Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Last Stand for Jonah
Jonah’s not backing down!
Having been divinely clowned in the digestive bile of Orca,
He’s had a revelation
Praying in the belly
Of the beast
That the only thing
More unpleasant
Than disturbed digestion
Is for the full cycle manifested
And he
Recycled
As fertilizer for
Seaweeds on
Corporate
Coral
Reefs!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Barack's Former Pastor on a Roll - Stay Tuned!
I admit: this has been an exhaustive campaign, even for one that claims to be a "political agnostic" (or, at least I did) because I didn't want to be bothered with office debates and vitriol. So, the following email posted below was my "fresh breath of political air."
However, the comments below are not mine: Reverend Frank Garrett, Jr. runs http://www.garrettradio.net/, which evolved from a local Austin, Texas talk show "The Wake Up Call" that still plays in the city.
So, he has the perspective of being a political and social rights activist as well as a commentator on the body politic.
The Kerner Commission said we were becoming two Americas: Black and White, separate and unequal http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/. Recent data suggests in our school systems, we are no more integrated now than we were back then and/or resegregating by dropping court-ordered mandate http://theintegrationreport.wordpress.com/2008/01/.
Restrictive covenants have been removed and some of us rise to the middle and upper classes due to education. So, we can hide a problem behind class and preparation now, make those lucky enough to have prepared to feel "special," significant "the one."
Go to a school on the east side or the south side of any major city: go to the computer room, the locker room, the library. Then go to the same facilities in the suburbs to complete the experiment.
Then, go to a gas pump for $4 a gallon, a grocery store for $80 worth of food in fewer bags than you remember it covering. Call your loved one in the Iraq War we should not now or ever be fighting. Ask someone who's lost their job and has to file for bankruptcy. As someone whose house hasn't sold in over a year and their carrying two notes. If one thing has unified us now, is the boat we find ourselves in together...
*******************************************************
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is enjoying a second helping of 15 minutes of fame, and many Americans are seeing it as detrimental to Barack Obama's race for the presidential nomination. The Internet is loaded down with posts by blacks online lamenting the preacher's effort to defend himself against a barrage of media coverage very negative and racist. Rather than wring our hands and wish he would shut up and sit down, I feel invigorated by his candor, intellect, and yes, showmanship. Of course we all know white folk looking for a reason to not vote for Barack will use this as an excuse, but they never intended to give him their vote in the first place. Let's at least be honest about one major thing here - America is still a very racist nation.
Senator Obama is smart enough, ready enough, and organized enough to ride this tide to a conclusion in about a week or ten days when escalating gasoline prices will replace Rev. Wright as America's biggest problem. All you have to do is listen to right-wing talk radio to know who is most affected by the reverends dialog - rednecks and intellectually challenged white Americans too stupid to determine for themselves what truth is. Those are the useful idiots listening to the likes of Rush, Sean, Laura, Mike, Bill, and the troglodytes on the FOX News network. Intelligent white people don't take their cues from bombastic racist, sexist, homophobic draft dodgers on talk radio - only the brain dead gun loving, Bible thumping redneck hicks do that. Unfortunately, they all have voters registration cards too so it poses a problem.
Mainstream media is now fully engaged in the "beat back Obama" movement so you can expect them to keep Rev. Wright front and center long after he goes home satisfied with his effort to exonerate himself. Dogs that they are, mainstream media has become nothing more than electronic tabloids more interested in sensationalism than national security, health care, housing, and education. Sick puppies that a lot of us are, we wring our hands and watch the boob tube religiously. Now is the time for we the people to do the smart thing and keep up with the issues that impact our pocket books, homes, and employment, rather than what a retired preacher said about America in one of his sermons. What is America saying to us is the question of today - do we matter or has Iraq replaced our nation as the governments responsibility?
I personally have no problem with what Rev. Wright is doing now. I agree with him - preachers must do what God wants done regardless of the impact it has on those running for office, or trying to win the Super Bowl, or the Lotto, or the Masters. The Lord's thoughts are not our thoughts, and our thoughts seem to border on what others think rather than what God thinks. That is why pundits and dunderheads are saying Rev. Wright is hurting Barack Obama's campaign. If our nation is stupid enough to not elect a man because of his skin color, or former pastors rhetoric so be it. Barack Obama's biggest liability is not really Rev. Wright - it is instead his honesty and lack of baggage. He is not a phony. In a nation of phony patriots, phony Christians, phony politicians, and phony citizens - he is odd and hard to compromise. That is why guilt by association is being used against him - if you can't pin something on the man you want to beat down, blame it on his former pastor.
Peace - RevG
However, the comments below are not mine: Reverend Frank Garrett, Jr. runs http://www.garrettradio.net/, which evolved from a local Austin, Texas talk show "The Wake Up Call" that still plays in the city.
So, he has the perspective of being a political and social rights activist as well as a commentator on the body politic.
The Kerner Commission said we were becoming two Americas: Black and White, separate and unequal http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/. Recent data suggests in our school systems, we are no more integrated now than we were back then and/or resegregating by dropping court-ordered mandate http://theintegrationreport.wordpress.com/2008/01/.
Restrictive covenants have been removed and some of us rise to the middle and upper classes due to education. So, we can hide a problem behind class and preparation now, make those lucky enough to have prepared to feel "special," significant "the one."
Go to a school on the east side or the south side of any major city: go to the computer room, the locker room, the library. Then go to the same facilities in the suburbs to complete the experiment.
Then, go to a gas pump for $4 a gallon, a grocery store for $80 worth of food in fewer bags than you remember it covering. Call your loved one in the Iraq War we should not now or ever be fighting. Ask someone who's lost their job and has to file for bankruptcy. As someone whose house hasn't sold in over a year and their carrying two notes. If one thing has unified us now, is the boat we find ourselves in together...
*******************************************************
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is enjoying a second helping of 15 minutes of fame, and many Americans are seeing it as detrimental to Barack Obama's race for the presidential nomination. The Internet is loaded down with posts by blacks online lamenting the preacher's effort to defend himself against a barrage of media coverage very negative and racist. Rather than wring our hands and wish he would shut up and sit down, I feel invigorated by his candor, intellect, and yes, showmanship. Of course we all know white folk looking for a reason to not vote for Barack will use this as an excuse, but they never intended to give him their vote in the first place. Let's at least be honest about one major thing here - America is still a very racist nation.
Senator Obama is smart enough, ready enough, and organized enough to ride this tide to a conclusion in about a week or ten days when escalating gasoline prices will replace Rev. Wright as America's biggest problem. All you have to do is listen to right-wing talk radio to know who is most affected by the reverends dialog - rednecks and intellectually challenged white Americans too stupid to determine for themselves what truth is. Those are the useful idiots listening to the likes of Rush, Sean, Laura, Mike, Bill, and the troglodytes on the FOX News network. Intelligent white people don't take their cues from bombastic racist, sexist, homophobic draft dodgers on talk radio - only the brain dead gun loving, Bible thumping redneck hicks do that. Unfortunately, they all have voters registration cards too so it poses a problem.
Mainstream media is now fully engaged in the "beat back Obama" movement so you can expect them to keep Rev. Wright front and center long after he goes home satisfied with his effort to exonerate himself. Dogs that they are, mainstream media has become nothing more than electronic tabloids more interested in sensationalism than national security, health care, housing, and education. Sick puppies that a lot of us are, we wring our hands and watch the boob tube religiously. Now is the time for we the people to do the smart thing and keep up with the issues that impact our pocket books, homes, and employment, rather than what a retired preacher said about America in one of his sermons. What is America saying to us is the question of today - do we matter or has Iraq replaced our nation as the governments responsibility?
I personally have no problem with what Rev. Wright is doing now. I agree with him - preachers must do what God wants done regardless of the impact it has on those running for office, or trying to win the Super Bowl, or the Lotto, or the Masters. The Lord's thoughts are not our thoughts, and our thoughts seem to border on what others think rather than what God thinks. That is why pundits and dunderheads are saying Rev. Wright is hurting Barack Obama's campaign. If our nation is stupid enough to not elect a man because of his skin color, or former pastors rhetoric so be it. Barack Obama's biggest liability is not really Rev. Wright - it is instead his honesty and lack of baggage. He is not a phony. In a nation of phony patriots, phony Christians, phony politicians, and phony citizens - he is odd and hard to compromise. That is why guilt by association is being used against him - if you can't pin something on the man you want to beat down, blame it on his former pastor.
Peace - RevG
Monday, April 21, 2008
Directive 51
© 19 August 2007, The Griot Poet
Directive 51 might as well be Order 66 given by an Emperor bent on shredding the Constitution and his Dark Lord apprentice…
We started this with a night of cyber-terror: the error of throwing out thousands of African American votes, calling all criminal rogues when no such records existed, (thanks to Choice Point, Incorporated), overseas military ballots mysteriously vanished, arguments over hanging chads and chaff, disenfranchising their rights as Americans…
The vote count was halted by the Supremes, five of which deemed themselves more qualified to select a president than “We the people…”
Then, we had 9-11, birthed by a poet named Osama Bin Laden, knowing the international code for distress and that in the Koran, “darkness was created on a Tuesday…”
Remember when gas was .98 a gallon?
Remember when we had a budget surplus in 2000?
Remember when a house on the market selling in more than one week was… too slow?
These things weren’t that long ago…
Then we had “Code Orange” alerts, Hurricanes’ Katrina, Rita: when fear is your diet, you’ll gladly allow your civil liberties violated by the NSA/CIA military-industrial-complex in violation of Posse Comitatus!
Now, to my point: Google Directive 51 on your own computer and it will take you to www.WhiteHouse.gov…
It was posted without fanfare and knowledge that you wouldn’t search or care…
The gist of five pages of legalese is this: if there is another catastrophe, which is the president’s – and not Bobby Brown’s – prerogative to define what catastrophe is, HE becomes the government!
And will restore governmental powers at such time in the future as HE deems fit.
“If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, (chuckle) just so long as I'm the dictator!”
All hail, Caesar!
And now we have the sixth anniversary of a “day of darkness, horror and dread”; we’ve lost more dead in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9-11 than we lost in those twin towers.
The chatter increasing as that Monday on August 6, 2001 when the grinning chip heard from his intelligence brief “Bin Laden Determined to Attack US with Planes” and refrained from doing anything except… get back to his chores and photo ops at the ranch.
On this particular anniversary, 9-11 reoccurs… on Tuesday.
“In the Koran, DARKNESS was created… on a Tuesday!”
Directive 51 might as well be Order 66 given by an Emperor bent on shredding the Constitution and his Dark Lord apprentice!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
"Uppity" - Article
An article e-mailed to Daniel in the Black Democratic Coalition for publication. VERY insightful.
With this - and the inspiration of the so-called "debate" last night - I will compose a poetry piece of the same title as Ron's article. Well Done! TGP, 17 April 2008
A bonus: very FOXY news...
**********
Daniel-
This thing with Hillary Clinton accusing Obama of being "elitist" reminds me of the shenanigans they pulled in South Carolina, only worse. So, please consider the following for publication:
Uppity
By Ron Horne
April 15, 2008
Interesting how Senator Hillary Clinton paints Barack Obama as an elitist. This son of a Kenyan, fatherless at the age of two, raised by grandparents of a teenage mother, is elitist. This Harvard Law Review editor who, instead of going for a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship or quarter million dollar wall-street law firm salary, worked as a civil rights lawyer and community activist in the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago for a fraction of what he easily could have made, is an elitist. And Sen. Clinton? She’s lived in the White House, has two posh homes on the east coast, and, between her and her husband, the former President of the United States, has racked up $109 million in the last eight years. Folks, that’s $13,625,000.00 per year on average. According to Reuters News Service (3/25/08), “Obama's income with wife Michelle jumped in 2005 with the re-release of his first book ‘Dreams from My Father,’ which brought him $1.2 million, and in 2006 when his second book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ earned more than $500,000.” So, he went from a quarter million to nearly two million in five years. The Clintons make over $13 million every year. Hillary and Bill-$109 million; Barack and Michele- $2 million. Sen. Clinton ran as the Democratic incumbent to the presidency, like she was the heir to the American throne of the Clinton dynasty . . . until, of course, the American people said otherwise. And Obama is elitist? Clinton said that the caucuses and primaries in the small rural states, those states where Obama won, don’t matter, don’t count. Rather it is the large, populous, urban, cosmopolitan states that matter. She basically said that rural America doen't count and Obama is elitist?
Hmmm. $109 million vs. $2 million. White house v. brick house. First Lady v. first brutha. The elitist argument may work for Clinton in the “Alabama” portion of Pennsylvania (James Carvilles’ characterization, not mine), but in North Carolina, as well as other highly populated Black states and cities, Black voters will read her attack as code for something many accomplished and aspiring Blacks have been called by their White counterparts in both high and low society: Uppity. You know, uppity, as in Uppity Negro. For those too young to be familiar with the phrase, it means a Black man or woman, who doesn’t realize their “place” in the social fabric, i.e., beneath whites in terms of what he or she is “allowed” to do. He’s elitist, she says, thinks he’s better than you. Translation: despite his hard work and educational and professional achievement, you are better than him. Here I have been living and working in Washington, First Ladying in the White House, getting funding together from lobbyists to run my coronation campaign, waiting my turn. Then all of a sudden, this young buck comes in, unknown to most, hasn’t lived in the White House, hasn’t “suffered” under the trappings of the presidency, hasn’t paid his dues to be known, yet he comes in here with his Harvard degree and law professorship, holding those big tent rallies like some kind of black Baptist minister getting people all stirred up when it is MY turn to be president. Who does he (that BOY) think he is?
Uppity. Black people of a certain generation know exactly what that means: second class, lower class, racially undeserving, ambitious beyond your station, not knowing your “place”. As the first Black “post racial” candidate (a term that, to my knowledge, has never been applied to White candidates), Barack Obama cannot, and will not, say what many Black people will inevitably take from the latest Clinton tactic. Frankly speaking, he’s cool like that. He will do what he usually does, make simple comparisons and appeal to the basic fundamental needs of all people of all races that are not being met by the current political and governing system where the Clintons are heavily entrenched. It is no wonder that in a poll last week more than 25% of women who had supported Clinton now think less of her as a result of her campaign tactics. It is no wonder Clinton is losing to Obama by margins of 7, 8, and 9 to 1 among Black voters. It is no wonder that Clinton trails in delegates, votes, and states as of this writing. She says what she needs to say and does whatever she needs to do to win. And while they may not fall cleanly and distinctly into the categories of lie, cheat, and steal (i.e. lie about sniper fire, cheat on the Michigan and Florida primaries, steal pledged delegates), her campaign has and is effectively burning a bridge between herself and the Democratic party’s fundamental constituents: Blacks, Hispanics and Women. She continues to pursue the Rev. Wright issue (while his statements have been labeled as “hate speech”, no one has addressed the truth of his statements [we did bomb Hiroshima, Vietnam, and Iraq; Blacks have been medically experimented on by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) from 1932 and 1972, there is resentment in the Middle East due to the effects of our funding of Israel on Arab Palestinians]), the 3 a.m ad (there’s a Black man lurking around the corner in the dark), and whether he is Christian or Muslim (“so far as I know”). She decries NAFTA and the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (which appears to have benefitted Hispanics, although some may differ on this point) and flip-flops on issues, displays emotional schizophrenia, and relies on her husband’s record (the good parts) as her curriculum vitae, something many women, and feminists in particular, find especially irritating.
As for Obama’s statement itself, according to MSNBC.com, he was trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Like the statements of Reverend Wright, his explanation also has a historical foundation. The Rosewood Massacre (http://www.displaysforschools.com/rosewood.html) resulted, in part, from the economic hardship of the white segregated town of Sumner and the economic success of the black segregated town of Rosewood, Florida. The catalyst was common for the south: black man accused of violating a white woman. But the economic climate between these two towns in the same county led to the massacre and abandonment of Rosewood by its Black residents and businesses. Today, this country is filled with segregated “sundown towns” where blacks cannot live despite the money to do so. And numerous towns in this country have instituted or tried to institute anti-immigration ordinances to prevent immigrants from getting jobs or renting property including Riverside, New Jersey, Valley Park, Missouri, and Farmers Branch, Texas. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/nyregion/26riverside.html).
Despite these documented circumstances, Clinton chose to do the politically expedient thing: parse the words instead of the facts. Certainly, if she learned nothing else from her husband’s campaigns (or the Bush campaigns thereafter), she had to have learned that Presidents win elections via their base first, even if they need swing and independent voters. The take-no-prisoners conduct of her campaign could leave her bereft of a large portion of that base support were she to somehow garner the Democratic nomination. Of course, on the bright side, since Senator Clinton has clearly opted to utilize the tactics expected to come from the Republicans in the general election, after the last primary in June Obama will be able to argue, as he already has on occasion, that having weathered the Clinton storm he has proven that he is vetted and electable. Ironic since, by her own actions, Senator Clinton may succeed in putting this uppity Negro in his place . . . The White House.
With this - and the inspiration of the so-called "debate" last night - I will compose a poetry piece of the same title as Ron's article. Well Done! TGP, 17 April 2008
A bonus: very FOXY news...
**********
Daniel-
This thing with Hillary Clinton accusing Obama of being "elitist" reminds me of the shenanigans they pulled in South Carolina, only worse. So, please consider the following for publication:
Uppity
By Ron Horne
April 15, 2008
Interesting how Senator Hillary Clinton paints Barack Obama as an elitist. This son of a Kenyan, fatherless at the age of two, raised by grandparents of a teenage mother, is elitist. This Harvard Law Review editor who, instead of going for a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship or quarter million dollar wall-street law firm salary, worked as a civil rights lawyer and community activist in the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago for a fraction of what he easily could have made, is an elitist. And Sen. Clinton? She’s lived in the White House, has two posh homes on the east coast, and, between her and her husband, the former President of the United States, has racked up $109 million in the last eight years. Folks, that’s $13,625,000.00 per year on average. According to Reuters News Service (3/25/08), “Obama's income with wife Michelle jumped in 2005 with the re-release of his first book ‘Dreams from My Father,’ which brought him $1.2 million, and in 2006 when his second book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ earned more than $500,000.” So, he went from a quarter million to nearly two million in five years. The Clintons make over $13 million every year. Hillary and Bill-$109 million; Barack and Michele- $2 million. Sen. Clinton ran as the Democratic incumbent to the presidency, like she was the heir to the American throne of the Clinton dynasty . . . until, of course, the American people said otherwise. And Obama is elitist? Clinton said that the caucuses and primaries in the small rural states, those states where Obama won, don’t matter, don’t count. Rather it is the large, populous, urban, cosmopolitan states that matter. She basically said that rural America doen't count and Obama is elitist?
Hmmm. $109 million vs. $2 million. White house v. brick house. First Lady v. first brutha. The elitist argument may work for Clinton in the “Alabama” portion of Pennsylvania (James Carvilles’ characterization, not mine), but in North Carolina, as well as other highly populated Black states and cities, Black voters will read her attack as code for something many accomplished and aspiring Blacks have been called by their White counterparts in both high and low society: Uppity. You know, uppity, as in Uppity Negro. For those too young to be familiar with the phrase, it means a Black man or woman, who doesn’t realize their “place” in the social fabric, i.e., beneath whites in terms of what he or she is “allowed” to do. He’s elitist, she says, thinks he’s better than you. Translation: despite his hard work and educational and professional achievement, you are better than him. Here I have been living and working in Washington, First Ladying in the White House, getting funding together from lobbyists to run my coronation campaign, waiting my turn. Then all of a sudden, this young buck comes in, unknown to most, hasn’t lived in the White House, hasn’t “suffered” under the trappings of the presidency, hasn’t paid his dues to be known, yet he comes in here with his Harvard degree and law professorship, holding those big tent rallies like some kind of black Baptist minister getting people all stirred up when it is MY turn to be president. Who does he (that BOY) think he is?
Uppity. Black people of a certain generation know exactly what that means: second class, lower class, racially undeserving, ambitious beyond your station, not knowing your “place”. As the first Black “post racial” candidate (a term that, to my knowledge, has never been applied to White candidates), Barack Obama cannot, and will not, say what many Black people will inevitably take from the latest Clinton tactic. Frankly speaking, he’s cool like that. He will do what he usually does, make simple comparisons and appeal to the basic fundamental needs of all people of all races that are not being met by the current political and governing system where the Clintons are heavily entrenched. It is no wonder that in a poll last week more than 25% of women who had supported Clinton now think less of her as a result of her campaign tactics. It is no wonder Clinton is losing to Obama by margins of 7, 8, and 9 to 1 among Black voters. It is no wonder that Clinton trails in delegates, votes, and states as of this writing. She says what she needs to say and does whatever she needs to do to win. And while they may not fall cleanly and distinctly into the categories of lie, cheat, and steal (i.e. lie about sniper fire, cheat on the Michigan and Florida primaries, steal pledged delegates), her campaign has and is effectively burning a bridge between herself and the Democratic party’s fundamental constituents: Blacks, Hispanics and Women. She continues to pursue the Rev. Wright issue (while his statements have been labeled as “hate speech”, no one has addressed the truth of his statements [we did bomb Hiroshima, Vietnam, and Iraq; Blacks have been medically experimented on by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) from 1932 and 1972, there is resentment in the Middle East due to the effects of our funding of Israel on Arab Palestinians]), the 3 a.m ad (there’s a Black man lurking around the corner in the dark), and whether he is Christian or Muslim (“so far as I know”). She decries NAFTA and the Colombian Free Trade Agreement (which appears to have benefitted Hispanics, although some may differ on this point) and flip-flops on issues, displays emotional schizophrenia, and relies on her husband’s record (the good parts) as her curriculum vitae, something many women, and feminists in particular, find especially irritating.
As for Obama’s statement itself, according to MSNBC.com, he was trying to explain his troubles winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Like the statements of Reverend Wright, his explanation also has a historical foundation. The Rosewood Massacre (http://www.displaysforschools.com/rosewood.html) resulted, in part, from the economic hardship of the white segregated town of Sumner and the economic success of the black segregated town of Rosewood, Florida. The catalyst was common for the south: black man accused of violating a white woman. But the economic climate between these two towns in the same county led to the massacre and abandonment of Rosewood by its Black residents and businesses. Today, this country is filled with segregated “sundown towns” where blacks cannot live despite the money to do so. And numerous towns in this country have instituted or tried to institute anti-immigration ordinances to prevent immigrants from getting jobs or renting property including Riverside, New Jersey, Valley Park, Missouri, and Farmers Branch, Texas. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/nyregion/26riverside.html).
Despite these documented circumstances, Clinton chose to do the politically expedient thing: parse the words instead of the facts. Certainly, if she learned nothing else from her husband’s campaigns (or the Bush campaigns thereafter), she had to have learned that Presidents win elections via their base first, even if they need swing and independent voters. The take-no-prisoners conduct of her campaign could leave her bereft of a large portion of that base support were she to somehow garner the Democratic nomination. Of course, on the bright side, since Senator Clinton has clearly opted to utilize the tactics expected to come from the Republicans in the general election, after the last primary in June Obama will be able to argue, as he already has on occasion, that having weathered the Clinton storm he has proven that he is vetted and electable. Ironic since, by her own actions, Senator Clinton may succeed in putting this uppity Negro in his place . . . The White House.
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