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We Own It

April 26, 2015 by

OpEdENOUGH

It should be that and more. All of us, no matter which side of the aisle we claim, should be scratching our heads and questioning what in the hell is wrong with this country, with our moral center and ultimately saying, ENOUGH.

We aren’t, that we aren’t leaves me wondering why.

Far too many of us are walking by the murder and mayhem created on our streets by those sworn to ‘serve and protect’, we are looking the other way, pretending not to see, to not hear the voices of the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters as the cry out; ENOUGH.

Far too many of us are turning our backs on the women and children, hungry, homeless and without hope for a better life and begging, please, help us, no more, ENOUGH.

Far too many of us are shrug our shoulders at the tens of thousands of veterans returning from wars we should never have fought only to be thrown out on the streets, without jobs, without proper care for their physical injuries or their mental wounds, none of us says ENOUGH.

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Far too many of us are passively accepting the millions of men and women locked behind the walls of prisons for decades for non-violent crimes, because they couldn’t afford the cost of justice in America. We don’t question, we don’t challenge the profits made by the private prison industry, we don’t question the children sent to prison for decades, we don’t say ENOUGH.

Far too many of us watch as state after state pass laws to disenfranchise our fellow citizens, ‘Voter Rights’ and ‘Freedom of Religion’. We simply watch, we simply shrug and sometimes even justify these Jim Crow era laws, maybe because we don’t understand or maybe because they don’t apply to us, we have the right ID, we are Christian or we don’t fall into one of the other categories these laws are trying to attack, to brutalize, to keep out of active participation in our communities and our process. Certainly, the last election showed the level of apathy we are capable of, we failed to say ENOUGH.

Far too many of us shake our heads and ‘tsk tsk’, as our only acknowledgment of the racist animus leveled at this President, how it has changed the conversation in Washington and created even greater polarity, frozen our system, cost us millions if not billions. We refuse to say it aloud; refuse to acknowledge that we, as a nation, continue to be divided by racial animosities and segregationist politicians. While we might not all be racist, we vote for those who are, we allow them to make our laws, accept their leadership and refuse to say, ENOUGH and NO MORE.

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Far too many of us watch as SCOTUS perverts our Democratic Republic, we shrug and say there is nothing we can do. We fail to demand an accounting. We fail to demand change. We fail to vote, to get up off our apathetic and sorry asses and say ENOUGH.

What is it we are thinking? Someone else will do our job, that must be it. Someone else will stand-up for us, we don’t have to do it, we don’t have to risk it? We aren’t Gay, so their issues don’t affect us, is that it? We aren’t Black, so their issues don’t affect us, is that it? We aren’t poor, homeless, hungry so their issues don’t affect us, is that it? We aren’t women, poor, pregnant with no way to raise a child, a rape victim, so her problems don’t affect us, is that it?

There is a conversation we have to have in this nation, one that will be painful and ugly, without it though we will never heal and become what is possible. Until the day, we say Enough and No More, until the day we own what is wrong and start the conversation this nation will never be put to right, will never begin to heal. Until the day we acknowledge the true foundations of the United US-Constitution-toilet-paperStates of America and its continuing framework of racial bigotry, misogyny, colonialism and classism we don’t have a snowballs chance in Hell of moving toward the promise of our Constitution and The Declaration of Independence; they might as well be toilet paper.

When I say we, I mean all those of European extraction, White Folks. It is us, we own the problem and we own the action of ripping the scab off the festering wound. We own the standing up first and saying Enough and No More. It is our actions, our elected officials, our filthy rich who drive the continuing wedge into this nation; we own this history and this future. We own SCOTUS, we own Congress, we own ALEX and all the legislation making its way into the States to destroy hope. We own the police departments responsible for killing citizens on the street without repercussion.

We, American White Folks, own the history of Slavery, of Native American Genocide and Land Theft, of Jim Crow, of Segregation, of community destruction through the War on Drugs and images (8)mandatory sentencing; the list goes on but every one of them attacks families and communities of color in this nation, we own it.

We own the conversation that must start and we own the cure. The election of Barack Obama did not indicate a shift, what it did was cause all the racial hostility to come out of the closet. What it did was create even greater polarization, now we know who they are and where they are. Some of them are running for President, by damn some of them are running ahead of the pack. We have a chance to say Enough and No More, will we? We own the elephant in the room of our nation, we have ignored it for far too long.

We have the chance to start the conversation, to start healing the nation. Will we? I wonder, truly I wonder.

I leave you with this question are we ready for the change necessary to heal ourselves and this nation, what say you?

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Heretic in the House

April 2, 2015 by

joanstilkestake

Remember, Val, that only 60 years ago, that same argument would have been used to shut YOU up? Because what you believe now is mainstream, but would have been heresy to the mainstream back then.

The above is a quoted from a comment I received recently on another post I wrote. I had to sit back and consider the context, the person and the content of my post. I will grant the commenter is very much on the other side of the political aisle from me on nearly all subjects. I had to wonder though, did they listen to the video or simply take for granted there was nothing fundamentally wrong only that I disagreed with it and thus it was fine except it represented ideals I disagreed with.

So then I thought about my political positions, my social positions and wondered am I really that radical are my positions which are more accepted today than 60 years ago, would they have been heresy 60 years ago as my commenter suggests. I wondered about this the entire day, thought I would take some of my more ‘radical’ positions, compare them to 60 years ago, and see.

tumblr_mj4iy9ckaL1rpj3m6o1_500Civil Rights – yes, I believe strongly every single citizen of the United States of America should enjoy the same exact rights. This includes access to jobs, education, voting, housing and all the other ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ of being a citizen. I believe strongly there should be no impediments to these rights. I include in these rights the freedom to marry, which I believe is a civil right and requires only recognition by the state and federal government, the issue of Church is not relevant and is independent of Civil Rights.

I suppose there might be some legitimacy to the argument of my heresy. Certainly, I do not support the suppression of any person or group of people and sixty years ago, it was the norm to do so.  Hell, today it is the norm to continue to do so. Pile on the kindling and get the stake ready, there might be a bonfire in my future.

Women’s Rights – this is likely part of the Civil Rights issue, but yes, I am a supporter of Women and their rights. I am a feminist, I believe women should be able to work and be paid equally to men. I believe women should be able to choose Suffragette Float, New York 1913 Courtesy Wikipediawhether to marry, where and how to work and even more importantly that we should be equally represented. Today, we are not it is my hope someday we are since we are slightly more than 50% of the population.

Well there is another one where I am a heretic and would have been 60 years ago too. In fact, I have been a feminist since my early teen years.

Pro-Choice – I am and don’t equivocate about it. No woman should ever be forced, as I was to have an abortion. No woman should ever be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. I am not Pro-Abortion; I think most women approach this choice as a last resort and with heartbreak. Nevertheless, it is no other persons business. It is the pregnant woman and her medical provider, sometimes it is also her partner but most of the time it is her and her alone that images (3)must make this choice. You, me, the state and certainly the church going throng of ijits attempting to shove their ‘beliefs’ down her throat and up her uterus; they have no place in her decision. Beyond the issue of abortion is the very real issue of women and their ability to access preventive care, this is also necessary and constantly at risk. I am a proponent of birth control, a proponent of women and men receiving education and the means to prevent pregnancy and I am perfectly willing to have my tax dollars pay for it.

Alrighty then, another heretical soapbox I stand on. I stand firmly on this one too. Boy oh boy, that kindling is getting piled higher the bonfire is going to burn bright soon.

Freedom of and from Religion – big one here but my belief that I should be free from religion within my government is supported by the US Constitution. The very first amendment of the US Constitution, the very first sentence: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; could it be any clearer than this. We are not now nor have we ever been a theocracy. We are not now, nor have we ever been a Christian Nation. What we are now and have always been a nation with a population of primarily Christians of different denomination who are unable to agree even among themselves. The founding fathers of this nation understood the problems of nations ruled by the Church, whether it be the Catholic Church or the Church of England, they built into our Constitution protections to prevent this from happening here. This nation was intended to be a Democratic Republic, without Church interference; one that allowed representation of all people whether Christian or other. It was not until the 1950’s that God was inserted into our Pledge and onto our currency, previous to this God was not there we stayed true to our founding principles.

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In truth, my views are not so different from others of 60 years ago and even further back. They saw this coming; they saw the problems of allowing the Christian crazies get hold of the government. So no I don’t think I will get any additional kindling for my views on this one. Get your church out of the government. The churches already receive tax exemptions, I already pay for your views to be heard I should not also have live with your views through legislation in my bedroom and elsewhere in my life.

Guns and Violence – obviously I am not mainstream on this one and never will be. I believe strongly I and my children, my grandchildren and all the generations to come should be safe from violence in the streets. I believe guns do not make us safe but instead create a society where we are more prone to violence not less so. The Constitution does not promote individual ownership of arsenals; it promotes a well-regulated militia, which has only recently been interpreted to mean children-guns-nraindividual ownership. Historically, it was much different. That this nation turns its back on the death and mayhem created by guns and gun ownership simply saddens me.

Interestingly through the first part of the 20th century, most of the legislation passed regarding guns and gun control fell firmly in what I would consider my camp. In fact, all of it, at both the federal and state level placed restrictions on the types of guns that could be sold, who could sell and transport them and who could own them and for what purpose. It wasn’t until the rise of the Right-Wing Anti-Government lunatic fringe and the true shift of the NRA in the mid 1990’s things changed dramatically. Ruby Ridge and Waco are the two defining moments that brought the fringe to the front. Since the mid 90’s the swing to the Right on the issue of guns has been dramatic and with horrifying results.

Call me a heretic, call my views heresy I am good with that. When any of you lay in the street with three bullets in you and wonder if you will survive, talk to me about how good guns are. When any of you bury a child due to violence, please give me a call and let’s discuss the need for more guns on the street I will be happy to debate this with you. Pile up the kindling boys and girls I am ready for the fire. On this one though, I was aligned with those in positions of authority, hell me and the NRA agreed 60 years ago now that is damned frightening.

Linda1I just picked a few of the key issue; I could likely do this for many other key issues of the day. Tell you what though, ask me anything and let’s see if I am truly a heretic. I am guessing I am only a heretic if you compare me to the other side of the aisle, not necessarily to 60 years ago. I will do my best to answer in context of both today and the 60-year mark though.

Filed Under: Op Ed Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Ravening Wolves

March 25, 2015 by

Gray-Wolf.-Courtesy-U.S.-Fish-Wildlife-Service27 Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain.28 Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord had not spoken. 29 The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger.

Ezekiel 22-27:29 

There is nothing to say about passion that hasn’t been said before, except this, it festers under the skin, like a wound that never quite heals. We search for that salve we can rub across the wound and for a brief moment, it works, then we realize the salve was full of grit and all we have done is taken the top layer off and opened it up to the air.

Damn that hurt, again.

I have become cynical. I weep at the history, I weep in pain some days as well. But I have become cynical. As I look down the barrel of another surgical intervention, I have become furious at the lack of compassion and empathy this nation has for the weak, the aged, the young, the disenfranchised, those different from ourselves. We celebrate the ignorant among us, whether this celebration is through their election to high office or their constant media attention, it is nonetheless a celebration. Meanwhile, we ignore sometimes even vilify those who do good works, those who deserve our attention through their contributions to society, our communities and our lives.

I weep when I consider the consequences of our apathy. I am appalled when I realized we are more concerned with the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass than we are with just how diminished the office of the President is by the disrespect shown to kim-kardashian-ass-memes-funny-6this President by every member of the GOP in elected office today. Really people, is this what we have become? I am disgusted that every single Sunday I hear the same tired conspiracy nut jobs (IRS, Benghazi, Sharia Law and Muslims, Guns Guns and More Guns, oh and let’s not forget there is no Global Warming and Make War not Peace).

I shudder when I listen to the first off the Clown Bus to enter the fray officially tell me to ‘Imagine’ a world he envisions,  one based on Christians values and morals. I cannot begin to imagine a world where all bets are off and corporations and people in his tax bracket will have all the rights and breaks while the rest of us suffer the consequences of his worldview. This though is the world of no empathy and no compassion Mr. Cruz wants us to imagine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L18gLF_1pI

Of course, Phil Robertson falls right in line with Ted and his ideas. At a prayer meeting yesterday this is what Phil, the patriarch of the Duck Dynasty family had to say about those who didn’t profess a Christian view. This is what we would have to look forward to if Ted became president of the United States of America.

The worst part is, some of this is already happening across this land. Laws to strip those who are not Christian, White, Heterosexual are already being passed. Laws to enable businesses to discriminate against others based on their ‘Christian’ beliefs are passing state legislatures across the land. These new discrimination laws are enabled by people like Ted Cruz and encouraged by the fact that Phil Robertson and his network still exist on without any of us saying no, you are not allowed to say these things and stand on the First Amendment as your protection. You are not allowed to pretend it is just a joke ‘fantasy’ to threaten rape of young girls, decapitation of women, neutering of men simply because they are not of the same faith as you. What the hell is wrong with people they think this is ‘okay’.

Which leads me to the next problem, as a victim of violence I look at this nation and think to myself always when will it end? When is enough ever going to be enough, when will we say as a nation, not another child, another man, another woman will lie in our streets. When will we say not another parent will bury their child, not another child will pick up a gun in play and end up killing their sibling. When will we say enough? When will we say the police are not sanctioned to murder our citizens? When will we say enough? Surely, there comes a point in time when the lives of our citizens are of greater value than the profits of the corporations manufacturing the guns that are killing us. Certainly, at some point enough of us will stop and think, the laws in place today are not protecting anyone but those who are profiting most by our deaths, by the deaths of our children.

Then I saw this and I was brought to my knees. I realized it was us, Elyse over at Fifty Four and a Half simply put it out there and I found it stunningly simple and in your face.

Which leads me here to this, another great example the debate, of what is wrong with us as a nation and a people,. Is this ‘Free Speech’, the First Amendment at its finest? Or is it something worse, something so deeply disturbed I cannot even find the words. You tell me, with no lead in other than to say I had to watch it twice before finally realizing it is parody but also defines the the terrible ease with which anyone could do exactly what this video lays out, step by step.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-OZOqxG39g&feature=youtu.be&utm_medium=email&utm_source=brady&utm_content=7+-+WATCH+and+SHARE+this+ad+for+CrimAdvisorc&utm_campaign=BCAM-POL-CRIMADVISOR-4&source=BCAM-POL-CRIMADVISOR-4

Well that is my rant for the day my friends. Passion, if we don’t get it and soon we lose everything we stand for as a people, everything we once stood for as a nation. We have been slowly eroded; we have stripped down bare and shown the very worst of ourselves for the past six years. We have shown our dark and ugly side and those of us who should have stood up and spoken up, we did little and said little. We should be ashamed for allowing it to go so far. For those of us with the means to do something, we should be ashamed for not doing enough, for staying home when we should have been in the streets even where we might not have been fully embraced. It is time, it is past time that we push the boundaries and demand the change we need to make this a nation worth living in and fighting for, not just for some people but all people. We cannot afford to do otherwise.

Want to tell A & E what you think about Phil Robertson and Duck Dynasty: aefeedback@aenetworks.com

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What I think, Where We Go

March 19, 2015 by

OpEd

This is a long one, I will apologize up front. Sorry

If one listens to the talking heads, whether Right, Left or somewhere in the Center it is easy to get lost in Ideology, rhetoric and frankly nonsense. There are times we can get sucked into believing the problems of this country are so large, so complex, so far above the intellect of the average person we shouldn’t even try to think about them let alone demand simple and straight-forward solutions, plans for resolution.

I am a Progressive Independent.

The following is my personal political stand or:

“How I Would Fix What is Wrong Without Regard to Liars, Thieves, Scoundrels or Other Politicians”

The Economy:

  1. Balanced budgets at State and Federal levels must be the law not just a campaign platforms. New Constitutional Amendments to be written and passed. Given some of the comments thus far I am compelled to add this caveat, a Balanced Budget does not mean states and the fed cannot take on debt, cannot examine need and determine what and how much debt is appropriate. What a Balanced Budget means is they cannot take on more debt than they are able to service through current revenue streams (tax, tariff, etc)
  2. Transparency in campaign spending must be the law at all levels and there must be limits on contributions of both private citizens and corporations. Citizens United must be overturned. No, corporations are not people, they do not have a similar voice or similar rights; they must not be treated as such.
  3. Regulatory laws must be in place to protect the consumer, yes there is such thing as predators and yes our government should protect consumers from them.
  4. Banking regulations must be in place including oversight on lenders, credit cards and market speculators. There was a reason why they were there after the first Great Depression, we shouldn’t have forgotten. There is no such thing as “To Big To Fail”.
  5. Reinstate Tariffs’, balance trade with our “partners” and do it within 12 months. No more weak ploys and pansy assed negotiations. Either there is fair and balanced trade with partners who
    Bill Clinton signing NAFTA, the first disaster He's no Huckleberry

    Bill Clinton signing NAFTA, the first disaster
    He’s no Huckleberry

    buy and sell in markets that are open both ways or there isn’t, it cannot be a one-way relationship. This will very rapidly begin to bring jobs back to the US. No more NAFTA!

  6. Jobs, we must repair our economy and bring jobs back to this country. Correcting the imbalance with our trade partners is just the start. While part of the sucking sound was manufacturing and the cost difference in fact this is not the entire story; millions of high-tech white and pink collar jobs have gone overseas since 1999, add to this the millions of H1B jobs that are on-shored displacing US workers. This must end! We must stop rewarding those US corporations sending jobs overseas. Stop all H1B’s for jobs that can performed by American workers. Stop all government contracts employing foreign workers until audited for cause. Stop all corporations (e.g. Microsoft, HP, IBM) from continuing to import technology and clerical workers until audited for cause.

Taxes:

  1. Tax laws must be simplified, no more loopholes. Apply the KISS method; tax all income on individuals and businesses. This includes both passive and active income. Taxes don’t have to be egregious they only have to be fair. To my mind the right strategy is to level the field by modification of the current system of graduated brackets. Eliminate all subsidies and credits available only to the very wealthy and corporations; reduce the number of deductions but increase the overall family deduction to a more reasonable amount. Incorporate cost of living into the annual calculation for marginal income (0% Tax rate on Net Income). Finally create 4 distinct brackets:

* 15% > poverty level to $90K

* 25% $90K – $250K

* 30% >$250K – $500K

* 35%>$500>

*Corporate Tax Rate flat 10% up to first $1B and 15% thereafter

  1. Stop Corporate Subsidies to the wealthiest corporations in the world. This should not be taken the wrong way, the government has a role to play in scientific advancement and we should encourage organizations to invest in partnership with government where appropriate; however it should not be with taxpayer dollars year after year where we will also being paying for the ultimate outcome as they sell us the products at inflated rates.

Government:

  1. Term Limits for all elected officials, especially at the Federal level. Three Terms and you are out of there.
  2. Stop all earmarks, as a matter of Law. Keep Bills straight-forward and simple don’t hide new spending for Arrow Fletchers or Ice Blowers in the bottom half where no one will see it. Don’t hide the fact that those shovel ready jobs in Michigan won’t require E-Identify to confirm citizenship or competitive bids simply to provide the biggest campaign contributor the ditch digging job.
  3. Stop all attempts to pass laws that are focused on personal decisions, choices or health matters where government is attempting to undermine what has already been decided (e.g. legality of Abortion). Stop using language in Bills that attempt to diminish the experience of more than half the population, redefinition of the word Rape is inappropriate, immoral and unethical.
  4. My father overlooking the Grand Canyon 1993

    My father overlooking the Grand Canyon 1993

    There are many reasons we pay taxes one of them is infrastructure! Ours are quickly eroding and we need to invest, our roads, levees and bridges are failing. We should also remind ourselves we pay taxes to preserve our heritage; our national parks, museums, arts and access to other facilities are maintained by the taxes each of us pay. I am happy to contribute my fair share each year to insure the wealth of this nations heritage is preserved and maintained for future generations, all members whether rich or poor. I want all of the generations that come after me to be able to read the words of Lincoln, to be able to walk the Vietnam War Memorial, to view and enjoy the Washington Mall, to see the California Redwoods in their glorious and natural splendor, to see the beauty of the Painted Desert or awesome desolation of the Salt Flats. All of these are maintained by our tax dollars, all of these are on the chopping block today if we don’t stand up, pay attention and crawl out of our apathy.

  5. End illegal wars and the massive spending on the war machine that is the beltway bandits aka The Defense Contractors. End all non-compete contracts. End the palm greasing within the Pentagon that cost the US Taxpayer billions every year.
  6. Cap Federal Reserve ability to print money. Yes, I said it there must be a check and balance and the government must be held accountable. We have never defaulted on our loans; however we must maintain our rating in Capital Markets. We must stop spending and begin paying down our outstanding debt, stop printing money to service the debt.
  7. Close foreign military bases immediately or charge the host nation to maintain them! With the exception of South Korea there is no legitimate reason for the United States to maintain a military presence in any foreign nation.

Humanities:

  1. Education, we are the only free nation in the world that doesn’t invest in our youth! We must give our young people the tools to be competitive in the market of tomorrow. We cannot continue on the path we are on, this isn’t about feel good methods rather it is about changing the manner in which we approach education and funding. We must give every child a fair start in life, the same access. We have to extend the same opportunities and make available the same tools. Public education should not ever be reliant upon the wealth of one’s parents! This isn’t about passing a child through where they don’t show aptitude but rather about giving every child the opportunity to advance based upon intellectual stimulation, capabilities and desire. Education should be consistently provided no matter the wealth of the neighborhood, teacher pay should be consistent no matter the wealth of the neighborhood, schools should be safe, children should not be hungry. Children should not be the scapegoat or the victims of society. Our system must change to meet the demands of the future.
  2. Stop the militarization of our police. Stop allowing them to murder. Stop defending their actions by creating an entire devaluation of men and women who don’t look like you, that is don’t look like you if you are Caucasian. This has to end, twelve year-old children responsible for their own murders because a White cop mistook him for a ‘scary’ adult.

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  3. Stop attempting to define this nation as a Christian nation in direct conflict with the United States Constitution! It is not, it is a Democratic Republic and a Secular Nation as it was intended to be by the Founding Fathers and as it has been clarified by case law several times by several different US Supreme Courts.
  4. Stop limiting Civil Rights based on religious views, Nationalistic views or other narrow views that have nothing whatsoever to do with actual Civil Rights of individuals born or naturalized as citizens of this nation. Civil and Human rights apply to all members of society no matter their Race, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Gender; if they don’t apply to all members equally they apply to no members.
  5. Stop the war on Drugs! It was ineffective and truly focused primarily on the inner city with imbalanced sentencing (e.g. powder vs. crack cocaine). The War on Drugs created the highest prison population in the free world with no real end in sight.
  6. Stop the war on the Middle Class! Focus instead on how to repair the most vital part of our nation’s economy. It isn’t Teachers, Fire Fighters or the Police causing States to bankrupt. It isn’t Unions causing the problems. It isn’t those earning $50K per year that is the problem today; they are paying their fair share in taxes across the board. Yet all eyes are on them as they struggle to pay their mortgage, worry whether they will keep their jobs, struggle to pay health care bills and keep gas in their 10-year old cars.
  7. Hold this nation to the same standard we hold others. I said it. We have to hold ourselves to the same high standard; it isn’t a matter of feel good but a matter of Law. Our law-makers must begin to respect the laws of the land; that means all of them starting with the Constitution. We must hold Trials for those held in Gitmo, we must hold accountable those Bankers and Speculators who broke the financial back of this nation, we must bring to trial war criminals no matter who they are. We cannot afford as a nation to continue to ignore the liars, thieves, war-mongers, torturers among us as if they either didn’t exist or worse, are above the law.
  8. Invest in science and our future. Stop the madness of religious holy wars against progress. Invest in clean energy sources, stem cell research, technology, high speed rail and anything else images (2)that will move this nation ahead of the competition!
  9. Get out of my bedroom, my medical decisions, my marriage choices and all my other personal decisions as a matter of law and morality. It isn’t your business and frankly shouldn’t be all that interesting to you. As a matter of Law, afford me the same rights as anyone else. As a matter of morality keep your opinion off the law books as it doesn’t belong there.

I am a progressive and proud of it. I believe in the ingenuity of people and most of the time the greatness of the human spirit.

I am a capitalist in that I believe a free market is the best market for entrepreneurs, perhaps the difference is that I believe all markets must exist with trade regulations and restraints to work properly in a global market.

I am an American first but I am a citizen of the World, perhaps more so than most Americans having lived and worked abroad on and off most of my life.

I am I believe a moral and ethical person though I profess no religion. I am a social Liberal and believe strongly in the rights of all members of society to be free and respected for who they are and their ability to contributed no matter their gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.

I believe our nation is failing; we have set ourselves up for failure. We are creating a society that will exclude most members from ever achieving anything beyond the minimum while those in the upper tier stand on their shoulders demanding greater effort, more of their labor for less. What boggles my mind is the number of people who believe they will somehow make it into that stratosphere someday, make it out of the muck and the mire and so vote against their best interest and the best interest of their children.

I am a progressive not because I want a welfare state, not because I want the country to pay for my care or the care of my children from cradle to grave; no I am a progressive because I want future generations to have the same opportunities that my parents had.

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Our Apathy Pays Dividends

March 4, 2015 by

OpEdMy great and dear light at the end of the tunnel, Deborah over at Monster in Your Closet, reminded me today there are many ways to look at a problem, many angles to hold a prism to the light. When she wrote about panic attacks in the air here I burst out laughing, I remember well feeling exactly the same panic at wheels up. What I was really thinking about while reading her piece though is why I have not touched my fingers to my keyboard, why I haven’t wanted to write for weeks. I considered why what I have been thinking hasn’t been making its way from my brain to my blog. My normal righteous indignation has hidden under a tree, whimpered and cringed from the light of day like a beaten dog.

Here is the thing; this nation is descending into a morass of ignorance and no ignorance is not bliss, not by any stretch of any imagination or any measurement, we are growing stupider and we seem to like it that way. I am finally at a loss for words; I finally after all these long years am without the language necessary to say what is needed. I must admit to not understanding the people of this nation any longer. There was a time I understood, I even believed there was a necessity for both sides of the aisle to exist, it kept us all honest. Elyse over at FiftyFourandaHalf just today reminded me of that not so distant past in her piece on the suicide of Thomas Schweich, a contender for the office of governor in the not so great state of Missouri. I was reminded, once upon a time more than half my family were staunch members of the GOP, yet they were not Racist, or against public education, or against public assistance, or against Social Security, or against immigration; nor were they ignorant of the Constitution and what it really said about Guns or Religion.

I am without words, truly. I remember arguing with my father over the dinner table about real issues of the day he was a staunch Republican by the way nearly his entire life, he bled the party line of fiscal conservativism, he could not understand how he could produce such a hippie, such a ‘blasted Liberal, dammit’. The one thing about my father was he saw clearly and he hated across the DAD&Meboard; he hated LBJ, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Bush Jr with equal intensity and all for different reasons. He voted for Barack Obama and was very proud of that vote.

Today, those members of my family who retain their GOP card do so without any real understanding of what the party truly stands for. When called to the table to defend the latest horror story, the latest idiocy, the latest dumbass thing to come out of the mouths of those who would rule, they cannot do so only relying upon the sound bites, they picked along the way to defend their position in Right Wing LaLa land. When presented with facts they sniff and rock back, scramble for purchase on the quicksand of their position.

We get what we deserve, whether it is the government we deserve or otherwise. This time we truly did get what we deserve, those of us who wanted more and better we stayed home in droves. What did we think; others would pick up the slack of our apathy? We listened to those who said we wouldn’t go to the polls and thought to ourselves, well it is a lost cause so why bother; we stayed home. That is exactly what they were hoping for and they won.

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Ignorant really; GOP majority in the House and the Senate, the ability to make the next two years sheer hell for this nation and this President and we sat on our asses and handed it to them through our apathy. The absolute genius of it is astounding and we fell for it, not for the first time even we know the game and we fall for it every single time. This time though, we are going to pay and pay big, it is our fault and we should be ashamed of ourselves. We handed the keys to the nation to a bunch of low intellect know-nothing, bought and paid for members of the extremist coalition who are intent on destroying the nation and handing the remains to those who would rule without the will of the people.

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Congratulations citizens of America, you have finally succeeded in showing your true nature and intent. What you really want is to be second class citizens of the world, ruled by those who don’t give a damn if you live or die, if your children are ignorant so long as you have them for their wars, if you live in poverty so long as you labor for their benefit you will be given enough to drag your azz to their crumbling factories for another day and when you are too old to do that, better hope someone loves you enough to take you in, cause there won’t be a safety net left to catch you ass.

All I can think is, rise up before it is too late. Do not allow this once great dream of a free nation to crumble at the feet of your apathy. Look around; do not allow what little progress we made toward unity be destroyed by the hate and fear of a shrinking minority. Rise up and look around, stand up and take back the power we own as citizens. Stand up and demand accountability of those in public office, whether they are elected officials, bureaucrats or the Police.

Honestly, look around and ask yourself is this the country you want? If the answer is no, what are you willing to do to change it?

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

On this Day, Dream

January 19, 2015 by

bvwcku1icaapeh“Well, you know, you can’t change what’s in the hearts and minds of the white folks in the South. You can’t legislate what’s in their hearts.” He says, “Well, you can’t legislate what’s in their hearts, but I tell you what: If you can just stop them from lynching me, that’s progress. That’s a pretty good thing.” And over time, hearts and minds catch up with laws. That’s been the history of progress in this country.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Honestly, I have been trying all week to find the heart and the voice to write. It has felt as if my heart has been stopped in my chest and my voice has been silenced. Today is the day we honor Martin Luther King, many say we should treat this day as a day of service in honor of those who marched and served the cause of Civil Rights, worked to eliminate the egregious Jim Crow Laws and broaden Voting Rights Laws for all citizens. Imagine, there are those who do not know this history do not remember a time when our fellow citizens could not vote, could not sit at the counter or share a table in a restaurant simply because of the color of their skin. Despite how recent this history, there are those who wish to erase it from our school books and our memories.

Many today say it is better then when the brave men and women stood upon the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, 7 March 1965 and faced down State Troopers and civilian posse’ armed with tear gas and clubs wrapped in barbed wire on Bloody Sunday. There are those, including some who were there that say 2015 is better than 1965, we have made progress. I am hard pressed to find this much discussed much vaunted progress in light of the tragic and terrible across this nation. Is it me?

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Someone asked me yesterday if I thought it was getting better or worse. I had to consider the differences and the changes since 1965, what the meant. Have things really improved, as some would have us believe? Are some of us simply overreacting to the news cycles, which is what some say to those of us who follow and write about the issues of Race in America. Or are things regressing, going backwards having never truly changed only gone into hiding until the all clear signal was sounded the election of Barack Obama bringing out all the fears and fury of the dwindling White majority.

I had to think about it, consider my answer carefully. Ultimately, my answer was option three (3). Maybe it got better for a little while, things moved forward and improved on the surface. As a nation, we took seriously ending segregation, ending Jim Crow, ending lynching, ending the disparities in education and access to jobs for fifteen years before the disaster of Ronald Reagan and his War on Everything. Yes, I said it, the nation began a slow decline with his election, he was in my humble opinion the worst thing that could have happened to anything slightly resembling progress. We need only look at what he ushered in or who he attacked on his road to the White House, with his ‘Welfare Queen’ meme. Then his War on Drugs and the disparity in sentencing laws, started during his time in office, which have only begun to be addressed by this administration. Finally, we need look no further than the the slow disintegration of our infrastructure, education systems and the rise in poverty to understand what he started has finally come to fruition. If there is an afterlife, Saint Ronnie must be gleeful.

Has it gotten better?

What could possibly lead any of us to believe it is better? Truly, the scales over our eyes must be iron plated that we believe it is better. But let’s examine so maybe I and others can be convinced of this ‘better’.

Voters Rights, the act was originally authorized in 1965 and until 2006 was reauthorized as required with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress and signed by the President, no matter the party. In 2006, thirty-three members of the GOP House voted not to reauthorize the Voters Rights Act, they went on record as being against protecting the rights of all citizens to exercise their fundamental right to vote. In 2013 the Supreme Court gutted, in a vote of 5-4 the most critical portion of the Voters Rights Act Section 5, freeing states to change their voter laws without oversight by the Justice Department; in essence paving the way for a return to pre-1965. For a good synopsis of the Voters Rights Act and Voting in America, go here.  Since the gutting of the VRA, multiple states mostly in the South, have enacted new voting laws including Voter ID, changes to hours, changes in the availability of voting equipment primarily in minority districts, reductions in early voting, changes to mail in voting and a host of other ‘conveniences’ that predominately impact minority voters.

Extrajudicial killings, we even have a name for it now this murder by cop, sounds all official and everything, like somehow these murders are somehow acceptable within a civil society. Well based on outcomes apparently they are, no police officer is being prosecuted for murdering an unarmed man or woman, in fact they are being protected by the public servants we pay to protect us, from cops to district attorneys all the way up to Governors. There was a time in this nation when at least people had the courtesy to murder in the dark of night, with white sheets covering their shame. Now? Not so much. Now police, in their uniforms murder unarmed men, women and young boys in broad daylight and the middle of the street knowing they will get away with it. Hell, the media will help them by digging up every minor flaw in their history, painting their victim as the aggressor despite the truth, using language to convince an ignorant and unthinking public to be afraid of the ‘other’, language like ‘criminal’, ‘thug’, ‘gang member’, ‘hulk like’, ‘monster’ and ‘demon’. We heard terms like these about every single unarmed person the police murdered, every single person some citizen murdered, every single unarmed Black child, man or woman; they were other and somehow deserving of their death.

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We have the highest prison population in the free world. Now there is something to be proud of. This country has divided families, created horrific poverty, destroyed communities and developed a de facto slave economy with their for profit prison solution. We have men in prison for decades, men who did not commit the crimes but who were railroaded by dishonest cops and DA’s into prison. We have Black and Brown men and women in disproportionate numbers filling our systems up with far longer sentences than their White counterparts for the same crimes, oh wait we have the Affluenza Defense for White Folks, kill people, rape children your own or others, but don’t go to jail if you are White.

These are just some of my observations. I wish I could say I thought it was getting better. I don’t think it is getting better at all. I think perhaps, there are some of us out here who have shed our bigotry and bias, but we are not doing enough, we are not speaking up, we are not lending our support and standing up with those who need us to stand up with them. What we are doing is allowing those who would like nothing better than a return to Jim Crow and the day’s pre Civil Rights, pre Loving-v-Virginia, pre VRA and pre Integration to be voted into Congress at a state and national level, to remain seated on the highest courts of the land and what they are doing is dismantling every single protection and piece of progress ever made.

Do I think it is better? No, I don’t think it is better. I think in many ways it is far worse. I think it is worse because I know it could be better but we are sitting back and allowing our nation to falter through our apathy. I weep for all of us, for the loss of life and the loss of our promise, for the loss of a great dream.

Filed Under: Series: Race in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sit Down Shut Up

December 11, 2014 by

tears_of_sadnessWhat do we do? What do we owe?

Those of who still make up the majority of this nation, who are still walking through the world with a certain privilege bought by the lack of melanin in our skin; we owe something. You might not think so, but we owe something. Oh, I know I have heard the song and dance many times before I could likely put it to music and do a soft shoe shuffle:

  • I didn’t own slaves
  • My family didn’t own slaves
  • My family fought for the Union
  • I have Black Friends, it isn’t me
  • I voted for Barack Obama, I’m a Liberal it isn’t me
  • Slavery was 200 years ago, racism is dead

The list goes on, sometimes ad infinitum. So, I ask the question again, what do we owe those of us privileged not to walk through the world in fear, what do we owe?

There are those who would answer nothing. To them I say, leave my sight, get out of my space, don’t breathe my air, please. Yes, I try to say it nicely.

There are those who would say, little; maybe, they could send money because money soothes their conscious and allows them to continue with their comfortable lives unencumbered with the dirt xbckx8mqslodq9a6j3fa84xfixqc9lj5and grime of what is happening outside. To them I say, well make it a big check and remember your children might someday ask what you did, where you were and how you made a difference. How will you answer them?

Then there are those, like me who struggle with the question. Who struggle with how to reach across the chasm of righteous fury, who can no longer find the words to express our own fury at the quagmire of injustice, blood and brutality that is now in the light of day. There are those, like me who are not the enemy, but we surely do look like them. What can we do, even as we stand up and try to reach across the abyss of mistrust and fury, what can we do? Our empathy is shallow, we who cannot walk in the shoes, cannot slip into the skin; we cannot fully empathize because we cannot place ourselves even for a minute in the position of the mother mourning her dead child, the father who cannot find work simply because of the color of his skin, the youth stopped and frisked one hundred times before he is eighteen for walking on a city street; we cannot feel what they feel, not even for a minute.

What can we do, our compassion seems almost misplaced, sometimes more like sympathy or pity both of which are unwelcome and most especially as we barely move from our comfortable chairs. What can we do, our anger at the injustice seems unfocused as we sit contentedly ensconced in suburbia, nodding our heads and listening to other people telling us, ‘it is terrible out there’. There are those like me who are at a loss, our voices silenced by our inability to speak coherently our own rage, our own fear, our own pain; despite our inability to walk in shoes already filled, some of us, many of us are enraged and want to find our place in a fight that should be ours as well. What do we do, when we can only speak from what we know and who we are, from our own experiences and our own hearts and minds, how do we bring that to a table brimming with righteous pain, rage and mistrust.

 

Featured Image -- 94374What do we do? What do we owe?

I don’t know the answer to either question anymore. I know we must stop trying to over-write and invalidate the clarion call of the movements for justice.

#BLACK LIVES MATTER            ≠              #ALL LIVES MATTER

I know we would all like to think ‘All Lives Matter’, it has a pretty ring doesn’t it? The fact is, right now, it isn’t a movement of ‘All Lives’, some of our lives have always mattered, some of us have always had a preferred position, a front seat on the bus. This right now is a different thing, it is not all about ‘All Lives’, it is not about us or you, it is a movement for Justice, for Equality in Justice and it is focused on a community of people who have not received justice since the first sale of African Slaves, known as the ’20 and odd’ in 1607 on these shores.

Historical Arch

From 1607 through centuries of slavery, Jim Crow to today with institutional and structural racism built into every corner of our social, cultural and geo-political foundations we have proven ‘all lives’ do not matter, only some matter. What can we do? We can stop hijacking movements, stop being insulted when ‘we’ aren’t included as a matter of principal, stop arguing that we matter; we have mattered for four hundred years, get over it. For once, we can honor the call of another movement, rally to a call that is not specifically ours, be foot soldiers instead of officers, if the movement for justice is to be cohesive and acknowledged, we can simply repeat the call rather than change it.

What do we owe?

I don’t know. Maybe we owe our bodies on the front line, standing in front of police in riot gear protecting those who have been without shields for far too long. Maybe we owe that. Maybe we owe our voices, our demands added to theirs for justice, for equality; maybe we owe that as more than lip service.

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I don’t know, what we owe. I don’t know what we can do. Maybe we ask and if we are told nothing, we have done enough; just maybe we should take it, accept it sit down and shut up and wait until we are invited to the party rather than demand our voices be heard.

Perhaps we see ourselves as something other than the enemy, but you know maybe it is just too damned late, maybe it has gone on too damned long. Perhaps, we have allowed by our inaction, our blind indifference the disparity of our systems to corrupt our nation to such an extent, even those of us who wish to reach across the chasm can’t find the right bridge.

What is the answer? I wish I knew.

Filed Under: Series: Race in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Too Late

December 8, 2014 by

Screenshot (1944)Do not tempt a desperate man

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 5 Scene 3

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Is fear the only thing we feel as we stare through the open window into the future, certainly seems this might be the truth of it, at least for many of us.

The question must be asked, what is it we fear? The better question is, what do those in power fear.

Is it the future itself; is it the unknown and unknowable? Or is it something else, something we can see out of the corner of our eye that frightens the hell out of us. Is it the loss of something most of us don’t have but are certain we could if only, what?

If only, something would happen the way it was promised, by all those damnable slick men way back in the day who said to us, it was them folks over there who were sucking up what was ours, taking away our jobs, our tax dollars and if we voted for them they would make it right. Those slick politicians who said if we would pay a bit more so the ‘job creators’ could pay a great deal less, itimages would trickle down to us, you know we would be lifted up with them and those moochers and leeches would be left behind in the gutters where they belonged. If only, it would begin to happen the way it was promised way back when St. Ronnie started telling us the Gospel of Trickle Down and the Parable of the Welfare Queen.

What is it they fear?

I think I know what it is so many in this nation truly do fear. They fear the loss of power. They fear the loss of autonomy. They fear the loss of true majority and the loss of privilege. They fear they will no longer be able to walk through the world with complete sovereignty over every speck of dirt their feet touch and the assurance no person can push them off their pedestal.

That is what they fear and that fear is palatable. It is clear in the laws passed to prevent people from going to the polls and from voting even when they get there. It is clear in the militarization of police forces across the nation, the shift from ‘protect and serve’ to ‘command and control’. It is clear as the corruption of justice becomes blatant, supported by corporate media and corporate owned politicians. It is clear as prison systems become private, corrupt and for profit feeding the greed of the same small feudal lords who own the defense contracts, the militarization of the police, the guns on our streets, our state houses and Washington.

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What is it they fear?

I will tell you what they fear. They fear the loss of Whiteness as a sign of Good and Right. They fear the loss of control. They fear the loss of Power. They fear they might not be the biggest, baddest monster in the woods and it scares the living hell out of them. What are they doing? They are trying hard to crush all dissent by any means necessary. They have been doing so for years, decades really. For a brief moment in time, it shifted, but not really what happened is things calmed down and we all looked in a different direction. The truth of the matter is, it is hard as hell to wrest power from the hands of those who have it. It is difficult to convince those who are hanging on to let go, to fall backwards that someone will catch them.

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1960 in response to racist signs held up during a motorcade in Tennessee

It seems we haven’t come far since the signing of the Civil Rights Act by President Johnson. The difference between today and 1960, we have a Black President the hate, fear and outright disrespect shown towards him and his family has escalated to a fever pitch in direct response to the fear of the White Man, no matter their place on the economic scale. Oddly, it is predominately the poor and ignorant who hate him, in fact the lower on the economic ladder the more vehemently the hate is expressed.

What do they fear?

Those in power, fear dissent, ultimately they fear the loss of power and thus they are doing everything they can to retain their power. They are crushing the spirit of this nation. They are crushing everything that could make us great, humiliating, imprisoning and killing communities and people. They are dividing us, making those of us who should come together in common cause enemies instead. They are destroying our education system, making each generation more ignorant than the last. We are allowing this, we are buying the pabulum they are selling; sucking at the tit of mass consumerism as if we were starving and they are the sow of plenty.

We sit back and nod our heads, sit on our hands, stare stupidly at the television screen and agree as some overpaid and under-informed talking head delivers lie after lie to our living room, then we repeat it to our friends and family as if it were gospel. We allow and enable the rich and powerful to create a storyline of criminal history for every single unarmed Black Person killed by the police, armed citizen or vigilante. Remember they are the enemy of Whiteness, Rightness and all ‘we hold dear’.

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We sit back and nod our heads as families are broken and the pipeline is filled from school to prison, we say not one single thing as schools crumble with not a single cent spent for infrastructure, school improvements, education improvements. Meanwhile prisons continue to be built nationwide and the vast majority of them are filled from those very schools that are crumbling. The false picture being painted, the constant harping of ‘Black-on-Black’ crime with no mention of ‘White-on-White’ crime, no mention of how often one is prosecuted over the other, no mention of outcomes resulting in long prison sentences to feed the for profit system.

What do they fear?

I think they fear we might figure it all out and we just might come together. We just might reach across the vast barrier and rise up. We just might overthrow the oligarchy, the feudal lords of profit and greed before it is too late.

What do you fear? I fear it might be too late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AMY2Bvxuxc

Filed Under: Social Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ham Sandwich and the Zimmerman Defense

December 5, 2014 by

screen-shot-2014-11-25-at-4-34-05-pmThere is now a process for how it is done, a script to follow, a recipe to mix from that insures a free pass for the right kind of killing. Everyone knows it, in fact, I am going to guess there is a super-secret class taught and only some of the good ole boys are invited to attend. Maybe it is part of the graduation ceremony, or perhaps they wait a little while suss out what kind of good ole boy you are going to be before issuing the invitation, but chances are eventually if you have feelings of superiority combined with a powerful need to kill, you will get invited.

Let’s call it the Zimmerman Defense.

The terrible thing about the Zimmerman Defense, if you are a cop the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office will aid and abet you presenting your defense in the media and to the Grand Jury, thus you will never be indicted for your heinous acts of murder. It is damned near the perfect murder. If you are a sociopath, in need of a bit of blood, simply join your local police force. If you are a racist asshat, in need of a bit of mayhem, have at it put on the uniform; you know the one with the patch that says ‘To Serve and Protect’.

Join the local police force and prepare your Zimmerman Defense, you will have friends in high places jumpstarting your road to freedom, your opportunity to continue your life of violent crime sanctioned by the uniform you wear. Not only will the Chief of Police be on your side making public statements about your sanctioned murder, the Police Union will stand behind you, the Prosecutors Office will lie for you, Governors will protect you, the media will work hard to show your ‘side’ of the story, no matter how insane it is. Finally, if you are truly the type of person everyone loves to whimper over as if your murderous actions were somehow heroic, they will raise money for you and you will become rich and famous; not infamous as you should, not a convict downloadas you deserve, but rich and famous.

The most ludicrous part of this entire situation is we the people pay for this. We the people, pay the cops who kill. We the people, we pay the District Attorney to lie and warp the justice system in favor of Killer Cops. We the people, we pay the salaries of the Governors who call out the National Guard to ‘control’ peaceful demonstrators exercising their Constitutional Rights at Free Speech, or maybe in at least one case (Ferguson) Jay Nixon knew the fix was in and he wanted to avert riots from overflowing into White parts of town (yeah, I am suspecting this was likely it). The fact is, we the people pay for all of this, we pay for Apartheid, we pay for Genocide and we turn our backs, failing to acknowledge these acts for what they are. Making excuses for the murderers in our midst wearing the uniforms we pay for, with those patches that clearly say, ‘To Serve and Protect’. Obviously, they were not intended To Serve and Protect the communities or the people they are with abandon murdering in cold blood.

Bob McCulloch, Ferguson
Daniel Donovan, Staten Island
Eric Holder, US

Do I sound bitter? Do I appear to be one sided in my views? I was told, as recently as yesterday my credibility on this subject was lost for several reasons:

  • My views are too far left to allow me to see things with any degree of reasonableness
  • Despite the obvious lack of melanin in my skin, I am more Black than White
  • Given my past associations, marriages and otherwise my opinions are not credible

Those are just the highlights; some of the others were even more insulting to my intelligence. I let them slide, I didn’t respond to the person saying them instead taking a page from someone I care for deeply, blocking them and ending the conversation. Am I bitter? Why yes I am, I find this nation growing worse rather than better, I find this nation instituting laws to disenfranchise communities of people, stop their voices and strip them of their rights and those of us who could do something instead do nothing. I watch as voices are silenced, men and women are slaughtered in our streets, prisons are filled, schools are emptied and we do nothing. I listen to those who should be our leaders as they say the most blatantly racist and sexist things in public forums and are re-elected to high office; we sit back and do nothing. I watch as our justice system is corrupted to serve the few, we do nothing. In fact, we do worse than nothing; we nod our heads and remain silent.

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We watch as an 18 year old is gunned down and left to lie in the street for four hours, we say nothing instead allowing his name to be tarnished. We listen as they call him Thug, Thief, Demon and MB1we nod our head and accept this as maybe truthful, maybe Michael Brown did ‘puff up as the bullets entered his body’ as that murderer Darren Wilson claimed in his Grand Jury testimony. No, No it didn’t happen that way. No, Michael didn’t punch him on the right side of his face while he was still in the car, no he didn’t go after his holstered gun either. The murder, Darren Wilson lied he applied the Zimmerman Defense and was aided and abetted in doing so. The murder, Darren Wilson is lower than a ham sandwich and anyone with an ounce of common sense knows it. The problem is we watch then hang our head, refusing to do more.

tamir riceWe watch as police roll up on Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old child and shoot him dead in an empty park. We see it all on video, we see they make no attempt to talk to him, no attempt to determine whether his ‘gun’ is real or a toy, despite the 911 caller said he thought it was a toy. They just roll up and before the car stops moving they shoot to kill, not wound but kill. Will they be indicted? Likely no, the DA in Cleveland is planning the Grand Jury route on this one also.

We watched as Eric Garner is taken down in a chokehold, as he says eleven times while face down on the sidewalk of New York, “I can’t breathe”, we watched cops pile on him, we watched knees eric garnerplaced on his head forcing his face further into the concrete. We listened and learned that chokehold had been banned, made illegal twenty-years earlier and then we watched as the Grand Jury came back with a No Bill against the cop who killed Mr. Garner with that chokehold. That cope, Daniel Pantaleo is another who is lower than a Ham Sandwich.

murders

How dare we condemn other nations for their civil rights violations when we think it is perfectly acceptable to gun down unarmed Black and Brown men and women in the streets of our cities, or choke them to death, or beat them on the side of the road, or perform no-knock warrants and kill infants in the process. How dare we even consider condemning other nations for their records when we have undeclared Apartheid in our own nation, with each whittling away at Voting Rights it becomes more declared and more obvious. How dare we look outside of our borders to point fingers at the bad behavior of any other nation when we are incapable of living up to our own declared standards of behavior, even the basics of ‘All Men are Created Equal’.

Bitter, hell yes I am bitter and I am ashamed of this nation and its people.

Filed Under: Series: Race in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bow Your Head and Weep

November 27, 2014 by

harriet tubman“If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If there’s shouting after you, keep going.
Don’t ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”
― Harriet Tubman

Today across this nation in Cleveland, Ferguson, St. Louis, New York, Beavercreek, Salt Lake City and countless other cities families will sit down to dinner with less to be thankful for, with an empty chair at their table and it is likely mothers and fathers will weep at the loss of their child to violence. Parents, spouses and children will bow their heads and instead of thanking whatever god they pray to, they will ask “Why”. They will weep as they find themselves bereft of their loved one and struggling to understand why the system they were told to trust did not work, why the life of their husband, father or child did not matter. Today across this nation, families will weep as they mourn the loss of their beloved and lost members to police violence.

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We are a terrible nation, a nation that turns away from entire communities, blaming them for their failure to thrive within a greater society determined to see them as always ‘less than’ and undeserving of the rights and privileges embodied by this nation’s founding documents and ‘moral’ standard. We are a tragic nation, built upon theft of land and resources, blood of innocents, indentured servitude, forced labor, rape and violence; yet we have the unmitigated gall to hold ourselves, as a nation, up as a standard of excellence. We dare to act as police and moral arbitrators, condemning violence and human rights violations across the world while within our own nation we fail to uphold the Rights and even Humanity of our own citizens.

Today, families weep and we should all be weeping with them. Those of us who do not send our children out into the world with fear in our hearts each time they leave our side, we should hang our heads that we do nothing, say nothing and enable this genocide within our borders to continue. Yes, I said it, We Enable. By our silence, through our failure to stand up and say,  ‘no more’, each timescreen-shot-2014-11-25-at-4-33-18-pm we fail to demand answers for the depraved acts of murder by those tasked with defending the law and protecting citizens, WE ENABLE and WE AGREE they are in the RIGHT. Each and every time we listen to media pundits, elected officials, journalists, has been’s and never were’s such as Rudy Giuliani disparage entire communities WE ARE ACCOUNTABLE along with them for enabling the horror story of structural and institutionalized racism that has destroyed the soul of this nation and its people. It is us, as much as them that allow and enable Genocide to escalate unencumbered by Law or Justice.

I am saddened there are those in this nation who refuse to face up to the fact there truly are two nations, truly two systems of justice, two systems of opportunity, two systems for damned near everything. It is not about ‘responsibility’ and ‘accountability’ as some would have us to believe. It is not about pulling your pants up, speaking better English, getting a job or any of the other idiotic and ignorant bile that spews forth from the lips of those who have never been at risk a day in their life simply for the skin they were born in.

Any one of us can say all day long, “I personally am not a racist”. However, the problem with that statement, so long as ‘I personally’ do nothing to actively fight against the institutionalization of racism within this country I am passively agreeing to its continuation, I am by my refusal to stand up and speak out, by my refusal to put myself in harm’s way agreeing my life, my way of life matters more.

screen-shot-2014-11-25-at-4-34-05-pmTime and again, the President of this nation has been called divisive by those who hate him for only one reason, who fear him for only one reason. Time and again, the Attorney General has been called divisive for speaking out on issues of race and violence. We have had for nearly six years our first Black President, our first Black Attorney General; this combination scares the hell out of those who see their power base slipping and they are fighting hard, with ugly tactics to convince this nation these two men are the cause for the rise in violence, the rise in racist language and attitudes. Those who see these two men of calm as divisive have deceived their base and even many of us into believing a story, a fable of Black and Brown rage and danger, one that is escalating and must be controlled by occupation forces and murder. The truth is, this President and this AG have spoken infrequently and with cautious language on issues of race, they have used the Bully Pulpit rarely and with great restraint so as not to offend those who would use their words to stir the already boiling caldron of White Rage and Fear.

We are not divisive because we point out racism, whether it is police murdering or the KKK marching with police escorts while peaceful protesters are tear gassed and shot with wooden bullets. We are not divisive because we identify the documented fact a Black Man is 4 times more likely to die in custody than a White Man, a Hispanic Man is 2 times more likely to die in custody than a White Man. We are not divisive because we find it disturbing when mass killers are taken into custody alive if they are White, but Black Men and Black Children with toy guns are killed by cops. We are not divisive when we identify the difference between media coverage of college students rioting during a sporting event or festival for squash and communities rioting in response to police murdering their children without fear of reprisal. We are not divisive when we point out a wealthy White teenager walking out of a courtroom with a new syndrome, Affluenza (he is to wealthy to go to jail it might harm his delicate sensibilities or future) preventing him from going to prison after killing four people in a drunk driving joy ride, but a Black teenager is killed for jaywalking.

We must begin to stand up, to point out what is wrong with this nation and the leadership of this nation that we do not demand better. We are not divisive, what we are is challenging a system that has consistently shown itself to be Racist, unjust and weighted towards one group in this country. Either we are one nation, with one rule of law, one set of values and principles, striving toward the betterment of all citizens … lifting all boats in a rising tide; or we are a Slave State, intent on the debasement of an entire group of our citizens, the death of their next generation.

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Today, families gather to give thanks far too many of those families will instead shed tears of anger even fury at the loss of a loved one to violence at the hands of police.

Where does it end?

We must begin to stand up, to scream our demands for change. We must begin to silence those who turn away and refuse to see what is before them; we must demand those who are tasked with protecting our citizens; we must demand those who are elected to office high or low, perform their tasks to the benefit of all citizens not just those who can pay for their services; we must stand up and demand journalists, pundits and others tasked with delivering information become fair, balanced and perform their tasks with integrity and ethical standards or be taken off the air, a return to the standards of old is necessary to raise this nation out of the mire of ignorance we have fallen into.

It is time to rise up out of our apathy. It is time for us to bow our heads and weep with the families who will gather today with an empty chair at their tables. It is past time for us to demand a change to this failed experiment that is the two-nation system of have and have not, divided by the color of our skin and the privilege those of us born with the fortune circumstance of White skin have not earned.

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It is time to acknowledge we have a problem and it is not the criminality of the Black Community it is the Criminality of a nation built on privilege, brutality, greed, violence and a desire to retain what was never earned but stolen.

It is about fixing what is broken in this nation no matter the cost.

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