Issues & Views – The Website is chockful of reports on and praise for the work of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Founded in 1999 by civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate and Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history, this organization was the first to focus specifically on defending the constitutional rights of students and faculty at American colleges and universities.
For many people, FIRE's revelations about a dark side of campus life, was their introduction to the mad world of brainwashing that is the American college system. Academic course work no longer suffices as the primary function of academic institutions. For years now, mandatory “re-education” sessions, designed to divest the student participants of their own beliefs and convictions, have become ritual.
Make no mistake about it, although these workshops, orientation sessions and “sensitivity training” include participants from all races and backgrounds, this elaborate attempt at reprogramming individuals was contrived primarily to recalibrate whites, most especially young whites.
It was not long before this reprogramming began to filter down into the lower grades of high school and earlier. Soon it spilled over from the campus and class room into the work force, as businesses, under pressure from multicultural enforcers, strove to obey the demands of these now powerful social engineers, in order to avoid entanglements in “race” troubles. And so a new industry was born – one made up of phony race “experts,” “consultants,” and “diversity facilitators.” Companies learned that if they paid the right price now, they could fend off possible trouble later.
In his article, "Thought Reform 101," Professor Kors cites a “multicultural educator,” who quite candidly professed, “White students need help to understand what it means to be white in a multicultural community. For the white heterosexual male who feels disconnected and marginalized by multiculturalism, we've got to do a lot of work here.”
So, young whites were given that “help” through such diversity vehicles as “Blue Eyed,” a so-called racism awareness workshop in which, says Kors, whites were “abused, ridiculed, made to fail, and taught helpless passivity.” Passivity is the operative word here. Turning whites into passive, fearful fraidy cats, uncertain of how to safely navigate the turbulent racial waters in their own country, is essential to the multiculturalist agenda.
With their fixed notions of how whites perceive the world, the stated goal of these social crusaders is to alter the values and attitudes of these young people. Using diversity orientations to probe into the most private experiences and thoughts of students, the aim is to convince the white to remold his inner life, until it is consistent with the multicultural vision. This is Thought Reform at its crudest – an attempt at mind cleansing under the guise of achieving “social justice” for society's underdogs.
Even without the heavy-handed indoctrination cited above, the white youth learns what is expected of him before he ever sets foot in school. He is taught the rules from the minute his young eyes view a TV screen and when his ears are subjected to the socially trendy platitudes of the day. The real propaganda starts long before kindergarten, but once he enters the school system, there is never any let up in the indoctrination. The impressionable child begins to learn early on the importance of becoming a “good white person” in the multicultural sense of goodness.
Sometimes, the comic nature of this movement makes one's head spin. Last year, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for instance, Kent County high school students began a “diversity and cultural sensitivity” program featuring workshops in “healing racism.” As reported in the Grand Rapids Press, conductors of these sessions were the Center for Ecumenism Racial Justice Institute, the Woodrick Diversity Training Center, and the Grace Racial Justice Institute. That so many organizations were involved demonstrates the lucrative industry that has been spawned around this profitable sham.
In a stunning example of double talk, or Newspeak, Rev. David May, a “trainer,” claimed that, while some kids might be practicing racism “unaware,” other kids might be victims of said racism and not even know it. Hence, the need to assist these youths to see the offenses that exist, even though unperceived by the youngsters themselves. Imagine these kids, getting on with their daily lives, not feeling in any way offended by the behavior of their school chums – and along come the “Diversity” folk, bringing their special brand of enlightenment.
Not surprisingly, Rev. May clarified, for anyone who didn't know it, just who were the targets of all this attention. It happened to be those “suburban kids,” he said, who must be brought to understand what they have “in common” with the ethnics.
This decades-long inundation of propaganda by the social engineers has proven wildly successful. Coupled with the almost total acceptance of pernicious feminist ideology, which has taken its toll on the male character, and helped along by the writings of authors like Shelby Steele, whose treatises on white shame and guilt have permeated academia, it is not surprising that so many whites spend a good part of their day striving to prove their “purity of heart.”
Although Steele's books have won acclaim for his premise that whites should not carry the burden of guilt for this country's past history, he seems to consider it perfectly appropriate that whites live with shame. Guilt, it seems, is worthless, because it leads nowhere. Harboring shame, however, shows that the person recognizes the need for some form of repentance. Shame offers a reminder of past offenses for which the individual can compensate by transforming his inherent attitudes and, perhaps, behavior. This is obviously something that Steele believes whites should work to do.
Since, in Steele's world, whites can have no legitimate “white” interests, notions of racial identity should be shunned. Whites are not to indulge in thinking in terms of the “group,” which conceivably could lead to notions of “superiority,” a vice from which whites must flee. Asserting special regard for the group demonstrates “atavistic” thinking, which excludes others and, therefore, is injurious to “our democracy of individuals.”
Steele stands ready to paint with a broad brush those whites who deviate from this neutral (or might one say neutered) stance as “white supremacists.” The European imperialist who reached across the seas and colonized foreign lands demonstrated his white supremacist hubris, and the white who today strives to preserve the racial and cultural uniqueness of his group, according to Steele, demonstrates the same “white supremacist” tendencies. Whites do not possess the option to operate in their own self-interest.
Sensitivity sessions, diversity workshops, re-education programs, ceaseless media propaganda via films and television, along with the cleverly disguised anti-white writings of scholars like Steele, and the not-so-disguised biases of academics like Noel Ignatiev, have taken their toll on white confidence, backing whites into a corner, where their defensiveness often looks like downright surrender.
Proving their “goodness” has now become a preoccupation with a great many whites. Such people are beside themselves with joy at this moment, now that the candidacy of Barack Obama gives them the chance to vote for a black man. Open advocacy for Obama is the route to proving that one is not a racist. Such an act should prove, once and for all time, that “good” whites are no longer in need of sensitivity sessions or diversity workshops, or other vehicles to teach them lessons in racial justice.
But don't for a minute think that this is a fixation from which only white liberals suffer. Listen to those self-professed conservatives calling talk shows, and proudly proclaiming, “I would like to see Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell run for President, so I could vote for them and prove I am not a racist.” Those exact words have been expressed on the airwaves over and over again. In making this proclamation, the callers seem so proud of themselves. These whites consider it perfectly rational to live one's life in anxiety over how they might be perceived by invisible race monitors. The political ideologue seeks out “our blacks” as opposed to “your blacks.”
I have had whites voice this Rice-Powell scenario to me, in an obvious bid for my approval. I dare not inform them that, at that moment, I am contemplating whether to feel contempt or pity for them. I ponder the distressed white guy who wanders the earth every day worrying about whether someone, somewhere, might not know what a good person he is. I imagine such a man, during initial introductions of himself to strangers, announcing, “Hi, I'm John Smith, and I am NOT a racist!” Such people should wear a button or tag on their clothing, or, better yet, wear a sandwich board that declares, on both sides, “I am NOT a racist!” This troubled soul seems to believe that when he proves his love and total acceptance of the coloreds, and pointedly rejects all initiatives pertaining to his own white self-interest, he proves his worth as a human being.
With news of China's current incursions into Tibet, it's not unusual to turn on the TV or radio and encounter pundits and scholarly experts frankly supporting Tibet, whose “unique culture deserves to be protected,” as one academic recently put it. Europeans and Euro-Americans are granted the right to no such protection, and are looked upon with suspicion for even voicing such heresy.
As Steele has written, “Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence.” And, “For whites, here is the opportunity to document their deliverance from the shames of their forbearers.”
Millions of whites seem determined to prove him right. The brainwashing is, indeed, complete.
See also:
The everlasting quest: To transform whites
It's about power
Read more!
Saturday, April 05, 2008
He's at it again
In a previous critique of columns by Thomas Sowell, I spoke of his role as apologist for the War Party, and of his put down of young Americans who refuse to do their “duty” by offering up their lives for the useless wars concocted by the special interests who have usurped the federal government.
Now here is the erudite scholar turned warmonger complaining about the media's failure to give us the Iraq story that we ought to be seeing on television. Why aren't they showing what “heroes” our soldiers are through the actions they engage in every day?, he demands to know. And why are they displaying all those “pictures of badly wounded and disfigured military veterans?” Why didn't they report on the incident where a soldier fell on a grenade to protect his buddies, “smothering the fatal blast with his body, so that those around him might live when he died.” Sowell laments that this story “never made the front cover of Newsweek.”
Well, now, wise Dr. Sowell, what would you make of the following scenario? Two men break into a neighbor's home while he is away, with the intent of taking his stuff. Unexpectedly, the neighbor shows up, armed with a shotgun, which he points at one of the invaders. The second invader throws himself between the shot and his friend. I would say that was a brave, courageous act. Individual acts of courage can happen anywhere, and giving over your life for another, no matter the circumstances, is, indeed, an act of bravery.
But do you mind, Dr. Sowell, if we ask what the hell those two invaders were doing in that man's home in the first place? Who asked for their acts of bravery? Who needed those “courageous” actions? Why not have our soldiers engage in heroics right here at home, like on the borders of California and Arizona? Rightwing apologists like Sowell would like to change the subject from one of questioning U.S. policy of intervening where we don't belong, to one of “bravery, honor and loyalty” of the poor men who must carry out these ill-contrived missions.
The perceptive Sowell believes that the media is “filtering and spinning” the news. He doesn't like the idea of networks “parading casualties.” Can you beat that? It's all right that these unfortunate young men, some of whom will never see their 21st birthdays, are used as tools who disappear from earth, acknowledged and mourned only by their few relatives and friends. The country at large should not be subjected to the fact of their deaths, and most important, they must not become an embarrassment to the administration in Washington.
According to Sowell, the media's use of such terms as “honoring the dead” is “part of the general corruption of language for political purposes.” Honoring the dead? And this is the man who taught us so much about how the leftwing manipulates society and plays with our heads through the use of politically correct terminology.
Apparently, only stories about soldiers who throw themselves on grenades should be broadcast to the world. However, the media should remain mute about their comrades, who are regularly blown apart by IEDs. After all, there's no grandstanding that can be done with those run-of-the-mill stories.
The demonstration of contempt for all these lost lives is palpable among these rightwing partisans, who sometimes sound deranged. Maybe it's time for Sowell to leave his keyboard and take his big derriere off to Iraq, to do battle. Surely, the military can make a special dispensation for age for this intrepid warrior. Read more!
Now here is the erudite scholar turned warmonger complaining about the media's failure to give us the Iraq story that we ought to be seeing on television. Why aren't they showing what “heroes” our soldiers are through the actions they engage in every day?, he demands to know. And why are they displaying all those “pictures of badly wounded and disfigured military veterans?” Why didn't they report on the incident where a soldier fell on a grenade to protect his buddies, “smothering the fatal blast with his body, so that those around him might live when he died.” Sowell laments that this story “never made the front cover of Newsweek.”
Well, now, wise Dr. Sowell, what would you make of the following scenario? Two men break into a neighbor's home while he is away, with the intent of taking his stuff. Unexpectedly, the neighbor shows up, armed with a shotgun, which he points at one of the invaders. The second invader throws himself between the shot and his friend. I would say that was a brave, courageous act. Individual acts of courage can happen anywhere, and giving over your life for another, no matter the circumstances, is, indeed, an act of bravery.
But do you mind, Dr. Sowell, if we ask what the hell those two invaders were doing in that man's home in the first place? Who asked for their acts of bravery? Who needed those “courageous” actions? Why not have our soldiers engage in heroics right here at home, like on the borders of California and Arizona? Rightwing apologists like Sowell would like to change the subject from one of questioning U.S. policy of intervening where we don't belong, to one of “bravery, honor and loyalty” of the poor men who must carry out these ill-contrived missions.
The perceptive Sowell believes that the media is “filtering and spinning” the news. He doesn't like the idea of networks “parading casualties.” Can you beat that? It's all right that these unfortunate young men, some of whom will never see their 21st birthdays, are used as tools who disappear from earth, acknowledged and mourned only by their few relatives and friends. The country at large should not be subjected to the fact of their deaths, and most important, they must not become an embarrassment to the administration in Washington.
According to Sowell, the media's use of such terms as “honoring the dead” is “part of the general corruption of language for political purposes.” Honoring the dead? And this is the man who taught us so much about how the leftwing manipulates society and plays with our heads through the use of politically correct terminology.
Apparently, only stories about soldiers who throw themselves on grenades should be broadcast to the world. However, the media should remain mute about their comrades, who are regularly blown apart by IEDs. After all, there's no grandstanding that can be done with those run-of-the-mill stories.
The demonstration of contempt for all these lost lives is palpable among these rightwing partisans, who sometimes sound deranged. Maybe it's time for Sowell to leave his keyboard and take his big derriere off to Iraq, to do battle. Surely, the military can make a special dispensation for age for this intrepid warrior. Read more!
He took it like a man
New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch compares the manner in which New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer handled his recent troubles to the way Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is handling his similar woes:
Spitzer at last took it like a man, or an adult caught with his hand under the wrong dress. Spitzer blamed no one, resigned and went home to await what should be an avalanche of charges. Kilpatrick, who formerly referred to himself as "the hip hop mayor," seems determined to live up to qualities shared by many who fuse self-pity and a sense of entitlement. He has cast himself as a victim, used the N-word in his most recent state of Detroit speech and went on to exploit his wife and two children as victims of allegedly bigoted language and threats. I would not be surprised if the threatening calls were made under Kilpatrick's orders. That might sound cold, but we are not in a bar so I cannot tell readers what I actually think about this man. Let's just leave it at this: Playing the race card to cover up one's own dumb actions is an insult to every single person who ever suffered actual bigotry in this land. It is one of the most despicable actions and one of the most criminal. Read more!
Spitzer at last took it like a man, or an adult caught with his hand under the wrong dress. Spitzer blamed no one, resigned and went home to await what should be an avalanche of charges. Kilpatrick, who formerly referred to himself as "the hip hop mayor," seems determined to live up to qualities shared by many who fuse self-pity and a sense of entitlement. He has cast himself as a victim, used the N-word in his most recent state of Detroit speech and went on to exploit his wife and two children as victims of allegedly bigoted language and threats. I would not be surprised if the threatening calls were made under Kilpatrick's orders. That might sound cold, but we are not in a bar so I cannot tell readers what I actually think about this man. Let's just leave it at this: Playing the race card to cover up one's own dumb actions is an insult to every single person who ever suffered actual bigotry in this land. It is one of the most despicable actions and one of the most criminal. Read more!
Can politics transcend Nature?
Who are these conservatives who call for the break-up of families and children's homes, and have been doing so ever since they hunted and hounded Bill Clinton? These are the creatures who were so quick to advise Hillary to leave her husband, are gleefully taking bets that Silda Spitzer will do so, and now, I guess, Michelle Paterson will be targeted for their advice on how to ditch a marriage.
When the dam broke and the earlier prototype of Swift Boaters descended on Bill Clinton, whom they despised with visceral intensity, I accepted the reality of the politics. Just thinking of all those presumptuous Executive Orders of his was enough to make my blood boil. But I was flabbergasted when, throughout those ugly years, spokesmen for these Republican bloodhounds -- the pundits in the press and especially the talk show hosts -- continually expressed their hopes that the Clinton family would go bust, that Bill deserved to be punished into everlasting damnation where he should suffer all alone. Some of them sounded like they were actually sending up prayers to their peculiar version of God, to effect such an end. (I grew up believing that the angels sing in heaven, whenever a marriage is saved.) “Why doesn't she divorce him?” they impatiently demanded, as if Hillary's failure to do so was evidence of some flaw in her character.
In each of these cases, there are children involved, but with or without children, why would anyone want to see a couple break their vows “for better or for worse?” Why not, instead, take satisfaction in seeing them remain intact, no matter who they are, and no matter how hard they have to work at it?
For today's conservative fanatic, politics rule over even the sanctity of family. Their distorted reasoning goes something like this: If you're not in my political camp, and you screw up, then you should be denied the comfort of family affection, and deserve to be kicked in the gutter to die alone. What rock do these people live under, where only their brand of political correctness should supersede even the intimate bond between husband and wife?
Should John McCain leave his wife because of her prior drug problem and even some theft that she might have indulged in while on drugs? If we discover other infidelities or indiscretions on the part of prominent figures, should there be a crusade to convince the “wounded” spouses to dump their lifetime mates? Well, only if they're found to be on the wrong side of the political fence.
Do these “family values” rightwing folk take pleasure in observing the consequences on children, as they lose their stable homes and become visitors every other weekend to each of their parents' residences? I don't think a husband's infidelity is worth subjecting children to the vagaries of life with a dating parent or parents, and having strangers enter their lives who would otherwise be unknown to them had their parents remained together. Children deserve more than an insecure existence with a “Single Mom” or to be forced into “blended” families, to say nothing of the financial stress that is endured.
Nature as addiction?
Men cannot turn off Nature's programming; all they can do is work to modify their behavior as best they can. Even though polygamy is closer to Nature's plan for the male of the species, the West dumped forms of polygamy and chose monogamy for a variety of reasons, chief among them economic. Nature's concern is only that the male's seed is planted over and over and over again -- and in as many wombs as possible. This is why Nature embedded the sex drive deep into the male brain, so he will never forget his mission, even when he sleeps.
Yet now we have the trendy, stupid notion that men can suffer from a “sex addiction.” What idiotic psychobabblers could call Nature's plan for man a form of addiction? Such hogwash is straight out of the feminist playbook that would paint normal male behavior as aberrant.
Am I making excuses for men? Yes, I certainly am. Needless to say, I am not referring to the “knuckle-dragging” sub-species of male, who live only for and through their animal instincts and make no attempts to live within the bonds of civilized society. But I believe that most men do an efficient job of suppressing their programmed sex drive. Nature hardwired men to yearn for sex 28 hours a day, and I think most men act responsibly in controlling and restraining this unquenchable urge.
Thanks to the revamped society that feminism has given us, men are now confronted with eager, available women at every turn, not only in the workplace, but in just about every aspect of their lives. Such was not always the case. (Whoever heard of a “woman Marine” or a “woman Sailor?”)
Nature knows nothing about our social preferences and does not operate around our social conventions. After all the laughter and jokes about men's sexual proclivities have subsided, when you think of it, men carry a terrible burden. They must cope with a basic drive, while finding a way to live in a civilized world that works to defeat that drive. Most men work hard to live within the rules set by that civilized world. They don't deserve to be abandoned or stripped of their families when they fail to live up to the standards that they themselves have helped to create, or when they are unable to get the better of the powerful impulses bequeathed to them by Nature. Read more!
When the dam broke and the earlier prototype of Swift Boaters descended on Bill Clinton, whom they despised with visceral intensity, I accepted the reality of the politics. Just thinking of all those presumptuous Executive Orders of his was enough to make my blood boil. But I was flabbergasted when, throughout those ugly years, spokesmen for these Republican bloodhounds -- the pundits in the press and especially the talk show hosts -- continually expressed their hopes that the Clinton family would go bust, that Bill deserved to be punished into everlasting damnation where he should suffer all alone. Some of them sounded like they were actually sending up prayers to their peculiar version of God, to effect such an end. (I grew up believing that the angels sing in heaven, whenever a marriage is saved.) “Why doesn't she divorce him?” they impatiently demanded, as if Hillary's failure to do so was evidence of some flaw in her character.
In each of these cases, there are children involved, but with or without children, why would anyone want to see a couple break their vows “for better or for worse?” Why not, instead, take satisfaction in seeing them remain intact, no matter who they are, and no matter how hard they have to work at it?
For today's conservative fanatic, politics rule over even the sanctity of family. Their distorted reasoning goes something like this: If you're not in my political camp, and you screw up, then you should be denied the comfort of family affection, and deserve to be kicked in the gutter to die alone. What rock do these people live under, where only their brand of political correctness should supersede even the intimate bond between husband and wife?
Should John McCain leave his wife because of her prior drug problem and even some theft that she might have indulged in while on drugs? If we discover other infidelities or indiscretions on the part of prominent figures, should there be a crusade to convince the “wounded” spouses to dump their lifetime mates? Well, only if they're found to be on the wrong side of the political fence.
Do these “family values” rightwing folk take pleasure in observing the consequences on children, as they lose their stable homes and become visitors every other weekend to each of their parents' residences? I don't think a husband's infidelity is worth subjecting children to the vagaries of life with a dating parent or parents, and having strangers enter their lives who would otherwise be unknown to them had their parents remained together. Children deserve more than an insecure existence with a “Single Mom” or to be forced into “blended” families, to say nothing of the financial stress that is endured.
Nature as addiction?
Men cannot turn off Nature's programming; all they can do is work to modify their behavior as best they can. Even though polygamy is closer to Nature's plan for the male of the species, the West dumped forms of polygamy and chose monogamy for a variety of reasons, chief among them economic. Nature's concern is only that the male's seed is planted over and over and over again -- and in as many wombs as possible. This is why Nature embedded the sex drive deep into the male brain, so he will never forget his mission, even when he sleeps.
Yet now we have the trendy, stupid notion that men can suffer from a “sex addiction.” What idiotic psychobabblers could call Nature's plan for man a form of addiction? Such hogwash is straight out of the feminist playbook that would paint normal male behavior as aberrant.
Am I making excuses for men? Yes, I certainly am. Needless to say, I am not referring to the “knuckle-dragging” sub-species of male, who live only for and through their animal instincts and make no attempts to live within the bonds of civilized society. But I believe that most men do an efficient job of suppressing their programmed sex drive. Nature hardwired men to yearn for sex 28 hours a day, and I think most men act responsibly in controlling and restraining this unquenchable urge.
Thanks to the revamped society that feminism has given us, men are now confronted with eager, available women at every turn, not only in the workplace, but in just about every aspect of their lives. Such was not always the case. (Whoever heard of a “woman Marine” or a “woman Sailor?”)
Nature knows nothing about our social preferences and does not operate around our social conventions. After all the laughter and jokes about men's sexual proclivities have subsided, when you think of it, men carry a terrible burden. They must cope with a basic drive, while finding a way to live in a civilized world that works to defeat that drive. Most men work hard to live within the rules set by that civilized world. They don't deserve to be abandoned or stripped of their families when they fail to live up to the standards that they themselves have helped to create, or when they are unable to get the better of the powerful impulses bequeathed to them by Nature. Read more!
Obama, the multi-cult President
Because of the horrors that Americans have watched take place in our name over the last eight years, it is understandable that some people would eagerly import aliens from the Moon, Mars or Saturn, or even “E.T.” himself, to replace the unworthy incumbents in Washington.
Different sets of people have different reasons for being enamored with and in support of Barack Obama. Some, just wishing to be perverse, think it would be cute to elect someone so far off the beaten track, so different from all the past politicians who have won the Presidency. They exult in Obama's unusualness, his strangeness – from his family background (a polygamous/bigamist father and a mother of questionable behavior), to his ambiguous racial lineage and roots, to his manifest identity problems (possibly reflecting a psychological disorder). He might be the first President to go under counseling as a resident of the White House. He is different, indeed.
Then there are those who think they're doing an in-your-face to conventional whites, whom they perceive as up-tight bigots, and evil at that. These snide Obama-ites (they come in all colors and ethnicities, including white) think they are making mischief as they attempt to overturn the ties that bind white Americans to their history, thereby upsetting the norm, which proclaims that Presidents come from the majority population, the natural descendants of the Founders. For these Obama-ites, it's all a lot of fun helping to create what they perceive as public discomfort and they enjoy the prospect of not just breaking, but shattering tradition.
And there are those who envision the ascendance of Obama as the just deserts of the despicable tyrants who now prevail in Washington and the people who made their reign possible – sort of an “Up yours!” with the finger to go along with it. As they push this black man from nowhere, they are smirking with glee, “This is what you get for eight horrible years of callousness, warmongering, and for hubris of an order previously unknown to mankind!”
And then there's the media. Since members of the media are whores, they want Obama elected because of the fun and games his presidency would provide. Caring nothing about the welfare of this country, they dream of an endless array of kinky stories they can sell and sell. And they are bound to find them and keep them coming.
As they dig up and embellish tales about Obama's siblings and other relations, there won't be enough newsprint or video footage to contain them. What a feast they are going to make of stories about his Kenyan half-siblings (by his bio-father's polygamous marriage), his Indonesian-white half- and step-siblings, and his all-white half-siblings. Then there's his father's third wife, who was also a white woman. Where are those offspring? And wait till they unearth dear, old Mom's journeys from land to land and learn of the boyfriends in between the three husbands that we know of. The media is going to blow a gasket reporting on all this multicultural amusement.
We are supposed to think of Obama as being blessed by the “rich tapestry” of all those blended cultures. But is he? Could one not also see a confusing polyglot that makes understandable why Shelby Steele's biography of Obama delves so much into aspects of his self-identity? If he is the country's choice for President, there will never be a dull moment. Read more!
Different sets of people have different reasons for being enamored with and in support of Barack Obama. Some, just wishing to be perverse, think it would be cute to elect someone so far off the beaten track, so different from all the past politicians who have won the Presidency. They exult in Obama's unusualness, his strangeness – from his family background (a polygamous/bigamist father and a mother of questionable behavior), to his ambiguous racial lineage and roots, to his manifest identity problems (possibly reflecting a psychological disorder). He might be the first President to go under counseling as a resident of the White House. He is different, indeed.
Then there are those who think they're doing an in-your-face to conventional whites, whom they perceive as up-tight bigots, and evil at that. These snide Obama-ites (they come in all colors and ethnicities, including white) think they are making mischief as they attempt to overturn the ties that bind white Americans to their history, thereby upsetting the norm, which proclaims that Presidents come from the majority population, the natural descendants of the Founders. For these Obama-ites, it's all a lot of fun helping to create what they perceive as public discomfort and they enjoy the prospect of not just breaking, but shattering tradition.
And there are those who envision the ascendance of Obama as the just deserts of the despicable tyrants who now prevail in Washington and the people who made their reign possible – sort of an “Up yours!” with the finger to go along with it. As they push this black man from nowhere, they are smirking with glee, “This is what you get for eight horrible years of callousness, warmongering, and for hubris of an order previously unknown to mankind!”
And then there's the media. Since members of the media are whores, they want Obama elected because of the fun and games his presidency would provide. Caring nothing about the welfare of this country, they dream of an endless array of kinky stories they can sell and sell. And they are bound to find them and keep them coming.
As they dig up and embellish tales about Obama's siblings and other relations, there won't be enough newsprint or video footage to contain them. What a feast they are going to make of stories about his Kenyan half-siblings (by his bio-father's polygamous marriage), his Indonesian-white half- and step-siblings, and his all-white half-siblings. Then there's his father's third wife, who was also a white woman. Where are those offspring? And wait till they unearth dear, old Mom's journeys from land to land and learn of the boyfriends in between the three husbands that we know of. The media is going to blow a gasket reporting on all this multicultural amusement.
We are supposed to think of Obama as being blessed by the “rich tapestry” of all those blended cultures. But is he? Could one not also see a confusing polyglot that makes understandable why Shelby Steele's biography of Obama delves so much into aspects of his self-identity? If he is the country's choice for President, there will never be a dull moment. Read more!
Those quaint Indians
There they were, as telephone guests, on New York's Public Radio station, WNYC, two men from India who live here in the city, trying to explain why so many men, like themselves, return to India to find wives. One man claimed that 80% of Indian men do this. Instead of settling for the American variety, that is, either Indian women acclimated to American culture, or women of other races and ethnicities, these men expressed their preference for mates born and bred in their homeland.
And there was the Public Radio host, ever faithful to the multicultural cause, questioning (with an edge in his voice) such a “quaint” custom. Along with him was a female guest offering the usual bromide that such men return home because they desire only "submissive" women. No, one man retorted, Indian men desire a marriage that will keep them within their customs and traditions, and even religions. (Why is it that no one ever explains why so-called submissive women have no right to husbands?)
But the host persisted, never coming out and saying it, but making it clear that he would prefer such men to intermarry with the other races that they find here in the good old USA. The host, a big promoter of “bi-racial” intimacy, at times sounded personally offended by some of the points made by the Indian men, especially the suggestion that they saw no advantages to bedding down in permanent partnership with women of cultures other than their own.
These men may not have known it, but they had just expressed the ultimate no-no. Nothing pierces the heart of a multi-cultist more than the expression of such heresy. If men like these prevail, how will we ever get to mix up the races and bring Paradise on earth? Read more!
And there was the Public Radio host, ever faithful to the multicultural cause, questioning (with an edge in his voice) such a “quaint” custom. Along with him was a female guest offering the usual bromide that such men return home because they desire only "submissive" women. No, one man retorted, Indian men desire a marriage that will keep them within their customs and traditions, and even religions. (Why is it that no one ever explains why so-called submissive women have no right to husbands?)
But the host persisted, never coming out and saying it, but making it clear that he would prefer such men to intermarry with the other races that they find here in the good old USA. The host, a big promoter of “bi-racial” intimacy, at times sounded personally offended by some of the points made by the Indian men, especially the suggestion that they saw no advantages to bedding down in permanent partnership with women of cultures other than their own.
These men may not have known it, but they had just expressed the ultimate no-no. Nothing pierces the heart of a multi-cultist more than the expression of such heresy. If men like these prevail, how will we ever get to mix up the races and bring Paradise on earth? Read more!
Black crime
When the news first broke, in December 2000, about the four bloody bodies found in a soccer field in Wichita, Kansas, the early reports left some people wondering about a possible gangland slaughter. Was it about drugs or turf? Did some bad guys kill some other bad guys, and save the police unnecessary labor?
As it turned out, five victims were meant to be lying in that field, but the fifth one survived – to tell the horrible tale. And, no, it had nothing to do with old-fashioned gangsters evening scores. The murderers were two black brothers, Jonathan and Reginald Carr, and the bloody bodies belonged to four young whites in their 20s.
As the story unfolded, its details were the kind to make you want to cover your eyes and read no further. The vicious nature of what were ongoing, hours-long, unprovoked assaults on people who never deserved such a fate, stunned the senses. For the sake of relevance, I offer the bare bones of the atrocity, but if you insist on the gory details, you can find them in multiple places on the Internet.
The survivor, whose identity was later protected and became known only by the initials H.G., went to stay at the apartment of her boyfriend, Jason Befort, a residence he shared with his roommates Bradley Heyka and Aaron Sander. They were later joined by another friend, Heather Muller. During the night, the Carr brothers, armed with guns or just a gun, invaded this apartment and dragged each of the residents from the room in which he or she had been sleeping into one bedroom.
You can guess at the forced multiple rapes that took place and other detestable, coerced acts, as the Carrs grooved on this lucky night they got to debase a little band of white folks, those people who appear to have such picture-perfect lives, who seem to recover even after bad things happen to them. Well, this night, they were not going to get a chance to recover.
Downplaying the terror
Americans are taught not to fixate on the racial aspect when it comes to assaults by blacks upon whites. Yet, we are conditioned to look upon every abuse perpetrated by a white upon a black as nothing less than an intentional racial affront – whether it happened in 1723, or yesterday. Black thugs, it seems, don't choose their victims on the basis of race – not when they rape them or rob them or murder them. To think otherwise is to think in “racist” terms.
The Carrs invaded the Befort apartment on December 14, 2000, but a week earlier, on December 7, in East Wichita, they carjacked the vehicle of Andres Schreiber, a 23-year-old white man, forced him at gunpoint to withdraw money from ATM machines, and then pistol-whipped him. On December 11, in attempting to carjack the SUV of Linda Walenta, a white woman, one of the Carrs stuck a gun through the window and shot her several times. She died three weeks later. December had certainly been a busy month for the brothers.
Many of us followed this story over the Internet on an almost daily basis, since we wanted to understand why five adults, three of them men, appeared to have submitted themselves, without a struggle, to two brigands brandishing guns, or a gun. It was not clear in the first reports just how many weapons had been involved – one or two? Had just one gun been shared between the two monsters?
I did not want to believe a notion I was slowly coming to harbor about whites, of a newly emerging fear of blacks, different from the physical fear, more of a mental anxiety resulting from unique social programming. Could the fear of being racially “incorrect” have shifted to a fear of fighting back, even when their lives are endangered?
In New York, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, street crime was rampant and did not abate until the early 1990s. During this period, I had listened to endless personal accounts of muggings from white college buddies, office colleagues, and all manner of other acquaintances. This was a period when such disclosures could break out between New Yorkers while standing on a supermarket line or waiting for a bus.
Yet, even in the course of describing muggings they had suffered, I felt that most whites strove to downplay the terror of the encounter and especially to hide the anger and hatred they experienced as a consequence. They would cautiously not belittle their tormentors, in order to show that they held no grudges.
Was their caution based on an inability to be open with me, a black, or was it more than that? Why did I get the feeling that they were just as fearful of revealing anger or downright detestation of their attackers even to fellow whites? Was the desire to appear pristine clean on the race issue subverting their normal feelings?
No one in charge
When, in April 2001, in Cincinnati, a white police officer shot and killed a black man, while trying to arrest him, all hell broke loose, as mobs of blacks rioted. This episode came to exemplify not only white concern for behaving “correctly” in relation to the race of the marauders, but a palpitating fear of black retaliation.
Although the mainstream media did its best to downplay the actuality of blacks randomly attacking whites – pulling them from cars and beating them – the local talk show hosts practiced no such restraint. White listeners were able to call in, share what they had either seen or experienced, and vent their spleen.
The Cincinnati Post reported on stores being looted, fires set, and whites dragged from cars and “beaten to a pulp.” This was the newspaper's first, spontaneous reactions to the barbarity. However, the editors soon learned to rein in such graphic detail, as they scurried to reduce references that might put blacks in a bad light.
Meanwhile, on national television, the country got to see the response of Cincinnati's law enforcement leaders, especially that of Mayor Charles Luken and Police Chief Tom Streicher, both white. Their first press conference is an event I shall always remember.
Mayor Luken preceded the Police Chief into the room, looking distracted and downright helpless. Before speaking, he kept glancing around, as if looking for something or someone. (An exit door, perhaps?) It turns out he was searching for Chief Streicher, whom he claimed should be the person to address the reporters. Finally, in came Streicher, a slight, slender guy in shirtsleeves, looking as fearful as the Mayor. These were not figures who projected a sense of authority.
When some rowdy blacks interrupted the proceedings, yelling loud, incomprehensible remarks, probably vulgarities, the two leaders looked more terrified than ever. Both gave the impression that there was no one in charge. (Perhaps, some day, tapes of this conference will make it to YouTube, with the caption, “How not to run a city.”)
Pacify the unpredictable blacks
Cincinnati talk show hosts (mainly conservative, of course) angrily told of fawning attempts by some whites to downplay the racial overtones of the riots, like carrying flowers to the place where the black suspect was shot, while ignoring the sites where various whites took undeserved beatings. Callers described scenes they had witnessed being filmed by various media outlets, only to see this news coverage censored and watered down, with particular violent events excised from the tapes, apparently, in order to protect the already damaged black image. The city's bureaucrats rushed to meet with Cincinnati's many versions of Al Sharpton, and with Reverend Al himself, who quickly moved in on the fun and games.
It was clear that the primary quest of the whites in Cincinnati was to pacify the unpredictable blacks, and yet not come off as “racists.” The late white nationalist, Dr. William Pierce, in assessing the feeble behavior of the whites, who fell all over themselves to prove what devout “anti-racists” they were, wryly concluded: “An impartial deity looking down on such scenes from above to decide which race should inherit the earth certainly would not choose the Whites.”
In the case of the Carr brothers' crimes, the story hardly moved beyond the environs of the Wichita region. Here, too, certain whites hurried to cover up the racial aspect of the crimes. As the Carr trial approached, word came, unexpectedly, that the trial would be carried on Court TV, which certainly would give it national prominence. As it turned out, more prudent heads prevailed at Court TV, with network executives deciding that the topic was too hot and, by daily focusing on these two heinous black assailants, public sensibilities might be inflamed. In Wichita, two cable TV channels and one local radio station provided continuous coverage of the trial, along with regional Associate Press coverage.
A fantasy of retribution
I first began writing this article last year, before health and other problems intervened. I was gratified when, in December, Professor Walter Williams devoted one of his syndicated columns to the media's concealment of black-on-white crimes. He cited the crime statistics compiled by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, noting that in 2004, “more than twice as many whites were murdered by a black than cases of a white murdering a black.” He feared that by suppressing these realities, the media and black leaders “contribute to a pile of racial kindling awaiting a racial arsonist to set it ablaze.”
In 2004, blacks, who make up 12-13% of the country's population, accounted for almost half of the nation's murder victims primarily at the hands of other blacks. And, although police statistics around the country show that blacks commit more crimes against whites by at least a rate of two to one, the federal government limits its release of crime statistics by race, and fudges some stats by lumping Hispanics/Latinos into the “white” category.
Rape or assaults on white women by black men is one of the leading crimes, according to a 2007 Department of Justice survey. A common banality that is sometimes expressed by angry black men, who may not be offenders themselves, but are disposed towards their brothers who target white women for rape, goes something like this: "If we were to indulge in rape from now until the end of time, we black men could never make up for the millions of rapes of black women at the hands of slave owners."
The last time I heard this atrocious argument was in the course of a heated dispute with a black man, who was “explaining” the actions of two black thugs then awaiting trial for the callous rape and beating of a white woman. In defending the indefensible, he made me wonder if this is what this form of violence is about for certain men. Do such men get themselves worked up fantasizing over what took place in the past, when black men had no power? Could this be the result of some of that “Afrocentric” teaching, with its emphasis on the injustices done to blacks?
In 1999, a white woman in Raleigh, North Carolina, was battered and raped by James Henderson, who broke into her apartment. During the assault, he told her several times that he was attacking her because her forefathers had raped and enslaved his ancestors. In the twisted minds of these men, are today's living, breathing women justifiable targets to act out a fantasy of retribution in the name of people who lived more than a century ago?
I informed the buffoon with whom I was conversing that, while he and his brothers were busy cursing those white slave owners, they should be sure to save some of that hate for the thousands of blacks in this country who not only owned slaves, but traded in slaves and, no doubt, had their way more than a time or two with their female property.
In this symbiotic dance going on between black and white men, perhaps the ultimate demonstration of power over the dominant male is proving he is no longer capable even of protecting his own women – not only from rape, but from seduction as well.
Gun shy policemen
Another example of media and bureaucrats working together to cover up the deeds of miscreant blacks occurred during the mardi gras riots in Seattle, in 2001. Members of marauding gangs dragged white women by their hair, threw them to the ground and kicked them, while men who went to their rescue were pummeled and kicked. During what turned out to be a three-hour seige, the Seattle police stood by, doing nothing. Their police chief had given orders for them to stand down. (Later, members of the force complained of their frustration over not being able to take action.)
One writer, giving an account of the anarchy that he witnessed, expressed astonishment that the thugs who attacked whites “cared nothing about being grossly outnumbered by whites, but moved with impunity through the crowds.” And, indeed, why shouldn't they?
The hours-long siege was not covered on the local television news, much less did it get any national coverage, even though 60 young people ended up in hospitals, with one dead.
Days later, when the flak finally hit the fan, the greatest concern expressed by the city's leaders was not for all the property damage done and the looting, or for the many citizens who were assaulted and injured, or even for the dead Kris Kime, a 23-year-old man who had tried to aid a woman under attack. No, the greatest concern expressed, as reported in the Seattle Times, was that the ugly episode might become a “race issue,” and that blacks might be blamed for the violence they perpetrated.
The police, whose crews finally did go in and disperse the gang bangers, were worried about being charged with “racial profiling.” As reported by the Associated Press, a spokesman said of the police, “They're gun shy about the perceptions of coming down hard on one single group.” The city fathers were determined to make the public believe that the attacks on whites “were not racially motivated.” They seemed to imply that racial motivation would be an even greater crime than the attacks themselves.
No justice, no peace
The knowledge that blacks will support the criminals in their midst, and that timid whites will hesitate to protest too profoundly was never more apparent than in an episode in Long Beach California, in 2006, deemed by the court a "hate crime," and handled as felonious assault.
Three white women, attempting to avoid the advances of a group of aggressive black males, were then set upon by the males and their black female companions. The episode took place on Halloween night, at a public “haunted house,” when a mob of at least 25 to 40 black teenagers took dominance of the residence. Earlier, these scoundrels had terrorized the mostly white visitors to the house by verbally abusing and physically intimidating them.
Witnesses described the unprovoked attacks on the women, who were beaten to the ground by the males. The gangsters' female counterparts then moved in by kicking and beating the prostrate women, first with a skateboard, then with tree branches, and finally with their fists. Two of the victims were knocked unconscious, with one suffering a recessed eye. Another suffered a dozen fractures to her face and damage to the lining around her lungs. All three suffered broken bones.
Ten people, nine males and one female, were finally rounded up, arrested and charged with felony assault, along with a “hate crime” charge. There were 10 defense attorneys, some of whom lauded their clients as “model students,” even as “scholars and athletes” -- propaganda that the California media faithfully parroted, until the testimony of school authorities proved otherwise.
And how did the black parents and friends of the accused, other adults and “activists” in the black community respond to news of this mayhem? Many parents vociferously argued against any punishment for the teenagers and underplayed the seriousness of the crimes. This might account for why there was no display of remorse or contrition on the part of any of the accused. Eddie Jones, apparently a local Al Sharpton wannabe, led demonstrations on behalf of the accused, with dozens of his acolytes shouting the now customary chant of “No justice, no peace.”
However, there was the voice of Joe Hicks, a black man well-known for his dissident opinions, who excoriated the unrepentant thugs and their parents, claiming that the parents exhibited “the same street culture attitudes” of their children.
Except for brief, one-time mentions in the Washington Post and the New York Times, the national media ignored the story. Most white-owned media did not want to touch it. One local newspaper called it a “man-bites-dog tale,” implying that whites are the normal perpetrators of such crimes – in spite of all evidence and statistics to the contrary.
Is it worse if it's a “hate crime?”
Like the quadruple murders that took place in Wichita, there are those crimes that are hard to get one's mind around. Such is the case of the grotesque rapes, torture, mutilations, and murders, in 2006, in Knoxville, Tennessee, of the young white couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. As in Wichita, their torment lasted for hours, as four black men and their female accomplice played with the living bodies of these human beings, physically torturing them, as the depraved do with helpless cats and dogs. In typical fashion, the story of this black-on-white crime was not touched by the mainstream media.
Not exactly coming off as apologists, but close to it, were two black columnists, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald and Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun and BlackAmericaWeb. Each felt it necessary to make the case that this horrendous offense did not fit into the category of “hate crime,” thereby not motivated by race. There is no way that either know this for a certainty, but blacks typically want to deny the reverse racism feature of black crime. The precept that blacks don't kill for racial reasons has now become a knee-jerk response to black-on-white atrocities.
Pitts ended one of his columns with a mocking taunt to those who grieved over the fate of Christian and Newsom and other victims like them: “Cry me a river!” Who, after all, he suggested, are whites to make such complaints, what with all the baggage they carry from history? “It always amazes me when white people put on the victim hat,” he callously wrote.
Kane, in defending Pitts' taunt, furthered the platitude about “complaining whites,” as he wrote, “No matter how many white victims like Christian and Newsom there are, there are far more black ones who are victims of gangs like the Bloods and Crips.” In other words, blacks are killing far greater numbers of blacks than whites, therefore, blacks, as a group, suffer more.
Kane did not mean his remarks to be, nor were they a comfort to the people who knew and loved this young couple. His crude, insensitive words were in no sense meant to mitigate their deaths. Will the fact that blacks mindlessly kill other blacks help those who are haunted by the photographs of Christian and Newsom's youthful, appealing faces and the open, trusting expressions on them, and the knowledge that, in their darkest hour, no one came to their aid? How do their parents live with such stark, brutal reality that will never go away?
Are we supposed to care whether this atrocity was legally deemed a “race-motivated” crime? Blacks are killing whites in inordinate numbers, and have been doing so for decades. What kind of ideas were flopping around in the fiendish brains of these five degenerates is of no importance. They targeted this young white couple and brutalized them for hours, for entertainment, causing them unimaginable suffering before their lives finally slipped away. We can only guess at the roots of the irrational hatred that could compel five wretches to follow through to the end, to enjoy the power they had to shut down the lives of these two attractive, “privileged” whites.
It isn't necessary to find notes, as in the case of pitiful, little 8-year-old Kevin Shifflett, from his black murderer, ranting about his desire to “kill whites.” Nor do we need eyewitness reports about either of these sadists shouting anti-white racial epithets, as in the Long Beach case. Pitts and Kane seem to imply that this monstrous crime is less so, because it could not be determined that nasty, “racist” thoughts were running through the minds of these warped beasts. Racism, of course, being deemed by the benighted likes of Pitts and Kane, as the World's Worst Crime.
Although in some felony cases we get hints about a possible race angle, we will never know the degree to which authorities caution against officially deeming a crime one of racial hatred, due to their fear of public retaliation -- fear that even a brief skirmish on the part of an addled, infuriated white might set off rioting black mobs. The driving factor in suppressing such information, of course, is fear of blacks, not of whites.
Dredging up the past forever
Here's why reporting on who's committing most of the felony crimes today against ordinary citizens is important. Last year, bills were introduced into both the House of Representatives and the Senate “to provide for the investigation of certain unsolved crimes, and for other purposes.” This potential law is called the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (H.R. 923 and S.535).
The bill's sponsors, led by Rep. John Lewis, aim to set up an “Investigative Office” in the civil rights units of both the Department of Justice and the FBI, granting authority to agents to plow through old alleged crimes that were committed against blacks prior to December 31, 1969, supposedly during what is known as the “civil rights” period.
On the one hand, a general statement within the bill claims that said past crimes had to result in a “death.” On the other hand, the stated purpose in the introduction of the bill says nothing about death, and adds the vague wording, “and for other purposes,” implying that the law could be used as a catchall for all kinds of infractions of the law that we cannot conceive of at the moment.
If they don't find enough murders to prosecute, will they seek to ferret out half-century old alleged assaults, robberies, larcenies? Could they go back, find an atrocity that had occurred on which a town's police failed to act, and today make that town's government complicit and hold it accountable? Does the “civil rights” period mentioned mean only the recent past, i.e., 1950s through 1960s? The use of the term “civil rights” goes back a long way.
If this law is passed, we can expect that the country will be subjected to yet more black victimology, as the media grooves on the resurrection of old crimes that can unnecessarily stir up animosities. But, hey, it's only white folks who are bound to come out on the short end of the stick, right? The media will delight in sending us images of some 90-year-old codger, handcuffed and forced to do the perp walk. Of course, so much of the details of these events are lost in the mists of time and in dimmed, undependable memories, but no matter. There's bound to be some stories out there that can be milked and exploited. During this period when so many crimes committed by blacks against whites are virtually ignored by the media or rationalized away as justifiable, blacks are being primed to dig up crimes from the past, and make somebody pay.
There are other questions about this law. Just as Congress gradually extended the power of the EEOC to implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act, eventually giving us affirmative action and quotas, so too might the Emmett Till law be modified or reinterpreted, in order to carry out agendas not explicitly cited in the original bill. Just as the Brown vs. Board of Education court decision was “misinterpreted” to eventually justify forced busing and the crippling of school systems around the country, so, too, this law, if passed, could bring unexpected consequences.
Might we be looking at a law that opens the door to crafty mischief makers, to plod through a couple of centuries worth of real and imagined “crimes?” While whites are urged to shush their mouths about current atrocities, black leaders are gearing up, or as they put it, “beefing up investigations” of old crimes against blacks, for what might conceivably be ad infinitum.
See also: The everlasting quest: To transform whites Read more!
As it turned out, five victims were meant to be lying in that field, but the fifth one survived – to tell the horrible tale. And, no, it had nothing to do with old-fashioned gangsters evening scores. The murderers were two black brothers, Jonathan and Reginald Carr, and the bloody bodies belonged to four young whites in their 20s.
As the story unfolded, its details were the kind to make you want to cover your eyes and read no further. The vicious nature of what were ongoing, hours-long, unprovoked assaults on people who never deserved such a fate, stunned the senses. For the sake of relevance, I offer the bare bones of the atrocity, but if you insist on the gory details, you can find them in multiple places on the Internet.
The survivor, whose identity was later protected and became known only by the initials H.G., went to stay at the apartment of her boyfriend, Jason Befort, a residence he shared with his roommates Bradley Heyka and Aaron Sander. They were later joined by another friend, Heather Muller. During the night, the Carr brothers, armed with guns or just a gun, invaded this apartment and dragged each of the residents from the room in which he or she had been sleeping into one bedroom.
You can guess at the forced multiple rapes that took place and other detestable, coerced acts, as the Carrs grooved on this lucky night they got to debase a little band of white folks, those people who appear to have such picture-perfect lives, who seem to recover even after bad things happen to them. Well, this night, they were not going to get a chance to recover.
Downplaying the terror
Americans are taught not to fixate on the racial aspect when it comes to assaults by blacks upon whites. Yet, we are conditioned to look upon every abuse perpetrated by a white upon a black as nothing less than an intentional racial affront – whether it happened in 1723, or yesterday. Black thugs, it seems, don't choose their victims on the basis of race – not when they rape them or rob them or murder them. To think otherwise is to think in “racist” terms.
The Carrs invaded the Befort apartment on December 14, 2000, but a week earlier, on December 7, in East Wichita, they carjacked the vehicle of Andres Schreiber, a 23-year-old white man, forced him at gunpoint to withdraw money from ATM machines, and then pistol-whipped him. On December 11, in attempting to carjack the SUV of Linda Walenta, a white woman, one of the Carrs stuck a gun through the window and shot her several times. She died three weeks later. December had certainly been a busy month for the brothers.
Many of us followed this story over the Internet on an almost daily basis, since we wanted to understand why five adults, three of them men, appeared to have submitted themselves, without a struggle, to two brigands brandishing guns, or a gun. It was not clear in the first reports just how many weapons had been involved – one or two? Had just one gun been shared between the two monsters?
I did not want to believe a notion I was slowly coming to harbor about whites, of a newly emerging fear of blacks, different from the physical fear, more of a mental anxiety resulting from unique social programming. Could the fear of being racially “incorrect” have shifted to a fear of fighting back, even when their lives are endangered?
In New York, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, street crime was rampant and did not abate until the early 1990s. During this period, I had listened to endless personal accounts of muggings from white college buddies, office colleagues, and all manner of other acquaintances. This was a period when such disclosures could break out between New Yorkers while standing on a supermarket line or waiting for a bus.
Yet, even in the course of describing muggings they had suffered, I felt that most whites strove to downplay the terror of the encounter and especially to hide the anger and hatred they experienced as a consequence. They would cautiously not belittle their tormentors, in order to show that they held no grudges.
Was their caution based on an inability to be open with me, a black, or was it more than that? Why did I get the feeling that they were just as fearful of revealing anger or downright detestation of their attackers even to fellow whites? Was the desire to appear pristine clean on the race issue subverting their normal feelings?
No one in charge
When, in April 2001, in Cincinnati, a white police officer shot and killed a black man, while trying to arrest him, all hell broke loose, as mobs of blacks rioted. This episode came to exemplify not only white concern for behaving “correctly” in relation to the race of the marauders, but a palpitating fear of black retaliation.
Although the mainstream media did its best to downplay the actuality of blacks randomly attacking whites – pulling them from cars and beating them – the local talk show hosts practiced no such restraint. White listeners were able to call in, share what they had either seen or experienced, and vent their spleen.
The Cincinnati Post reported on stores being looted, fires set, and whites dragged from cars and “beaten to a pulp.” This was the newspaper's first, spontaneous reactions to the barbarity. However, the editors soon learned to rein in such graphic detail, as they scurried to reduce references that might put blacks in a bad light.
Meanwhile, on national television, the country got to see the response of Cincinnati's law enforcement leaders, especially that of Mayor Charles Luken and Police Chief Tom Streicher, both white. Their first press conference is an event I shall always remember.
Mayor Luken preceded the Police Chief into the room, looking distracted and downright helpless. Before speaking, he kept glancing around, as if looking for something or someone. (An exit door, perhaps?) It turns out he was searching for Chief Streicher, whom he claimed should be the person to address the reporters. Finally, in came Streicher, a slight, slender guy in shirtsleeves, looking as fearful as the Mayor. These were not figures who projected a sense of authority.
When some rowdy blacks interrupted the proceedings, yelling loud, incomprehensible remarks, probably vulgarities, the two leaders looked more terrified than ever. Both gave the impression that there was no one in charge. (Perhaps, some day, tapes of this conference will make it to YouTube, with the caption, “How not to run a city.”)
Pacify the unpredictable blacks
Cincinnati talk show hosts (mainly conservative, of course) angrily told of fawning attempts by some whites to downplay the racial overtones of the riots, like carrying flowers to the place where the black suspect was shot, while ignoring the sites where various whites took undeserved beatings. Callers described scenes they had witnessed being filmed by various media outlets, only to see this news coverage censored and watered down, with particular violent events excised from the tapes, apparently, in order to protect the already damaged black image. The city's bureaucrats rushed to meet with Cincinnati's many versions of Al Sharpton, and with Reverend Al himself, who quickly moved in on the fun and games.
It was clear that the primary quest of the whites in Cincinnati was to pacify the unpredictable blacks, and yet not come off as “racists.” The late white nationalist, Dr. William Pierce, in assessing the feeble behavior of the whites, who fell all over themselves to prove what devout “anti-racists” they were, wryly concluded: “An impartial deity looking down on such scenes from above to decide which race should inherit the earth certainly would not choose the Whites.”
In the case of the Carr brothers' crimes, the story hardly moved beyond the environs of the Wichita region. Here, too, certain whites hurried to cover up the racial aspect of the crimes. As the Carr trial approached, word came, unexpectedly, that the trial would be carried on Court TV, which certainly would give it national prominence. As it turned out, more prudent heads prevailed at Court TV, with network executives deciding that the topic was too hot and, by daily focusing on these two heinous black assailants, public sensibilities might be inflamed. In Wichita, two cable TV channels and one local radio station provided continuous coverage of the trial, along with regional Associate Press coverage.
A fantasy of retribution
I first began writing this article last year, before health and other problems intervened. I was gratified when, in December, Professor Walter Williams devoted one of his syndicated columns to the media's concealment of black-on-white crimes. He cited the crime statistics compiled by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, noting that in 2004, “more than twice as many whites were murdered by a black than cases of a white murdering a black.” He feared that by suppressing these realities, the media and black leaders “contribute to a pile of racial kindling awaiting a racial arsonist to set it ablaze.”
In 2004, blacks, who make up 12-13% of the country's population, accounted for almost half of the nation's murder victims primarily at the hands of other blacks. And, although police statistics around the country show that blacks commit more crimes against whites by at least a rate of two to one, the federal government limits its release of crime statistics by race, and fudges some stats by lumping Hispanics/Latinos into the “white” category.
Rape or assaults on white women by black men is one of the leading crimes, according to a 2007 Department of Justice survey. A common banality that is sometimes expressed by angry black men, who may not be offenders themselves, but are disposed towards their brothers who target white women for rape, goes something like this: "If we were to indulge in rape from now until the end of time, we black men could never make up for the millions of rapes of black women at the hands of slave owners."
The last time I heard this atrocious argument was in the course of a heated dispute with a black man, who was “explaining” the actions of two black thugs then awaiting trial for the callous rape and beating of a white woman. In defending the indefensible, he made me wonder if this is what this form of violence is about for certain men. Do such men get themselves worked up fantasizing over what took place in the past, when black men had no power? Could this be the result of some of that “Afrocentric” teaching, with its emphasis on the injustices done to blacks?
In 1999, a white woman in Raleigh, North Carolina, was battered and raped by James Henderson, who broke into her apartment. During the assault, he told her several times that he was attacking her because her forefathers had raped and enslaved his ancestors. In the twisted minds of these men, are today's living, breathing women justifiable targets to act out a fantasy of retribution in the name of people who lived more than a century ago?
I informed the buffoon with whom I was conversing that, while he and his brothers were busy cursing those white slave owners, they should be sure to save some of that hate for the thousands of blacks in this country who not only owned slaves, but traded in slaves and, no doubt, had their way more than a time or two with their female property.
In this symbiotic dance going on between black and white men, perhaps the ultimate demonstration of power over the dominant male is proving he is no longer capable even of protecting his own women – not only from rape, but from seduction as well.
Gun shy policemen
Another example of media and bureaucrats working together to cover up the deeds of miscreant blacks occurred during the mardi gras riots in Seattle, in 2001. Members of marauding gangs dragged white women by their hair, threw them to the ground and kicked them, while men who went to their rescue were pummeled and kicked. During what turned out to be a three-hour seige, the Seattle police stood by, doing nothing. Their police chief had given orders for them to stand down. (Later, members of the force complained of their frustration over not being able to take action.)
One writer, giving an account of the anarchy that he witnessed, expressed astonishment that the thugs who attacked whites “cared nothing about being grossly outnumbered by whites, but moved with impunity through the crowds.” And, indeed, why shouldn't they?
The hours-long siege was not covered on the local television news, much less did it get any national coverage, even though 60 young people ended up in hospitals, with one dead.
Days later, when the flak finally hit the fan, the greatest concern expressed by the city's leaders was not for all the property damage done and the looting, or for the many citizens who were assaulted and injured, or even for the dead Kris Kime, a 23-year-old man who had tried to aid a woman under attack. No, the greatest concern expressed, as reported in the Seattle Times, was that the ugly episode might become a “race issue,” and that blacks might be blamed for the violence they perpetrated.
The police, whose crews finally did go in and disperse the gang bangers, were worried about being charged with “racial profiling.” As reported by the Associated Press, a spokesman said of the police, “They're gun shy about the perceptions of coming down hard on one single group.” The city fathers were determined to make the public believe that the attacks on whites “were not racially motivated.” They seemed to imply that racial motivation would be an even greater crime than the attacks themselves.
No justice, no peace
The knowledge that blacks will support the criminals in their midst, and that timid whites will hesitate to protest too profoundly was never more apparent than in an episode in Long Beach California, in 2006, deemed by the court a "hate crime," and handled as felonious assault.
Three white women, attempting to avoid the advances of a group of aggressive black males, were then set upon by the males and their black female companions. The episode took place on Halloween night, at a public “haunted house,” when a mob of at least 25 to 40 black teenagers took dominance of the residence. Earlier, these scoundrels had terrorized the mostly white visitors to the house by verbally abusing and physically intimidating them.
Witnesses described the unprovoked attacks on the women, who were beaten to the ground by the males. The gangsters' female counterparts then moved in by kicking and beating the prostrate women, first with a skateboard, then with tree branches, and finally with their fists. Two of the victims were knocked unconscious, with one suffering a recessed eye. Another suffered a dozen fractures to her face and damage to the lining around her lungs. All three suffered broken bones.
Ten people, nine males and one female, were finally rounded up, arrested and charged with felony assault, along with a “hate crime” charge. There were 10 defense attorneys, some of whom lauded their clients as “model students,” even as “scholars and athletes” -- propaganda that the California media faithfully parroted, until the testimony of school authorities proved otherwise.
And how did the black parents and friends of the accused, other adults and “activists” in the black community respond to news of this mayhem? Many parents vociferously argued against any punishment for the teenagers and underplayed the seriousness of the crimes. This might account for why there was no display of remorse or contrition on the part of any of the accused. Eddie Jones, apparently a local Al Sharpton wannabe, led demonstrations on behalf of the accused, with dozens of his acolytes shouting the now customary chant of “No justice, no peace.”
However, there was the voice of Joe Hicks, a black man well-known for his dissident opinions, who excoriated the unrepentant thugs and their parents, claiming that the parents exhibited “the same street culture attitudes” of their children.
Except for brief, one-time mentions in the Washington Post and the New York Times, the national media ignored the story. Most white-owned media did not want to touch it. One local newspaper called it a “man-bites-dog tale,” implying that whites are the normal perpetrators of such crimes – in spite of all evidence and statistics to the contrary.
Is it worse if it's a “hate crime?”
Like the quadruple murders that took place in Wichita, there are those crimes that are hard to get one's mind around. Such is the case of the grotesque rapes, torture, mutilations, and murders, in 2006, in Knoxville, Tennessee, of the young white couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. As in Wichita, their torment lasted for hours, as four black men and their female accomplice played with the living bodies of these human beings, physically torturing them, as the depraved do with helpless cats and dogs. In typical fashion, the story of this black-on-white crime was not touched by the mainstream media.
Not exactly coming off as apologists, but close to it, were two black columnists, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald and Gregory Kane of the Baltimore Sun and BlackAmericaWeb. Each felt it necessary to make the case that this horrendous offense did not fit into the category of “hate crime,” thereby not motivated by race. There is no way that either know this for a certainty, but blacks typically want to deny the reverse racism feature of black crime. The precept that blacks don't kill for racial reasons has now become a knee-jerk response to black-on-white atrocities.
Pitts ended one of his columns with a mocking taunt to those who grieved over the fate of Christian and Newsom and other victims like them: “Cry me a river!” Who, after all, he suggested, are whites to make such complaints, what with all the baggage they carry from history? “It always amazes me when white people put on the victim hat,” he callously wrote.
Kane, in defending Pitts' taunt, furthered the platitude about “complaining whites,” as he wrote, “No matter how many white victims like Christian and Newsom there are, there are far more black ones who are victims of gangs like the Bloods and Crips.” In other words, blacks are killing far greater numbers of blacks than whites, therefore, blacks, as a group, suffer more.
Kane did not mean his remarks to be, nor were they a comfort to the people who knew and loved this young couple. His crude, insensitive words were in no sense meant to mitigate their deaths. Will the fact that blacks mindlessly kill other blacks help those who are haunted by the photographs of Christian and Newsom's youthful, appealing faces and the open, trusting expressions on them, and the knowledge that, in their darkest hour, no one came to their aid? How do their parents live with such stark, brutal reality that will never go away?
Are we supposed to care whether this atrocity was legally deemed a “race-motivated” crime? Blacks are killing whites in inordinate numbers, and have been doing so for decades. What kind of ideas were flopping around in the fiendish brains of these five degenerates is of no importance. They targeted this young white couple and brutalized them for hours, for entertainment, causing them unimaginable suffering before their lives finally slipped away. We can only guess at the roots of the irrational hatred that could compel five wretches to follow through to the end, to enjoy the power they had to shut down the lives of these two attractive, “privileged” whites.
It isn't necessary to find notes, as in the case of pitiful, little 8-year-old Kevin Shifflett, from his black murderer, ranting about his desire to “kill whites.” Nor do we need eyewitness reports about either of these sadists shouting anti-white racial epithets, as in the Long Beach case. Pitts and Kane seem to imply that this monstrous crime is less so, because it could not be determined that nasty, “racist” thoughts were running through the minds of these warped beasts. Racism, of course, being deemed by the benighted likes of Pitts and Kane, as the World's Worst Crime.
Although in some felony cases we get hints about a possible race angle, we will never know the degree to which authorities caution against officially deeming a crime one of racial hatred, due to their fear of public retaliation -- fear that even a brief skirmish on the part of an addled, infuriated white might set off rioting black mobs. The driving factor in suppressing such information, of course, is fear of blacks, not of whites.
Dredging up the past forever
Here's why reporting on who's committing most of the felony crimes today against ordinary citizens is important. Last year, bills were introduced into both the House of Representatives and the Senate “to provide for the investigation of certain unsolved crimes, and for other purposes.” This potential law is called the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (H.R. 923 and S.535).
The bill's sponsors, led by Rep. John Lewis, aim to set up an “Investigative Office” in the civil rights units of both the Department of Justice and the FBI, granting authority to agents to plow through old alleged crimes that were committed against blacks prior to December 31, 1969, supposedly during what is known as the “civil rights” period.
On the one hand, a general statement within the bill claims that said past crimes had to result in a “death.” On the other hand, the stated purpose in the introduction of the bill says nothing about death, and adds the vague wording, “and for other purposes,” implying that the law could be used as a catchall for all kinds of infractions of the law that we cannot conceive of at the moment.
If they don't find enough murders to prosecute, will they seek to ferret out half-century old alleged assaults, robberies, larcenies? Could they go back, find an atrocity that had occurred on which a town's police failed to act, and today make that town's government complicit and hold it accountable? Does the “civil rights” period mentioned mean only the recent past, i.e., 1950s through 1960s? The use of the term “civil rights” goes back a long way.
If this law is passed, we can expect that the country will be subjected to yet more black victimology, as the media grooves on the resurrection of old crimes that can unnecessarily stir up animosities. But, hey, it's only white folks who are bound to come out on the short end of the stick, right? The media will delight in sending us images of some 90-year-old codger, handcuffed and forced to do the perp walk. Of course, so much of the details of these events are lost in the mists of time and in dimmed, undependable memories, but no matter. There's bound to be some stories out there that can be milked and exploited. During this period when so many crimes committed by blacks against whites are virtually ignored by the media or rationalized away as justifiable, blacks are being primed to dig up crimes from the past, and make somebody pay.
There are other questions about this law. Just as Congress gradually extended the power of the EEOC to implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act, eventually giving us affirmative action and quotas, so too might the Emmett Till law be modified or reinterpreted, in order to carry out agendas not explicitly cited in the original bill. Just as the Brown vs. Board of Education court decision was “misinterpreted” to eventually justify forced busing and the crippling of school systems around the country, so, too, this law, if passed, could bring unexpected consequences.
Might we be looking at a law that opens the door to crafty mischief makers, to plod through a couple of centuries worth of real and imagined “crimes?” While whites are urged to shush their mouths about current atrocities, black leaders are gearing up, or as they put it, “beefing up investigations” of old crimes against blacks, for what might conceivably be ad infinitum.
See also: The everlasting quest: To transform whites Read more!
R.I.P., Grandpa Al
Here's a copy of a get-well note I came across, sent by me on September 8, 2003, to “Grandpa” Al Lewis. After a long bout with multiple illnesses, he was hospitalized, and then spent a long time at home, during which we hoped would be his recuperation. You knew him from the television sitcom “Car 54, Where are you,” as a dizzy, lovable cop, and as Grandpa in “The Munsters.” I knew him as a regular New York radio host on one of WBAI's most popular talk shows. He was definitely on the leftwing of the political spectrum, and cantankerous as hell. But still lovable.
Dear Grandpa Al,
This is from one of your politically conservative fans, who agrees with you more these days than with those monsters in the White House.
A great many of us rightwingers learned the hard way the truth of that warning, “Be careful of what you wish for.” We never wished to see our government highjacked by warmongers, or to see the Founders' vision spat on and turned on its head.
I'm glad you're out there to remind us that we can agree to disagree on some issues, but we can come together to fight against our country being turned into the bully of the world.
So, get a move on now, pick yourself up, and bring your crotchety self back to us. You're sorely missed.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth
Grandpa Al died on February 3, 2006. Read more!
Dear Grandpa Al,
This is from one of your politically conservative fans, who agrees with you more these days than with those monsters in the White House.
A great many of us rightwingers learned the hard way the truth of that warning, “Be careful of what you wish for.” We never wished to see our government highjacked by warmongers, or to see the Founders' vision spat on and turned on its head.
I'm glad you're out there to remind us that we can agree to disagree on some issues, but we can come together to fight against our country being turned into the bully of the world.
So, get a move on now, pick yourself up, and bring your crotchety self back to us. You're sorely missed.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth
Grandpa Al died on February 3, 2006. Read more!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
On Imus - Last thoughts from a long-time listener
I have listened to Don Imus for what seems like most of my adult life. I never saw the MSNBC simulcast, since I never did understand why a radio program needed to be televised. Like others, from time to time, I would make the mistake of endowing the program with a character that it was never meant to have. Especially in recent years, since Washington's invasion of Iraq, and as my politics have drifted away from support of Republicans, I wanted Imus to be a voice that is seldom heard on the airwaves. Since there are so few voices on radio that do not engage in worshipful awe of the neocons and theocrats who rule DC (what with "conservative" talkers out-ranking any other kind by 10 to 1), dissent from any quarter was welcomed.
Whenever I thought about Imus's program, the scatological shenanigans were not what came to mind. What I remembered were the day's politics, and the discussions with his guests, who might have roused my ire or found me in agreement. I was certainly well aware of the rough male humor on the show, which I viewed as one of the many futile behaviors that some men try to adopt, in reaction to the feminization of just about everything in this society. To me, the show was a sort of old-fashioned men's smoking car, where boorish males, out of the hearing of scolding women, could flex some rarely exercised troglodyte muscles.
Civil rights attorney Constance Rice, who was also a listener, in the Los Angeles Times described the show as "a seventh grade white boys' locker room." Well, I'd put them a little higher than the seventh grade. After all was rudely said and done, you knew that at some time in the course of the day, each of these men probably got his ears boxed by some woman, but for these few morning hours, the boys behaving badly could play at being liberated from the skirt brigade.
As a long-time listener, my greatest surprise came with Imus's decision (or was it his advisers or his wife's) to prostrate himself before Al Sharpton -- a man whom Imus had insightfully parodied over the years. No one did better takes on Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as transparent opportunists. Yet, it seems that all knowledge of what Sharpton is about, and has always been about, fell from the head of Imus, as he behaved like a clueless bumpkin. No one knew Sharpton's history better than Imus, so it is incomprehensible that he would offer himself up to the quintessential charlatan as a gift on a silver platter. When he panicked, did he lose his mind?
Did that weekend, in which he was deluged with telephone calls, terrify Imus into trying to rescue not only his show's corporate sponsors, but his wife's business interests, and the loss of the thousands of funders of the children's ranch? Was he so panicked that he thought he could be a match for the country's ultimate shakedown artist? What in the world was he thinking?
Or was he just engaging in what is described as the Trent Lott Crawl, which is coming to be known as the White Man's Crawl? If you thought that Senator Trent Lott's fawning before multiple black luminaries epitomized a man's loss of dignity and pride, Imus has gone and topped that performance. He even topped Doug Tracht, the radio jock otherwise known as The Greaseman, who, back in 1999, after some intemperate remarks on the radio, dragged himself around to various self-appointed black leaders in the Washington-Baltimore area to do public penance. [See my article on this episode here.]
Although other whites had disgraced themselves in their various apology stances, Lott set a precedent for white cringing and submission over the race issue. In addition, he sent strong messages, not only to white children, who learned how best to behave when confronted by howling blacks and their confederates, but also to black children, who learned what simple steps are required to bring about the subjection of The Man.
The day that CBS canceled Imus's show on WFAN, Mike and the Mad Dog, the afternoon sports entertainers on the station (now subbing in the morning), expressed their shock that so many "friends" had deserted Imus. Don't they know that the one thing you can count on white men to do is abandon other white men? Where have they been? The idea of loyalty among whites is a notion that abides only in misguided brains. Blacks often mistake class solidarity among particular circles of whites for a race bond. Do you think the tightly knit Bush social-financial circle of relatives and friends is focused around skin color?
There are thousands of Mike Nifongs out there, in one capacity or another, waiting to pounce upon what they consider the vulnerable, and supposedly hated, white male. Just as blacks, like Sharpton, use members of their race to enhance their profiles and careers, so do whites, especially when it offers a chance to show the world just how "anti-racist" they are, how good and moral. Those Duke University students were viewed by prosecutor Nifong as dispensable fodder, who can afford to take a hit or two, and even go down a time or two. After all, they've got the world on a string, according to this illusion, and their white skin allows them to bounce back from anything.
The Imus show was unique unto itself due to its focus and purpose, which were often misinterpreted. Imus would anger me at times, and I'd cease to listen for a couple or more weeks. The annoyance with him was not for his vulgar and irreverent humor, but due to what I saw as his wishy-washy approach to most political matters. As the country's political fortunes took a turn for the worse, I grew impatient with Imus and his ambivalence on certain issues.
Especially during the 2006 election, I felt it was imperative for every American to do all he could to expel the warmongers out of Washington. This was no time for satirical putdowns of candidates who might stand a chance of replacing the incumbent Republican cranks. Imus finally did come down on the antiwar side, but went on supporting Joseph Lieberman, a chief warmonger, thus, making a mockery of his position on the war. He also spent inordinate amounts of time sneering at Ned Lamont, Lieberman's chief political rival.
With young American soldiers dropping like flies in a totally unnecessary military escapade, there was Imus giving the benefit of the doubt to White House apologists. In his jocular manner, he'd claim, Well, maybe this view is right, or maybe that view is right. Sometimes I would cry out, "Oh, take a stand, damn you, Imus!" This was not a time for playing ribald word games.
In terms of presidential candidates, for weeks Imus would play at supporting this Democratic candidate or that one, or even Bush. As long as the country was being run by certifiably demented kooks, I had no use for irrelevant humor. A rather foolish posture, I admit, given the nature of the Imus show. But that was the confusing thing about it. The mix of politics and entertainment blurred the show's identity.
One of the most unfortunate consequences of this episode is the fact that yet another white man has helped to restore credibility and social power to those two cynical buffoons, Jackson and Sharpton. Just when it looked like their stars were waning, along comes the groveling Imus, to remind us blacks of who our "leaders" are. In his remarkable column in the Kansas City Star, writer Jason Whitlock sarcastically thanks Imus for extending Black History Month to April, so that blacks "can once again wallow in victimhood and protest like it's 1965."
This is how so many blacks felt upon learning that Imus sought out Sharpton and planned to go on his radio show. Writes Whitlock, "At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent. Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves."
Talk show host Tom Joyner concurs, and adds that Sharpton's focus "is to catch a mistake made, fan the issue for personal publicity and, stepping around the carnage, move on to the next photo opportunity." These are views on Sharpton, and his myriad wannabes, that many blacks have been expressing for years, yet timid whites choose to ignore what they consider dangerous dissent. I don't think that Sharpton and his clones knew that they still possessed the power endowed upon them by the media over the past several days. Thanks to Imus, they know it now.
On his radio show, Sharpton had the upper hand over Imus to the extent that Imus could not get away with calling himself an "old cracker." When he used this epithet to denigrate himself, the wily Sharpton took the moral high ground, insisting that Imus should not use this term, but should "respect" his own race. Wow! Gotcha!
Let's face it, when you allow someone to box you into a corner and force you to whine, "I am not a racist, I am not a bigot, I am a good person," you deserve little more than contempt.
So, after all this cringing and groveling, what was accomplished? Nothing more than could have been, if Imus had initially said, "Take this job and stuff it!" And how many more white men will feel compelled to prostrate themselves at the feet of blacks? While he was down there, it's surprising that Imus failed to wash Sharpton's feet -- a practice that actually was performed on the feet of black men by the contrite white members of the "Christian" organization Promise Keepers. What a wonderful set of role models they make.
Being Al Sharpton means never having to say you're sorry for any incendiary speeches that might act as fuel for the weak-minded. No one should be held accountable for words, which others may then misinterpret. It is the perpetrator of criminal acts who should be held responsible for his deeds. This rule obviously works for Sharpton, but not for all Americans, as "anti-racist watchdogs" hound their political opponents, to link them with the criminal acts of others. These unappointed guardians of society almost succeeded in the case of the white nationalist Tom Metzger, and did succeed with the railroading of the religious separatist Matt Hale. See
here and here. Because these "anti-racists" tend to share the same politics as Sharpton, he gets a free ride as the Teflon man. That's why his connection to the deaths of young Yankel Rosenblum and those unfortunate souls who died in that Harlem fire gets brushed aside.
Being Al Sharpton also means that you can claim to oppose the "gangsta" culture, while knowing there are now organizations, with the NAACP in the lead, that are major recipients of big donations that come from these "artists" and "entrepreneurs." See my articles on the noble, but short-lived, campaigns to enlighten the public about the rap/hip-hop poison conducted first by
Delores Tucker and then by
Abysssinian Baptist pastor, Rev. Calvin Butts. And also
here.
As I write this, Sharpton is preachifying about how he is going to go after the actual producers, the companies, those corporate executives, who are responsible for the very existence and dissemination of the filth they have the nerve to call "music." Let's see what happens when the NAACP brings him back to reality. In the past, neither Tucker nor Butts could get support from Sharpton or Jackson for their campaigns against those very corporations. After all these years of failing to disavow the black cultural dreck that has poisoned mainstream society, are these "civil rights" folks suddenly going to get down to the business of challenging blacks themselves? Perhaps, but only after they have taken down a few more white men. First blame Whitey.
See follow-up:
The humorless Imus escapes another mess
Read more!
Whenever I thought about Imus's program, the scatological shenanigans were not what came to mind. What I remembered were the day's politics, and the discussions with his guests, who might have roused my ire or found me in agreement. I was certainly well aware of the rough male humor on the show, which I viewed as one of the many futile behaviors that some men try to adopt, in reaction to the feminization of just about everything in this society. To me, the show was a sort of old-fashioned men's smoking car, where boorish males, out of the hearing of scolding women, could flex some rarely exercised troglodyte muscles.
Civil rights attorney Constance Rice, who was also a listener, in the Los Angeles Times described the show as "a seventh grade white boys' locker room." Well, I'd put them a little higher than the seventh grade. After all was rudely said and done, you knew that at some time in the course of the day, each of these men probably got his ears boxed by some woman, but for these few morning hours, the boys behaving badly could play at being liberated from the skirt brigade.
As a long-time listener, my greatest surprise came with Imus's decision (or was it his advisers or his wife's) to prostrate himself before Al Sharpton -- a man whom Imus had insightfully parodied over the years. No one did better takes on Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as transparent opportunists. Yet, it seems that all knowledge of what Sharpton is about, and has always been about, fell from the head of Imus, as he behaved like a clueless bumpkin. No one knew Sharpton's history better than Imus, so it is incomprehensible that he would offer himself up to the quintessential charlatan as a gift on a silver platter. When he panicked, did he lose his mind?
Did that weekend, in which he was deluged with telephone calls, terrify Imus into trying to rescue not only his show's corporate sponsors, but his wife's business interests, and the loss of the thousands of funders of the children's ranch? Was he so panicked that he thought he could be a match for the country's ultimate shakedown artist? What in the world was he thinking?
Or was he just engaging in what is described as the Trent Lott Crawl, which is coming to be known as the White Man's Crawl? If you thought that Senator Trent Lott's fawning before multiple black luminaries epitomized a man's loss of dignity and pride, Imus has gone and topped that performance. He even topped Doug Tracht, the radio jock otherwise known as The Greaseman, who, back in 1999, after some intemperate remarks on the radio, dragged himself around to various self-appointed black leaders in the Washington-Baltimore area to do public penance. [See my article on this episode here.]
Although other whites had disgraced themselves in their various apology stances, Lott set a precedent for white cringing and submission over the race issue. In addition, he sent strong messages, not only to white children, who learned how best to behave when confronted by howling blacks and their confederates, but also to black children, who learned what simple steps are required to bring about the subjection of The Man.
The day that CBS canceled Imus's show on WFAN, Mike and the Mad Dog, the afternoon sports entertainers on the station (now subbing in the morning), expressed their shock that so many "friends" had deserted Imus. Don't they know that the one thing you can count on white men to do is abandon other white men? Where have they been? The idea of loyalty among whites is a notion that abides only in misguided brains. Blacks often mistake class solidarity among particular circles of whites for a race bond. Do you think the tightly knit Bush social-financial circle of relatives and friends is focused around skin color?
There are thousands of Mike Nifongs out there, in one capacity or another, waiting to pounce upon what they consider the vulnerable, and supposedly hated, white male. Just as blacks, like Sharpton, use members of their race to enhance their profiles and careers, so do whites, especially when it offers a chance to show the world just how "anti-racist" they are, how good and moral. Those Duke University students were viewed by prosecutor Nifong as dispensable fodder, who can afford to take a hit or two, and even go down a time or two. After all, they've got the world on a string, according to this illusion, and their white skin allows them to bounce back from anything.
The Imus show was unique unto itself due to its focus and purpose, which were often misinterpreted. Imus would anger me at times, and I'd cease to listen for a couple or more weeks. The annoyance with him was not for his vulgar and irreverent humor, but due to what I saw as his wishy-washy approach to most political matters. As the country's political fortunes took a turn for the worse, I grew impatient with Imus and his ambivalence on certain issues.
Especially during the 2006 election, I felt it was imperative for every American to do all he could to expel the warmongers out of Washington. This was no time for satirical putdowns of candidates who might stand a chance of replacing the incumbent Republican cranks. Imus finally did come down on the antiwar side, but went on supporting Joseph Lieberman, a chief warmonger, thus, making a mockery of his position on the war. He also spent inordinate amounts of time sneering at Ned Lamont, Lieberman's chief political rival.
With young American soldiers dropping like flies in a totally unnecessary military escapade, there was Imus giving the benefit of the doubt to White House apologists. In his jocular manner, he'd claim, Well, maybe this view is right, or maybe that view is right. Sometimes I would cry out, "Oh, take a stand, damn you, Imus!" This was not a time for playing ribald word games.
In terms of presidential candidates, for weeks Imus would play at supporting this Democratic candidate or that one, or even Bush. As long as the country was being run by certifiably demented kooks, I had no use for irrelevant humor. A rather foolish posture, I admit, given the nature of the Imus show. But that was the confusing thing about it. The mix of politics and entertainment blurred the show's identity.
One of the most unfortunate consequences of this episode is the fact that yet another white man has helped to restore credibility and social power to those two cynical buffoons, Jackson and Sharpton. Just when it looked like their stars were waning, along comes the groveling Imus, to remind us blacks of who our "leaders" are. In his remarkable column in the Kansas City Star, writer Jason Whitlock sarcastically thanks Imus for extending Black History Month to April, so that blacks "can once again wallow in victimhood and protest like it's 1965."
This is how so many blacks felt upon learning that Imus sought out Sharpton and planned to go on his radio show. Writes Whitlock, "At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent. Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves."
Talk show host Tom Joyner concurs, and adds that Sharpton's focus "is to catch a mistake made, fan the issue for personal publicity and, stepping around the carnage, move on to the next photo opportunity." These are views on Sharpton, and his myriad wannabes, that many blacks have been expressing for years, yet timid whites choose to ignore what they consider dangerous dissent. I don't think that Sharpton and his clones knew that they still possessed the power endowed upon them by the media over the past several days. Thanks to Imus, they know it now.
On his radio show, Sharpton had the upper hand over Imus to the extent that Imus could not get away with calling himself an "old cracker." When he used this epithet to denigrate himself, the wily Sharpton took the moral high ground, insisting that Imus should not use this term, but should "respect" his own race. Wow! Gotcha!
Let's face it, when you allow someone to box you into a corner and force you to whine, "I am not a racist, I am not a bigot, I am a good person," you deserve little more than contempt.
So, after all this cringing and groveling, what was accomplished? Nothing more than could have been, if Imus had initially said, "Take this job and stuff it!" And how many more white men will feel compelled to prostrate themselves at the feet of blacks? While he was down there, it's surprising that Imus failed to wash Sharpton's feet -- a practice that actually was performed on the feet of black men by the contrite white members of the "Christian" organization Promise Keepers. What a wonderful set of role models they make.
Being Al Sharpton means never having to say you're sorry for any incendiary speeches that might act as fuel for the weak-minded. No one should be held accountable for words, which others may then misinterpret. It is the perpetrator of criminal acts who should be held responsible for his deeds. This rule obviously works for Sharpton, but not for all Americans, as "anti-racist watchdogs" hound their political opponents, to link them with the criminal acts of others. These unappointed guardians of society almost succeeded in the case of the white nationalist Tom Metzger, and did succeed with the railroading of the religious separatist Matt Hale. See
here and here. Because these "anti-racists" tend to share the same politics as Sharpton, he gets a free ride as the Teflon man. That's why his connection to the deaths of young Yankel Rosenblum and those unfortunate souls who died in that Harlem fire gets brushed aside.
Being Al Sharpton also means that you can claim to oppose the "gangsta" culture, while knowing there are now organizations, with the NAACP in the lead, that are major recipients of big donations that come from these "artists" and "entrepreneurs." See my articles on the noble, but short-lived, campaigns to enlighten the public about the rap/hip-hop poison conducted first by
Delores Tucker and then by
Abysssinian Baptist pastor, Rev. Calvin Butts. And also
here.
As I write this, Sharpton is preachifying about how he is going to go after the actual producers, the companies, those corporate executives, who are responsible for the very existence and dissemination of the filth they have the nerve to call "music." Let's see what happens when the NAACP brings him back to reality. In the past, neither Tucker nor Butts could get support from Sharpton or Jackson for their campaigns against those very corporations. After all these years of failing to disavow the black cultural dreck that has poisoned mainstream society, are these "civil rights" folks suddenly going to get down to the business of challenging blacks themselves? Perhaps, but only after they have taken down a few more white men. First blame Whitey.
See follow-up:
The humorless Imus escapes another mess
Read more!
Media Matters comes into its own
Some conservative types are ranting over the fact that David Brock's Media Matters for America is the group that brought attention to the now notorious words of Don Imus, which eventually led to his dismissal from his morning radio show. From the indignation being expressed, you would think that Brock invented the idea of the media watchdog organization. What the ranters are mad about is the fact that liberals are becoming as effective at turning spotlights on media figures they consider biased against their views as their counterparts on the political right.
For years, rightwingers have supported several such groups (some have come and gone), led by the two major ones, Brent Bozell's Media Research Center and Reed Irvine's Accuracy In Media. Founded sometime in the 1980s, both claim to offer exposes of distortions or falsehoods issued by a "malicious" mainstream media. I have been on the mailing lists of both these groups, and continue to receive biweekly "compilations" from the Media Research Center, which purports to offer the "latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes from the liberal media."
The cries of "unfair" treatment of profiled personalities emanating from the crowd that invented the Swift Boat ring more than a little hollow. Some are accusing Media Matters of smearing and tarnishing reputations. This, coming from those who engaged in the most vile and unthinkable conduct, that is, defaming and slandering veterans who had put their lives on the line, fighting in that worthless Vietnam conflict that had been instigated by successive American governments.
What could be more despicable than the mean-spirited taunting of the paraplegic Max Cleland, who was mocked by these wretches for the circumstances that led up to his injuries. No liberal, or anyone of any political attachment, could have conceived such grotesque insensitivity, not because they possess superior genes, but because such depraved thinking could not take form in the normal human mind, for fear that some god's wrath might strike one dead.
All that Media Matters is doing is throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks, which is exactly what the rightwing monitors have been doing for decades. If nothing sticks to the wall, that is, no one chooses to pick up the information, so be it. But if someone decides that an item is worthy of exploration (or "investigative reporting"), that's the way the system works. When the Swift Boaters target some poor soul who fails to walk the straight and narrow Republican path, they dig up every piece of smut they can find (and, perhaps, invent), and fling it out for all the world to see.
For years, I fell for the line about the media being "liberal," until I discovered that the media is simply a whore, and will climb into bed with whomever promises to provide the greatest amount of goodies, in this case, not money, but data, gossip and information. In remembering the amiable treatment of the Bush presidential campaigns during both election cycles (2000 and 2004), the benign news coverage during the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and the downright friendly dissemination of all those White House press releases immediately following the invasion, I found myself asking, "What liberal media?" Rightwingers can cry persecution all they wish, and howl like stuck pigs, but they now have competition in the field of muckraking.
Read more!
For years, rightwingers have supported several such groups (some have come and gone), led by the two major ones, Brent Bozell's Media Research Center and Reed Irvine's Accuracy In Media. Founded sometime in the 1980s, both claim to offer exposes of distortions or falsehoods issued by a "malicious" mainstream media. I have been on the mailing lists of both these groups, and continue to receive biweekly "compilations" from the Media Research Center, which purports to offer the "latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes from the liberal media."
The cries of "unfair" treatment of profiled personalities emanating from the crowd that invented the Swift Boat ring more than a little hollow. Some are accusing Media Matters of smearing and tarnishing reputations. This, coming from those who engaged in the most vile and unthinkable conduct, that is, defaming and slandering veterans who had put their lives on the line, fighting in that worthless Vietnam conflict that had been instigated by successive American governments.
What could be more despicable than the mean-spirited taunting of the paraplegic Max Cleland, who was mocked by these wretches for the circumstances that led up to his injuries. No liberal, or anyone of any political attachment, could have conceived such grotesque insensitivity, not because they possess superior genes, but because such depraved thinking could not take form in the normal human mind, for fear that some god's wrath might strike one dead.
All that Media Matters is doing is throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks, which is exactly what the rightwing monitors have been doing for decades. If nothing sticks to the wall, that is, no one chooses to pick up the information, so be it. But if someone decides that an item is worthy of exploration (or "investigative reporting"), that's the way the system works. When the Swift Boaters target some poor soul who fails to walk the straight and narrow Republican path, they dig up every piece of smut they can find (and, perhaps, invent), and fling it out for all the world to see.
For years, I fell for the line about the media being "liberal," until I discovered that the media is simply a whore, and will climb into bed with whomever promises to provide the greatest amount of goodies, in this case, not money, but data, gossip and information. In remembering the amiable treatment of the Bush presidential campaigns during both election cycles (2000 and 2004), the benign news coverage during the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and the downright friendly dissemination of all those White House press releases immediately following the invasion, I found myself asking, "What liberal media?" Rightwingers can cry persecution all they wish, and howl like stuck pigs, but they now have competition in the field of muckraking.
Read more!
Another stupid law in the making
Why in the world is the government intruding itself into the business of online gambling? Doesn't it grow harder for citizens to take "the law" seriously when bureaucracies attempt, first to monitor everyone's trivial pursuits, and then to punish engagement in such pursuits? In a New York Times article ("The GOP's Bad Bet," 10/19/06), social scientist Charles Murray warns that such intrusion can do "long-term damage to Americans' respect for the law." He claims that it is not worth acquiescing to those "scattering" of voters who are upset by the existence of online gambling, while outraging the millions who love it, and writes:
If a free society is to work, the vast majority of citizens must reflexively obey the law not because they fear punishment, but because they accept that the rule of law makes society possible. That reflexive law-abidingness is reinforced when the laws are limited to core objectives that enjoy consensus support, even though people may disagree on means.
Thus society is weakened every time a law is passed that large numbers of reasonable, responsible citizens think is stupid. Such laws invite good citizens to choose knowingly to break the law, confident that they are doing nothing morally wrong. The reaction to Prohibition, the 20th century's stupidest law, is the archetypal case. But the radical expansion of government throughout the last century has created many more. ...
The temptation for good citizens to ignore a stupid law is encouraged when it is unenforceable. In this, the attempt to ban Internet gambling is exemplary. One of the four sites where I play poker has blocked United States customers because of the law, but the other three are functioning as usual and are confident that they can continue to do so. They are not in America, and it is absurdly easy to devise ways of transferring money from American bank accounts to institutions abroad and thence to gambling sites.
And so the federal government once again has acted in a way that will fail to achieve its objective while alienating large numbers of citizens who see themselves as having done nothing wrong. ... Reflexive loyalty to the rule of law is an indispensable cultural asset. The more honest citizens who take for granted that they are breaking the law, the more their loyalty to the law, and to the government that creates it, is eroded.
# # #
In his syndicated column, Professor Walter Williams offers his views on gambling restrictions and what he calls Congressional nannies, those who would protect us from ourselves. In this case, he cites the House of Representatives' failure to pass a law prohibiting Internet gambling. The law failed this time around, however, its sponsors are primed to reintroduce the bill. Williams writes:
Congress' constitutional contempt is nothing new, but this latest act is quite a step down the slippery slope toward greater control of our lives. Let's look at some of their justifications. Rep. Goodlatte says, "Internet gambling is a scourge on our society. It causes innumerable problems in our society." Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., says, "The Internet is addictive for many people anyway, and online gambling can be doubly addictive." Most other justifications follow the same line of reasoning; namely, there are Americans who don't know what's good for them, and it's the job of Congress to stop them from personal indiscretions. ...
If the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act is approved, it will become a precedent for congressional control over other aspects of the Internet and an important loss in our liberty. Let's follow the money and ask who benefits should the law be passed. What about legal gambling establishments in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere? From their revenue point of view, they'd be happy to see less online gambling competition.
What about federal, state and local governments? Online gambling, most of which is offshore, doesn't create any tax revenue for them. The bill focuses on online games such as poker, blackjack and sports betting, but exempts taxable state-regulated gambling such as lotteries and horse racing. ... The only thing the act will accomplish is, like Prohibition, make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people.
Read more!
If a free society is to work, the vast majority of citizens must reflexively obey the law not because they fear punishment, but because they accept that the rule of law makes society possible. That reflexive law-abidingness is reinforced when the laws are limited to core objectives that enjoy consensus support, even though people may disagree on means.
Thus society is weakened every time a law is passed that large numbers of reasonable, responsible citizens think is stupid. Such laws invite good citizens to choose knowingly to break the law, confident that they are doing nothing morally wrong. The reaction to Prohibition, the 20th century's stupidest law, is the archetypal case. But the radical expansion of government throughout the last century has created many more. ...
The temptation for good citizens to ignore a stupid law is encouraged when it is unenforceable. In this, the attempt to ban Internet gambling is exemplary. One of the four sites where I play poker has blocked United States customers because of the law, but the other three are functioning as usual and are confident that they can continue to do so. They are not in America, and it is absurdly easy to devise ways of transferring money from American bank accounts to institutions abroad and thence to gambling sites.
And so the federal government once again has acted in a way that will fail to achieve its objective while alienating large numbers of citizens who see themselves as having done nothing wrong. ... Reflexive loyalty to the rule of law is an indispensable cultural asset. The more honest citizens who take for granted that they are breaking the law, the more their loyalty to the law, and to the government that creates it, is eroded.
In his syndicated column, Professor Walter Williams offers his views on gambling restrictions and what he calls Congressional nannies, those who would protect us from ourselves. In this case, he cites the House of Representatives' failure to pass a law prohibiting Internet gambling. The law failed this time around, however, its sponsors are primed to reintroduce the bill. Williams writes:
Congress' constitutional contempt is nothing new, but this latest act is quite a step down the slippery slope toward greater control of our lives. Let's look at some of their justifications. Rep. Goodlatte says, "Internet gambling is a scourge on our society. It causes innumerable problems in our society." Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., says, "The Internet is addictive for many people anyway, and online gambling can be doubly addictive." Most other justifications follow the same line of reasoning; namely, there are Americans who don't know what's good for them, and it's the job of Congress to stop them from personal indiscretions. ...
If the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act is approved, it will become a precedent for congressional control over other aspects of the Internet and an important loss in our liberty. Let's follow the money and ask who benefits should the law be passed. What about legal gambling establishments in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere? From their revenue point of view, they'd be happy to see less online gambling competition.
What about federal, state and local governments? Online gambling, most of which is offshore, doesn't create any tax revenue for them. The bill focuses on online games such as poker, blackjack and sports betting, but exempts taxable state-regulated gambling such as lotteries and horse racing. ... The only thing the act will accomplish is, like Prohibition, make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people.
Read more!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
What's a Democrat to do?
In "Return of the Native" (The American Conservative, December 4, 2006), Kara Hopkins explores the dilemma in which the Democratic party finds itself. How can the self-professed champions of the working class be taken seriously, while continuing to push its multicultural agenda?
Can the Democrats' current flirtation with "populism" be harmonized with its avid support for immigrants--illegal and otherwise? Can members of the party continue to denigrate those Americans, who challenge mass immigration policies, as "xenophobes" and "racists," and expect to win a majority vote?
And, most importantly, will black and Hispanic opponents of open borders, who are greatly impacted by unlimited immigration's downward pressure on wages, be shut up and kept in line by the Democrats' old politically correct platitudes regarding "minorities?" Having stretched themselves so far in the realm of identity politics, where can the Democrats turn? Hopkins writes:
Can the Democrats' current flirtation with "populism" be harmonized with its avid support for immigrants--illegal and otherwise? Can members of the party continue to denigrate those Americans, who challenge mass immigration policies, as "xenophobes" and "racists," and expect to win a majority vote?
And, most importantly, will black and Hispanic opponents of open borders, who are greatly impacted by unlimited immigration's downward pressure on wages, be shut up and kept in line by the Democrats' old politically correct platitudes regarding "minorities?" Having stretched themselves so far in the realm of identity politics, where can the Democrats turn? Hopkins writes:
Read more!
After Republicans joined them on civil rights, Democrats crawled out on the multicultural limb to maintain their supposed monopoly on public virtue. In so doing, they became a new breed of oligarchs, using powerful institutions and the cudgel of political correctness to enforce an artificial state of affairs.
Thus, when they speak of trade they employ the vague language of human rights rather than American equity. And when they bring themselves to mention immigration, it's to indict populists like CNN's Lou Dobbs for "hysteria and jingoism" as The Nation [magazine] did. . . . As long as diversity is enthroned as the highest political good, concern for Joe Six-Pack cannot be primary . . . .
The question the Left must answer, therefore, is whether concern for foreigners outweighs loyalty to citizens, for the American minorities they claim to protect are most vulnerable to the flood of unskilled labor. That is their entry point into the immigration debate and the first step back to authentic populism.
Unalloyed Imperialism
When one powerful country invades and conquers a small, weak country thousands of miles away with a very different culture, language, history, religion, and society in order to replace its regime permanently with one resembling the occupier’s own, change its economic structure, control its most important resource, and use it to dominate and change other regimes in the region, that is classic, unalloyed imperialism. To refuse to admit this and cover it up with transparent dodges of liberation, democratization, self-defense, and Global War on Terror is to indulge still further in the comforting lies that are ruining America’s capacity for world leadership and even for democratic self-governance.
-- Paul W. Schroeder, "Liberating Ourselves," The American Conservative (October 9, 2006) Read more!
-- Paul W. Schroeder, "Liberating Ourselves," The American Conservative (October 9, 2006) Read more!
Mindless Interventions
In 1999, in his book, A Republic Not an Empire, Pat Buchanan presciently wrote: "If we continue on this course of reflexive interventions, enemies will one day answer our power with the last weapon of the weak--terror, and eventually cataclysmic terrorism on US soil." And two years later, we lived through that cataclysmic terror.
In a recent syndicated column, Buchanan writes:
In a recent syndicated column, Buchanan writes:
Read more!
Now let me repeat the warning: If this Prodigal Nation does not cease its mindless interventions in quarrels and wars that are not America's concerns, our lot will be endless acts of terror until, one day, a weapon of mass destruction is detonated on American soil. What is it about global empire that is worth taking this risk?
Saturday, September 09, 2006
The biggest power-grabbing bonanza
Whatever happened to those courageous 18th century Anglos, who had the guts to attempt the formation of an open society, even though such an entity might not offer the kind of security as that of a more rigidly controlled society?
How is it that the citizen's freedom to talk back to the country's representatives and to put restrictions on these elected officials meant more to the Constitution's framers than the guarantee of physical "safety"?
Would the Founders recognize their timid descendants, who today seek security above all else, and are willingly selling out their political birthright in their efforts to guarantee continuance of the good life? Today's typical American seems happy to exist within a network of government surveillance, if it means he can live in undisturbed play with his ever-increasing toys -- his iPods, cell phones, Palm Pilots, Blackberries, ad nauseum. In "Fear Is the Coin of the Realm," Jacob Hornberger, director of the Future of Freedom Foundation, writes:
Fear, of course, has been the coin of the realm for oppressive and dictatorial governments throughout history. Frighten the citizenry and they’ll practically beg you to take away their freedom. ...
When Soviet communism, which had been used for decades to justify ever-increasing budgets for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department, expired with the fall of the Berlin Wall, new official fears had to be found. And fast! Federal power and federal budgets depended on it. There were, for example, the drug lords, who were coming to get us and put us on drugs. My favorite though was – "an unsafe world," which was enough to scare anyone to death. ...
No one can deny that 9/11 has been the biggest power-grabbing bonanza for power-loving federal politicians and bureaucrats since the Civil War. The terrorists, who are reacting to the power-grabbers’ own foreign policies, are coming to get us! Don’t even read the USA PATRIOT Act – just enact it! ...
Isn't it ironic that we have the most powerful empire in history, whose very own policies have often produced the things we're supposed be afraid of, and yet, at the same time, the most frightened grownups in the world? ... The sheeplings are bleating to the power-grabbing wolves, "Please, do whatever is necessary to protect me from the big bad terrorists. Take away my freedoms if you have to because I am so scared. I love you and I trust you."
Read more!
How is it that the citizen's freedom to talk back to the country's representatives and to put restrictions on these elected officials meant more to the Constitution's framers than the guarantee of physical "safety"?
Would the Founders recognize their timid descendants, who today seek security above all else, and are willingly selling out their political birthright in their efforts to guarantee continuance of the good life? Today's typical American seems happy to exist within a network of government surveillance, if it means he can live in undisturbed play with his ever-increasing toys -- his iPods, cell phones, Palm Pilots, Blackberries, ad nauseum. In "Fear Is the Coin of the Realm," Jacob Hornberger, director of the Future of Freedom Foundation, writes:
Fear, of course, has been the coin of the realm for oppressive and dictatorial governments throughout history. Frighten the citizenry and they’ll practically beg you to take away their freedom. ...
When Soviet communism, which had been used for decades to justify ever-increasing budgets for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department, expired with the fall of the Berlin Wall, new official fears had to be found. And fast! Federal power and federal budgets depended on it. There were, for example, the drug lords, who were coming to get us and put us on drugs. My favorite though was – "an unsafe world," which was enough to scare anyone to death. ...
No one can deny that 9/11 has been the biggest power-grabbing bonanza for power-loving federal politicians and bureaucrats since the Civil War. The terrorists, who are reacting to the power-grabbers’ own foreign policies, are coming to get us! Don’t even read the USA PATRIOT Act – just enact it! ...
Isn't it ironic that we have the most powerful empire in history, whose very own policies have often produced the things we're supposed be afraid of, and yet, at the same time, the most frightened grownups in the world? ... The sheeplings are bleating to the power-grabbing wolves, "Please, do whatever is necessary to protect me from the big bad terrorists. Take away my freedoms if you have to because I am so scared. I love you and I trust you."
Read more!
The divinely sanctioned American state
In an entry to the LewRockwell blog, Charles Featherstone questions the strange development of American Christianity into a belief system that now confuses Ceasar with God. A great many of today's Christians are taught that the church must become a subsidiary of the state. Not only do church leaders demand endorsement by the state of their particular notion of God, they also claim to know when God has returned the endorsement. He writes:
The core of the problem is the American conviction of "chosenness," that God has somehow singled out the United States of America for a special mission in the world. Personally, I'd like to see some evidence for that view, rather than mere assertions based on interpretations of scripture and self-centered wishful thinking.
Did I miss God handing out the law at Plymouth Rock, or making a covenant with Americans at Jamestown or Gettysburg? Did I miss the crucifixion and resurrection of Abraham Lincoln? Did I miss the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Progressives, empowering them to spread the Gospel and save the unsaved through the law and through state power? Read more!
The core of the problem is the American conviction of "chosenness," that God has somehow singled out the United States of America for a special mission in the world. Personally, I'd like to see some evidence for that view, rather than mere assertions based on interpretations of scripture and self-centered wishful thinking.
Did I miss God handing out the law at Plymouth Rock, or making a covenant with Americans at Jamestown or Gettysburg? Did I miss the crucifixion and resurrection of Abraham Lincoln? Did I miss the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Progressives, empowering them to spread the Gospel and save the unsaved through the law and through state power? Read more!
Enough to secure the border ten times over
Chris Simcox, of the Minutemen, estimates that 2.2 miles of fencing along a section of the Arizona-Mexico border costs about $17,000. Congressman John Murtha says that the travesty in Iraq is costing us $11 million an hour. Now, how much border fencing would that pay for, and how many National Guardsmen might be maintained at $11 million an hour?
Read more!
Paying for anchor babies
On the Vdare website, a South Carolina registered nurse vents her complaints about her hospital duties, where one-third of births are to illegal aliens.
She tells of women from South American countries who have never learned to read and write in their own native languages. Some, like indigenous Indians from Guatemala, never even learned to speak Spanish in their own countries, and certainly don't know a word of English. Yet voting advocates are insisting that such people participate in U.S. elections.
The nurse writes, "You pay over $2 billion each year just for illegals to have their anchor babies [children who are born over the border in the U.S., which insures American citizenship and benefits]." She logically proposes, "If the mother is an illegal alien who is not under our jurisdiction, then so is her baby."
Before the misinterpretation of the immigration clause in the Constitution, this was considered to be the case. Where jurisdiction was the key, the child shared the same citizenship as his parents, and did not magically become an American citizen because the mother happened to be in the country at the time she gave birth. Read more!
She tells of women from South American countries who have never learned to read and write in their own native languages. Some, like indigenous Indians from Guatemala, never even learned to speak Spanish in their own countries, and certainly don't know a word of English. Yet voting advocates are insisting that such people participate in U.S. elections.
The nurse writes, "You pay over $2 billion each year just for illegals to have their anchor babies [children who are born over the border in the U.S., which insures American citizenship and benefits]." She logically proposes, "If the mother is an illegal alien who is not under our jurisdiction, then so is her baby."
Before the misinterpretation of the immigration clause in the Constitution, this was considered to be the case. Where jurisdiction was the key, the child shared the same citizenship as his parents, and did not magically become an American citizen because the mother happened to be in the country at the time she gave birth. Read more!
A "seamless" North America - The Founders didn't have this in mind
The following excerpts are from a commentary by Phyllis Schlafly about a document of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) that proposes to "integrate" the three countries of Canada, U.S. and Mexico essentially into one -- a sort of North American European Union.
The CFR document calls for creating a "North American preference" so that employers can recruit low-paid workers from anywhere in North America. No longer will illegal aliens have to be smuggled across the border; employers can openly recruit foreigners willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages. Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico." ...
The experience of the European Union and the World Trade Organization makes it clear that a common market requires a court system, so the CFR document calls for "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution." ... The CFR document demands that we implement "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico." That's code language for putting illegal aliens into the U.S. Social Security system, which is bound to bankrupt the system. ...
To expedite American embrace of the CFR plan, [Prof. Robert] Pastor [member of CFR Task Force] calls for educational centers to help us accept "an integrated North America" and to develop "a new consciousness" so that we will think of ourselves "as North Americans." Pastor criticized the U.S., Mexican and Canadian government for remaining "zealous defenders of an outdated conception of sovereignty." ...
Americans don't want to be "integrated" with the corruption, socialism, poverty, population, and communism of our hemispheric neighbors any more than the French want to be integrated with the Turks and Bulgarians.
The European Union political elite ridiculed the French and the Dutch for not realizing that globalism is on the march and we should all get on the train before it leaves the station. The French and Dutch [whose countries rejected the proposed EU Constitution] woke up to the fact that the engineers of the EU train are bureaucrats in Brussels and judges in Luxembourg who invent regulations and judge-made laws without so much as a tip of their hats to democracy. ...
The enemies of sovereignty are working toward world government, but they know that is a highly unpopular concept. So they woo us with softer semantics, always undefined, such as global governance, human rights, sustainable development, and international justice.
The world government advocates think they can achieve their goal by incremental steps. Europe progressed from the European Common Market to the European Union, and complete integration was to be sealed with the European Union Constitution. In the Western Hemisphere, the steps are NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement), numerous North American summits such as the ones in Quebec in 2001 and at Bush's ranch in 2005, and finally FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). ...
Our Declaration of Independence, in essence, is a declaration of American sovereignty. Our freedom depends on keeping our sovereignty — with our own borders — and on avoiding European mistakes. It is essential that our next President be a man who will stand up for American sovereignty.
Read more!
The CFR document calls for creating a "North American preference" so that employers can recruit low-paid workers from anywhere in North America. No longer will illegal aliens have to be smuggled across the border; employers can openly recruit foreigners willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages. Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico." ...
The experience of the European Union and the World Trade Organization makes it clear that a common market requires a court system, so the CFR document calls for "a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution." ... The CFR document demands that we implement "the Social Security Totalization Agreement negotiated between the United States and Mexico." That's code language for putting illegal aliens into the U.S. Social Security system, which is bound to bankrupt the system. ...
To expedite American embrace of the CFR plan, [Prof. Robert] Pastor [member of CFR Task Force] calls for educational centers to help us accept "an integrated North America" and to develop "a new consciousness" so that we will think of ourselves "as North Americans." Pastor criticized the U.S., Mexican and Canadian government for remaining "zealous defenders of an outdated conception of sovereignty." ...
Americans don't want to be "integrated" with the corruption, socialism, poverty, population, and communism of our hemispheric neighbors any more than the French want to be integrated with the Turks and Bulgarians.
The European Union political elite ridiculed the French and the Dutch for not realizing that globalism is on the march and we should all get on the train before it leaves the station. The French and Dutch [whose countries rejected the proposed EU Constitution] woke up to the fact that the engineers of the EU train are bureaucrats in Brussels and judges in Luxembourg who invent regulations and judge-made laws without so much as a tip of their hats to democracy. ...
The enemies of sovereignty are working toward world government, but they know that is a highly unpopular concept. So they woo us with softer semantics, always undefined, such as global governance, human rights, sustainable development, and international justice.
The world government advocates think they can achieve their goal by incremental steps. Europe progressed from the European Common Market to the European Union, and complete integration was to be sealed with the European Union Constitution. In the Western Hemisphere, the steps are NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement), numerous North American summits such as the ones in Quebec in 2001 and at Bush's ranch in 2005, and finally FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). ...
Our Declaration of Independence, in essence, is a declaration of American sovereignty. Our freedom depends on keeping our sovereignty — with our own borders — and on avoiding European mistakes. It is essential that our next President be a man who will stand up for American sovereignty.
Read more!
Why not a return to states rights?
There was a time when true conservatives lamented the loss of the Constitution's Tenth Amendment. Somehow, as the civil rights of blacks took center stage and became the one and only Holy Cause of the nation, the right of individual states to exert political power on their own became an almost immoral idea.
Now, Pat Buchanan comes along ["Armistice in the Culture War?," The American Conservative, July 17, 2006] and proposes that which so many of us have mused over -- that each of the 50 states be allowed once again to operate under the will of their respective residents. Buchanan suggests that such a move is the only way out of this culture war that keeps Americans shouting at one another. Why not "rediscover the lost road to the states' rights nation" originally intended by Madison and Jefferson, Buchanan asks, and writes:
We need to look reality in the eye. America is no longer a moral community. We no longer agree on what is right and wrong, good and evil. The cultural revolution of the 1960s, while igniting the political counterrevolution that Nixon and Reagan rode to 49-state landslides, has by now occupied the commanding heights of academia, the arts, the media, and the popular culture. . . .
Consider the possibilities of a states' rights resolution of the issues that most bitterly divide us. Mississippi might outlaw almost all abortions, end forced busing for racial balance, forbid reverse discrimination against white folks, enact a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and woman, allow Bible instruction, prayer, and posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, and outlaw X-rated movies in all theaters. Mississippians could create the society they want, according to values in which a majority of Mississippians believe.
The same with the Big Apple. If they want to legalize lap dancing and ban smoking in every bar, that is their business. But Big Apple values could no longer be imposed on Utah or Wyoming. . . .
With a return to states' rights, the social and moral issues could be decided either by state referenda or elected representatives who could be voted out of office every two years. Society would be shaped according to the values of the people of the community, region, or state.
=================
And, one might add, if a state's residents opted for unlimited immigration from any country under the sun, let them have it. Whereas, another state could declare itself off-limits to any and all prospective immigrants, or off-limits only to particular ones from particular countries. Wouldn't that kind of choice raise the hackles on liberals! However, before becoming dismayed, they should consider that states could legalize abortion, homosexual marriage, preferential policies for their favorite ethnic/gender groups, and so forth. Read more!
Now, Pat Buchanan comes along ["Armistice in the Culture War?," The American Conservative, July 17, 2006] and proposes that which so many of us have mused over -- that each of the 50 states be allowed once again to operate under the will of their respective residents. Buchanan suggests that such a move is the only way out of this culture war that keeps Americans shouting at one another. Why not "rediscover the lost road to the states' rights nation" originally intended by Madison and Jefferson, Buchanan asks, and writes:
We need to look reality in the eye. America is no longer a moral community. We no longer agree on what is right and wrong, good and evil. The cultural revolution of the 1960s, while igniting the political counterrevolution that Nixon and Reagan rode to 49-state landslides, has by now occupied the commanding heights of academia, the arts, the media, and the popular culture. . . .
Consider the possibilities of a states' rights resolution of the issues that most bitterly divide us. Mississippi might outlaw almost all abortions, end forced busing for racial balance, forbid reverse discrimination against white folks, enact a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and woman, allow Bible instruction, prayer, and posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, and outlaw X-rated movies in all theaters. Mississippians could create the society they want, according to values in which a majority of Mississippians believe.
The same with the Big Apple. If they want to legalize lap dancing and ban smoking in every bar, that is their business. But Big Apple values could no longer be imposed on Utah or Wyoming. . . .
With a return to states' rights, the social and moral issues could be decided either by state referenda or elected representatives who could be voted out of office every two years. Society would be shaped according to the values of the people of the community, region, or state.
=================
And, one might add, if a state's residents opted for unlimited immigration from any country under the sun, let them have it. Whereas, another state could declare itself off-limits to any and all prospective immigrants, or off-limits only to particular ones from particular countries. Wouldn't that kind of choice raise the hackles on liberals! However, before becoming dismayed, they should consider that states could legalize abortion, homosexual marriage, preferential policies for their favorite ethnic/gender groups, and so forth. Read more!
If Ike could see us now
The excerpts below are some of what former General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to say about past Republican governance. They are from the speech he delivered to the 1964 Republican Convention. He is proud that his party disdains the "expansion of federal influence," the "sinister trend toward paternalism," an "increase in the concentration of power in Washington," and "charging our bills to posterity."
Say, what?
• • •
I am here this evening, first of all, as a citizen of the United States, with primary allegiance to my country; but second, I am here, with great pride, as a Republican. I am dedicated to the purposes of this party; I am jealous of its good name; I am grateful to those among us who represent us all by their discharge of political responsibility. ...
In the last thirty-two years, our political opponents have controlled the executive branch of the Federal Government for twenty-four, and the Congress for twenty-eight. During this period our money was recklessly devalued, with great hardship visited upon much of our citizenry. The expansion of federal influence was made permanent policy, even though its miserable lack of success in the economic arena persisted until the violent demands of war obscured the unhappy failure. The centralizing process even went so far as to include an attempt, by summary executive power, to seize the steel industry. . . .
The sinister trend toward paternalism, which now again grows apace, was interrupted only by the eight-year determination of a Republican administration in the 1950's. That administration . . . insisted that all public responsibilities be carried out, wherever possible, by local and state governments; by the federal government only when necessary. . . . It was an administration which set its face directly for the people and their well-being and directly against any increase in the concentration of power in Washington. . . .
By our insistence upon paying now for what we demand from government today, instead of charging our bills to posterity, we are seeing to it that those who follow us will not one day be working out their lives, paying off gigantic debts run up through our own selfishness and profligacy.
This concern for the future is in keeping with Republican conviction and American tradition. America is here, not just for a day or a century. In the Constitution we read, as the purpose of our inspired founders, "To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." Any political party that counsels us to ignore the needs of tomorrow, so that, on deficit spending, we may live today in comfort and ease, is false to America's true meaning and to her destiny. Our policy of sound conduct of fiscal affairs is simply proof of our concern for all Americans, both now and in the future.
A couple of more gems from the General:
"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."
-- Speech to luncheon clubs, Galveston, Texas, December 8, 1949, when he was president of Columbia University.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity. War settles nothing."
-- Speech in Ottawa, Canada, January 10, 1946.
Read more!
Say, what?
I am here this evening, first of all, as a citizen of the United States, with primary allegiance to my country; but second, I am here, with great pride, as a Republican. I am dedicated to the purposes of this party; I am jealous of its good name; I am grateful to those among us who represent us all by their discharge of political responsibility. ...
In the last thirty-two years, our political opponents have controlled the executive branch of the Federal Government for twenty-four, and the Congress for twenty-eight. During this period our money was recklessly devalued, with great hardship visited upon much of our citizenry. The expansion of federal influence was made permanent policy, even though its miserable lack of success in the economic arena persisted until the violent demands of war obscured the unhappy failure. The centralizing process even went so far as to include an attempt, by summary executive power, to seize the steel industry. . . .
The sinister trend toward paternalism, which now again grows apace, was interrupted only by the eight-year determination of a Republican administration in the 1950's. That administration . . . insisted that all public responsibilities be carried out, wherever possible, by local and state governments; by the federal government only when necessary. . . . It was an administration which set its face directly for the people and their well-being and directly against any increase in the concentration of power in Washington. . . .
By our insistence upon paying now for what we demand from government today, instead of charging our bills to posterity, we are seeing to it that those who follow us will not one day be working out their lives, paying off gigantic debts run up through our own selfishness and profligacy.
This concern for the future is in keeping with Republican conviction and American tradition. America is here, not just for a day or a century. In the Constitution we read, as the purpose of our inspired founders, "To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." Any political party that counsels us to ignore the needs of tomorrow, so that, on deficit spending, we may live today in comfort and ease, is false to America's true meaning and to her destiny. Our policy of sound conduct of fiscal affairs is simply proof of our concern for all Americans, both now and in the future.
A couple of more gems from the General:
"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."
-- Speech to luncheon clubs, Galveston, Texas, December 8, 1949, when he was president of Columbia University.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity. War settles nothing."
-- Speech in Ottawa, Canada, January 10, 1946.
Read more!
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The great lie persists
As white politicians sell out white America, thereby selling out all the rest of us, black politicians are busy standing in solidarity with the advocates of mass immigration, thereby selling out black Americans. The impact of mass immigration, legal and otherwise, affects greatly these subsets of born-in-this-country American citizens:
• • •
Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. ... The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays -- and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.
• • •
The natural, free market way to help low income Americans is to increase their value by making them rarer commodities. How do you do this? You guessed it, by severely curtailing (a moratorium would be ideal) immigration. Do that and America becomes more of a worker's market, forcing businesses to offer more money to attract applicants.
• • •
There are 8.3 million native-born workers 18 years of age or older working full-time who have not completed high school. In addition, there are 3.4 million adult native-born Americans who lack a high school education working part-time. There is a good deal of evidence that these workers are in direct competition with Mexican immigrants. ... In a comparison across cities, Cordelia Reimers found that the impact of immigration falls heaviest on African-American and white high school dropouts. Other research has come to a similar conclusion. Because immigration in general and Mexican immigration in particular increases the supply of high school dropouts, it should come as no surprise that it reduces wages for unskilled workers.
Yet the lie persists, as propagated by blind believers, that mass immigration has no effect on the economic or social circumstances of native-born Americans. To admit the truth of its negative impact is to admit that the United States was a better place before the migrant invasion. Read more!
- The young, who, during summer vacations are now in competition for lower-wage jobs with immigrants. If they drop out of high school, they are in competition with the same population.
- Former prison inmates, who some employers would take a chance on hiring, if they did not have an enormous pool of immigrants from which to choose.
- The elderly, who thought that when they retired they could count on low-wage jobs to supplement their meager Social Security payments. Such jobs now go to immigrants.
Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. ... The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays -- and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.
--Paul Krugman, excerpt from "North of the Border," New York Times (3/27/06)
The natural, free market way to help low income Americans is to increase their value by making them rarer commodities. How do you do this? You guessed it, by severely curtailing (a moratorium would be ideal) immigration. Do that and America becomes more of a worker's market, forcing businesses to offer more money to attract applicants.
-- Selwyn Duke, excerpt from "What Jobs Americans Won't Do?," NewsWithViews (4/3/06)
There are 8.3 million native-born workers 18 years of age or older working full-time who have not completed high school. In addition, there are 3.4 million adult native-born Americans who lack a high school education working part-time. There is a good deal of evidence that these workers are in direct competition with Mexican immigrants. ... In a comparison across cities, Cordelia Reimers found that the impact of immigration falls heaviest on African-American and white high school dropouts. Other research has come to a similar conclusion. Because immigration in general and Mexican immigration in particular increases the supply of high school dropouts, it should come as no surprise that it reduces wages for unskilled workers.
-- Excerpt from "Impact of Mexican Immigration on
Wages and Prices in the United States," Center for Immigration Studies.
Yet the lie persists, as propagated by blind believers, that mass immigration has no effect on the economic or social circumstances of native-born Americans. To admit the truth of its negative impact is to admit that the United States was a better place before the migrant invasion. Read more!
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Crouch on Richard Pryor
In this assessment of the recently deceased, vulgar comedian Richard Pryor, isn't Stanley Crouch right? Wasn't Pryor "a much more negative influence than a positive one?"
----------------
Pryor's flawed legacy
Comedian's vulgarity made him no role model
by Stanley Crouch
This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible.
When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one. . . .
Pryor was troubled and he had seen things that so haunted him that the comedian found it impossible to perform and ignore the lower-class shadow worlds he had known so well, filled with pimps, prostitutes, winos and abrasive types of one sort or another. The vulgarity of his material, and the idea a "real" black person was a foul-mouthed type was his greatest influence. It was the result of seeing the breaking of "white" convention as a form of "authentic" definition.
Pryor reached for anything that would make white America uncomfortable and would prop up a smug belief among black Americans that they were always "more cool" and more ready to "face life" than the members of majority culture. Along the way, Pryor made too many people feel that the N word was open currency and was more accurate than any other word used to describe or address a black person.
In the dung piles of pimp and gangster rap we hear from slime meisters like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, the worst of Pryor's influence has been turned into an aspect of the new minstrelsy in which millions of dollars are made by "normalizing" demeaning imagery and misogyny. . . . Of course, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam is the ultimate coon show update of human cesspools, where "cutting edge" has come to mean traveling ever more downward in the sewer.
In essence, Pryor stunned with his timing, his rhythm, his ability to stand alone and fill the stage with three-dimensional characters through his remarkably imaginative gift for an epic sweep of mimicry.
For the complete column:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/374139p-317932c.html
Read more!
----------------
Pryor's flawed legacy
Comedian's vulgarity made him no role model
by Stanley Crouch
This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible.
When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one. . . .
Pryor was troubled and he had seen things that so haunted him that the comedian found it impossible to perform and ignore the lower-class shadow worlds he had known so well, filled with pimps, prostitutes, winos and abrasive types of one sort or another. The vulgarity of his material, and the idea a "real" black person was a foul-mouthed type was his greatest influence. It was the result of seeing the breaking of "white" convention as a form of "authentic" definition.
Pryor reached for anything that would make white America uncomfortable and would prop up a smug belief among black Americans that they were always "more cool" and more ready to "face life" than the members of majority culture. Along the way, Pryor made too many people feel that the N word was open currency and was more accurate than any other word used to describe or address a black person.
In the dung piles of pimp and gangster rap we hear from slime meisters like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, the worst of Pryor's influence has been turned into an aspect of the new minstrelsy in which millions of dollars are made by "normalizing" demeaning imagery and misogyny. . . . Of course, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam is the ultimate coon show update of human cesspools, where "cutting edge" has come to mean traveling ever more downward in the sewer.
In essence, Pryor stunned with his timing, his rhythm, his ability to stand alone and fill the stage with three-dimensional characters through his remarkably imaginative gift for an epic sweep of mimicry.
For the complete column:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/374139p-317932c.html
Read more!
Something essential has died
When a Christian pastor is hounded and threatened by a government agency for using his pulpit in praise of peace and to worship the Ultimate Peacemaker, has something essential died in this country? An excerpt from Lawrence Vance's article, "Humpty Dumpty Religion," on the Lew Rockwell site:
But first, a word about the term "Christian warmonger." Yes, it is spoken in derision. And yes, it is a pejorative term that is meant to agitate and incite Christians who continue to support what is becoming more and more evident every day, an unnecessary, unscriptural, immoral, and unjust war that is needlessly killing and injuring American soldiers, creating terrorists faster than we can kill them, increasing the hatred many foreigners around the world have for the United States, and dividing churches and families across the country. In light of what Christian peace advocates are called by Christian war supporters--liberal, communist, anti-war weenie, traitor, coward, America-hater--I think the term "Christian warmonger" is justified. Read more!
But first, a word about the term "Christian warmonger." Yes, it is spoken in derision. And yes, it is a pejorative term that is meant to agitate and incite Christians who continue to support what is becoming more and more evident every day, an unnecessary, unscriptural, immoral, and unjust war that is needlessly killing and injuring American soldiers, creating terrorists faster than we can kill them, increasing the hatred many foreigners around the world have for the United States, and dividing churches and families across the country. In light of what Christian peace advocates are called by Christian war supporters--liberal, communist, anti-war weenie, traitor, coward, America-hater--I think the term "Christian warmonger" is justified. Read more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
