The Modern Times Post

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

2010-01-12T14:35:00.000-08:00

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Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. He was the oldest son of the Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King. He was named Michael Luther after his father, but later the Reverend King changed both their names to Martin Luther in honor of the great church leader.

Unhappily racial experiences made a deep and lasting impression on young Martin. One day his father took him to buy new shoes. When they sat down in the store, the clerk asked them to move to the back of the store. Dr. King took Martin by the hand and left the store rather than take that kind of treatment. Another time, the parents of boys Martin played with told him that they could no longer come out to play with him because they were white and he was black. Martin's feelings were hurt. His mother tried to explain about prejudice. She told him that blacks were no longer slaves, but they were not really free.

Martin liked sports. He played baseball, basketball and wrestling. But he especially liked reading. He liked reading about famous people in black history. He found out what it took for them to overcome difficulties and become successful. He liked to learn new words and use them.

He was fascinated by watching his father, Martin Luther King, Sr., Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and other ministers control audiences with skillfully chosen words. He longed to follow in their footsteps.

He made words central to his life--weapons of defense and offense. His mother said that she could not recall a time when he was not intrigued by the sound and power of words. He once told her, "I'm going to get me some big words like that." . When he got to high school, his ability to use words enabled him to win an oratorical contest.

In September 1944, when he was only 15 years old, King entered Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a black college, and his father and grandfather had gone there. He knew that his father would like him to become a minister, but at first Martin was not sure that was what he wanted to do. At first, he was undecided as to his course of study. However, his experiences at Morehouse shaped his direction for life. After meeting and talking with Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, the college president, and Professor George Kelsey, head of the religion department, he made up his mind. King was enormously impressed. He saw in Mays what he wanted "a real minister to be"--a rational man whose sermons were both spiritually and intellectually stimulating, a moral man who was socially involved. Thanks largely to Mays, King realized that the ministry could be a respectable force for ideas, even for social protest. And so at seventeen King elected to become a Baptist minister, like his father and grandfather. At eighteen he was ordained a minister. The next year he graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in sociology.

Martin was an excellent student and was the class valedictorian when he graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer. While at Crozer, King attended a lecture by Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson, who was the president of Howard University in Washington, DC. Dr. Johnson "explained how Gandhi had forged Soul Force--the power of love or truth--into a mighty vehicle for social change." He "argued that the moral power of Gandhian nonviolence could improve race relations in America, too." King was mesmerized by Gandhi's concepts, and began reading profusely about his life and philosophy.

In 1951, King graduated from Crozer as valedictorian. He also received the Peral Plafkner Award for scholarship, $1,200, and the Lewis Crozer Fellowship to continue his studies. While at Boston University, Martin met Coretta Scott. Coretta, a beautiful young lady from Marion, Alabama, a graduate of Antioch College in Ohio, was studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music. She and Martin were married in June, 1953. His father performed the ceremony at her home in Alabama.

Coretta had grown up with segregation too. She shared Martin's dream of a time when everyone everywhere could enjoy equal rights. On June 5, 1955, when he had completed his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology, the couple decided that they could make the greatest contribution by going back down South to work. Martin was installed by his father as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in October of 1954. Just a little more that a year later, Yolanda, the first of the Kings' four children was born.

In December of 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. Mrs. Parks was later tried in Montgomery City Court, charged with and found guilty of violating a state law mandating segregation. She was fined $10. Her attorney appealed the conviction. Coincident with Mrs. Parks' trial a one-day boycott of the buses by many members of Montgomery's Black community, was planned. Dr. King was asked to help, as was his friend, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy. As a result of this, an organization was established, the "Montgomery Improvement Association," (MIA) to orchestrate a complete and ongoing response to Montgomery's segregation. Dr. King was chosen president. Blacks walked to work or took cars or taxis, but they did not ride the buses. The one-day boycott stretched out to 382 days. Finally, after more than a year of protest, on November 13, 1956, the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was against the law.

Martin Luther King, Jr., knew that even though that battle against bus discrimination had been won in Montgomery, there was more that needed doing. As a result, on January 10-11, 1957, 60 Black leaders from 10 Southern states met at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and founded the Southern Conference on Transportation and Non-violent Integration. Its original agenda concerned "segregation in transportation facilities and voter registration."

In February 1957, the organization elected Dr. King as President and changed its name to the Southern Leadership Conference (SLC), organized to fight "Jim Crow" laws that discrimination against blacks. Offices for the new group were in Atlanta, and the Kings moved there. Martin became assistant pastor at his father's church, the Ebenezer Baptist Church. He spent much time traveling. He spoke all over the country, urging nonviolent ways of gaining civil rights. He and Mrs. King visited Europe and Africa. They went to India to study Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent ways of fighting for freedom.

King spoke of how a Pilgrimage would be an appeal to the nation, and the Congress, to pass a civil rights bill that would give the Justice Department the power to file law suits against discriminatory registration and voting practices anywhere in the South. On August 28, 1963, at least 250,000 people descended on Washington in the "largest single demonstration in movement history." Dr. King captured the day. Following the march, the organizers were invited to a reception at the White House, where President John F. Kennedy "was bubbling over the success of the event."

Perhaps the ultimate recognition of Dr. King's crusade to secure equal rights for all came on December 10, 1964, when, at age 35, he was the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1966, he and his family moved to Chicago. People in the slums of big cities had problems that were as serious as the discrimination they faced in the South. King planned a Poor People's March on Washington, D.C. Shortly before the march, Dr. King went to Memphis, Tennessee, where garbage workers were on strike for better working conditions. He led marchers through the streets in support of the strike. Violence broke out, and a young man was killed.

On April 4, King stood on the balcony of his hotel in Memphis, talking with men who had been with him in his many civil rights efforts....

Former Senator Edward Brooke Receives Congressional Medal of Honor

2009-10-29T00:57:00.000-07:00

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Edward Brooke is the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote
Using perseverance, he avoided anger, disillusionment, President Obama says
Brooke, 90, was a GOP senator from Massachusetts for two full terms, from 1967 to 1979
Brooke, thankful for honor, says he misses friend Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died in August

Washington (CNN) -- Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote, was honored Wednesday with a Congressional Gold Medal.

"At a time when so many doors were closed to African-Americans, others might have become angry or disillusioned," President Obama told an audience in the Capitol Rotunda, where the ceremony honoring Brooke for Congress' greatest honor was held.

"They might have concluded that no matter how hard they worked, their horizons would always be limited. So why bother? Not Ed Brooke," he said.

Brooke, 90, was a Republican senator from Massachusetts for two full terms, from 1967 to 1979.

"He ran for office, as he put it, to bring people together who had never been together before, and that he did," the president said.

"I don't know anyone else whose fan base includes Gloria Steinem, Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy as well as Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush. That's a coalition builder," he said.

Loathe the War, Love the Warrior

2009-10-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

My Two Cents:

by Ron Powell

Bravery and valor on the battlefield are of no consequence if the war being fought has no just and honorable cause or purpose....There are no legitimate goals or objectives in an unjust or invalid conflict being prosecuted by force of arms and the blood of good people.

My take on the war(s) in the Middle East is simple: We shouldn't have gone in the first place and we have no business being there now...Whether the Department of Defense or the State Department agrees with him or not, the young ex-marine who resigned his diplomatic postition in protest over our continued presence in Afghanistan has it absolutely right. We should stand with him in his brave and bold move to bring attention to the fact that what we are doing in that part of the world is just plain wrong....

In the wake of 9/11, and the notion that we are seeking to bring an international criminal and his criminal enterprise to justice, we have wasted resources and lives on a manhunt that ought to have been concluded long ago.....There is no succinct or cogent articulation of the reasons why we have been at this for as long as we have, and we should not commit another American life to a nefarious conflagration that has, at best, nebulous ideological, philosophical and political underpinnings......

If we truly believe that Bin Laden is alive and being harbored in the region, we should withdraw all of our troops and issue an ultimatum in the strongest possible terms and, failing that, anihilate all of the targets where he may be hiding in such a way as to not risk another American life and then, completely and absolutely walk away from it all.

Nothing good can come from continuing to work with an illegitimate government, rogue mercinaries, drug over-lords and wasting American tax dollars and American lives....I am in full and unfettered support of our troops in the Middle East. I do not, however, accept or agree with our 'reasons' for sending them there....

Then and Now

2009-10-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

THEN:

A Black girl escorted to school - 1960

On November 14, 1960, nearly 49 years ago, 6 year old Ruby Bridges faced hostile crowds, and had to be escorted by U.S. Marshalls , because she was the first black child to attend previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ruby was 6 years old. (Norman Rockwell created the painting above depicting that event.)
That morning, she had only been told by her mother that she was going to be attending a new school that day and 'had better behave.' Little did little Ruby know that she would be bombarded with jeers and even death threats; and that she would end up being the sole child in her first grade class because all the other children were kept home by their parents. All because Ruby was Black.

NOW:

A Black girl escorted to school - 2009

On January 5, 2009, nearly 49 years after Ruby attended her school, 7 year old Sasha Obama, faced cheering schoolmates as she is escorted by her Mother and U. S. Secret Service Agents to Sidwell Friends Elementary School in Washington , DC . Her Mother, the current First Lady of the United States of America, had Secret Service escort because Sasha's daddy is now the 44th President of the United States.

Can this be one of the reasons why people under forty have a different view of the world.....????

Soul Heaven: The 'Soul' of America

2009-10-15T22:41:00.000-07:00

Some were absolute giants and some were less well known, but all of these performers had an impact on our culture and our lives in ways which most of us will not be able to recognize or acknowledge. In many respects these African-American artists charted and navigated the course for likes of President Barack Obama by making the African-American experience an integral element of America's culutural life and heritage. We owe them a debt of gratitude and many, many thanks......

President Obama On Saturday: AM & PM

2009-09-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

AM: Weekly Radio and TV Address: The G-20 Summit

PM: Remarks on health care at the Black Caucus Dinner

Geography Refresher: Iran, The Middle of the Middle East

2009-09-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

Secret nuclear facilities have been revealed in Qom, Iran. Failure to fully report the existence of these facilities, which as President Obama said," are inconsistent with a peaceful program", to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and permit the required inspection, will bring sanctions and other dire consequences.

President Obama with Prime Ministers Gordon Brown of England and Nicholas Sarkozy of France spoke as one at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh.

With a line drawn in the sand, and an October 1st deadline for a meeting with the UN Security Council ( United States, Russia, China, France, England) and Germany (P5+1) regarding compliance, Iran will be at the top of the news for the next week and beyond...A refresher in geography seemed to be in order.

Sarah Palin Keynote Speaker On Foreign Policy In Hong Kong?

2009-09-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

Who is CLSA-Hong Kong? What could they possibly want/get from Sarah Palin?

Or Was she "punked" with a six figure payoff?

The CLSA (Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia-Hong Kong) Investors Forum in Asia features former Republican nominee for Vice-President, Sarah Palin discussing China as well as other foreign policy subjects. This is Sarah Palin's first keynote speech outside the boundaries of North America.

Jonathan Slone, the CEO of CLSA, said that Sarah Palin was asked to speak on U.S. foreign policy, healthcare, governance, and China. The keynote speech by Palin to investors in China was closed to the media. She did acknowledge that her speech would be "different" with the media in the room.

The CLSA decided that their clients were more important than the possible media circus they would get with "media types trying to prove how stupid Sarah Palin is".

No doubt there will most likely be a youtube video of Sarah Palin's foreign policy speech about China and other issues that will be posted not long after the speech is finished. Sarah Palin was due to speak at the forum today.

CLSA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Business Type: Private Founded: Hong Kong (1986) Headquarters: Hong Kong, China

Key people: Jonathan Slone, Chairman and CEO Industry: Diversified financials

Products: Financial services Employees: 1,350 (2009) Website: www.clsa.com

CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets is one of the region's largest and most highly rated independent equity brokers and financial-services groups, focused on providing broking, investment banking and asset management to corporate and institutional clients around the world.[1][2]

Founded in 1986, CLSA has its headquarters in Hong Kong and offices or representatives in 15 cities across the Asia-Pacific region, as well as New York, London, San Francisco and Dubai. CLSA is majority owned (65%) by Crédit Agricole, France's largest retail-banking group, with the remainder held by staff.

Unlike most of its competitors, CLSA is a research-driven agency broker.[3] It's known for its annual investor forums (particularly the calibre of its keynote speakers and the star acts at its parties), as well as its unique reports, the hallmarks of which are colourful and sometimes irreverent "cartoon" covers[4], outrageous pranks at gatherings, and analysis that goes beyond the numbers and 'tells the story' (a legacy of the journalism background of its founders). It has produced a number of seminal reports, including Billion Boomers and Mr & Mrs Asia

The Values Voter Summit: A Sampling

2009-09-23T05:27:00.000-07:00

Ordinarily, I would consider this some kind of stand-up comedy routine....But, these people are serious and this is no joke:

This is the stand-up comedy routine performed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) at the Values Voter Summit that only a certain kind of indvidual would find humorous....

Then there's this; the Right Wing understanding of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state:

And this: An anti-abortionist V V speaker wants us to "hear angels singing as we ponder the glory of conception".

I am sure that there are a few women at OS who could tell this young lady a thing or two about "hearing angels" and about the many and various other things she might wish to hear. They know she might want to "ponder the glory" of getting a good f**k. ;-) Which, if she works at it really hard, and has a bit of luck, might well occur prior to conception.

Contraception and birth control being what they are today,

she doesn't need to be overly concerned with the prospect or consequences of conception, unless she is so inclined.

NOW FOR RACHEL MADDOW'S PREQUEL TO ALL OF THIS:

Never undersetimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

President Obama With David Letterman

2009-09-22T08:04:00.001-07:00

Does The 1st Amendment to the Constitution Give Us The Right To Lie?

2009-09-21T09:28:00.001-07:00

By Ron Powell

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --- George Orwell

Quite some time ago, I read Sissela Bok's seminal work: Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public Life (1978). The book is still in print , nearly thirty years after its initial publication. I have used it in my classes when dealing with the questions and issues of morality and ethics in professional and personal life. Its continuing broad readership pays tribute to the book's lucidity and good sense. Bok's work has no equal as a serious treatment of a central, but neglected, dimension of moral life.

Note: Sissela Bok is the daughter of Gunnar and Alva Myrdal both Nobel Prize recipients, and the wife of Derek Bok, formerly President of Harvard University (1971-1991).

Formerly a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University, Bok is currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.

What exactly is a lie?

A lie is a statement, believed by the liar to be false, made to another with the intention that the person be deceived by the statement. This is the definition used by Sissela Bok and it has antecedents as far back as St. Augustine. I often like to throw in curve balls like; What if the liar knows the statement to be true but wishes the person to whom the statement is made to believe it to be false?

What's the difference between lying about the day or time you'll be able to deliver yourself to a particular location for a dinner date and lying about the day and time you'll be able to deliver goods or services to that same location?

One situation seems to involve a purely or primarily interpersonal or social arrangement and the other involves a contractual or commercial agreement. One situation may not become the basis for a legal sanction being levied against the liar, the other provides the foundation for taking legal action against the liar. One case involves a'harm' done to anindividual the other involves a 'harm' done to society at large.

A good person does not lie.

It is this intuition which brings lying so naturally within the domain of those things and behaviors which we believe to be categorically immoral or wrong. Yet many lies do little if any harm, and some lies do real good. How are we to account for this stringent judgment on lying, particularly in face of the possible trivial, if not positively beneficial, consequences of lying?

What the lie accomplishes is deception:

There are many ways, of course, to deceive without actually lying.

Consider this scene: The Doctor enters your hospital room looking cheerful. "Have you seen the test results?" you ask. "No," the doctor says, "they'll be available tomorrow. Relax and get a good night's rest." In fact, the doctor isn't lying - the final results won't be available until tomorrow - but he is deceiving you by his manner. He already has preliminary indications of what the test results will show, and your prognosis is not good. Was he justified in assuming a deceiving manner?

What if we altered this scenario so that the doctor actually lied? Would that make his deception worse?

What makes lying wrong? What makes deception wrong, when it is wrong?

You want to lie to someone? Well, what if you were the one being lied to? Or the one being lied about? Would taking up that perspective change your view of the lie?

Take the example of the human resources consultant (an example Sissela Bok discusses in her book) who was proud of her method for getting reliable recommendations about job candidates. She floats lies about the candidates she's investigating to see how a recommender responds. "I hear Smith doesn't get along well with her colleagues," the headhunter offers. "I hear Jones sometimes takes credit for other people's work." By gauging recommenders' reactions to these manufactured rumors, she elicits a richer report on a candidate's character and experience, so she is convinced.

The headhunter is so proud of her method in part because she is obtuse. She never imagines herself on the receiving end of her method. She never imagines herself as somebody being lied about by a seeker of information regarding her. Were she vividly to imagine that scenario, she might come very quickly to appreciate the great potential for harm in what she was doing. She might reflect:

Suppose my boss is just about to make a choice to promote me rather than a colleague - a close call - when he gets a phone query from a headhunter dropping unflattering rumors about me. Even though my boss denies the rumors, perhaps hearing them leaves a residue of doubt in his mind, and he reverses his decision, promoting my colleague instead of me!

No one wants to be harmed by a lie. We've no reason to suppose otherwise about the consultant. Thus, we've every reason to believe she would object to being on the receiving end of her method.

I highly recommend Sissela Bok's book as it is still the foremost treatise and analysis on the social and moral dynamics of lies and lynig.

Our focus here is; do we have a right to lie under the constitution? What are the questions and issues posed by what seems to be taking place in the contemporary media and political arena?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Are lies and liars protected under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution?

Yes and No:

Yes: Political and religious speech are categorically protected, hence falsehoods, half-truths and down right lies that are promulgated within the context of such speech are also protected...So too, are the people who are responsile for the false, misleading or deceptive utterances couched in politics or religion. This appears to be so whether the speaker intends the lie or not.

Yes: Commercial and journalistic speech are protected for the most part. However, unlike political and religious speech and speakers which enjoy absolute protection, there are areas in which commercial speech and journalistic speech are measured or evaluated in terms of veracity and or intent regarding the queation of damage or harm to either an individual or society. In these areas commercial and journalistic speech which is deemed intentionally deceptive and the cause of damage or harm is not protected and may result in the perpetrator being hit with a civil or criminal penalty of some kind.

(In the law the concept of intent is critical because without showing the requisite intent, the harm or damage caused by the liar's lie may not result in the liar being subject to civil or criminal liabilty and penalties.)

No: Interpersonal speech that results in harm or damage to another, particularly where the damage or harm caused is intended or reasonably forseeable, because it is fraudulent, libelous or uttered as part of or in the furtherance of a criminal activity, a criminal conspiracy or a criminal enterprise.

No: Speech that is intended to cause or incite violence, or riots.

No: Speech that is seditious or intended to cause rebellion against the government.

No: Speech that is intended to impede or interfere with the legitimate exercise of govermental power or authority. (Lying to the police, or falsifying a tax return, etc.)

In the instances where the speech is not protected the speaker is subject to civil or criminal liabilty and penalties when held responsible or accountable for the non-protected speech.

Where does this leave us?

The right to political or religious freedom of speech gives the speaker a constitutionally protected right to lie as long as the speech stays within the parameters of protectd speech.

The journalist who lies without the overt intention to cause damage or harm is, for the most part, also constitutionally protected.

As the ones being lied to, our best protection against the barage of lies we are subjected to on a daily basis, is to seek and learn the facts, and arrive at our own truths....It is not only our right but our responsibilty and civic duty as citizens.

Blowing The Whistle On Health The Insurance Industry

2009-09-19T23:21:00.000-07:00

The Recession’s Racial Divide

2009-09-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

By BARBARA EHRENREICH and DEDRICK MUHAMMAD
New York Times Op-Ed Contributors
Published: September 12, 2009

Note: This piece is absolutely essential reading if we are to fully comprehend and appreciate the meaning and impact of the current economic crisis on black people as individuals, black families, and the black community as a whole-RP

What do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt. An article on the Fox News Web site has put forth the theory that health reform is a stealth version of reparations for slavery: whites will foot the bill and, by some undisclosed mechanism, blacks will get all the care. President Obama, in such fantasies, is a dictator and, in one image circulated among the anti-tax, anti-health reform “tea parties,” he is depicted as a befeathered African witch doctor with little tusks coming out of his nostrils. When you’re going down, as the white middle class has been doing for several years now, it’s all too easy to imagine that it’s because someone else is climbing up over your back.

Despite the sense of white grievance, though, blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment. And they weren’t doing so well to begin with. At the start of the recession, 33 percent of the black middle class was already in danger of falling to a lower economic level, according to a study by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University and Demos, a nonpartisan public policy research organization.

In fact, you could say that for African-Americans the recession is over. It occurred from 2000 to 2007, as black employment decreased by 2.4 percent and incomes declined by 2.9 percent. During those seven years, one-third of black children lived in poverty, and black unemployment — even among college graduates — consistently ran at about twice the level of white unemployment.

That was the black recession. What’s happening now is more like a depression. Nauvata and James, a middle-aged African American couple living in Prince Georges County, Md., who asked that their last name not be published, had never recovered from the first recession of the ’00s when the second one came along. In 2003 Nauvata was laid off from a $25-an-hour administrative job at Aetna, and in 2007 she wound up in $10.50-an-hour job at a car rental company. James has had a steady union job as a building equipment operator, but the two couldn’t earn enough to save themselves from predatory lending schemes.

They were paying off a $524 dining set bought on credit from the furniture store Levitz when it went out of business, and their debt swelled inexplicably as it was sold from one creditor to another. The couple ultimately spent a total of $3,800 to both pay it off and hire a lawyer to clear their credit rating. But to do this they had to refinance their home — not once, but with a series of mortgage lenders. Now they face foreclosure.

Nauvata, who is 47, has since seen her blood pressure soar, and James, 56, has developed heart palpitations. “There is no middle class anymore,” he told us, “just a top and a bottom.” Plenty of formerly middle- or working-class whites have followed similar paths to ruin: the layoff or reduced hours, the credit traps and ever-rising debts, the lost home. But one thing distinguishes hard-pressed African-Americans as a group: Thanks to a legacy of a discrimination in both hiring and lending, they’re less likely than whites to be cushioned against the blows by wealthy relatives or well-stocked savings accounts. In 2008, on the cusp of the recession, the typical African-American family had only a dime for every dollar of wealth possessed by the typical white family. Only 18 percent of blacks and Latinos had retirement accounts, compared with 43.4 percent of whites.

Racial asymmetry was stamped on this recession from the beginning. Wall Street’s reckless infatuation with subprime mortgages led to the global financial crash of 2007, which depleted home values and 401(k)’s across the racial spectrum. People of all races got sucked into subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages, but even high-income blacks were almost twice as likely to end up with subprime home-purchase loans as low-income whites — even when they qualified for prime mortgages, even when they offered down payments.

According to a 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy, a research and advocacy group, from 1998 to 2006 (before the subprime crisis), blacks lost $71 billion to $93 billion in home-value wealth from subprime loans. The researchers called this family net-worth catastrophe the “greatest loss of wealth in recent history for people of color.” And the worst was yet to come.

In a new documentary film about the subprime crisis, “American Casino,” solid black citizens — a high school social studies teacher, a psychotherapist, a minister — relate how they lost their homes when their monthly mortgage payments exploded. Watching the parts of the film set in Baltimore is a little like watching the TV series “The Wire,” except that the bad guys don’t live in the projects; they hover over computer screens on Wall Street.

It’s not easy to get people to talk about their subprime experiences. There’s the humiliation of having been “played” by distant, mysterious forces. “I don’t feel very good about myself,” says the teacher in “American Casino.” “I kind of feel like a failure.” Even people who know better tend to blame themselves — like Melonie Griffith, a 40-year-old African-American who works with the Boston group City Life/La Vida Urbana helping other people avoid foreclosure and eviction. She criticizes herself for having been “naïve” enough to trust the mortgage lender who, in 2004, told her not to worry about the high monthly payments she was signing on for because the mortgage would be refinanced in “a couple of months.” The lender then disappeared, leaving Ms. Griffith in foreclosure, with “nowhere for my kids and me to go.” Only when she went public with her story did she find that she wasn’t the only one. “There is a consistent pattern here,” she told us.

Mortgage lenders like Countrywide and Wells Fargo sought out minority homebuyers for the heartbreakingly simple reason that, for decades, blacks had been denied mortgages on racial grounds, and were thus a ready-made market for the gonzo mortgage products of the mid-’00s. Banks replaced the old racist practice of redlining with “reverse redlining” — intensive marketing aimed at black neighborhoods in the name of extending home ownership to the historically excluded. Countrywide, which prided itself on being a dream factory for previously disadvantaged homebuyers, rolled out commercials showing canny black women talking their husbands into signing mortgages.

At Wells Fargo, Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer at the company, recently revealed — in an affidavit in a lawsuit by the City of Baltimore — that salesmen were encouraged to try to persuade black preachers to hold “wealth-building seminars” in their churches. For every loan that resulted from these seminars, whether to buy a new home or refinance one, Wells Fargo promised to donate $350 to the customer’s favorite charity, usually the church. (Wells Fargo denied any effort to market subprime loans specifically to blacks.) Another former loan officer, Tony Paschal, reported that at the same time cynicism was rampant within Wells Fargo, with some employees referring to subprimes as “ghetto loans” and to minority customers as “mud people.”

If any cultural factor predisposed blacks to fall for risky loans, it was one widely shared with whites — a penchant for “positive thinking” and unwarranted optimism, which takes the theological form of the “prosperity gospel.” Since “God wants to prosper you,” all you have to do to get something is “name it and claim it.” A 2000 DVD from the black evangelist Creflo Dollar featured African-American parishioners shouting, “I want my stuff — right now!”

Joel Osteen, the white megachurch pastor who draws 40,000 worshippers each Sunday, about two-thirds of them black and Latino, likes to relate how he himself succumbed to God’s urgings — conveyed by his wife — to upgrade to a larger house. According to Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, pastors like Mr. Osteen reassured people about subprime mortgages by getting them to believe that “God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and bless me with my first house.” If African-Americans made any collective mistake in the mid-’00s, it was to embrace white culture too enthusiastically, and substitute the individual wish-fulfillment promoted by Norman Vincent Peale for the collective-action message of Martin Luther King.

But you didn’t need a dodgy mortgage to be wiped out by the subprime crisis and ensuing recession. Black unemployment is now at 15.1 percent, compared with 8.9 percent for whites. In New York City, black unemployment has been rising four times as fast as that of whites. By 2010, according to Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, 40 percent of African-Americans nationwide will have endured patches of unemployment or underemployment.

One result is that blacks are being hit by a second wave of foreclosures caused by unemployment. Willett Thomas, a neat, wiry 47-year-old in Washington who describes herself as a “fiscal conservative,” told us that until a year ago she thought she’d “figured out a way to live my dream.” Not only did she have a job and a house, but she had a rental property in Gainesville, Fla., leaving her with the flexibility to pursue a part-time writing career. Then she became ill, lost her job and fell behind on the fixed-rate mortgage on her home. The tenants in Florida had financial problems of their own and stopped paying rent. Now, although she manages to have an interview a week and regularly upgrades her résumé, Ms. Thomas cannot find a new job. The house she lives in is in foreclosure.

Mulugeta Yimer of Alexandria, Va., still has his taxi-driving job, but it no longer pays enough to live on. A thin, tall man with worry written all over his face, Mr. Yimer came to this country in 1981 as a refugee from Ethiopia, firmly believing in the American dream. In 2003, when Wells Fargo offered him an adjustable-rate mortgage, he calculated that he’d be able to deal with the higher interest rate when it kicked in. But the recession delivered a near-mortal blow to the taxi industry, even in the still relatively affluent Washington suburbs. He’s now putting in 19-hour days, with occasional naps in his taxi, while his wife works 32 hours a week at a convenience store, but they still don’t earn enough to cover expenses: $400 a month for health insurance, $800 for child care and $1,700 for the mortgage. What will Mr. Yimer do if he ends up losing his house? “We’ll go to a shelter, I guess,” he said, throwing open his hands, “if we can find one.”

So despite the right-wing perception of black power grabs, this recession is on track to leave blacks even more economically disadvantaged than they were. Does a black president who is inclined toward bipartisanship dare address this destruction of the black middle class? Probably not. But if Americans of all races don’t get some economic relief soon, the pain will only increase and with it, perversely, the unfounded sense of white racial grievance.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of the forthcoming “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.” Dedrick Muhammad is a senior organizer and research associate at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Are The Republicans Trying To Get President Obama Killed?

2009-09-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

by Ron powell

Should we take comments like the "lie" shouted out by Representative Joe Wilson, as a mere moment of passion, or a part of a larger plan in which the GOP tries to delegitimize Obama's Presidency? Are the Republicans feeding red meat to the GOP base, fomenting secession and the bearing of arms at public meetings? If that is the goal, aren't Republicans also placing Obama's life at risk?

I purposely did not include material involving Dobbs, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, and Malken, since they are not Republican elected officials.....However, when you add this stuff to the posture of the likes of Rove, Cheney, Gingrich and Buchannan, what you have, in my view, is clear evidence that these folks are indeed out to "get" President Obama...

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.

Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Most however, are kept under wraps because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts. Although most threats are not credible, each one has to be investigated meticulously.

According to the book, intelligence officials received information that people associated with the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab might try to disrupt Mr Obama's inauguration in January, when the Secret Service co-ordinated at least 40,000 agents and officers from some 94 police, military and security agencies.

More than a dozen counter-sniper teams were stationed along the inauguration parade route and the criminal records of employees and hotel guests in nearby buildings were scrutinised.

Despite all this, there were glaring loopholes in the security. Kessler describes how more than 100 VIPs and major campaign donors were screened by metal detectors but then walked along a public pavement before boarding "secure" buses and were not checked again.

It could have been relatively simple for an assassin to have mingled with them in order to get close enough to shoot the new president.

After Mr Obama was elected president, his two children Malia, 11, codenamed Radiance, and Sasha, eight, codenamed Rosebud, began receiving Secret Service protection. Mr Obama's wife Michelle is codenamed Renaissance. The Secret Service also started to protect Vice-President Joe Biden's children, grandchildren, and mother.

Instead of bringing in more agents - instantly identifiable because of their bulky suits, worn over bullet-proof jackets, and earpieces - the Secret Service directed agents to work longer hours to cover the extra load and to miss firearms training, physical fitness sessions and tests.

"We have half the number of agents we need, but requests for more agents have fallen on deaf ears at headquarters," a Secret Service agent told Kessler. "Headquarters' mentality has always been, 'You can complete the mission with what you have. You're a U.S.S.S. agent'."

Mr Biden's constant travel, including back to his home state of Delaware-the burden has meant that all agents on his team have ceased training. According to Kessler, however, they fill in forms stating they have "taken and passed all tests, when they have not, creating a dishonest culture".

The Secret Service has increasingly cut corners after it was absorbed by the new Homeland Security Department under Mr Bush. Kessler said that when Mr Biden threw the first pitch at the first Baltimore Orioles game of the 2009 season, the Secret Service did not screen any of the more than 40,000 fans, stunning his agents and the local Secret Service field office.

Barack Obama Became President Last Night

2009-09-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

By Ron Powell

There are some here and elsewhere asking who were the Republicans who didn't stand or applaud the President during his speech on health care reform before the joint session of congress. My reponse is candid, honest and simple: You would do better trying to identify the very,very few Republicans who will support efforts to reform the health care delivery/finance system...or anything else the President proposes.

I have posted and commented on the number of Republicans in congress who are racists, hate mongers, liars, birthers, deathers, tenthers, obstructionists, immoral and amoral crooks and thieves.

When you look at the videos and see the faces of those who refuse to acknowledge the veracity, validity, and legitimacy of what the President was saying, you are looking into the faces of the racist hate mongers who would sooner see the President dead than to work with him or any black man of consequence on anything meaningful, universally beneficial or constructive.....

These are the people who now know that they cannot bring him down, or box him in, or shut him up...These are the people who will resort to violence to protect their interests, and the interests they represent. The interests that have long been in control of the government and that have been out of control as relates to their complete and utter disregard for the needs and concerns of ordinary cititzens.

These are the faces of those who are there to represent and protect the interests and concerns of the rich, the white, and the very powerful. They are the people who wish to maintain the status quo....

President Obama has manifest a level of courage the far exceeds anything that they could have possibly anticipated or imagined within the context and framework of the images and stereotypes that they have worked long and hard to develop and maintain. These are the people who will stop at nothing to keep the 1st black president from succeeding to the point of instilling sufficient trust and confidence in American voters to win a second term.

I have often said in my posts and comments here and elsewhere that the surest way for the President to secure a second term is to BE president in his first term. He began to step away from campaign mode and into presidential mode last night.

It is the moment I have been waiting to see and hear for the past eight months. It is the moment that very nearly equals the night that we got the news that Senator Barack Obama had indeed won the election and would become the 44th President of the United States. It is the moment that the racists and hate mongers have dreaded since the day he was inaugurated.

This is what they fear most and why they didn't stand. It is because they realize now, more than ever, that the country not only elected an African-American to the office of President. The country has an African-American who has the courage, confidence, conscience and competence to stand up, speak out and BE President of the United States of America.

I couldn't be more happy or more proud.

Closet Birther Outed At Teaparty!

2009-09-09T05:01:00.000-07:00

At a Teaparty held outside of Cincinatti during Labor Day weekend Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) is caught on tape telling Birther: ‘I Agree With You’:

Schmidt was among the members of Congress featured in Firedoglake’s Know Your Birthers video. In the FDL video, Schmidt can be seen running away from blogger-activist Mike Stark when he asked whether or not she has any questions about President Obama’s citizenship status.

In July, following her 15 minutes of YouTube fame, Schmidt’s office issued a statement to Ohio’s Loveland Magazine to clarify her views:

"The President is indeed a Citizen of this country. I voted as a Member of the House to certify the vote of the Electoral College electing him as our President. I may not agree with his politics but there is no doubt he is our President and has my full respect as such."

Schmidt’s exchange with the birther this weekend directly contradicts her July statement. The footage appears to indicate that Schmidt is a closet birther who questions the citizenship of the President.

Republican Congressional Support And Encouragement Of The Lunatic Fringe

2009-08-27T23:18:00.001-07:00

by Ron Powell

Some Republican lead town hall meetings are taking on the aura of KKK meetings or White Supremicist, or Militia Movement meetings. Where's the discussion or debate about health care or anything else for that matter?

Town Hall Meetings, like the two shown here, are becoming witches
kitchens where ignorance, stupidity, and fear are being stirred in with overtly racist language and not-so-veiled threats of violence, insurrection, and sedition.

Congressman Wally Herger (R-California) praises self-proclaimed birther and right-wing terrorist, Burt Stead, as a good American.

Newly elected Kansas congresswoman, Lynne Jenkins, said that her remark about fellow Republicans struggling to find a "great white hope", was not a reference to someone who could challenge President Barack Obama or his political agenda.

YEAH, RIGHT!

Edward M. Kennedy, The Lion Of The Senate, Dies At 77

2009-08-26T05:05:00.000-07:00

(February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009)

AP- HYANNIS PORT, Mass. – Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, has died after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

Kennedy's family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a dominant voice on health care, civil rights, war and peace, and more. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving brother of a storied political family.

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, when his brother John was president, and served longer than all but two senators in history.

Over the decades, Kennedy put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress.

The youngest of the Kennedy brothers, considered the least likely to have an impact, and in many ways the most consequential. So closely after the death of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the Kennedy family must grieve again and again the nation must grieve with them....

After the death of President John Kennedy, LBJ picked up the banner of justice and equality and so it was that a Southerner from Texas was able to get The Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights Act through congress. In many ways this was done in memory of his predecessor in office JFK....

This congress has the opportunity to pass the Edward M. Kennedy Health Care and Insurance Reform Act ( with a public option, not as a sliver, but as the center piece) in honor of the Lion, now gone, who spent a significant portion of his career on trying to repair the broken system for the benefit of the common person.........

The Cost Of Profit In Health Care

2009-08-24T06:34:00.001-07:00

by Ron Powell

On several occasions I have written about the matter of health care reform and have indicated in posts and comments that there can't be true reform of the healthcare system without removing profit and the profit motive from the equation. At the moment the debate and discussions center around reduction of costs and the notion of a "public option" being the primary element in any proposal that purports to reduce the costs involved in the delivery of health care services.

It has been my contention that "costs" are the euphamism or code for profits. In other words, I believe that if we can reduce or eliminate profits we can reduce or eliminate costs. This is what the insurers and providers are acutely aware of and are fighting against. They know that when the government gets involved the gravy train will come to a screeching halt.

Over the past several years the insurance companies have reaped record profits without any improvements to the system of health care. How does this happen? It happens in any number of ways: increase of premiums, increase of deductibles, increase of co-payments, denial of coverage, cancellation of coverage and the denial of claims. All of this is designed to enhance revenue streams while reducing or eliminating risk by reducing or eliminating the obligation to make payments within the context of the language of health insurance contracts.

If you have health insurance my suggestion is to read it, all of it, especially the fine print. You may discover why many of the people who have been driven into financial ruin as a result of a catastrophic illness, are people who have health care insurance.

Having a health care insurance policy is not the equivalent of having health care coverage and that is where the mother load of profits are for health care insurers. I am a veteran so I'm covered with a government financed/controlled option and in a couple of years I will qualify for medicare as well, so I'm good to go.

However, there are a vast number of people between the ages of 25 and 65 who are paying for health care insurance, either directly or through employer group plans, for whom the insurance companies do not intend provide coverage i.e. payment on claims.

Banks and credit card companies have been loan sharking for years. The health care insurance companies have been engaged in a protection racket also designed to cheat and gouge the public. When all is said and done, reform of the way in which business is done in this country will require revisiting the notion of what is legal and what is not.

The conservative element has had decades to undo what had been done to ensure that the public was protected from unscrupulous business practices. The process of the systematic deregulation and removal of controls from profit-driven free market enterprises that are built on public trust and confidence must be reversed. In order to restore sanity to the debates and discussions the 900 pound profit gorilla has to be removed from the room or it will continue to wreak havoc and nothing will get done, nothing will change and we all know we can't afford that.

Is Newt Gingrich The Reason Why The Right Is Ahead In The War Of Words?

2009-08-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

One of the key elements of Republican success in controlling the current discussion/debate about health care is their use and manipulation of the languagae of the discourse. The Republicans distribute talking points with the intention of controlling what is said. In addition they are adept at providing instruction and insight as to how to say it.....

Newt Gingrich's 1996 GOPAC memo:

Language: A Key Mechanism of Control

In the GOP training video "We are a Majority," Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. The video has been used in training sessions and mailed to Republican candidates and operatives across the country. Speaking like Newt Gingrich takes years of practice. But, the belief was/is that doing so could have a significant impact on a campaign and the way candidates and operatives communicate with a little help . That is why we have created this list of words and phrases.

This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media. The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.

While the list could be the size of the latest "College Edition" dictionary, we have attempted to keep it small enough to be readily useful yet large enough to be broadly functional. The list is divided into two sections: Optimistic Positive Governing words and phrases to help describe your vision for the future of your community (your message) and Contrasting words to help you clearly define the policies and record of your opponent and the Democratic party.

Please let us know if you have any other suggestions or additions. We would also like to know how you use the list. Call us at GOPAC or write with your suggestions and comments. We may include them in the next tape mailing so that others can benefit from your knowledge and experience.

Optimistic Positive Governing Words

Use the list below to help define your campaign and your vision of public service. These words can help give extra power to your message. In addition, these words help develop the positive side of the contrast you should create with your opponent, giving your community something to vote for!

active(ly), activist, building, candid(ly), care(ing), challenge, change, children, choice/choose, citizen, commitment, common sense, compete, confident, conflict, control, courage, crusade, debate, dream, duty, eliminate good-time in prison, empower(ment), fair, family,freedom, hard work , help, humane, incentive, initiative, lead learn, legacy, liberty, light, listen, mobilize, moral, movement, opportunity, passionate, peace, pioneer, precious, premise, preserve, principle(d), pristine, pro- (issue): flag, children, environment, reform, prosperity, protect, proud/pride, provide, reform, rights, share, strength, success, tough, truth, unique,vision, we/us/our

Contrasting Words

Often we search hard for words to define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party:

abuse of power, anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs, betray, bizarre, bosses, bureaucracy, cheat, coercion, "compassion" is not enough, collapse(ing), consequences, corrupt, corruption, criminal rights, crisis, cynicism, decay, deeper, destroy, destructive, devour, disgrace, endanger, excuses, failure (fail), greed, hypocrisy, ideological, impose, incompetent, insecure, insensitive, intolerant, liberal, lie, limit(s), machine, mandate(s), obsolete, pathetic, patronage, permissive attitude, pessimistic, punish (poor ...), radical, red tape, self-serving, selfish, sensationalists, shallow, shame, sick, spend(ing), stagnation, status quo, steal, taxes, they/them, threaten, traitors, unionized, urgent (cy), waste, welfare

What Do You Know About The History Of Health Care Insurance?

2009-08-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

There have been a number of blogs about healthcare reform proposals recently, and there will no doubt be more before it comes to a vote in congress. Most bloggers, including me, are not old enough to have first hand memories of the major events and forces that shaped the system as we know it today. Health care insurance in America has an interesting history.

The first insurance plans weren't for "health" insurance at all. In the 1900s some Americans began buying "sickness insurance". Around 1900, workers wanted insurance that covered paid sick days and were not as interested in more expensive medical benefit insurance. They purchased industrial "sickness insurance" through employers. Since medical treatments were relatively ineffective then, the insurance was meant to cover wages lost while a person was too sick to work. Imitating benevolent societies, industrial sickness (sick day) insurance companies raised money from entertainments as well as membership dues and held social events for members. They sold beer.

In 1908, the average "establishment" (employer) insurance plan had 730 members in workplaces of 1,652 workers, so approximately 44 percent of potentially covered workers were actually covered. A 1909 audit of early life and "sickness" insurance plans showed that fewer than 5 percent had actuarial data. During the depression, hospitals were suffering from a lack of patients, so they began offering prepaid hospital care as a way to get a steady stream of income.

The first modern employee group benefit plan was an agreement between Dallas County public school teachers and Baylor Hospital in 1929. The Baylor Plan was organized by a hospital administrator who had previously been a school superintendent.

The American Hospital Association was afraid that hospitals would begin competing with each other for patients, thus reducing revenues for everybody. So they formed Blue Cross, with the help of legislation that enabled them to avoid the requirements of reserve requirements that true insurance companies had to have to guaranty solvency. Physicians, who were largely unaffiliated at that time, became concerned that Blue Cross would lead to hospitals insuring for, and providing, physician services in competition with them, causing their fees and income to drop. So the AMA preempted this by forming its own "insurance" plan for physician services, called Blue Shield.

The biggest boost to these private health insurance plans came from World War II. The Wage Stabilization Act of 1942 was enacted to prevent rapid wage escalation due to the shortage of available labor during wartime. But that act also allowed companies to use other incentives to attract workers, and gave favorable tax treatment to employer paid health insurance. In 1944, the Baylor Plan merged into Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas. By that time, more than 3 million Americans were covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield policies.

As part of the deal that enabled Blue Cross and Blue Shield to avoid the restrictions insurance companies faced, they were required to charge premiums based on a "community rating" system. That is, they had to charge the same premium to healthy people as they charged sicker ones. This opened the door for other companies to enter the increasingly lucrative health insurance market. Since most large companies tended to employ workforces that were younger and more healthy than society as a whole, they could cherry pick those companies and either avoid insuring people who would likely incur profit draining claims, or charge higher premiums to those groups.

When Medicare was first adopted in 1965, legislators feared that doctors would refuse to treat patients covered by that plan. So they agreed to reimburse doctors for their services at their "usual, customary and reasonable rate", and allowed them to bill their patients directly. In this way, doctors were able to charge patients more than Medicare would pay, forcing them to pay the difference. Medicare payments began spiraling out of control, reimbursement policy underwent major change in 1983. From then on, providers were reimbursed according to a set fee schedule based on diagnosis.

Today, the labor market is very different from the days when employer provided insurance became popular. Currently, there is no legal obligation for an employer to provide it, as long as they don't discriminate by offering it to some employees and not others. Just as many employers abandoned defined benefit pension plans when they became too costly, it is likely some will want to drop health insurance benefits as costs continue to rise.

Due to a combination of factors, such as an aging population, introduction of expensive diagnostic technology, skyrocketing malpractice awards and so on, health care expenditures in the US account for one of every six dollars of our gross domestic product (GDP). We spend 50% more per capita on health care than any other major country, and that gap is increasing every year.

With that as background, many Americans are reaching the conclusion that the status quo cannot be sustained. Yet any attempt to change it is met with hysterical opposition and demagoguery. The insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that are benefiting from the current system are pulling out all the stops to prevent changes to it.

There are no market forces that will keep the cost of healthcare from continuing to climb. Private industry practices which have resulted in their reaping obscene profits by discriminating against the very people they purport to cover and denying coverage to people who need it most or can’t afford to pay exorbitant premiums or deductibles are at the root of a process of economic erosion that is bankrupting American families at an alarming rate. They will eventually bankrupt the entire country if something is not done to alter the course we are on with things as they are.

Obama Must Learn To Play Hardball

2009-08-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

It is time for President Obama to learn to play hardball and stop acting as though there is a legitimate basis upon which to build or develop bipartisanhip or compromise.

1. He ought to have learned by now, that there is no bipartisanhip or compromise to be had with people who have decided to be uncooperative regardless of the nature of ANY proposal that he puts forward on health care or anything else for that matter.

2. He should know by now, that if he and the Democrats remove any significant element from the health care reform measures being considered, it will be the Republicans who will claim victory even as they continue to refuse to participate in the legislative process that brings a bill to the President's desk to be signed into law.

3. Any measure that is signed into law that does not include a public option that will signal a reduction of the runaway profits the insurers now enjoy, will be a capitulation to the insurance industry and other special interests that stand to gain from maintaining the status quo.

4. At this moment the Republicans have nothing to fear by resisting efforts at bi-partisanship and feel that they have nothing to gain from cooperating with the President.

5. It reqiures an entirely different set of skills to govern....The skills needed to get elected are quite different and not easily transferred....

6. Playing in the big leagues you have to learn and be willing to take bases with your spikes up. The people around him have to step up and give him the kind of advice he needs or his administration will be in the toilet before his first year is up.......

7. President Obama needs to be reminded the if LBJ and Dr. King had compromised and capitulated when the Dixiecratats and conservative Republicans were determined to derail Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation he would not be in office today....

8. It's time to step up and stand up, have some guts and show some backbone. Many of the people who are being frightened into resisting change wouldn't be frightened if the President showed that he was indeed ready, willing, and able to fight with everything he has at his disposal to ensure that the health care system and health care insurance were reformed or changed for the benefit and good of the entire nation.

6th Grade Reporter Scores Interview With President Obama

2009-08-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Damon Weaver has chosen a great way to begin building his resume.

KEC-TV is located in K.E. Cunningham/Canal Point Elementary School

Palm Beach, Florida

Exploiting Of The Defense Of White Womanhood

2009-08-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

It has been a staple of the Ameican political/social psyche that when a white woman is caused harm or distress of any kind as the result of an encounter with a black man, white men are obliged and entitled to seek and secure swift and certain justice for the purposes of protecting and defending the honor, dignty, and sanctity of the offended accusing white woman in particular, and white womanhood in general.

Nothing arouses the white American male visceral or emotional reflex to anger and violence more than a hysterical white woman pointing an accusatory finger at a black man. This has been the stuff of mob rule through murders, lynchings, and capital punishment in this country from day one. It is as true today as it ever has been...And now the target of that visceral anger and violence happens to be a black man who is President of the United States of America......

Olbermann and Matthews: Racism and Guns In The Public Square

2009-08-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

"I want my country back! I'm scared!"

2009-08-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Emotions and tempers run high at Senator Arlan Specter's Town Hall Meeting this morning in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

"I want my country back!"

A running theme in the protests against health care reform......Is this about health care/health insurance reform or something else entirely?

Does having a black man in the White house mean that THEIR contry has been taken away from them?

Here's a video from a townhall meeting held by Arkansas Democratic Reps. Vic Snyder and Mike Ross, where their townhall is hijacked by right-wingers.

....and in Hillsborough, Missouri:

As this is being posted, there are people carrying guns in relatively close proximity to the location in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where President Obama is to hold a Town Hall on reform of the health care system......

....Obama won the election, but there are those who seem to be resolved to not permitting him to be President....

Republican Misinformation E-mail On Proposed Health Care Reform Bill

2009-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

We are in the throes of a heated, acrimonious, sometimes even violent national debate about health care reform.....It is incumbent upon each of us to seek information about just what exactly is going on here and why...

What follows is the text of an anonymous Republican e-mail....
If the author of this email had actually read the bill, he or she would know better. But that is not the forte or intention of those who seek to misinform, disinform and disrupt the debates and the legislative process.....

Here are the facts. Anyone can verify them by reading the bill at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text:

Subject: Obama Health Care Plan Details
Everyone knows abortion and euthanasia counseling are included in the

health care bill. But there is more that should be a source of concern.

The following is a brief outline of this bill put together by Mat Staver of the Freedom Foundation and Liberty Counsel (contact info is at the end). The comments by the brief are by Staver.

Obama Health Care Plan Details

HR 3200 currently under consideration in the House of Representatives

Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!

Pg 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58HC Bill - Gov't will have real-time access to individual's finances & a National ID Health care card will be issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your banks accts for electronic funds transfer.

Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (ACORN).

Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC Exchange to bring priv HC plans under Govt control.

Pg 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private Health Care plans in the Exchange

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!

Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill - Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services.

Example - Translation for illegal aliens.

Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan

Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members - Your Health Care WILL be rationed

Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill - Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automat.enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.

Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue Govt on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly.

Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make.

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.

Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k & above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll

Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Biz w payroll btw 251k & 400k who doesnt provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesnt have acceptable HC according to Govt will be taxed 2.5% of income.

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay).

Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans financial and personal records.

Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC - "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that. Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.

Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same.

Pg 253 Line 10-18 Govt sets value of Dr's time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.

Pg 265 Sec 1131Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries.

Pg 268 Sec 1141 Fed Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.

Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!

Page 280 Sec 1151 The Govt will penalize hospitals for what Govt deems preventable readmissions. (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release.)

Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Drs, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Govt will penalize you.

Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.

Pg 317-318 lines 21-25,1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand.

pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!

Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 - Govt mandates established of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing.

Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Govt has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Govt plan.

Pg 354 Sec 1177 - Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people!

Pg 379 Sec 1191 Govt creates more bureaucracy - Telehealth Advisory Committee. HC by phone/Internet?

Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Govt mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!

Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Gov't provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.

Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Gov't has a say in how your life ends.

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "adv. care planning consult" will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.

Pg 429 Lines 10-12 "adv. care consultation" may incl an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Govt will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life

(NOTE FROM RJ: The above really does give the government the authority to determine who lives and dies, and when. A government bureaucrat really will be making this decision for you and your loved ones.)

Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Svcs here!!?

Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?

Pg 489 Sec 1308 The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. They will insert Government into your marriage. Pg 494-498 Govt will cover Mental Health Svcs including defining, creating, rationing those svcs

PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. - Hello Big Brother - Literally.

Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Gov't will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic med records.

Pg 503 lines 21-25 Gov't may secure data directly from any depart or agency of the US including your data.

Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The "Center" will collect data both published & unpublished (that means public & your private info)

PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.

PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from HC consumer reps - Can you say unions & ACORN?

PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.

PG 621 Lines 20-25 Gov't will define what Quality means in HC. Since when does Gov't know about quality?

Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, Govt will transfer $$ from to other Govt Trust Funds. More Taxes.

PG 624 "Quality" measures shall be designed to assess outcomes & functional status of patients.

PG 624 "Quality" measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc

Pg 628 Sec 1443 Gov't will give "Multi-Stake Holders" Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of "Quality" Measures.

Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those Multi-stake holder groups incl. Unions & groups like ACORN deciding HC quality.

Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Gov't may implement any "Quality measure" of HC Services as they see fit.

PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed "Quality Measures" for Physician Services & Dialysis Services.

Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision - Gov't wants to shine sunlight on Docs but not Govt.

Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections - Looks okay.

PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency - Gov't will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you'll live.

Pg 676-686 Gov't will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, incl. teaching hospitals.

Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the Gov't with an $18 million website?

PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of HC plan isn't in Gov't HC Exchange but you qualify for Fed aid, no payment.

PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secr gets complaints (ACORN) on HC provider or supplier, Gov't can do background check.

PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny HC providers/ suppliers admittance into HC Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.

Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable med equip or home med services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.

PG 722 Sec 1639 Gov't MANDATES Doctors must have face to face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Svcs.

PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same Gov't certifications will apply to Medicaid & CHIP (your kids)

PG 724 Lines 16-22 Gov't reserves rt to apply face to face certification for patient to ANY other HC service.

Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforce. proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Atty General access to ALL data.

PG 740-757 Gov't sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (Thats your tax dollars people)

Pg 757-762 Fed gov't will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)

Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin

Pg 765 Sec 1711 Gov't will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)

Pg 768 Sec 1713 Gov't - Nurse Home Visitation Svcs (Hello union paybacks)

Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Svcs include-economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.

Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services - "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." Govt ABORTIONS anyone

Pg 770 SEC 1714 Fed Gov't mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion & State Sovereign.

Pg 789-797 Gov't will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.

Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control Drs' education.

PG 801 Sec 1751 The Govt will decide which Health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!

Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc req. to register. Gov't takes over private payment sys.

Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Govt will identify individ. ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.

Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Govt Sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research= Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.

PG 829-833 Gov't will impose a fee on ALL private health ins. plans incl. self insured to pay for Trust Fund!

PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by Gov't for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.

Pg 838-840 Gov't will design & implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids & families expect kids.

PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Prog. includes Gov't coming into your house & telling you how to parent!!!

Pg 859 Gov't will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that's Billion.

Pg 865 The Gov't will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.

PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where Drs. perform mandatory HC for 2yrs for part loan repayment.

PG 876-892 The govt takes over the education of our Med students and Drs.

PG 898 The Govt will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health prof.

PG 898 The Public health workforce corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.

PG 898 The Public health workforce corps shall consist of officers of Regular & Reserve Corps of Service.

PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.

PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular & Reserve Officers. HC Draft?

PG 910 The Govt will develop, build & run Public Health Training Centers.

PG 913-914 Govt starts a HC affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.

PG 915 SEC. 2251. Govt MANDDATES Cultural & linguistic competency training for HC professionals.

Pg 932 The Govt will estab Preventative & Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000-Billion.

PG 935 21-22 Govt will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control YOU!!

PG 936 Govt will develop "Healthy People & National Public Health Perform. Standards" Tell me what to eat?

PG 942 Lines 22-25 More Gov't? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women's Health

PG 950- 980 BIG GOV'T core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems; health info sys, etc

PG 993 Gov't will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won't have a chance.

PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say GOVT Brainwash!

PG 1001 The Govt will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

Again, if the anonymous writer of this email had actually read the bill, he or she would know better.

Here are the facts. Anyone can verify them by reading the bill at: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy

2009-08-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

Gueast Post By Robert Reich - TPM

I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That's basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it's proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the Boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don't know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven't been made public.)

Let me remind you: Any bonanza for the drug industry means higher health-care costs for the rest of us, which is one reason why critics of the emerging healthcare plans, including the Congressional Budget Office, are so worried about their failure to adequately stem future healthcare costs. To be sure, as part of its deal with the White House, Big Pharma apparently has promised to cut future drug costs by $80 billion. But neither the industry nor the White House nor any congressional committee has announced exactly where the $80 billion in savings will show up nor how this portion of the deal will be enforced. In any event, you can bet that the bonanza Big Pharma will reap far exceeds $80 billion. Otherwise, why would it have agreed?

In return, Big Pharma isn't just supporting universal health care. It's also spending a lots of money on TV and radio advertising in support. Sunday's New York Times reports that Big Pharma has budgeted $150 million for TV ads promoting universal health insurance, starting this August (that's more money than John McCain spent on TV advertising in last year's presidential campaign), after having already spent a bundle through advocacy groups like Healthy Economies Now and Families USA.

I want universal health insurance. And having had a front-row seat in 1994 when Big Pharma and the rest of the health-industry complex went to battle against it, I can tell you first hand how big and effective the onslaught can be. So I appreciate Big Pharma's support this time around, and I like it that the industry is doing the reverse of what it did last time, and airing ads to persuade the public of the rightness of the White House's effort.

But I also care about democracy, and the deal between Big Pharma and the White House frankly worries me. It's bad enough when industry lobbyists extract concessions from members of Congress, which happens all the time. But when an industry gets secret concessions out of the White House in return for a promise to lend the industry's support to a key piece of legislation, we're in big trouble. That's called extortion: An industry is using its capacity to threaten or prevent legislation as a means of altering that legislation for its own benefit. And it's doing so at the highest reaches of our government, in the office of the President.

When the industry support comes with an industry-sponsored ad campaign in favor of that legislation, the threat to democracy is even greater. Citizens end up paying for advertisements designed to persuade them that the legislation is in their interest. In this case, those payments come in the form of drug prices that will be higher than otherwise, stretching years into the future.

I don't want to be puritanical about all this. Politics is a rough game in which means and ends often get mixed and melded. Perhaps the White House deal with Big Pharma is a necessary step to get anything resembling universal health insurance. But if that's the case, our democracy is in terrible shape. How soon until big industries and their Washington lobbyists have become so politically powerful that secret White House-industry deals like this are prerequisites to any important legislation? When will it become standard practice that such deals come with hundreds of millions of dollars of industry-sponsored TV advertising designed to persuade the public that the legislation is in the public's interest? (Any Democrats and progressives who might be reading this should ask themselves how they'll feel when a Republican White House cuts such deals to advance its own legislative priorities.)

We're on a precarious road -- and wherever it leads, it's not toward democracy.

Talking Points: Who Or What Is A Racist?

2009-08-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

The following is a series of definitions and descriptions which I have developed to push the discussion/debate/discourse on the question of racism a bit further:

1) A racist is a person who believes that a particular racial or ethnic group is inherently SUPERIOR and that other racial or ethnic groups are inherently INFERIOR and therefor is entitled to enjoy rights and privileges reserved only for the superior group which includes the exploitation, subjugation, and subordination of the inferior groups for the benefit of the superior group.

2) A racists is a person who seeks to propogate, promulgate, perpetuate, preserve, protect or defend a system, structure, organization, bureaucracy, society, culture or government which rests on the proposition that one racial or ethnic group is inherently superior and others are inherently inferior.

3) A racist is a person who has determined that he or she is entitled to or in fact does benefit directly or indirectly from the exclusionary rights and privileges conferred on him/her as a consequence of the notion that one group is inherently superior and that others are inherently inferior.

4) A racist is a person who believes that; irrespective of evidence or manifestation of merit, achievement, accomplishment, edict, sanction, pronouncement, documentation, stautory enactment, executive order, administrative rule & regulation or judicial decision, no person identified as being a member of the INFERIOR group can in any way be deemed to have changed or altered status so as to become a member of the SUPERIOR group.

5) A racist is a person who believs that the concept of racial equality is neither valid nor viable and thus resists any effort at achieving racial equality or efforts at maintaining racial equality as an appropriate societal or cultural goal or aim.

We can disagree without becoming disagreeable or we can agree to disagree. Either way, we can, and must, remain respectful and civil toward one another or the discussion goes nowhere.

From The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC: Hate Speech That Suggests Violence Is Not Protest Speech Or Debate Speech.

2009-08-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Woodstock: 40th Anniversary

2009-08-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

Make No Mistake, Resistance To Obama Is Racially Driven

2009-07-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

By Ron Powell

Let's be candid and perfectly clear on this. Republican and right wing resistance to President Obama's plans and policies is racially motivated.

The arguments against anything that President Obama has proposed or done thus far in his administration are not based on political ideology or alternative plans or proposals. The opposition to Obama is simple and clear, there will be no cooperation or bipartisan support for the black man in the White House.

Here is a list/summary of the opposition arguments:

1) He is not a citizen.

2) He is a socialist.

3) He is a fascist.

4) He is a not a Christian.

5) He is a racist.

The Republican wisdom has been to let the falsehoods run their course and when possible be supportive of people who maitain such views or positions.

The Republicans are focused and singleminded in their desire to "break him". There has not been nor will there be any effort to support plans or proposals that can result in any real change. Hence the Republican Party is not simply the party of "NO" but they have hitched their political futures and fortunes to being the party of the status quo...no change at all.......

The plan is simple. If they can keep Obama from making any changes for the good of the general public, they believe that people will become less enamored of Obama and his administration and thus be more disposed to voting against Obama and the Democratic Party during the next round of elections in 2010 and then in 2012.

The Republican Party has chosen to be the party that represents the protection and preservation of white peoples' interests while at the same time doing all that it can to promote the notion that anything that Obama does is for the benefit of and in the interests of black people, which are, they would have the less enlightened among us believe, by definition diametrically in oppsition to the interests of white people...In short the Republican party has become the party of and for racists.....Bill Maher said it best on his program ...."If you are a racist you are most likely a Republican." AMEN Bill, AMEN.........

Guest Post: How I Was Mistreated By A Cop And How It Changed Me: Perspective On The Gates Arrest

2009-07-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

by Jan Tessier, TPMCAFE

Not long after I became a cab driver in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, I was involved in a fender-bender accident on the city's north side. The officer who responded to the scene ignored the evidence that the other driver, a man in a suit in a rented Lexus, had struck me while making an illegal turn and allowed the man to leave, while writing me a ticket for failure to yield. The officer, a young man in his late twenties or early thirties, was patronizing, dismissive, and did not acknowledge anything I said except to tell me that he knew better. When my boss arrived at the accident site, I was understandably angry with the cop. I spoke with my boss, heatedly explaining the situation and the officer's attitude and behavior. I did not scream, stomp my feet, wave my arms, or use profane or abusive language. What I did say at the end of my rant at my boss was: "Well, I'm only a woman so what do I know?"

When the officer heard that last remark of mine, he exited his vehicle in a fury, screaming at me to put my hands behind my back. I was stunned and looked at my boss, who was also shocked. A couple of seconds later, my left arm was yanked behind my back and the cop was yelling in my ear like a drill sergeant: "I TOLD YOU TO PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK!" I was informed that I was "borderline disorderly" and that he could arrest me for my behavior, and that he was "sick and tired of people calling him a racist or a sexist".

Whereupon, I was handcuffed, stuffed into the back seat of his police car, and subjected to the sounds of the officer screaming at my boss, who did his best to calm him down. The cop harrangued me for a couple more minutes, wrote the ticket, then allowed me out of the vehicle where he removed the cuffs and told me he was releasing me.

I was a nervous wreck for days afterward. The incident triggered issues from childhood, causing something very much like PTSD. I was jumpy, frightened, and afraid to work. After much counseling from co-workers and friends, I finally filed a complaint with the police department, which was terrifying itself. I was convinced that the police would retaliate against me and my fellow cabbies. The Madison police department had a checkered history of civil rights violations, and although I was a white woman, I was also a poor white woman. There was the belief amongst most cabbies in the city that the MPD hated us and we didn't trust any of them, based on their treatment of us over the years. My treatment was further proof of that.

I contacted a journalist that I knew slightly and told him what had happened to me, asking him if he had ever heard of the MPD doing that to anyone else, and what would likely happen now that I had filed a complaint. This journalist, a fine writer named Bill Lueders, obtained my reluctant permission to research the story in order to write it up for his newspaper, the Isthmus. I was wary about having a story done, and even warier when he insisted on a picture of me to run with it. The story turned out to be a blessing, and I bless Bill Lueders to this day for writing it. (He has a fine book out now called "Cry Rape", a terrific investigative work about a visually impaired woman who was raped and later accused by MPD detectives of lying and filing a false report. It's available on Amazon and it's a great read. It explains the police department here much better than I can.)

The story garnered me more attention than I wanted or expected, but it was generally good attention. Total strangers greeted me on the street and even at Burger King's drive-up window to tell me how proud they were that I took on the Madison Police Department. The week after the story ran, the internal affairs investigation ruled that the officer who handcuffed me had been abusive, had detained me illegally, and had violated my civil rights. He was suspended for 11 days without pay and was ordered into a sensitivity training program before he could return to patrol. It was, I was told, one of the most severe penalties an officer had been stuck with, and I received an apology from the head of Internal Affairs to boot. I had won. I had won thanks to Bill Lueders, an honest female officer who had witnessed the incident (unbeknownst to us all), and thanks to those who had encouraged me to file the report.

Why is this story relevant to the Gates incident? This is why:

There are cops who are incredibly hung up on the power part of their jobs. They are always looking for someone to disrespect them so that they can flex their muscles and put people in their place. There are mentally unstable police officers. There are cops who are bigots and cops who are homophobes and cops who hate women. Does this mean that all police are assholes? No, of course not. It just means that if you are a cop AND an asshole, you're a much more dangerous person than someone who is not carrying a weapon with a license to use it.

Seemingly, I have less reason to want to take the side of the police in the Gates incident, and I don't take their side. I'm not taking Gates' side, either. What I want to say is that there are two sides to every story. I was definitely angry at the officer, but it was awful that the officer felt he had a right to put me in handcuffs and detain me and threaten me with arrest because he didn't like me saying something about being a woman. He had no right to do what he did. I, on the other hand, have a right to say: "I'm only a woman, what do I know?" without fear of being arrested. Professor Gates had a right to feel intimidated by a white man with a gun demanding ID from him while standing in his own home. I had a right to feel intimidated and belittled by this cop, because he was belittling me---and because the MPD has a history of doing that with people who are poor or people of color, or both.

Professor Gates was probably angrier than the situation called for, but Sgt. Crowley---who allegedly has scads of training in racial profiling---should have been cool enough and collected enough to defuse Professor Gates' fears. Instead, it became a pissing contest between two proud and decent men who let their tempers get away from them. What should have been a simple contact has now become a national debate.

I earned my perspective because of what happened to me. I know how bad some police officers are and can be. I know that people who have darker skin than mine are highly sensitive to threats from cops, and they have reason to be highly sensitive. I also know some very decent cops and one of my nephews is a new officer and I know that their jobs are tough and require a lot more of them than is normal for most of us. I find myself in the middle of this national argument, and I think it's imperative that people try to walk a mile in each other's shoes.

What happened to me was nothing compared to some of the horror stories I've read about and heard about regarding people being mistreated by police officers. I'm damned lucky. I'm also a better person for having gone through that event. It made me stronger, and more thoughtful. I hope the country can say the same once this incident finally gets resolved.

Pres.Obama to Prof. Gates and Sgt. Crowley: Let's Have Some Beers at the White House.

2009-07-25T00:55:00.000-07:00

The Historical Connection Between President Obama and Professor Gates

2009-07-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

There is a strong social/cultural/political link or relationship between the refusal of these stupid people to accept the documentation presented as proof of President Obama's citizenship and his right to be were he is, and the refusal of a "stupid" police officer to accept the documentation presented by Professor Gates regarding his residency and hence his right to be where he was...

During the period in which slavery was a central element of American social, cultural, economic, and political life, a "free" black man had to produce his "manumission" papers on demand or be subject to re-enslavement by virtually any white person who challenged the fact of his freedom. Even when such papers were produced, whites would more often than not uphold the challenge and force the unfortunate "free" man back into bondage....In some states it was illegal to free a slave.

The power to deny the legitimacy, validity or legality of such documents in the possession of blacks was routinely upheld and maintained by the legal system which was little more than a reflection of the white power structure that maintained the courts for their own purposes regarding matters of race....Not unlike what occurs today, particularly in the criminal justice system.....

Obama on the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates

2009-07-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

Black On Health Care From The Daily Show

2009-07-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

President Obama Speaks On Health Care Reform

2009-07-21T18:31:00.000-07:00

He Is A Citizen Of Kenya!, I Want My Country Back!

2009-07-21T03:31:00.000-07:00

This video of "Birthers" hijacking Rep. Mike Castle's town hall meeting, speaks volumes about the nature of the opposition to the Obama Presidency.

These people have the right to vote and the right to bear arms. They also have the right to be openly stupid and publicly ignorant often referred to as freedom of speech.......Many of them are mad as hell and don't know why. This is what the Republican Party will be banking on and drawing from in 2012....The post regarding a Palin/Bachmann ticket doesn't seem so far fetched when you place it in the context that this video provides.......

Palin-Bachmann 2012?

2009-07-20T04:52:00.001-07:00

by Ron Powell

By most accounts 46% of the people who voted during the last presidential election were willing to take a shot a putting Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency. That's an awful lot of people.....

Most of those folks are mad as hell that their candidates didn't win and the Republican party is doing all that it can to ensure that they stay that way until the next election. The Republicans are currently engaged in political obstruction and sabotage on a level rarely seen here. It will get worse as time progresses. The purveyors of fear are hard at work making plans to storm the citadel of the American democratic process and take back what they believe to be rightfully theirs.

They are currently desparate and are apparantly willing to try just about anything to accomplish their goal. The 2012 election looms on the horizon as their next chance to show the world that they would stop at nothing to get it all back.

So what about a Palin/Bachmann dog & pony show? It would be funny if it weren't so scary or is that; it would be scary if it weren't so funny. Impossible you say? The Republican campaign clown show will be something to see.

Remeber, they'll try anything and stop at nothing and at least 46% of the voting public are willing to let them have it their way.........

Guest Post: Robert Borosage, OEN

2009-07-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

Private Muscle and the Public Option in Health Care

We're headed into the end game for health care reform. The president has put himself in the arena. The insurance lobby is unleashing the scare campaign. A strong bill will pass the House. But at this point, too many Senators are still standing in the way.

The reform includes a broad range of measures to extend and improve care and help curb rising costs, but the epicenter of the debate is over what is called the "public option." Health care reform will mandate businesses provide insurance or pay into a general fund. Individuals will be responsible to get health insurance, with subsidies for those that can't afford it. We'll able to retain the insurance we have, or have the choice of a range of plans, including a public option, modeled after Medicare. A strong public option, competing with private insurance, is key to helping to get costs under control.

And costs must be brought under control. We now spend nearly 50% more on health care per capita than any other country, with mediocre results. We ration care by price, with some 47 million Americans uninsured. It costs the rest of us about $1000 a year to pay for the price of their care when they are forced finally to check themselves into emergency rooms.

Tell stories, not statistics, the pollsters tell us. But after adjusting for inflation, health care costs have soared by 58% since 2000; while wages for most Americans were stagnant or lost ground. As the auto companies showed, businesses increasingly can't afford health care. Families find it unaffordable. Virtually the entire long term debt challenge facing the US government is from the projected rise of health care costs. Get health care costs under control, the US has no long term fiscal problem. Fail to get them under control, the costs will bankrupt the federal government, state governments, businesses that offer health care (and increasing numbers won't) and families. Reform that gets costs under control is imperative. There is no choice.

A key to getting costs under control is the public plan. It can take advantage of its purchasing power to gain cost reductions. It can model best care practices. Private insurance -- which in most localities translates into a couple of dominant providers that don't compete on price -- will be forced to measure up with greater efficiency, innovation, and cost savings techniques.

Yet the debate in the Senate has been fixated on how to weaken or abandon the public plan rather than strengthen it. Republicans, for the most part, have taken themselves out of the adult conversation. Like first generation robots, they endlessly repeat the exact same words crafted by Frank Luntz - "government takeover," "no choice of doctor," "bureaucrats not doctors prescribing medicine." It's frankly pathetic. We have no choice as a society but to figure out how to fix this - and Republican leaders have chosen simply to peddle lies and scare stories and absent themselves from any serious discussion.

A gaggle of Democratic Senators -- led by Senator Baucus and the so-called "moderate" Senators -- have publicly thrashed around for ways to weaken or gut the public option. Outside groups like the Third Way have provided guidelines for disemboweling it. Some have suggested putting it off until private insurance competition proves it can't get costs under control -- as if that hasn't been proven over the last decades. Baucus suggested decentralized local "co-ops" would serve as the public option -- an idea notable for being both unmanageable and ineffective. Even if a network of coops somehow arose to insure that people had an option, they wouldn't have the clout to hold costs down and force private insurance to compete.

Others, remarkably, have detailed ways to deprive the public option of the power to lower costs. They call for a "level playing field" with private insurance. The public plan can't be subsidized, can't use its buying power to lower costs, can't take advantage of lower administrative overhead.

This sounds silly. We face soaring health care costs that will literally cripple our future. Surely, no Senator concerned about the country would work to undermine the key idea that would help get a lid on costs. They wouldn't, as Barack Obama warned, just "create a system where the insurance companies have more customers on Uncle Sam's dime, but still fail to meet their responsibilities." If you assume that, you would be wrong. They've done it repeatedly in the past.

For example, early in Bush's first term, Republicans decided that passing a prescription drug benefit for seniors would help cement Karl Rove's permanent majority. The benefit would help 41 million Americans with a soaring cost of care not yet covered by Medicare. It would also create massive new market for the drug companies. And, of course, Medicare could do what governments across the world do -- use its buying power to lower the cost of the drugs.

Only, when Republicans passed the law -- in the dead of night, twisting arms to get it done -- it actually prohibited Medicare from negotiating a lower price for drugs. Don't worry, they argued, competition would lower drug costs (even as they banned the import of cheaper drugs from Canada or Mexico).

Why? Well, using government muscle violated "free market" sensibilities. More importantly, the drug companies have one of the most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill. Billy Tauzin, the chair of the key House committee ushering the bill through, left soon after to get a two million dollar a year job as a head of Big PhRMA, the drug company lobby. Tom Scully, the administration's point person who helped secret the actual cost of the bill, was already negotiating his million dollar job as the debate was going on. In all, 15 congressional representatives, aides and administration officials involved in the debate left shortly thereafter to take jobs with the drug lobby. With a $9 billion increase in annual profits at stake, the drug industry got an amazing return on its investment.

Today, seniors pay 60% more for the same drugs than the price charged veterans becuse the Veteran's Administration does negotiate lower prices.

Extreme? Not really. The health insurance companies decided they should be allowed to compete with Medicare in providing health insurance options to seniors. Seniors would get more choice; Medicare, the bureaucratic behemoth, would get agile competition. Win, win, they argued, calling the program "Medicare Advantage."

Only the insurance companies couldn't compete with Medicare straight up. So they demanded subsidies from the government to enable them to vie with the Medicare program they described as horrendously inefficient, unpopular and bureaucratic.

And they stand to pocket an estimated $177 billion in excess payments over 10 years to compete with Medicare - subsidies that Obama would sensibly cut to help pay for health care reform.

Money talks. Nine Republican Senators on the key Senate Finance Committee wrote President Obama to say they would oppose any reform with a public plan. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the nine had had pocketed $17.7 million in contributions from insurance and health care interests over the course of their careers.. click here

Not surprisingly, the 20 largest insurance and drug companies and their trade associations have pumped up their lobbying by 41% over last year -- with reported spending over $75 million in the first quarter alone.

This is the corruption of crony capitalism; a compromised congress using taxpayer's money to enrich entrenched interests. Only now, the cost of this in health care is not sustainable. Dramatic reform is vital or we all follow the auto companies and go belly up.

So if your Senator says he or she is opposed to a public option, or wants a weaker public option, or a non-profit co-op that isn't big government, or prates about the "government takeover of health care," about losing your choice of doctor, about bureaucrats not doctors prescribing medicine, don't fall for it. Either he or she is either utterly clueless or more likely is representing the interests of the industry, not the voters.

This business as usual is no longer affordable or acceptable. We shouldn't let cynicism lower our expectations. Soaring health care costs and the human tragedy of those without insurance can no longer be ignored. Reform can't be postponed. It is a stunning disservice that Republicans have taken themselves out of serious discussion. And it is an open scandal that Senators are catering to the private insurance industry that has profited from the problem rather than helping to solve it. We must expect more and demand more from those given the privilege to represent us.

Remembering Walter Cronkite

2009-07-19T03:16:00.000-07:00

Pres. Obama Speaks At NAACP 100th Anniversy Convention

2009-07-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

Michael's Daughter Paris

2009-07-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

Smile: Michael's Favorite Song, Jermain's Tribute

2009-07-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

Sanford and His Girlfriend: Their E-Mail and 2 Videos

2009-07-04T22:23:00.001-07:00

Exactly one year ago, on the 4th of July, 2008, Governor
Mark Sanford (R-SC) sent his Argentine girlfriend an e-mail. The exchange that ensued is the stuff of TV mini-series scripting and the like. You can't make this up any better than what's written here by the Governor and his woman. The video is an extra treat for those of you who revel in such titalating material.
Mark Sanford's Argentine girlfriend, Maria Belen Chapur, worked as a television journalist. This video, in Spanish, was transmitted live from New York a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Chapur's report begins 35 seconds into the video. Brush up on your Spanish:

These are the unedited e-mails between South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his Argentine girlfriend, Maria Belen Chapur, as published Thursday, 2 July, 2009, by McClatchy's (SC) The State newspaper. The State received the e-mails anonymously in December, 2008, but was unable to confirm their authenticity until Wednesday, 1 July, 2009.

----------------------------------------------

From: Mark Sanford

To: Maria

Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 03:09:44 +0000

Dearest,

You are glorious and I hope you really understand that. You do not need a therapist to help you figure your place in the world. You are special and unique and fabulous in a whole host of ways that are worth a much longer conversation. To be continued ...

Have been having a few email problems as I am getting email through an aircard at the farm, where access to computer world is more than tough. Please let me know if you have gotten my last two eamils (sic) so I know it is working in getting to your part of the world ...

Another glorious day outside. Hope you are doing well, and am anxious to hear about your week. Know that I miss you. Unbeleivably (sic) hard to imagine it has been a week. Please also send your mailing address as I want to send you an insignificant something next week when I am back in civilization that I think you might find interesting given our conversation.

Want to write an indepth note with some thoughts on our visit when I know you are getting these emails. Hugs and much love. M

----------------------------------------------

From: Maria

Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 4:26 PM

To: Mark Sanford

Subject: RE:

My beloved, (hope you also change the dearest ...)

I’am (sic) reading your last two mails sitting outside with a great seaview here in Ilhabela, a beautiful island near Sao Paulo. Have been thinking of you while watching the beautiful blue sea (a) great part of my day and remembering with a great smile on my face, the time we had spent together. As I told you before, you brought happiness and love to my life and (I) will take you forever in my heart. I wasn’t aware till we met last week, the strong feelings I had for you, and believe me, I haven’t felt this since I was in my teen ages, when afterwards I got married. I do love you, I can feel it in my heart, and although I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to meet again this has been the best that has happened to me in a long time You made me realized (sic) how you feel when you realy (sic) love somebody and how much you want to be beside the beloved. Last Friday I would had stayed embrassing (sic) and kissing you forever.

Don’t know why you think you bore me with the description of your farm. I am an urban girl but that doesn’t inhibit me from loving other things, specially if they are the ones you love. I was able to imagine the place with every single detail you wrote and had trassmitted (sic) me the love you have for your farm. It sounds to be a great and peaceful place and loved you had shared it with me.

Thanks for your beautiful words, I don’t know if I do need or not therapy but I have to find my new place in this new stage of my life. Life has been very generous with me and I want to return at least a little bit of what I have been given. I have time and think helping others who haven’t been as lucky as me will do me fine.

My address is (deleted by The State). It will be great finding at home once I am back, whatever you send me, I’ll keep it near my bed so as to feel you nearer.

Miss you so much... love you from the deepest of my heart. Sweet kisses.

----------------------------------------------

From:

To:

Subject: RE:

Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 01:42:46 -0400

Beloved back to you...

Got back an hour ago to civilization and am now in Columbia after what was for me a glorious break from reality down at the farm. No phones ringing and tangible evidence of a day’s labors. Though I have started every day by 6 this morning woke at 4:30, I guess since my body knew it was the last day, and I went out and ran the excavator with lights until the sun came up. To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the background, the tranquility that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds — and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt. It is admittedly weird but one of my more favorite ways of escaping the norms, constant phone calls and formalities that go with the office — and it probably fits with my weakness in doing rather than being — though you opened up a new chapter last week wherein I was happy and content just being. Last point worth further discussion. Afternoon projects had me outside and by days (sic) end I pretty much looked like a homeless person ... but in this case a very content one. Enough about my love of heavy equipment and woods at sunrise ...

While I was getting exhausted with one project after another at Coosaw work week, you were basking (I’m certain gloriously) on the beach..

Sounds great, hope to hear more about what sounds a great spot.

Will now finally get some sleep and write you a longer note with a few more profound thoughts tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime I send my love and hope you know I am thinking of you.. M

P.S. I do not want to raise expectations, when I say I will send something insignificant I promise I will do as I say! It wont (sic) be worthy of bedside placement ... was just going to find the movie the Holiday as we had spoken of it last Thursday. Its music was pleasant and made me think of you — its mood and the notion of a holiday (wrapped up in our case over two days) certainly fit as well ... (though our visit in some ways for me was as well less of a holiday than it was uncovering and realization of some things and feelings that again are worth longer conversation)

Had also hoped to find the cd of a song that played as I was flying home and also20made (sic) me think of you. Who knows if I can find the music ... so all you may be stuck with is a long released movie — and if you put it by your bed I really be worried! Love you, good night and kisses back to you ...

----------------------------------------------

From: Maria

Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 8:14 PM

To: Mark Sanford

Subject: RE:

My love,

I decided to rent a car and went by myself to the other side of the Island where it is located one of the best hotels. It’s name is DPNY Hotel and I find it quite interesting. I had lunch there in a restaurant on the beach with great seaview. I sat under a palm and ate a mixed green salad with grilled abacaxi (pineapple) and honey. in the afternoon I sunbathe and read on the beach. I ve started here “The age of turbulence” from Alan Greenspan which I highly recomend (sic) you. At five I left back to the small town had a coffee with pao de queijo (cheese bread which is something tipycal (sic) from Brazl (sic) and it’s delicious) read some magazines, walked around and finally back to meu Pousada that is hotel.

In the Island is taking place the sailing week and Rolex competition and this was the reason for choosing the place and also why luckily I am most of the time by my own. It may sound bad but it’s how I feel it. As I told you I shouldn’t have done this trip but I would have felt worst if I wouldn’t have come because it was too over the date, he is a very nice guy, great heart ... but unfortunately I am not in love with him ... You are my love ... something hard to believe even for myself as it’s also a kind of impossible love, not only because of distance but situation.

Sometimes you don’t choose things, they just happen ... I can’t redirect my feelings and I am very happy with mine towards you. Hope you have had a good day, guess with much work.

Send you all my love and goodnight kisses. Sweet dreams from down south. I’ll dream with you.

----------------------------------------------

From: Mark Sanford

To: Maria

Subject: RE:

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:24:54 -0400

Sweetest,

It was indeed a long day. I am most jealous of your salad under the palm tree.

Three thoughts in one note now that I have a moment. One the travel schedule is about to get real busy (and this distresses me for the way it may well make it more difficult to get your notes over the next few weeks), two unfortunately all the feelings you describe are mutual, and three where do we go from here?

One, tomorrow leave at 5 am for New York and meetings. Will think about you on its streets and wish I was going to be there later in the month when you are there. Tomorrow night back to Philadelphia for the start of the National Governor’s Conference through the weekend. Back to Columbia for Tuesday and then on Wednesday, as I think I had told you, taking the family to China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Thailand and then back through Hong Kong on world wind tour. Few days home then to Bahamas for 5 days on a friends boat for the last break of the summer. The following weekend have been asked to spend it out in Aspen, Colorado with McCain — which has kicked up the whole VP talk all over again in the press back home.

Two, mutual feelings. I have been specializing in staying focused on decisions and actions of the head for a long time now — and you have my heart. You have oh so many attributes that pulls it in this direction. Do you really comprehend how beautiful your smile is? Have you been told lately how warm your eyes are and how they softly glow with the special nature of your soul. I remember Jenny, or someone close to me, once commenting that while my mom was pleasant and warm it was sad she had never accomplished anything of significance. I replied that they were wrong because she had the ultimate of all gifts — and that was the ability to love unconditionally. The rarest of all commodities in this world is love. It is that thing that we all yearn for at some level — to be simply loved unconditionally for nothing more than who we are — not what we can get, give or become. There are but 50 governors in my country and outside of the top spot, this is as high as you can go in the area I have invested the last 15 years of my life — my getting here came as no small measure because I had that foundation of love and support so critical to getting up in the morning and feeling you could give and risk because you already had a full tank of love in the emotional bank account. Since our first meeting there in a wind swept somewhat open air dance spot in Punta del Este, I felt that you had that same rare attribute. Above all else I love that inner beauty about you. That gift of yours is going to make a tremendous difference in (The State deleted sons’ names) life — and in anyone’s life who is blest to be touched by yours — you need to rest very comfortably in that fact. As I mentioned in our last visit, while I did not need love fifteen years ago — as the battle scars of life and aging and politics have worn on this has become a real need of mine. You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that is so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner — and unlike you I would never do that!

Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true — at the same time we are in a hopelessly — or as you put it impossible — or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening [sic] strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes (and yes this is true even if you did occasionally tantalize me with sexual details over the years!) — but it was all safe. Where we are is not. I have thought about it and in some ways feel I let you down in letting these complications come into a friendship that I hope will last till death. In all my life I have lived by a code of honor and at a variety of levels know I have crossed lines I would have never imagined. I wish I could wish it away, but this soul-mate feel I alluded too is real and in that regard I sure don’t want to be the person complicating your life. I looked to where I often look for advice and counsel, and in I Corinthians 13 it simply says that, “ Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude, Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things”. In this regard it is action that goes well beyond the emotion of today or tomorrow and in this light I want to look for ways to show love in helping you to live a better — not more complicated life. I want to help (one of Maria’s sons) with film guys that might help his career, etc. I also don’t want you walking20away (sic) from some guy (I take it the younger guy you mentioned a t dinner) because of me — and what we both have to see as an impossible situation. I better stop now least this really sound like the Thornbirds — wherein I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie’s arms. The bottom line is two fold, my heart wants me to get on a plane tonight and to be in your loving arms — my head is saying how do we put the Genie back in the bottle because I sure don’t want to be encumbering you, or your options or your life. Put differently, given I love you, I don’t want to be part of the reason you are having less than an ideal week in what sounds like a cool spot.

Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before — so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know ... In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul. I love you ... sleep tight. M

PS. I will make it a point in NY tomorrow to drop by a store and get that movie I promised to send your way ... I am encouraged to know you will not keep it beside the bed least we have tangible evidence of two pathetic figures missing each other far too much to live a few thousand miles apart!

----------------------------------------------

From: Maria

To: Mark Sanford

Subject: RE:

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:22:29 +0000

You have not brought complication or are not bringing complication to my life, on the contrary you’ve fullfiled (sic) me with happiness and made me aware how you can feel when you love somebody. I can think with my head but only feel with my heart so I can’t avoid it even knowing is hopelessly impossible. The guy is the one I told you ,just three years younger than me, but I am not in love and won’t fall in love with time so I have to continue my way ... be alone for some time and if I am lucky enough will someday feel towards somebody, what I today feel for you. At least you made me realized it can happen.

I don’t know if I did understood (sic) well about what was unsafe or not safe. Before our mails use to have other contents ... if you want to go back to that and don’t write love things and so on because is not safe for you it’s ok with me, i (sic) love you and by no way would do something that can harm you, so please let me know.

I don’t know how we figure all this out and I am not interested in knowing. I prefer to think we’ll see each other again somewhere sometime in this life and in next. Will be missing you till then... . .

Have a great trip with the ones you love ... they are the kind of trips you will never forget and for your boys will be unworthable (sic) not only because of the places they will visit but for sharing all that time with you.

Send you millions of kisses that will last till we get in touch again. best wishes from the deepest of my heart.

P.S.: I don’t want to put the genius (sic) back in the bottle because I truly believe in freedom. I never gave you sexual details but now you don’t need to imagine you can close your eyes and just remember. I’ll do the same.

OOPS!

America Is Beautiful

2009-07-03T05:25:00.001-07:00

With all of her flaws, faults, and foibles, The United States of America is the best country in the world, and remains the last, best hope of humankind.....

Bill "Scoop Newsworthy" Cosby tries to get in to a Jackson 5 rehearsal.

2009-06-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson: Thriller

2009-06-26T18:31:00.000-07:00

MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD AT 50

2009-06-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST

CLAIMS MICHAEL JACKSON AT AGE 50

GOODBYE MJ

Guest Post: Not That 'Neda' - How the Wrong Photo Became an Icon

2009-06-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

By Kathy Riordan, Open Salon

When the graphic video of a young girl dying on the streets of Tehran was first uploaded to the Internet last Saturday, there was no name attached to it. All we knew was the face of a young girl struggling for her last breaths after a sniper's bullet exploded in her heart, as others
attempted to save her.

Later we learned her name was 'Neda.'

Hamed R., the Iranian expatriate living in The Netherlands who was first to put the video online and bring it to the attention of the media, told those inquiring he thought her name was possibly 'Neda Soltani.' Not long after that people posted the name online; it was only a few steps from there before someone discovered a photo attached to the name 'Neda Soltani' and started using it in tribute to the young woman who'd died.

The photo erroneously attributed to the young Neda who died in the video. This photo belongs instead to a living woman with the same name.

It was a photo of a young woman in a brightly colored headscarf, said to be a passport photo, and the resemblance was close enough people believed it was the Neda who'd met an untimely death on the streets of Tehran. It was put on posters, used at memorials, and incorporated into online tributes.

Problem is, it wasn't the same Neda.

Dr. Amy Bean, one of the first to see the disturbing images in the video last weekend, was so intrigued to learn the identity of the young girl that she decided to do her own sleuthing. Finding a 'Neda Soltani' online, she sent a message. That Neda responded to Amy, telling her she was not the woman in the video, but when she did, her photo appeared on Amy's Facebook page. Others saw it attached to the name, and without realizing it was the wrong photo, started using it all over the Internet.

The living Neda Soltani was disturbed to suddenly see her image being used everywhere, online, on television and in the press, and solicited Amy's help in alerting the media to get it removed, no easy task. Some people have taken the photo and started using it as their own avatar online, and for many, it has become inseparable with the martyrdom of a young girl.

Because of the confusion, the 'real' Neda Soltani in the photo can no longer use her Facebook page or display her photo, and has fought an uphill battle trying to get individuals and the media to stop using it.

In recent days we've heard from family and friends of the young woman who died in the video, whom we've come to know was Neda Agha-Soltan, and they've supplied several photos for use in the press. Unfortunately, however, many people in both social and mainstream media are continuing to use the photo of another Neda, a living Neda, and making it into an icon of a movement.

Family supplied photo of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who died in the video on the streets of Tehran.

President Obama Speaks Out On The Situation In Iran

2009-06-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

For Fathers' Day: Thanks Dad

2009-06-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

MITCHELL “MITCH” POWELL

NOVEMBER 3, 1919 - JUNE 14, 2009

Thanks, Dad:

Thanks for teaching us baseball and basketball. Thanks for the listening, the lectures, and the loans. Thanks for the understanding and the support you’ve given us throughout the years. Thanks for remembering that you shouldn’t get in the way when you couldn’t show us the way….And thanks for the time.

Thanks, Dad; Goodbye…………

Ron Powell: Eldest Son

The Republican Party of Refusal and Obstruction

2009-06-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell

The civil unrest that has been spawned by the results of the election in Iran is a very revealing and telling occurence. While it is quite easy for people to appreciate how to keep score to determine the "winner" in the democratic process we call an election, we (Western European Democracies) been haven't done a good job of providing instruction or direction regarding the role and function of the "loser".

Then it came to me. The role and function of the loser is to simply go away. When one faction wins an election. They often begin to function as if the losers don't exist or shouldn't have existed to begin with.

Losers are, more often than not, rounded up, arrested, charged, and imprisoned often for being guilty of nothing more than being on the short end of the "democratic" electoral stick.

In a demcracy, the role of the loser(s) is to become the loyal opposition, and continue as legitimate proponents of the idea that even the losers in an election should continue to have a say in the policies and practicies of the government now in the hands of, or being controlled by, the winners. In places like Iran, the notion of keeping score in the election on a zero-sum basis, hasn't been translated into the notion that zero-sum elections don't necessarily mean winners take all and the losers get nothing.

The all or nothing at all approach to elections, especially in places where democracy is still a virgin concept, can result in some rather bizzare, by our standards, political behavior such as violence and revolution. Clear evidence of the fact that we have not done the job of teaching peaceful transition or transfer of power from one group to another. That is one of the cornerstones of the political democracy that we attempt to export to places that know nothing of "the rule of law" and "constitutional representative government". If the losers are treated as though they have been conquered or vanquished, the only recourse they may perceive is overthrow of the government or non-compliance with the rule of the laws as promulgated by their governing bodies.
Which brings me to the point of this post. The Republicans lost. Conservatives and conservatism is no longer the order of the day regarding control of the reins of political and economic power. To make matters worse, in their view, a black man is now seated at the head of the table, the very place where, as the unwritten, uspoken but very real rules of the political game in America go, that at no time and under no circumstances should any person of color gain control of the government, and take the seat at the head of the table.

In their view, the rule of exclusion has been broken, so rather than play by the written, generally accepted or traditional rules of the game ie become a "loyal" opposition and function in the role of the necessary counterbalance to the principal of "majority rule", the Republicans have decided to quit playing by the rules and act like the losers of an election in a third world democracy.

They have determined that rather than become the loyal opposition, they seem content to become "outside agitators" and teach and preach sedition, secession, and civil disobedience based on the distorted notion that the government is somehow not legitimate and therefor need not be acknowledged.

They will not be a loyal opposition but disloyal obstructionists. They have become not only the party of "No" but the party of "No way". They are becoming, in an ever more increasing fashion, the party of sore losers, disgruntled fanatics, right wing extremists, and the boldly violent lunatic fringe.

Despite some of President Obama's best efforts, the Republicans are refusing to take a place at the table of democratic discourse and debate, because a they believe that a black man is seated in the wrong place. They refuse totake a seat while he sits at the head of the table in what theycontinue to insist is "their" own house.

Sarah Palin On The Today Show With Matt Lauerman, Fires Back At David Letterman

2009-06-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it....................

Get On The Ground Gandma!

2009-06-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

VIEW TASER STOP

Video On The McCarthy Hearings: A Defining Moment In US And TV History

2009-06-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

By Ron Powell

It may very well have been the McCarthy hearings that caused the TV industry to realize the nature and degree of the potential for impact on American political life and ultimately American political history. From that point on, TV became aware of its power and capacity to influence, if not control, public opinion, and the collective decision making and thought process. That power has grown steadily ever since.

Guest Blog: Miss California Fired (Finally!)

2009-06-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

By Susan Cross, Open Salon

Buh Bye Now!

Finally, a little sanity in an otherwise crazy world. Carrie Prejean has been stripped of her “Miss California USA 2009” title. It was only a month or so ago that Donald Trump (who is the owner of the Miss Universe Organization) opted to allow her to maintain her title in spite of semi-nude photos surfacing, her lying about the existence of said photos, and in my mind, the more important issue of her answer to Perez Hilton’s question regarding her position on gay marriage (she’s against it).

So if none of that was enough in Miss Universe executive director Keith Lewis’s or Donald Trump’s mind to warrant firing her, I was shocked to hear that she had indeed been let go. What was the deciding infraction? According to Trump it was her failure to “honor her contract with the Miss California USA Organization.” Apparently you can be a liar, a semi-nude model, and a homophobe as long as you show up at your scheduled appearances.

Thank God she did not. Good riddance Carrie.

Congratulations Tami Farrell, Miss Malibu.

Miss California USA 2009

Video: Obama Orders Colbert's Haircut

2009-06-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Obama Orders Stephen's Haircut - Ray Odierno

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Keyboard Cat

Journalists Treated Harshly?

2009-06-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

by Ron Powell
June 8, 2009, 3:42AM

Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling, reporters for The Current TV Network, were sentenced to 12 years hard labor for allegedly crossing into North Korea's territory while doing a story on human trafficking.

Current TV is an Emmy award-winning independent media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt.

A few questions:

Didn't they know where they were? If not, why not?
Were they invited guests or were they interlopers or tresspassers?
Have we heard much from the leaders/owners of the company?
What were two nice kids like them doing in a place like that anyway?
Have American journalists suddenly become targets?
Is there more to this than we are being told?
As a condition for permission to enter, aren't journalists required to state their reason(s) or purpose(s) for being in countries which restrict movements and activities within their borders?
Aren't there consequences for exceeding the bounds/limits of the conditions upon which such permission is granted?

I agree that the sentence was harsh and seems excessive by our standards, but there are some important lessons to be learned here.

Beginning with understanding and appreciating the fact that we, as American citizens, cannot assume that we have some kind of special status or license to ignore, avoid, or evade the consequences of not abiding by, or stictly adhering to, the laws of foreign countries because our law differs from theirs.

Suppose the sentence was "twelve lashes with a bamboo cane" and then deportation as in another case. We can't break the law in places like North Korea and then expect to be allowed to run home because we don't like the law, the punishment or the people enforcing it......

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do......"

Larry the Loophole: The War On Greed and A PSA

2009-06-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Obama In Cairo

2009-06-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

Listen to what HE said, not what they say he said.......

The OFFICIAL transcript, for those who can't hear the video.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
(Cairo,Egypt)

________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)

We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world -- tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. All this has bred more fear and more mistrust.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. I know there's been a lot of publicity about this speech, but no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have this afternoon all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." (Applause.) That is what I will try to do today -- to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Now part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I'm a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities -- (applause) -- it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. (Applause.)

I also know that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they've excelled in our sports arenas, they've won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers -- Thomas Jefferson -- kept in his personal library. (Applause.)

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. (Applause.)

But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. (Applause.) Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words -- within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum -- "Out of many, one."

Now, much has been made of the fact that an African American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. (Applause.) But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores -- and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average. (Applause.)

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it. (Applause.)

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations -- to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. When innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. (Applause.) That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

And this is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared. (Applause.)

Now, that does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite: We must face these tensions squarely. And so in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together.

The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam. (Applause.) We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security -- because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity. I'm aware that there's still some who would question or even justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

Now, make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military -- we seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

And that's why we're partnering with a coalition of 46 countries. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths -- but more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as -- it is as if he has killed all mankind. (Applause.) And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. (Applause.) The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism -- it is an important part of promoting peace.

Now, we also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who've been displaced. That's why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend on.

Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. (Applause.) Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future -- and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. And I have made it clear to the Iraqi people -- (applause) -- I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own. And that's why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all of our troops from Iraq by 2012. (Applause.) We will help Iraq train its security forces and develop its economy. But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron.

And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year. (Applause.)

So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own. (Applause.)

For decades then, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It's easy to point fingers -- for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. (Applause.)

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires. (Applause.) The obligations -- the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them -- and all of us -- to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)

And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society. Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel's legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. (Applause.) We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have been shed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra -- (applause) -- as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer. (Applause.)

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests. It's about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that's why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. (Applause.) And any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I'm hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

The fourth issue that I will address is democracy. (Applause.)

I know -- I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere. (Applause.)

Now, there is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: Governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments -- provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they're out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. (Applause.) So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Barack Obama, we love you!

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.) The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it's being challenged in many different ways.

Among some Muslims, there's a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of somebody else's faith. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld -- whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. (Applause.) And if we are being honest, fault lines must be closed among Muslims, as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit -- for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can't disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

In fact, faith should bring us together. And that's why we're forging service projects in America to bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. That's why we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations. Around the world, we can turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action -- whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster.

The sixth issue -- the sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights. (Applause.) I know –- I know -- and you can tell from this audience, that there is a healthy debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. (Applause.) And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

Now, let me be clear: Issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, we've seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons. (Applause.) Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity -- men and women -- to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. And that is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams. (Applause.)

Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity.

I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence into the home. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and change in communities. In all nations -- including America -- this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we lose control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities -- those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.

But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradictions between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies enormously while maintaining distinct cultures. The same is true for the astonishing progress within Muslim-majority countries from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai. In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.

And this is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. Many Gulf states have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century -- (applause) -- and in too many Muslim communities, there remains underinvestment in these areas. I'm emphasizing such investment within my own country. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas when it comes to this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.

On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America. (Applause.) At the same time, we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in online learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo.

On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create more jobs. We'll open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, grow new crops. Today I'm announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.

All these things must be done in partnership. Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.

The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world that we seek -- a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together.

I know there are many -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort -- that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There's so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country -- you, more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort -- a sustained effort -- to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It's easier to start wars than to end them. It's easier to blame others than to look inward. It's easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There's one rule that lies at the heart of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. (Applause.) This truth transcends nations and peoples -- a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells us: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (Applause.)

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

END
2:05 P.M. (Local)

Rachel Maddow On Pro-Life Terrorism

2009-06-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

"If you go to the Web site of the Army of God, you will find hagiographic websites for anti-abortion terrorist movement heroes, like Paul Hill and Eric Rudolph and Shelly Shannon. You can actually scroll through pages and pages of mug shots and descriptions of bombings and shootings and murders and attempted murders -- all praising the perpetrators, and even suggesting ways to get away with the same types of crimes that these people committed but you could do it without getting caught."

If men could get pregnant, refusing the procedure would be a criminal offense resulting in jail time and or a fine. This is not about the right to choose whether or not to have an anbortion. It is about the fundamental human right to choose who and what you wish to be and when.

No human being should be forced into any situation, circumstance, staus or condition by virtue of any factor that may be arbitrarily used to distinguish one person from another whether that be social, cultural, or biological.

The Huxtables: The 1st Black 1st Family?

2009-05-31T00:21:00.001-07:00

This scene from the "Cosby Show" is rated as one of the best TV moments of all time. How much impact did the Huxtable Family have on the willingness of Americans to put a black family into the White House?

During the many years of its run as one of the most watched programs on television, race was never an issue nor was class. Never was heard a disparaging word, and not at any time did one of the Huxtable children come home and report that the "N" word had been uttered in their presence much less hurled at him or her in anger or as an act of hostility.
Are the Obamas an extension or product of the Huxtable fantasy? Has white America created or adopted a new myth regarding race relations?

Ten Things To Know About Judge Sonia Sotomayor

2009-05-31T00:10:00.001-07:00

1. Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the bench than any Supreme Court justice in 100 years. Over her three-decade career, she has served in a wide variety of legal roles, including as a prosecutor, litigator, and judge.

2. Judge Sotomayor is a trailblazer. She was the first Latina to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was the youngest member of the court when appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. If confirmed, she will be the first Hispanic to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

3. While on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has consistently protected the rights of working Americans, ruling in favor of health benefits and fair wages for workers in several cases.

4. Judge Sotomayor has shown strong support for First Amendment rights, including in cases of religious expression and the rights to assembly and free speech.

5. Judge Sotomayor has a strong record on civil rights cases, ruling for plaintiffs who had been discriminated against based on disability, sex and race.

6. Judge Sotomayor embodies the American dream. Born to Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in a South Bronx housing project and was raised from age nine by a single mother, excelling in school and working her way to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University and to become an editor of the Law Journal at Yale Law School.

7. In 1995, Judge Sotomayor "saved baseball" when she stopped the owners from illegally changing their bargaining agreement with the players, thereby ending the longest professional sports walk-out in history.

8. Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the environment and against business interests in 2007 in a case of protecting aquatic life in the vicinity of power plants, a decision that was overturned by the Roberts Supreme Court.

9. In 1992, Judge Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate without opposition after being appointed to the bench by George H.W. Bush.

10. Judge Sotomayor is a widely respected legal figure, having been described as "...an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind," "highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character would be assets," and "a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity."

The Souter Resignation: Replacing Thurgood Marshall: Update

2009-05-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Sonia Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Sotomayor for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the seat of retiring Justice David Souter. In doing so he appears to have found a replacement for Thurgood Marshall.

Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, to Puerto Rican parents. She grew up in a housing project in the South Bronx, a short walk from Yankee Stadium. She was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at age eight. Her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education, died the following year. Her mother, Selena Sotomayor, a nurse, raised Sotomayor and her younger brother, Juan Sotomayor, who is now a doctor. Sotomayor has often stated that her mother is her life inspiration. In 1976, Sotomayor married while a student at Princeton University. She and her husband divorced in 1983; they did not have children.

Sotomayor graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. She earned her A.B. from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 1976. Sotomayor obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Sotomayor then served as an Assistant District Attorney under prominent New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, prosecuting robberies, assaults, murders, police brutality, and child pornography cases. In 1984, she entered private practice, making partner at the commercial litigation firm of Pavia & Harcourt, where she specialized in intellectual property litigation.

Considered a political centrist by the American Bar Association Journal and others, Sotomayor was nominated on November 27, 1991, by President George H. W. Bush to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by John M. Walker, Jr. She became the youngest judge in the Southern District and the first Hispanic federal judge anywhere in New York State.

Colin Powell Responds

2009-05-25T04:34:00.001-07:00

In his May 24 appearance on CBS' "Face The Nation", Colin Powell reacts and responds to questions and assertions about his loyalty to the Republican Party. He also comments on the closing of "Gitmo", national security, and waterboarding.

KEITH OLBERMAN ON DICK CHENEY

2009-05-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

THE PLOT THICKENS....

Food For Thought

2009-05-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

Food For Thought
By Ron Powell

There isn't, and never really was, a "middle class". The “middle class” is the fictional socio-economic "group" created by sociologists for purposes of quantifying certain findings in studies that nobody really cares about or rarely, if ever, uses. The “middle class” is nothing more than poor people living on credit.

Historically the majority of white people in America have voted for Republican candidates in the belief that the economically, politically and socially conservative republicans would see to it that black progress would not encroach upon white lives, white livelihoods, and white life styles. Since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement more than forty years ago, the expectation was that the Republicans would keep black people at bay economically, politically, and socially, to ensure that blacks would not take away all to which whites felt entitled, or all for which whites felt that they had worked and thus earned. Now the country has turned to a black man in the hope that he will do for them precisely what many whites had repeatedly voted for, and elected, Republicans to not do for black people.

Why are the ‘Right to Lifers’ also in favor of capital punishment?

Anyone who believes that water-boarding isn’t torture, should be required to answer the question while they're being water-boarded.

The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The phrases employed are taken from the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Very similar words ('No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment') appear in Article Five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/217, December 10, 1948). The right, under a different formulation ('No one shall be subjected to [...] inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.') is found in Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950). The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) also contains this fundamental right in section 12 and it is to be found again in Article Four (quoting the European Convention verbatim) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000). It is also found in Article 16 of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

You lost your job but not your skills, experience, and expertise. It’s good to have faith and hope but develop and execute a plan. In doing so, be clear, concise, compelling, consistent, and committed. Find your passion and be persistent in the pursuit of getting paid for doing that which you would do for free. Always remember that there is a difference between being broke and being poor.

Video: President Obama Speaks On Abortion Controversy in Notre Dame Speech:

2009-05-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

Code Words, Symbols, Stereotypes, & Myths

2009-05-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Code Words, Symbols, Stereotypes, & Myths
by Ron Powell

Code words, symbols, stereotypes, & myths are the means by which institutions and individuals transmit, maintain and reinforce racial prejudice and racial discrimination between groups and from generation to generation.

During the presidential caimpaign, in referring to Barack Obama, Kentucky Rep. Geoff Davis stated:
“I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button.” Yes, Rep. Geoff Davis—you couldn’t make this stuff up.

I won’t go into a long historical dissertation of how the word “boy” has been employed. Suffice to say that it was a signal to any “uppity” black during Jim Crow to not challenge the white power structure or suffer dire consequences. The word was/is also a signal to whites reminding them of and reinforcing their role in maintaining the power structure.

I won't yield to the temptation of reciting a litany of what the code words,symbols, stereotypes, and myths are, becasuse, I believe, that most of us know what they are, or at least understand that they exist. This is about being able to talk openly about what we do in our lives, our daily discourse, to address those things that tear at the fabric of our society, and diminish the value and the quality of life for others.

During one of his recent radio rants Rush Limbaugh said of President Obama's economic policies: "The objective is more food-stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation's wealth and return to it to the nation's, quote, 'rightful owners.' Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on."

Clearly, Limbaugh is attempting to use the politics of racial fear to appeal to the lowest common denominator of racial anxiety in this country. The terms welfare, food stamps, and reparations are all CODE for "undeserving black people."

In politics, symbols matter, and in a nation with a history of racialized chattel slavery, government sanctioned discrimination, and an anti-black racialist and racist culture, political symbols of racial progress matter tremendously.

It is in this context where the effusive praise of the ascendancy of Senator Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States must be understood. By winning, Senator Obama stands as a potent symbol of progress for the American experiment with democracy that continues to be plagued by its racial past that is still very much a part of its present.

To equate the symbolic dimension of Barack Obama’s becoming president with the substantive standing and status of all black people, or of all racial minorities, in American political, social, economic, and cultural life is to commit a serious error.

When we critically examine this moment in American political and social development, we should pause in light of several deep and disturbing trends that have become prominent since the decline of the Black Freedom struggles of the 1960s. Since Barack Obama has won and assumed the office of President, we are at the intersection of symbol and substance where we should confront the problem of racial justice and racial equlity in America.

We are at a juncture in the political and social history of the country where we can either create and perpetrate a new myth based on the symbolism of the Obama Presidency, or use the fact of his winning the election and taking office, as the basis for attacking and dispelling old ones. Although the Obama presidency represents yet another first in American political life, it is far from being a fundamental transformative event in the core of the political, economic, and social institutions and structures in America. That is why these conversations, discussions, and debates about race in America will continue to be important for some time to come.

The following narrative illustrates, to a degree, what I am about here:

"There's a condition in combat - most people know it by now. It occurs when a soldier's nervous system has reached the breaking point. In World War I it was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language.
That was 1917. A generation passed. Then, during the Second World War, the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. It takes a little longer to say, stretches it out. The words don't seem to hurt as much. And fatigue is a softer word than shock. Shell Shock. Battle Fatigue. The condition was being euphemized.

"More time passed and we got to Korea, 1950. By that time, Madison Avenue had learned well how to manipulate the language, and the same combat condition became operational exhaustion. It had been stretched out to eight syllables. It took longer to say, so the impact was reduced, and the humanity was completely squeezed out of the term. It was now absolutely sterile: operational exhaustion. It sounded like something that might happen to your car.

"And then, finally, we got to Vietnam. Given the dishonesty surrounding that war, I guess it's not surprising that, at the time, the very same condition was renamed post-traumatic stress disorder. It was still eight syllables, but a hyphen had been added, and, at last, the pain had been completely buried under psycho-jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'd be willing to bet anything that if we were still calling it Shell Shock, Vietnam veterans might have received the attention they needed, at the time they needed it. But it didn't happen, and I'm convinced one of the reasons is the softer language we now prefer: The New Language. The language that takes the life out of life. " --- George Carlin

That's what happens when we euphaemize the hurtful, harmful, destructive or damaging code words or symbols. We terminate our capacity to effectively and properly deal with the consequences or impact.

We engage in the sterilization of the language of racial predjudice, and racial discrimination, without addressing the underlying causes of bigotry and hatred and then wonder why racism persists even in a world where Barack Obama can become President of the United States.

Television is the most powerful instrument of mass communication yet developed. The internet has increased our ability to communicate without doing much in the way of improving our communicative skills. The capacity of those who control the airwaves, or access to the internet, to produce and then manipulate the code words and symbols that affect how and what people think and feel, is beyond description and the subject of yet another dialogue.

It is one thing for advertisers, sports franchises, corporate entities and the like to attempt to influence our thoughts and emotions when in competition with one another for our attention and our dollars. It is quite another when the government or other powerful sepcial interest entity, such as a political party, attempts to do so by manipulating code words and symbols, which evoke stereotypes and myths that produce certain reactions and behaviors that result in people becoming distrustful or hateful or even violent toward each other at the group or individual level.

Suffice to say here that, we must be ever diligent in identifying the potential for misuse and abuse of the power that is being concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people. This can be done primarily by each of us becoming aware of how and when attempts are being made to manipulate or influence our thoughts and emotions with code words and symbols. We must have the courage to stand up and say no to the off color joke or remark, even when there is no "victim" present. Becasue to let it go is to become both the perpetrator and the victim.

We do this by listening to one another. For it is in hearing the complaint of the adversely affected, or the victim of the slight, slur or the epithet that we develop the sensitivity needed to understand how to effectively deal with the impact that it has on our collective selves.

We must speak up and speak out against the harmful language and the perpetrator whenever and where ever it is necessary to do so. It won't be easy, it never is, but it cannot be avoided if we are truly to protect and maintain the freedom of thought and expression we so deeply cherish.

Buchanan, Cheney, and Limbaugh Attack Colin Powell

2009-05-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

Buchanan, Cheney, and Limbaugh Attack Colin Powell
by Ron Powell

Are the statements of Pat Buchanan, Dick Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh regarding Colin Powell, evidence of the Republican party choosing to be the party of rich, white, privileged, and powerful racists?

Racism is not about color; it is about power. Prejudice by itself does not constitute racism, however. Neither does power by itself.

But when people use their position of power, be it political or institutional, to reinforce their prejudices and to enforce them so that as a result of their racial prejudices the life chances, rights and opportunities of others are limited, the result is racism. Thus, the simplest definition of racism then is: Racism is prejudice plus power.

On the basis of this definition, it can be said that while all people can be prejudiced, only those who have power can be identified racist. Once one understands that racism, at its core, has to do with power, one can then recognize that racism has been employed (particularly by the Republican Party in recent times) as a means to gain, maintain, and exercise power.

During the last election their tactics failed. They lost, they're hurting, and it shows. They are now without a cogent message, or an acceptable leader, and they have no 'plan B' upon which to base meaningful political activity.

Miss California? by Ron Powell

2009-05-12T06:16:00.000-07:00

Should Carrie Prejean be stripped of her "Miss California" title and crown because of her answer to a question about gay marriage?

Should she be removed because of these and other racy photos?

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn........

and I don't understand why anyone else should........................

Update: First Do No Harm........Health Care Reform

2009-05-11T05:22:00.000-07:00

Update: First Do No Harm........Health Care Reform
by Ron Powell

AP - Hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers and doctors are planning to tell President Barack Obama today that they'll voluntarily slow their rate increases in coming years in a move that government economists say would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now go without it.

In my post regarding profit and the profit motive and the health care system, 22 April, I started out with the following:

"First, do no harm...." is the primary moral and/or ethical imperative of the medical profession. It means that the interests and needs of the patient are to be placed above the interests and needs of the physician or caregiver. Profit driven corporate medicine has taken over American medical practice. Corporate models and methods of industrial competition have eliminated clinical expertise and the notion of care in the delivery of medical services. The result is that corporate profits are more important than patient prognosis. This is not only tragic and mistaken, but also unethical and immoral.

Here is an update on the subject which makes my post appear to be somewhat prophetic:

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writers Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar And Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - When President Bill Clinton took on health care reform, industry leaders fought back, killing the White House proposal before it could gain any traction.

Now those industry leaders are trying to help President Barack Obama find a solution to the problem of uninsured Americans, offering $2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years.

Hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers and doctors planned to tell Obama on Monday they'll voluntarily slow their rate increases in coming years in a move that government economists say would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now go without it.

Although the offer from the industry groups doesn't resolve thorny details of a new health care system, it does offer the prospect of freeing a large chunk of money to help pay for coverage. And it puts the private-sector groups in a good position to influence the bill Congress is writing.

Six major groups plan to deliver a letter to Obama and pledge to cut the growth rate for health care by 1.5 percentage points each year, senior administration officials said Sunday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to sketch the offer before full details are revealed at a White House event scheduled for Monday.

The industry groups are trying to get on the administration bandwagon for expanded coverage now in the hope they can steer Congress away from legislation that would restrict their profitability in future years.

Insurers, for example, want to avoid the creation of a government health plan that would directly compete with them to enroll middle-class workers and their families. Drug makers worry that in the future, new medications might have to pass a cost-benefit test before they can win approval. And hospitals and doctors are concerned the government could dictate what they get paid to care for any patient, not only the elderly and the poor.

Obama has courted industry and provider groups, inviting their representatives to the White House. There's a sense among some of the groups that now may be the best time to act before public opinion, fueled by anger over costs, turns against them.

It's unclear whether the proposed savings will prove decisive in pushing a health care overhaul through Congress. There's no detail on how the savings pledge would be enforced. And, critically, the promised savings in private health care costs would accrue to society as a whole, not just the federal government. That's a crucial distinction because specific federal savings are needed to help pay for the cost of expanding coverage.

Costs have emerged as the most serious obstacle to Obama's plan. The estimated federal costs range from $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, and so far Obama has only spelled out how to get about half of that.

Apparently even leaders in the health care industry recognize the simple truth: Health care reform requrires a reduction, if not an elimination, of profits in the equation. It is clear from the AP report that the health care industry is trying to get out in front of what even they see as inevitable, by offering a proposal that 'voluntarily' limits or reduces profits over the next ten years. Evidently they've made so much in the past ten years that they feel that they can afford this "generous" proposition. What they seem to be doing is attempting to head off full government control or participation in the delivery of health care by taking a 'half a loaf is better than none' approach to "reform" of the system.

President Obama At The White House Correspondent's Dinner

2009-05-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

Wanda Sykes At The White House Correspondent's Dinner

2009-05-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Playing For Change / Peace Through Music

2009-05-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

Playing For Change /

Peace Through Music Explained

Stand By Me

One Love

Guest Post: Brian Butler, TPM-DC

2009-05-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

Senator Who Praised Segregationist Judges Will Lead Opposition To Obama Nominees
By Brian Beutler -TPM-DC May 4, 2009

As I noted below, it looks like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will be, at least for a time, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee.

That's an interesting role for a man with Sessions'...history. In a 2002 New Republic article, Sarah Wildman detailed the Alabama senator's rise through the ranks of politics in Alabama and in Republican Washington.

Sessions first appeared on the scene in 1986 D.C. when President Ronald Reagan nominated him to serve on the U.S. District Court in Alabama. At the time, the Judiciary Committee was controlled by Republicans, but his appointment nonetheless went absolutely nowhere--a fact that may have had a thing or two to do with stories like this:

Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU ) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as "un-American" when "they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions" in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to "pop off" on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue." He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation," a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings....

Another damaging witness--a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures--testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn't see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him "boy" and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." Figures echoed Hebert's claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "un-American." Sessions denied the accusations but again admitted to frequently joking in an off-color sort of way. In his defense, he said he was not a racist, pointing out that his children went to integrated schools and that he had shared a hotel room with a black attorney several times.

The committee ultimately voted 10-8 against reporting his nomination on to the floor. In a perverse form of poetic justice, Sessions will soon be that committee's most powerful Republican. And in that position, he'll no doubt be leading the charge (such as it is) against whomever President Obama nominates to the Supreme Court--or any court, really. Having been given the Robert Bork treatment in the past, it's hard to imagine Sessions treating Obama's picks all that genially.

As Wildman wrote, "it has been on judicial nominees that Sessions has really made a name for himself."

When Sessions grabbed Heflin's Senate seat in 1996, he also nabbed a spot on the Judiciary Committee. Serving on the committee alongside some of the senators who had dismissed him 16 years earlier, Sessions has become a cheerleader for the Bush administration's judicial picks, defending such dubious nominees as Charles Pickering, who in 1959 wrote a paper defending Mississippi's anti-miscegenation law, and Judge Dennis Shedd, who dismissed nearly every fair-employment civil rights case brought before him as a federal district court judge. Sessions called Pickering "a leader for racial harmony" and a "courageous," "quality individual" who was being used as a "political pawn." Regarding Shedd, he pooh-poohed the criticism, announcing that the judge "should have been commended for the rulings he has made," not chastised.

And after carefully reviewing Sessions' record, Republicans in Washington took appropriate measures to limit his influence gave him an extremely influential position in the Senate. It'll be...enlightening...to hear conservatives defend the move, or, better yet, excuse it on the grounds that the GOP's only giving these views special prominence for about a year and a half.

The Souter Resignation: Replacing Thurgood Marshall

2009-05-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Souter Resignation: Replacing Thurgood Marshall

by Ron Powell

Justice Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993),

graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore in 1926 and from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1930. Afterward, Marshall wanted to apply to his hometown law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, but the dean told him that he would not be accepted due to the school's segregation policy. Later, as a civil rights litigator, he successfully sued the school for this policy in the case of Murray v. Pearson. As he could not attend the University of Maryland, Marshall sought admission and was accepted at Howard University. He was influenced by its new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who instilled in his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans. Marshall was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Black Greek-letter fraternity, established by African American students in 1906.

President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961. A group of Democratic Party Senators led by Mississippi's James Eastland held up his confirmation, so he served for the first several months under a recess appointment. Marshall remained on that court until 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him Solicitor General.

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court. He sreved for 24 years until he retired in 1991.

No one has been a more ardent supporter of President Obama than I. However, I do believe that he has developed a blind spot when it comes to the 'average' or 'regular person'. There are no "middle class" people appointed to serve on The Task Force on the Middle Class, or anywhere else in his administration. All of his Cabinet appointments have been Ivy League graduates, or graduates of other "elite" academic institutions. I believe that he has left himself open to criticism and charges of being elitist.

Using the criteria being applied by Obama's search and vetting teams, would Thurgood Marshall get an appointment to the Obama cabinet, or be an Obama choice for the Supreme Court? Would career achievement alone be sufficient to merit more than a superficial or perfunctory designation and/or assignment?

Clearly, President Obama stands on the shoulders of Thurgood Marshall, and others like him, who's legacy made his candidacy and election possible. I would like to think that the candidate who ran on "Change we can believe in", would seek to avoid old style patronage and cronyism which can cause tunnel vision and thus create the blind spot of which I speak. The danger in having a blind spot is that you can get blind-sided as a consequence.

The resignation of Justice Souter gives President Obama an opportunity to widen his field of vision regarding his key appointments. He can show that he does indeed have a complete grasp of his place in the history of African-American progress in American political and social life. He can lay a marker to ensure that the path he followed does not close behind him. He can fill the seat soon to be vacated by Justice Souter by replacing Thurgood Marshall.