the Republican Party as we speak.
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With his New Deal in place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal", not only led this country out of the worst, Republican-generated, crisis that this country has ever faced, but went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained era of prosperity that the world has ever known.
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One would think that conservatives would have seen the light, but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle classes seemed to transcend all logic. Thus, from the moment the New Deal went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they've come to succeeding started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics", which led directly to the Great Recession of 2008 under George W. Bush. Then Barack Obama came along just in time to prevent the world from going into a second Great Depression. So like everything else Donald Trump likes to brag about, he actually inherited his “great economy” from President Obama.
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Thus, the economy is doing great in spite of Donald Trump, not because of him – and as we speak, the GOP is attacking Medicare, Social Security, and other safety net programs put in place in order to help to protect the average American so they can pay down the tremendous national debt created by their $1.8 trillion tax cut they gave to the rich. So in essence, we're currently living on a credit card, just like during the Reagan era - a credit card with a bill that's going to be sent to the average American. So once again, Trump and the GOP are taking from the poor to feed the rich.  

Our grandparent’s generation - the generation that experienced the Great Depression, fought WWII, and who we refer to as "The Greatest Generation" - wouldn't let a Republican anywhere near the White House.  During their era, Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to office four times, and finally died in office on April 12, 1945. The Republicans had to promote the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution limiting the president to two terms in office just to have even a remote chance of getting into office.
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But finally in 1953 they managed to elect the hero of WWII, Republican, Dwight Eisenhower to office, but even he was a Republican in name only - in 1957 he sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate a segregated school after Gov. Orval Faubus tried to prevent Black students from entering, and as his final act in office he warned America about the Military-Industrial Complex, the very people that Donald Trump and the Republican Party represent today.
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So here we are 243 years later and the conservatives are still at it - attacking our educational system to keep Americans dumbed down, trying their best to destabilize or destroy any program that prevent the average American from being totally reliant on them, and stirring up hatred, fear, and animosity among the people to keep them divided and from thinking clearly.
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Nevertheless, the average brainwashed Republican will say, "But we’re the party of Lincoln. It was the Democrats who created the KKK and engaged in lynchings during the Jim Crow era". But that’s a gross manipulation of the facts. In order for the facts to be made clear it’s important to replace party affiliation with political philosophy. While it is true that the old Democratic Party was filled with racist conservative “Dixiecrats”, during the Civil Rights movement under moderate Republican Ike Eisenhower, and later, Democratic presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Party came out for civil rights. As result, the conservative Dixiecrats migrated to the Republican Party, and Republican liberals moved to the Democratic Party. Thus, the two major parties completely changed their previous political polarities. Therefore, if the Civil War was being fought today, the Republicans would be the Confederacy.
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So the facts are clear – conservatives have always been this nation’s bigots, both racial, and class bigots - regardless to what party they were in.

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THINK ABOUT IT

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

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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NAJEE ALI - AND THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

NAJEE ALI  

AND THE WRITING ON THE WALL
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Tim, I've known you for years, so I'm shocked to hear you say that Najee Ali has too much baggage to run for office. I realize there was no animosity in your comment and you’re simply stating an opinion, but I beg to differ.
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I realize that Najee has some issues in his past, but I’ve had issues of my own, so I look at those issues a little differently than most. I’m the son of a lifelong drug dealer, and between the ages of 12 and 19 years old I spent more time going in and out of jail than I did on the street. If it hadn't been for a Sgt. Foster, a White bruiser of a cop right out of central casting, my life might have been entirely different. Foster, who busted me for the first time when I was only12 years old followed my budding criminal career when he was a juvenile officer, and he continued to harass me as he moved up the ranks – first he used to harass me on the street himself when he was a street cop, and after he moved up the ranks he had his subordinates harassing me. 
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At the time I didn't know why he focused in on me, but after looking back upon it, I think he was just fascinated by me because of my father, Mac, and the fact  that I was such a confirmed street urchin at such an early age. At 12 years old I was dealing single joints at Carver Jr. High School in the 7th grade. I walked through the door dealing, and that was where I first came into contact with Foster. One of his officers busted me at school. I overheard him and one of the other cops sorta jokin' about it. I heard one cop say, "I couldn't believe it! This kid's up there at the school getting rich dealing hand over fist. We busted him with 60 joints!" They only busted me because they caught one of the other kids getting high and he snitched on me.
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As I got older Foster used to try to embarrass me on the block. He once left a message for me on the street when I was about 16 telling the fellas to tell

MY FATHER, MAC, AND BROTHER, VIRGIL, IN 1966

me if I didn't have my ass up at the police station by 9 a.m. the next morning he was gonna beat my ass. The fellas got a big kick out of that. The way they related it was, Foster was up here lookin' for you, and he said, "If you don't arrest your own ass and report to jail by 9 a.m. in the morning, you ain't gon' have a ass by noon."  I didn't like the way he was embarrassing me, but you know what - I was up there at the police station at 9 a.m. - on the dot. He also once warned me that if I didn’t get my brains blown out first, I was gonna to end up spending the rest of my life in prison next to my dad. He told me that I was too young to be trying to hangout with my father's crew. But what he didn't know was, I wasn't hanging out, they were taking care of me while my father was away. They were there to keep my youthful stupidity in check. My father knew every move I made, and was able to block many of them (THE HUSTLERS).
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This went on all throughout my teenage years - when I was on the street. Then when I was 19 years old (an adult), I ended up getting busted for a very serious drug charge, involving the possession of a large quantity of heroin, Seconal, and Mollies for sale. Needless to say, I lost my case, so when I showed up at court for sentencing, with my record, I was prepared to go away for a long, long time. And then Foster popped up in court. I thought he came to gloat, because by that time he was a captain and the commanding officer of 77 Division, and I didn’t even get busted in his jurisdiction.
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So as I was waiting to be sent to the joint, when my case came up, Foster and the judge took me into the judge’s chambers and Foster started telling the judge that I wasn’t really a criminal, I was just stupid. When I started to protest about him calling me stupid, he told me to shut up, and started telling the judge about my father (who had spent a lot of time in San Quentin) and how he busted me with a half can of weed when I was 12 years old.
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When he was done, the judge (who was a former Marine Corps officer) offered me a deal. He told me he would hold my current conviction in abeyance and throw it out, and expunge my entire juvenile record, if I agreed to go into the Marine Corps and I came out with an honorable discharge. And of course, I jumped at it, because it meant that instead of having to catch the “Grey Goose” to the joint, I could go home and get high. But unbeknownst to me, that was the moment that completely changed my life. It changed a lot of lives.
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As a direct result of that one moment in my life, I ended up going into the Marine Corps, getting an education (when I went to court I was a high school dropout), and as promised, when I got out I went before the court and that same judge expunged my record. So my life had completely changed. I was clean as a White fish. Thereafter, I married my late wife, Val, and we ended up having Kai and Lil' Eric. But I stayed in contact with Foster, and even used to go up to the 77th Div. and visit him from time to time. Then after I graduated from college he suggested that I might want to consider a career with the LAPD, and I was considering it, until Val asked me one simple question - "That sounds like a plan, but where are you gon' sleep when you get off?" So that abruptly ended that prospect. 

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ERIC JR.

But the most amazing irony of all was that my son, Eric Jr., who grew up listening to all these stories ended up becoming a Drug Enforcement agent in Washington State, and the reason for that was very simple – because he was on a mission. He knew my story, and the story of his grandfather, so he had an up-close and personal understanding of what drugs were doing to the Black community. But he didn't want to be a street cop, busting people who were just struggling to survive, he wanted to go after the people at the top of the food chain, so he went into the DEA.
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Eric knew that if it hadn’t been for Foster, and that one moment that he stood up for me in court, neither he, nor his sister, Kai, would have ever been born, because I would have been in the joint - or at least, that's the way I like to see it, because as a writer I tend to be on the melodramatic side. But in actuality, he might have just closed his eye and threw a dart at a dartboard and hit DEA instead of FBI or the Secret Service (who he used to work with in the military as an Air Force Raven). But he did want to be a federal agent, because he was a big Buck Rodgers fan as a kid.
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Capt. Foster lived to see Eric enter the DEA Academy, but he died just one month before Eric graduated and received his credentials as an agent. I remember as I was sitting there during the ceremony how much I wished Foster had lived just a little longer, because I'm sure he would have flown across the country to attend the ceremony, sick or not, because he would have known he was the reason we were there. 

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While I recognize that it's always a bad idea for a writer to write about himself, I thought I'd point out my own situation in order to relate it to Najee Ali. Although I've had my scrapes with the law, I think I would have made a much better cop than someone who didn't have a record because they grew up on a chicken farm in the boonies, because I've lived the life, and the same is true of Najee Ali.
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Thus, the little scrapes that Najee has had with the law means absolutely nothing to me, and it says absolutely nothing about who he is as a man – except, like me and my son, he has a little more insight into the struggles and hardships attendant to being a Black man in America - and that's an asset, not a liability.
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So we should never say what a brother or sister, "can't do." There's nothing in life that we can't do if we set our minds to it. What some may call Najee's "baggage", I call specialized knowledge. The adversities that he's endured in life only serves to make him more rather than less. A brother like Najee doesn’t have to speculate about the mindset of a young Crip or Blood, because he’s been there. So he's exactly the kind of brother that we need in office - someone who knows both sides of the street; who understands both our legitimate, and, underground culture. That's valuable knowledge that he'll be able to apply to whatever path in life he chooses to pursue. Life is not about what a Black person can or can’t do, life is about what we choose to do.
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So we've got to learn to stop selling ourselves short, and trying to define ourselves by the White man's standards, because the White man can't live up to the standards he sets for us himself. Donald Trump commits more crimes in one weekend than Najee has committed in his entire life. Think about it, Tim. Many people would have had something negative to say about you when you applied for the LAPD, but I'm sure that once you got in the organization you found that very few were living up to the standards that they demanded that you adhere to. Of course, I wasn't in your squad room, but I can make that claim blindly, because that's the life of a Black person in America, and over the centuries Black people have been indoctrinate into thinking of themselves just like White folks do - that somehow, we just don't measure up. 
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But Black people have got to learn to see though that game, because we do measure up - in fact, we more than measure up. That's exactly the problem that they have with us. They know that what we casually write-off as "soul", is nothing less than intellectual brilliance straining to be unleashed. We're the only ones who don't realize that. The White man learned that about us during slavery, and he's been obsessively concerned with that knowledge ever since. 
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When the White man first brought us over here in 1619, he thought he was merely importing a beast of burden. But as we began to adapt to his culture, he was shocked to find that our intellectual creativity was boundless, and we constituted a clear and present threat to his assumption of superiority. That’s why he passed laws making it illegal to teach Black people to read and write. He began to recognize that the very same intellectual creativity that allowed us to become masters in music and the arts, could also be applied to math, science, engineering, and politics. That recognition is what causes him to hate us so intensely. Thus, his racist attitudes toward us are not grounded in hatred alone, they're also grounded in fear.
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White bigots have been absolutely amazed by the power of Black intellect.

After suffering for generations from the ravages of smallpox that alluded all of his "great" medical minds and institutions of higher learning, an African slave introduced the knowledge of inoculation into society. That all but wiped out not only smallpox, but many other diseases in society. And in spite of their campaign to try to keep Black people uneducated, after the Civil War former slaves walked right out of the fields into the halls of congress. In addition, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, not only became a valued confidant of President Lincoln, but became celebrated as one of the most sought-after lecturer and intellectual of his time. He was also one of the first intellectuals to address the issue of equal rights for women. He was slated to appear at a women's rights conference the day he died - and at the time of his death he lived in a mansion on a hill that looked down upon the people who had formerly enslaved him.
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So White supremacists tried a different tact to limit Black people that came to be known as Jim Crow, a tactic that continues to this day. Knowing that a man can never rise above what he thinks of himself, the Jim Crow era was dedicated to a campaign of making the Black man think less of himself. 
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They used two methods to promote that campaign. First, they did everything in their power to convince the Black man that he was inferior; and second, they placed stern restrictions on the activities Black people were allowed to engage in other than singing and dancing, and then they rewarded us for excelling in those areas, thus, outlining “our place” in society. That’s why, to this day, many Black people have a hostility towards the pursuit of knowledge. We tend to say of an accomplished Black man with high self-esteem that “He’s bougie. He thinks he’s White.”, as though accomplishment and high self-esteem are limited to White folks. That’s why to this day, many Black people shun the pursuit of knowledge and focus much of their attention on their ability to sing and dance. We’ve been distracted to the point that many of us consider that “our place”.  We’ve been convinced that thinking "is a White thang."
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And I’m no exception. Ever since I was a child I’ve always liked to scribble out my thoughts. Before I could write, I used to draw my thoughts in pictures. I don’t know why, I've just always liked seeing my thoughts on paper. Then in my early twenties, after I got married, my late wife told me, “You, know, you’re not bad at this. You need to make this your thing.” I remember it like it was yesterday. I told her, “Sittin’ around tryin’ to write is for White boys.” Val was an Angela Davis-type sister at the time, so she just looked at me and said, “Man, you’re crazy. Do you think White folks are the only ones who have something to say? Go tell that shit to James Baldwin.” And she was right. So when I say we’ve been brainwashed over the years, I'm including myself. 
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We often use the word “brainwashed” as a pejorative term, but you don’t have to be dumb to be brainwashed. We’re all brainwashed to some extent in some area of knowledge. Brainwashing, or indoctrination, can be a subtle thing. It’s merely an attitude that we’ve accepted as true without taking the time to think it through. Like the belief that many of us accept that Jesus, who was born in the desert, was a blue eyed Scandinavian with blond hair. If that had been true they wouldn't have had to crucify him, he would have died of heat stroke, but many of us have been brainwashed into believing that nonsense. There are also a lot of us who still believe in walkin' dead men and talkin' snakes, because the White man taught it to us and we've never stopped to think it through.
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So with regard to Najee, his script is still playing itself out, and we have no idea where it's going to lead – he has no idea where it’s going to lead. At this point he doesn't see himself as a politician, because he's a humble brother, and he probably harbors a preconceived idea of what it means to be a politician and hasn’t bothered to take the time to fully think through the ramifications of what he’s currently doing. But the fact is, he’s already a politician, he's just not getting paid, and doesn’t have an office with his name on the door. But he'll come around, and if I have my way, I'm gonna help him to do that.
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We need to encourage talented brothers like Najee and not try to diminish them with negativity – and many of us tend to do just that. As I pointed out in a previous piece, although we often fail to recognize it, many Black people contracted a serious mental disorder during slavery, and it's been passed down through the generations over the years. It entails an innate distrust and disdain of our own people, a lack of focus, a seeming inability to prioritize, and the tendency to be disagreeable and hostile toward anyone who challenges the status quo. That attitude makes it next to impossible for Black people to come together and organize to improve our condition - and it also serves to insure the stability of this White supremacist system. So the White man has done his job well. He's successfully perpetuated self-hatred among a vulnerable percentage of dumb and weak-minded Black people - far from all, but more than enough to sabotage Black progress.

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Therefore, for exactly that reason, and regardless of what he says now, I'm going to keep on pushing Najee to formally run for office. Then, if he's elected, I'm going to continue to push him to run for even higher office, and to hire other talented brothers and sisters to help him carry out his mission. That’s the way a culture, and a people, move forward.

When Barack Obama was hangin' out on the block smokin' weed, who would have predicted that he would someday become a Harvard scholar and one of our greatest presidents? Very few, I assure you. But he did it. Presidential scholars voted him the 8th greatest president in American history -and he just left office, so his reputation is still growing, yet, they've already placed that brother up there among the founding fathers. Thus, Barack Obama is a living, breathing example of what we represent as a people. But as hard as it is to believe, we still have Black idiots running around trying to badmouth him because he wasn't Santa Claus. He was President Obama, not King Obama. It wasn't his job to go from house to house handing out gifts. His job was to create an environment conducive to our being able to go out and earn our own gifts - and the record will show that he did just that.
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Donald Trump and his band of bigots aren't obsessed with Obama's legacy for nothing. They clearly see in Barack Obama the threat that we represent to White supremacy. But we've been so brainwashed over the centuries that we don't recognize our own potential, and I'm convinced that's the case with Najee Ali. Some of our people badmouth him because they see him as just another “regular” like themselves. So they say to themselves, "Who is he to think he's good enough to hold office?" But any person who holds that attitude is only betraying what they think of themselves. Why shouldn’t a person like themselves hold office? Don’t they consider themselves capable of competence and worthy of trust? That attitude is a perfect example of centuries of brainwashing hard at work.
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So, I decided to expand on my original comment and save it as this blog so it'll pop up every time someone looks up Najee Ali on Goggle. And I guarantee you that I'll be presenting it to Najee (or maybe I should say, Representative Ali) at some later date. You can mark my word on that, because I’m a product of the street myself, and I see the writing on the wall.
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Thank you, Val.
Rest in peace, baby. 
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Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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CRITICISMS OF NAJEE ALI REMINISCENT OF THE SIXTIES

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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CRITICISMS OF NAJEE ALI REMINISCENT OF THE SIXTIES

I recently wrote a piece urging Najee Ali to consider running for the City Council seat being vacated by Councilman Herb Wesson to run for County Supervisor, and no sooner than I hit “post” a hater popped up with criticisms of Najee Ali. That brought back to mind all the bad memories of White supremacist indoctrination and character flaws within the Black community that led to our sabotaging ourselves during the sixties.

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As a product of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties I remember all too well how Black idiots and turncoats teamed up with establishment bigots of the time to create “Cointelpro". Cointelpro was ‘a series of covert and, at times, illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations’.

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Many tend not to remember it today, but during that time, bigots used the Black community’s own self-hatred and internal jealousies to break the back of the civil rights movement.  They placed Black haters within the various civil rights organizations to stir up hatred, division, and confusion. They were talking about Malcolm like a dog, and calling Martin Luther King an Uncle Tom; Maulana Ron Karenga’s “US” organization was fighting the Black Panther Party, and the Nation of Islam was upset with everybody. And now, I’m sad to say, after all these years, it's obvious that we haven’t learned a thing.

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The fact is, while we often fail to recognize it, many Black people contracted a serious mental disorder during slavery, and it's been passed down through the generations over the years. It entails an innate distrust and disdain of our own people, a lack of focus, a seeming inability to prioritize, and the tendency to be disagreeable and hostile toward anyone who challenges the status quo. That attitude makes it next to impossible for Black people to come together and organize to improve our condition - and it also serves to insure the stability of this White supremacist system.
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So the White man has done his job well. He's convinced a sizeable number

THE HAPPY NEGROES

of mindless Black people to hate their own - not all, by any measure, but more than enough to sabotage Black progress. I call them the "Happy Negroes" - they're happy to be second-class citizens, fully accept that as their place in life, and is convinced that any Black person who doesn't accept it is being "uppity". Thus, such people will hate a person like Najee Ali for no other reason than he's well known and fighting back. From their point of view, that's not a Black man's place, unless he's been pre-approved by the White man. 

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It’s hard to believe today, but even Martin Luther King was initially criticized by the Black church for causing an unnecessary disturbance to the

status quo. They told him to stop rockin' the boat and simply pray on his concerns and eventually racism and bigotry would work itself out. The mindset of Black distrust was so pronounced within the Black community that Malcolm was killed by his own people. So when it came to brainwashing the Black man, the White man had done his job well, and we still see its impact on Black attitudes today.
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As Black people we’ve got to learn that we’re not a tribe where everybody is obligated to think alike. While our mission must be aligned, independent thinkers are an asset, not a liability. We all have different talents and experiences in life, so no one man, or philosophy, corners the market on either knowledge, wisdom. or intellect. So we must both learn from, and help to educate one another. While I might be a better writer than you are, you may be able to help me out in math.
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My late wife and I learned that lesson as a young married couple. Instead of defining our respective roles in the family according to gender, we based our roles on who was best at a given task, and that served us very well. When it came to having something done around the house, my wife would take control. She would hire the contractor and supervise his work. But if later he tried to run some sort of game on her, she would say, “Wait a minute. Let me let you speak to my husband.”
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That’s how we should address our tasks in the community – we should seek to cultivate ALL of our talents, and thereafter, who’s ever best at a given task should take the lead instead of getting into self-serving spitball fights over who’s going to be the “leader” of the community. We must ALL be leaders. I don't have the talent or personality to be a community organizer so I leave that to Najee Ali, and I use whatever talent I may have to support his efforts. That's the way to move forward, not badmouthing and trying to sabotage him because he's better known than I am. That's petty and immature - it's a form of Trumpism.
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Finally, I’d like to address Najee’s statement that he’s content doing what he’s doing because it allows him to address issues in the ENTIRE community, as oppose to limiting himself to only one councilmatic district.
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In response, I’d like to say to Najee, I think you’ve anticipated and chosen not to be bothered with all of the ignorance and negativity outlined above. But I’d like to point out that having to deal with that kind of nonsense is also a part of moving the community forward. And with respect to being able to serve the entire community, simply because you assume an official position on the City Council doesn’t mean that you have to give up your activism in the community as a whole. In fact, the two activities would compliment one another.
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So, Najee, I think you should give running for office serious consideration. Opportunities often present themselves for reasons far beyond our immediate understanding, and when they do – especially if they seem to pop up out of nowhere – it’s incumbent upon us to move on them, because it may be the first step in opening a door to more than your wildest dreams. .
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We should always keep the axiom “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” in mind, and also remember how fickled life can be. Suppose you had decided to stay home and watch a football game the day you met your wife. Just that one act, deciding to leave your house that day, served to changed your entire life. Likewise, deciding to run for the Los Angeles City Council could very well have the same kind of impact your life, and also the fortunes of the Black Community.
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It is certainly not my intent to try to compare you to Dr. Martin Luther King, but we mustn't forget that at one point Dr. King didn't want to follow his destiny either. But unbeknownst to the good doctor, his name had already been written in the stars. 

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

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
.
Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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