Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Obsessing on White Folks

2012-01-26T20:51:00.002-05:00

James McBride, writing in somewhat defense of Spike Lee's commentary at the Sundance Festival, wrote the following:

America is a super power not because we make the biggest guns. We’re a superpower because our culture has saturated the planet: Levis, Apple, Nike, Disney, Coke, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Jazz, Rhythm n Blues, Rock ‘n Roll, and Hip Hop. Our culture dominates the world far more than any nuclear bomb can. When you can make a person think a certain way, you don’t have to bomb them. Just give them some credit cards, a wide screen 3D TV, some potato chips, and watch what happens. This kind of cultural war, a war of propaganda and words, elements that both Hollywood and Washington know a lot about, makes America powerful beyond measure. The hard metal of this cultural weaponry, much of it, emanates from the soul of Blacks, the African American experience in music, dance, art and literature.

But this kind of cultural war puts minority storytellers – Blacks, Asians, Latinos and people of color – at a distinct disadvantage. My friend Spike Lee is a clear example. [my emphasis]

This statement reveals the deficit of independence of the African American. The problem with the highlighted comment is that Asians in fact have a movie making center, mostly in Hong Kong, but also in Japan. So Asians are good. They don't depend upon white folks to tell their stories.

Similarly we have Bollywood. So Indians are good. They can and do tell their own stories at will.

In Nigeria we have Nollywood. And while we can complain about the quality of some of the material that is produced it shows that we Africans can in fact produce their own stories if they so choose.

Latinos, in addition to have their own productions in their own countries (or countries of origin, have channels on TV that provides them with a broad array of stories. So Latinos are not exactly dependent upon white Hollywood to provide for them. Who does that leave? The African American, who after spending time under the boot of whites in America, have decided to be the pimple on their butts, in hopes that if they itch enough they will get a scratch or two.

How about we expend our energies into making our own production studios like Tyler Perry has done (and this is not an endorsement of his films) and as Wesley Snipes Amen Ra productions. Hire these hungry (as in want to make movies) African film makers, sound technicians, etc. and produce our own content, Put them into Magic Johnson theaters and tell Hollywood to kiss our collective behinds?

I suppose though that complaining about whether white folks "understand" black lives and the like is easier though. Not as much work involved. And as an extra bonus, Negroes can again ask for the approval of white folks for their work.

RE: Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped

2012-01-26T10:51:00.006-05:00

On Jan 14th Ebony.com posted an opinion piece entitled "Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped: Our victim blaming tactics do little to prevent sexual assault" in which author Zerlina Maxwell presented what she thought would be best for 2012 as it related to female victims, or better put, potential victims of sexual assault:

New rule for 2012: No more ad campaigns and public service announcements targeted at women to teach them how to avoid rape.

I'm not entirely sure what ad campaigns she was speaking of and there were no examples of said media campaigns given in her piece but I'm sure they are out there. Somewhere.

Assuming that these ads are out there somewhere, has anyone actually asked what specifically is wrong with informing women on how to avoid being raped? Do we, for example, object to public service announcements that inform the public on how to avoid being robbed? or how to not be an inviting target of pick pockets? Do we object to advice given to those who have iDevices that perhaps they ought not have them out? Do we? If we do not, then why do we make a special exception for rape?

Let's continue with Ms. Maxwell's commentary so as to perhaps understand where she is coming from:

It’s not effective, it’s offensive, and it’s also a lie. Telling women that they can behave in a certain way to avoid rape creates a false sense of security and it isn’t the most effective way to lower the horrible statistics which show that 1 in 5 women will become victims of a completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. The numbers for African American women are even higher at nearly 1 in 4.

It's not effective? What's not effective? Giving advice to women on how to decrease the chances of being raped is not effective? Says who? What data actually supports this statement? None has been provided. I suppose we should just take Ms. Maxwell's word for it.

But lets take for example the young woman who is instructed by her parents to not take a drink from strangers. Doesn't this constitute "advice" on "how to avoid being raped"? And if she heeds such advice is she not now more empowered and therefore less likely to be a victim? If so, doesn't that mean that Ms. Maxwell's statement is demonstrably false?

Mind you not all advice is useful. For example people who wish to say that a woman ought not to have worn a skirt of a certain length or show a certain amount of cleavage is certainly out of order as we know that what is worn by a woman has little if any bearing on whether a woman will be victimized. However; just because some advice is downright silly and objectionable, it does not mean that all advice is useless. Therefore; it is best to discern useful advice from the weeds. But again, no such advice is listed for us to evaluate so we are left thinking that any advice given must be ineffective.

Ms. Maxwell then moves onto what she thinks will be most effective:

We need anti-rape campaigns that target young men and boys. Campaigns that teach them from a young age how to respect women, and ultimately themselves, and to never ever be rapists. In addition, we should implore our men and boys to call out their friends, relatives, and classmates for inappropriate behavior and create systems of accountability amongst them.

I see. So Ms. Maxwell's position is that young men and boys are not being taught not to rape.

I see.

I would hazard to guess that a good number of parents would object to such a characterization, but I'm not in a position to speak for them. But it certainly is curious that Ms. Maxwell would make such an assertion with no data presented to show that young men and boys are not being taught to respect girls and women. The actual interesting thing is the demographic she targeted in this discussion, Young men and boys. Statistics show that rape victims tend to fall into this category. It is not surprising because persons in this group, male and female alike, tend to make choices that are more likely to leave them vulnerable to being victimized and are very likely to succumb to peer pressure and other group dynamics in which people can do things they actually do not want to do. That includes women who have sex with males and then later have regret and claim to have been raped. Yes, it happens. Sadly.

On the point of "men and boys" calling out their friends, relatives and classmates, there is the large problem of simply not knowing. I cannot call out a friend's behavior if I do not know about it. The fact is that most rapes occur when the perpetrator and the victim are alone. They occur most by those who are trusted by the victims. In such a case, so called "good men" are nowhere to be seen. Worse yet, they can only act after the fact. I don't know about Ms. Maxwell, but I would prefer to not deal with after the fact.

In regards to inappropriate behavior. What constitutes "inappropriate behavior"? who gets to judge that. I don't drink. I may be of the opinion that getting drunk is "inappropriate" period. Someone else may not see it that way. I may be a "hands off" person in my interpersonal dealings, while someone else may be particularly physical. Who am I to determine who's behavior crosses the line? I don't have such authority. But I can act if a woman indicates without question that some man's behavior has crossed a line. But that would be giving women "advice" to speak up. Advice is apparently verboten.

Speaking of drinking, Ms.Maxwell gives us an example:

For so long all of our energy has been directed at women, teaching them to be more “ladylike” and to not be “promiscuous” to not drink too much or to not wear a skirt. Newsflash: men don’t decide to become rapists because they spot a woman dressed like a video vixen or because a girl has been sexually assertive.

I've already covered the total BS that is the "you shouldn't wear that" so I wont cover it again. However; to the "drink to much" point I would counter: what is the likelihood of a sober (or at least in control of herself) person being raped compared to one who is passed out, or falling out drunk? I'll actually answer this question later. Again, this is not to say that a drunk woman "asked for it", but as I said before, I would rather not deal with the aftermath of being vulnerable, than not advise my lady friends to not get so drunk that she is "easy pickings" for one seeking to victimize.

Speaking of drinking:

How about we teach young men when a woman says stop, they stop? How about we teach young men that when a woman has too much to drink that they should not have sex with her, if for no other reason but to protect themselves from being accused of a crime?

Did I read correctly? So we're good with advising men to not deal with a drunk woman because he might find himself on the wrong side of the law, but advising a woman not to get drunk around men she neither knows or trusts is bad? Talk about blatant double standards. Is that what's good for 2012? And who are we to tell men and women how they prepare themselves for intercourse. A lot of men and women apparently need to be liquored up in order to disinhibit themselves. Who am I to judge someone who does that?

In regards to "'no' meaning 'no'".=, I'm all for it. The actual data shows that most of us men are for it. Here's the thing though, unfortunately there are a number of women (how large a population I have no idea) that seem to think that teasing a man is "cute". Where there is "no" and "maybe" and "well a little bit". Personally I think that men who encounter such women ought to leave (or have her leave). However; some of these encounters happen and once a "no" turns out to mean "try harder" or "keep trying 'cause I wanna see how much you'll beg for it" then every other woman that man meets after her, is in danger. Why? Because the mixed signals, particularly when young men and women are still trying to figure out what is what in the mating world, lead to the next woman's certain objection to perhaps be mistook for "try harder".

Again, not that I think it excuses the behavior of a man who does not adhere to the "no" rule, but as stated before I'd rather not get that call from the woman who, unfortunately ran into that man.
Ms. Maxwell then discusses what she calls a "culture of violence towards women":

The culture that allows men to violate women will continue to flourish so long as there is no great social consequence for men who do so. And while many men punished for sexual assaults each year, countless others are able to commit rape and other crimes against women because we so often blame the victim instead of the guilty party.

Culture that allows men to violate women? Really? Here in the US where Ms.Maxwell pointed out that 3 of 4 women (75%) will never be sexually assaulted or raped in her lifetime? How do you claim there is an at large culture of violating women with statistics like that? There are, in fact, sub-cultures in which violence as a whole is acceptable and therefore women in those circles (or who share geographic areas with such persons) are more likely than average to face such violence, but the statistic as provided by Ms. Maxwell simply does not support an at large "culture of violating women".

"Many" and "countless" are used skillfully by Ms. Maxwell to hide the fact that she has provided no data. You would be under the impression that there are men all over the place who are simply waiting for a woman to pass by so they can hop up on them. So since we need actual data so that we can move from conjecture and generalizations, lets look at some actual statistics.

A Harvard paper from 2002 entitled "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending among Undetected Rapists"

Informs us of a group of 1,882 men out of whom 120 self reported acts that met the legal definition of rape. For you math heads out there that means of the group only 6% of the men self reported legal rape.

Furthermore the report showed that the majority, 80% of these men committed rapes on women who were "incapacitated" due to drug or alcohol use

Let's pause here for a minute. If we go back to Ms. Maxwell's position that it is "offensive" and "ineffective" to advise women to not get drunk, how do we reconcile such a position with the above fact? It seems quite clear that advising women to not get drunk or otherwise incapacitated would possibly reduce the incident of rape by 80%.

Eighty. Per. Cent.

Are we really going to be "offended" by such advise?

If we continue looking at the data we find that of the 120 men who admitted to having committed a rape, 76 (63%) of them had committed multiple rapes. These 76 repeat rapists accounted for 439 individual acts of rape out of 483.

Again for the math people, this means that 4% of the men interviewed were responsible for 90% of rapes.

In the paper we also find that 10 of these 76 had committed between 9-50 rapes per individual.

What did this paper state as their conclusion?

The evidence that a relatively small proportion of men are responsible for a large number of rapes and other interpersonal crimes may provide at least a partial answer to an oft noted paradox: namely, that while victimization surveys have established that a substantial proportion of women are sexually victimized, relatively small percentages of men report committing acts of sexual violence.

So if we take this report as being an accurate representation of of society at large (which has *not* been determined by any larger scale studies) it would be the case that the vast majority of men do not commit or condone rape. This means that, contrary to the assertion made by Ms. Maxwell, there is not an at large "culture of violating women". It would also be the case that a very, very small subset of actual rapists, relative to the overall number of males in the US population are actually responsible for 90% of rapes.

Given that the report also indicates that these men also engage in other interpersonal violence, that they do not care about being "educated" about rape or what constitutes rape. They, like all criminals, simply do not care about their victims or what society thinks is proper. This means that no amount of "educating young men and boys" will stop rapists from doing what they do any more than laws against theft stops the thief.

Since Ms. Maxwell is so concerned about violence though I think she and others who think like her may want to consider a recent study on domestic violence. If this study turns out to be statistically accurate across the US Population, Ms. Maxwell may want to direct her "education" recommendation towards women. the National Institute of Justice and the Department of Defense has found that:

Among males, 92% reported experiencing physical violence from a partner, while 6% said they experienced both physical violence and stalking.

Since the majority of these males would have been in relationships with women, it means that the vast majority of men in relationships, at least in Atlanta, are targets of intimate violence by women who apparently are under the impression that it is OK. Sounds to me that we actually have an at large culture of violating men on our hands.

Imagine that.

State of the Union 2012

2012-01-24T22:12:00.003-05:00

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

There are in fact Americans in Iraq. The same Americans that made up a large percentage of the "combatants" in that country: Independent Contractors. They are American (and maybe some other nationalities). So the most accurate comment is that there are no US GIs in Iraq. They are now in Kuwait. That is those who have not been sent home or to Afghanistan.

As for the Taliban, The US is currently in negotiations with the Taliban. I'm not sure how this equals "momentum is broken". I told you in 2003 that the US was dealing with the Taliban and I told you again last week that the US is dealing with the Taliban.

Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs.

You all did read the NY Times piece on why Apple produces the iPhone in China and why Steve Jobs told Obama outright that those jobs are not coming back. Alrighty then.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

Very true. Of course since the countries the US now competes with were still under colonial control and therefore the international playing field was nowhere near "level" of course the US had such spectacular growth.

I won't discuss the segregation.... Speaking of which:

The two of them shared the optimism of a Nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger; that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share – the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

Unless you were black. In which case, well, if you made it you were VERY fortunate on top of the hard work you did. But that kind of history doesn't make for feel good State of the Union speeches.

We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

I'm sorry but is Obama somehow unaware that there was never a time in US history where "everyone" got a fair shot? Or where everybody played by the same rules? There is no history to back this up. Why are black people eating this up when they know this was simply not the case?

Let’s remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren’t, and personal debt that kept piling up.

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.

That offshoring was going on under both Democratic and Republican administrations and congresses. In regards to the mortgages and the subprime fraud. The regulators did in fact have authority. They looked away. We know that. So lets' not act as if the regulators could not do anything.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs

Absolutely the best decision made by the administration. But do be clear that in terms of GM, they were also saved by the Chinese who for some reason love Buicks. GM's largest sales, as far as I know, come from China, not the US. I'm not saying that to down the statement made by Obama, but to point out the increasing irrelevance of the US consumer as the Chinese grow their economy.

We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores.

I'm glad he said it. It was said by many that there was going to be a new normal for unemployment. Many didn't believe it. I wonder how long until this sinks in.

Now there's a long stint on teachers and education. Good talk but since education policy is largely state based, there is nothing Obama can actually do but ask and suggest the states to do. Which is underscored here:

So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.

Now I don't know for certain, but I was under the impression that school attendance was compulsory. But even if it isn't, how does one deal with some of the reasons that people drop out such as issues at home? Also given the high rates of drop outs in certain communities who's going to foot the bill for the necessary school space and teachers for those students? Not that I'm being down on the suggestion, but just keeping it real. For example Mayor Bloomberg of NYC is on record saying how he'd remove up to half the teachers (assuming this quote to be accurate). I don't see how overcrowded classrooms helps anyone, particularly students who have special needs (or extra attention).

As to the cost of a college education, Obama said:

this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.

I think the reason why he is saying that interest rates would double is due to the following

The bill eliminates $9-billion that had been approved in the House version to reduce the interest rate on federally subsidized loans in 2012-13 and subsequent years. That rate is now due to drop to 4.5 percent for the 2010-11 academic year and 3.4 percent the following year, but then rise to 6.8 percent after that.

It would appear that there will need to be money spent to get that interest rate to not go up.

So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

That's a nice line. I work in education. Tuition WILL go up. If the state cannot cover it's cost of doing business (employee raises, technology maintenance and procurement, cost of third party services, etc.) they will raise tuition. Obama knows this. His people know this. This is an empty threat. If this threat is carried out, what will happen is that faculty and staff (the people who run these schools) will be forced into furloughs. Furloughs are a quaint way of saying "pay cut". Now some faculty members at the high end of the salary range will probably be able to absorb that. But there are many people at the low end of the salary range for whom such a thing can be a disaster for their household budget.

Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

Let's be clear. A College education is already a luxury. Only 27% of the US population has a 4 year degree. College education has always been "for the few". The real issue is an employable education for all.

That’s why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

Actually the fewer crossings have more to do with the depressed economy than with "boots on the ground".

Moving on.

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

Going by the comments I saw on Twitter, I am under the impression that folks on the left are now for drill baby drill. I think liberals need to make up their minds. Are they against drilling for environmental reasons like oil spills and global warming or are they not?

Now if we know that only 2% of the work reserves are in the US, then no matter how much oil is "opened up", there is no escaping dependency on foreign oil. So the ONLY way to get off foreign oil is to get off oil completely.

We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.

I will simply direct the reader to the 60 Minutes report on drilling and the consequences on certain neighborhoods in the vicinity of said operations.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

Absolutely. I've been saying this.

We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender.

But he just said that there were no regulations. Which one is it sir?

Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.

I thought this was already done. Anyway, yes, yes they can because that payroll tax goes to social security that they'll likely be pulling from in the future. And that payroll tax is on a sliding scale depending on how much you make. And if you make enough to get that $40 hit, you're not in financial straights; at least not one of the government's making.

’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.

Which cannot be done while cutting the payroll tax that directly funds Social Security.

Moving on to taxes:

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

I agree with this but I don't see it happening. Both parties are deep in hock to corporations for this to go down.

On Executive Power:

The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote. That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

Really? After signing an unconstitutional law that could indefinitely detain people, we are supposed to give the executive more unchecked power? Really? Are people so un worship of Obama that they'd actually go for that?

On War:

From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.

Yes because under this president we have to most drones in operations and have killed more people with them than any other president. Ever.

Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

I don't expect a single liberal to even comment negatively about this. Not a single one. Not a one that rightly derided McCain's "bomb, bomb Iran". Not one. Sanctions are acts of war. Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has met it's obligations under that treaty. Furthermore; as a sovereign state it has the right to develop whatever nuclear devices it wishes.

What is the school there for?

2012-01-23T22:07:00.002-05:00

“Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

...“As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

I don't know if the story related here is fiction or not, but the sentiments are completely Garveyite in nature. Don't get mad at the Bwana for saying it. Garvey made the same argument.

Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor had US spy agency ties

2012-01-22T22:38:00.002-05:00

WASHINGTON - When Charles G. Taylor tied bed sheets together to escape from a second-floor window at the Plymouth House of Correction on Sept. 15, 1985, he was more than a fugitive trying to avoid extradition. He was a sought-after source for American intelligence...

The Defense Intelligence Agency refused to reveal any details about the relationship, saying doing so would harm national security.

Taylor, 63, pleaded innocent in 2009 to multiple counts of murder, rape, attacking civilians, and deploying child soldiers during a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone while he was president of Liberia from 1997 to 2003.

Well we've always known that US National Security interests are above those of the innocent people now either dead or limbless. Or in the case of Libya, simply wiped out.

So remember this when next you think to pooh-pooh claims by certain governments (Iran) that they have captured spies and that there are spies in their countries. Just know that a lot of innocent people are dead for US "national security" interests.

PS: This is why I believe the US had Bin Ladin killed on sight and thrown into the sea. There was NO WAY the US wanted detailed information on how in bed they were with that man. Dead negroes may not concern a lot of people, but 3000K dead Americans? That's another thing entirely.

Where Are You From

2012-01-22T10:46:00.001-05:00

I’ve also had these questions about identity since I was nine years old. I wrote a whole chapter called ‘Where are you from?” where I describe the sensation of being in Switzerland or Sweden or Germany or London and running into an indigenous African, an African who was not a forced immigrant because of the slave trade. On countless occasions before I even opened my mouth, an African man or woman would walk up to me and ask, ‘Where are you from?” I would answer, “I’m from Houston, Texas.” They would say, “Okay great, that’s where you live but where are you from? Where are your people from?” I would stand there like, “What is this person talking about?” That happened so many different times

Isaiah Washington

Just Can't Be Black

2012-01-18T14:50:00.003-05:00

The thing with these Garifuna is that they are no more or less "mixed" than many people in Jamaica, Trinidad, etc.

That they object to using "black" when "Black" is generally a catch all for those of African Descent, which clearly these folks are (more so if you look at the culture) shows just how divided the black house is. Of course some of them, just like some Jamaicans, and African-Americans are not black and/or are more mixed than others.

My suggestion: They should check the "black" box and also the other box and put in their ethnic identity. Just like there are Gullahs in the US African-American population.

Silliness in the Name of God

2012-01-13T17:16:00.002-05:00

When the whole Mohammed Cartoon mess flared up a few years back I was very vocal in my support of the Danish newpapers and anyone else for that matter who made a cartoon of Mohammed, Jesus, Buddah, Ogun, the local Rabbi, whom and whatever, because it is my belief that freedom of speech trumps the religious sensitivities of anyone. Self included and I often have issues with representations of my belief system and those who adhere to it. Personally I prefer to call them out on their hypocrisy or racism, or both but I do not advocate censoring them because censorship does not change minds it merely drives speech underground and breeds resentment. Nor do I support the passage of so called "hate speech" or "hate crime" legislation for the same reasons. Such legislation aims to protect folks from being insulted, which is NOT the purpose of government. I have been and will continue to point out the slippery slope it is to erect legal barriers to expression that a particular party finds objectionable. In India we have such an example:

Last month, a Delhi court had suggested that 21 companies including Yahoo, Orkut, Facebook and Google should be tried for "selling, publicly exhibiting and...(circulating) obscene, lascivious content". A petition referred the court to obscene online depictions of several gods and goddesses, as well as the Prophet Mohammed.

This no doubt inspired by the pandering speeches given by various heads of state in response to the Mohammed cartoons. One day these folks will understand that abiding by specific taboos and the like towards icons of a religion are only obligated to those who adhere to said religion. Everyone else is free to not give a damn.

Doesn't Make Sense

2012-01-12T10:30:00.003-05:00

Paul Craig Roberts Strikes again:

Washington is getting all of us in over our heads. Washington has declared the “Asia-Pacific” and the South China Sea to be areas of “America’s national interest.” What sense does this make? It makes the same sense as if China declared the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea to be areas of China’s national interest.

I do however; disagree with his analysis that Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon. I believe Iran wants one and that the hold ups are a combination of the assassinations as well as the need to secure the locations. I am not bothered one bit by a nuclear Iran. Iran is a sovereign country and can develop nuclear arms if it so chooses; just as the US does not take direction from Iran on what it can and cannot develop. The ranting about not allowing Iran to have a nuke reeks of ye olde White Supremacy that got the Middle East into the situation it is in now. It is not different from disarming the natives of colonized lands (so called "trouble makers") and arming those natives who are "friendly" to the new occupiers with superior weapons. Same shit new location.

Covert War Against Iran

2012-01-12T09:57:00.002-05:00

Let's not kid ourselves. Seven Nuclear scientists are killed, one by one in Iran, often with explosives is not an accident. A computer virus that specifically targets a centrifuge made by a specific company is not an accident. From the NY Times:

The Israeli military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, writing on Facebook about the attack, said, “I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear,” Israeli news media reported.

While we're not going to comment on Israel's attitude towards Iran, I will note the use of the word "revenge". Why did this person use that word. Why would anyone "take revenge" on a nuclear scientist...or seven of them? One may take "revenge" against a state, but this "revenge" commentary, in my opinion, simply tipped the hand of the Israelis as being behind these events. It does not help that we know that Israel has been itching to bomb Iran.

let's not even get into the not so covert assasination caught on video of a Hezbollah agents by members of Mossad.

I will say this though, When you engage in blowing up cars in public places, you are no better than the so called "terrorists" you scream about.

Conspiracy Theory or Not?

2012-01-12T09:02:00.002-05:00

Many years ago, January 2004 to precise I discussed the economic reasons for the US going into Afghanistan:

the bases more importantly, improved "American access to Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas," and extended "US influence to a region hitherto dominated by Russia and of constant concern to China (4)." The bases in essence paved the way for America to gain a foothold in a globally strategic region thereby putting it in a better position to compete with Russia and China for the great oil treasures of the Caspian Sea.

In addition to being the world's largest lake, the Caspian sea is believed to hold vast oil reserves comparable to those of the Middle East. Yet, unlike the Middle East, transport of the extracted black gold from the landlocked lake to the open sea is a major hurdle. Therefore, the primary issue guiding the politics of the region revolve around not ownership of oil, rather control of the proposed pipelines by which the oil is transported5. It is within this context that Uzbekistan has emerged as "the key strategic state in the area (5)."

The need for this strategic ownership of oil AND the means to get it to market lead the US to deal with both the Taliban as well as form strategic alliances with Pakistan.

March
Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister Sheikh Muradov meets with Mullah Omar in Kandahar to discuss pipeline.

April
Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Taliban sign agreement to revive pipeline project.

Now let's look at a recent report from the NY Times

The United Arab Emirates has nearly completed an oil export pipeline from Abu Dhabi, on the Gulf, to the Gulf of Oman, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz...

The project aims to “offset reliance on Arabian Gulf oil terminals...

“Iran’s potential ability to close the choke point is a key trump card that could give it the upper hand” in its face-off with the United States and its allies....

, analysts say completion of the Abu Dhabi pipeline would be a positive step toward greater supply security.

Notice the talk of "security" in many of the comments in the piece. Not really all that different from that discussed in January of 2004. And just think about it. Why even consider such a pipeline to bypass the straight unless one expected some event that could disrupt traffic through that point? How long ago was this devised? Who's been plotting and for how long?

Looking at a map of the region

Look where Iran sits in relationship to today's NYT report and my January 2004 entry.

Clearly those in charge are doing whatever that can to route as much oil around Iran which would, if it were "friendly" be the logical means to pass oil from the Caspian sea into the established ports in the Persian Gulf.

You don't think so? Then why do you think the US is admitting to discussions with the Taliban? And who's at the table?

Over the last year, Marc Grossman, a veteran but low-key diplomat, led a small team of American officials who met secretly from Doha, Qatar, to Munich with a shadowy representative of Afghanistan’s Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, in hopes of starting peace talks.

The same Mullah Omar I told you about back in 2004.

Don't mind me though.

Campaign Promise? What Campaign Promise?

2012-01-10T21:10:00.002-05:00

From our friends at Counterpunch:

Today, President Obama has abandoned his inaugural pledge to close Guantánamo and there are more than 3,000 detainees at Bagram — five times the number of prisoners when the president took office — with a scheduled expansion of the facility by the end of 2012 to house up to 5,500 detainees.

I recall something along the lines of "McSame" during the 2008 campaign. Look, I know full well that politicians say whatever they need to to get elected but exactly at what point do we call a liar a liar regardless of what party set they claim?m Unless of course so called "progressives" are OK with this kind of thing, you know, to keep us safe.

The Mad Dictator

2012-01-10T08:51:00.002-05:00

Reading on the increasing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in countries that had uprisings I stumbled across the following at Counterpunch:

The new “government” has raised it to 750 dinars per month and it is not enough, given approximately 18 per cent rise in prices since this summer when the Gadhafi government enforced anti-gouging rules. Those rules are no longer being enforced and prices continue to rise.

So if I understand this correctly, the dictator who was hoarding money for himself had imposed anti-gouging rules. No doubt this was done so that more riches could flow to him.

Further:

the receipt of payments for Libya oil shipments, even though oil is being shipped today as well as the pay[sic] few months, zero payments have been received at the CB. The reason is said to be that NATO countries are being shipped oil, (also to gas and oil rich Qatar) free of charge under a payback arrangement with NATO for its regime change services.

Paying back? So was this a humanitarian mission or a NATO for hire? I never knew one had to "pay back" a UN humanitarian intervention.

On a different note there is the issue of war and manhood. I have often discussed the problems with warfare in colonial and post colonial countries. It is particularly dangerous when there are large numbers of young unemployed, marginally educated and unattached males wandering around. Due to the aggressive nature of masculinity (that testosterone thing), weapons and males do not make for a good mix. In the Congo, Liberia and other countries where there have been high unemployment and a weak state apparatus young men seeking to validate themselves (and entertain themselves) gravitate to warfare (Not really all that different than the popularity of FPS in so called "first world" countries). So we find in Libya:

A few young men I chatted with during a demonstration at Green Square yesterday actually said they miss the fighting and want to fight some more. “It was really exciting and fun most of the time and I made some great friends!” one kid from Benghazi told me. He plans to stay in Tripoli with his militia buddies.

Whoever comes to power will have to deal with this issue before cliques form up to wreak havoc on the population by being convinced by someone what whomever wins the election really ought not to and....well you know the rest.

The last mistake that the NTC is making is as follows:

It bars, with loosely all-embracing language, “former members of Gadhafi’s regime” from being candidates in the election. Among the judges I spoke with at the Ministry of Justice some expressed dismay because they said that 80 per cent of the current staff at their Ministry, and most other Ministries, worked there, lawyers and judges included, under the Gadhafi regime and were patriotic Libyans. There is going to be lots of confusion concerning the scope of the new law and its application. The new election law also bans anyone who got a degree based on academic research on the Green Book — Gadhafi’s political manifesto that laid out his theory of government and society declaring Libya a “republic of the masses.”

This reminds me of the "de-baathigication" of Iraq. We see how that's going. It would be a huge mistake for the new government to bar those most qualified to run the various arms of government from serving. It is one thing if they are seeking to be seditious, but Ghadaffi is dead and his sons are either dead or about to be imprisoned. There is no "going back" to Ghadaffi. There are only those seeking their own new legacy.

Here's to hoping that some influential people have read Fanon's Pitfalls of National Consciousness.

Trashing The Constitution

2012-01-09T13:45:00.003-05:00

I've waited a bit to write on this indefinite detention thing for a few reasons. The first being that the language used in the legislation is questionable in some respects. For example, one of the relevant sections of the NDAA states that US citizens are exempt from the requirement of indefinite detention. I sat on this particular clause because it could be read that the "requirement" statement means that US citizens cannot be indefinitely detained. Another way of reading the statement is that US citizens cannot be required to be detained but that the option of doing so exists.

Indeed Obama's signing statement that his administration would not detain citizens makes the later reading more likely to be the intended meaning of the legislation. That should bother a lot of people.

One of the supreme ironies of this turn of events is that it was a president who was a constitutional scholar who signed this piece of legislation. One can read that in one of two ways:

1) Obama being so well versed in the Constitution knows better than the rest of us whether such a thing as indefinite detention is constitutional.

or

2) Obama knew full well that the indefinite detention part was unconstitutional and signed it anyway.

The later explanation is the most likely interpretation of events since firstly Obama has done clearly unconstitutional stuff before, the most recent being the war on Libya in clear violation of the Constitution as well as the War Powers Act. Secondly we have reports that Obama has indicated that he wished for future "rewording" of the NDAA to remove the kinda-sorta-maybe unconstitutional portions.

What we should be asking is why a US President who is under oath to defend the Constitution of the United States would sign a piece of legislation that he knows contains such an unconstitutional section? We know that the president does not have the authority to do a line item veto over legislation. That is not a bad thing given that such power would essentially allow the president to legislate from the White House. What the president can do is either sign the legislation or veto it. If there is so much support for a piece of legislation the Congress can overturn the presidential veto by a 2/3 vote in the House and Senate.

With that in mind, Obama had the option of vetoing the legislation on the grounds that he would uphold his oath of office and not trash the Constitution. If the Senate and House were so positive of the backing that the legislation had then they could have overridden the veto.

But Obama did not do this. Why?

Back in December of 2010 I wrote about the cave in cave in Obama had committedon the Bush tax cuts where I discussed the "ethics" of hostage taking. Indeed Obama had tipped his hand to the Republicans. The Republicans attached their wish for extended tax breaks for the rich to unemployment benefits. Once Obama blinked the Republicans and anyone with a long term interest in curbing constitutional restraints on the executive knew that all that they had to do to get the things that they wanted was to attach it to something that Obama cared for. I noted, likely on Twitter that this would be a future feature of Republican moves.

Lo and behold we have the Obamaratti who have forwarded this very concept to explain why Obama "had no choice". The "no choice" argument goes as such: Obama had to sign the military bill or the troops would not get paid. Obama can't mess around with soldier paychecks so he did the responsible thing. Ahh the old "Responsible Negro" argument. There has always been a strain of negro who have an affinity for being "responsible" in the face of racism.

Lets go back to the beginning of this post where I noted that he oath of office of the president explicitly demands the protection of the constitution. As a matter of fact members of the military are under the same requirement. There is no requirement that the president make sure the troops are paid. So Constitution trumps paycheck. The president, knowing the veto process should have done his job and protected the constitution by refusing to sign any piece of legislation that had the indefinite detention sections in it AND had the backbone to have followed through on his refusal (This under the assumption that Obama is not actually supportive of such legislation but is playing the good cop to the Republican bad cop because the public demands such a show). Those who want to give the executive the power to designate a person a terrorist (or friend of one) and on that say so have that person detained for as long as there are terrorists without judicial review, warrants or anything of the sort, knew that they could push this president of party that is regularly called out for being weak on terror by attaching it to a "support the troops" kind of legislation.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when Obama supporters have to bend over backwards when they even bother to actually discuss the topic, to explain why their constitutional scholar and president couldn't do his job. But the people at Black Agenda Report have been consistent in their observations that the powers behind the scenes understood that having a Democrat in office doing these things would effectively silence those who would have been front and center if this was a president McCain or Romney.

The way I see it, Obama should have announced publicly that he would sign no such legislation. Should have vetoed it the minute it hit his desk and made another public announcement that the would uphold his oath of office and if the Congress wanted to trash the constitution he would not have his hand in it and they would have to override the veto. That would have put the spotlight on the members of Congress who would be vulnerable at re-election time, assuming the electorate hadn't already forgotten about this issue....or even cared all that much.

Republicans Showing ther Cracker for Votes

2012-01-06T09:59:00.003-05:00

Hot on the heels of Newt Gingrich announcing that Palestinians don't really exist, 'cause you know white people get to determine such things; Rick Santorum is caught seeking to stake his claim as the better Great White Hope, by adding his bit to the mix

Writing in The Jewish Week on Monday, Douglas Bloomfield reminded readers that Mr. Santorum told a man in Iowa six weeks ago that “all the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They’re not Palestinians — there is no Palestinian — this is Israeli land.”

So says the white man from Pennsylvania. There is something so retro-white man's burden about white men thousands of miles away, running for office of an entirely different sovereign nation, declaring who's land belongs to who and who does and does not exist. It is also very interesting that Santorum would bring up New Mexico and Texas in his discussion of Israel and the West Bank:

A video of the exchange, which was recorded by CNN, shows that Mr. Santorum responded to a question about whether or not Israel “should dismantle its settlements” by suggesting that the West Bank was as much a part of Israel as Texas and New Mexico are part of the United States. The entire territory, Mr. Santorum added, “is legitimately Israeli country,” so Israelis “have a right to build things based upon their ownership of that land.”

For those unfamiliar. Texas came into the Union after English descended Europeans (generally speaking) decided to up and grab what is now Texas from Mexico a Spanish derived country inhabited largely by Native Americans. So it is clearly a white supremacist notion to say that the West Bank is as much a part of Israel as Texas is American since each are the result of conquest and dispossession of the original inhabitants who, as is usual for crackers, were determined to "not really exist" and who's land "really isn't theirs".

I suppose though that making noise about Ron Paul's old newsletters is preferable than calling a White Supremacist like Gingrich and Santorum exactly what they are.

Putting Blacks and Welfare into a Proper Context...

2012-01-05T15:06:00.001-05:00

Brandale Randolph goes in on the recent GOP fascination of black folks on Welfare:

First, it needs to be understood that statistically speaking, blacks are not the face of welfare. Secondly, the disproportional number of blacks who receive welfare are directly related to the disproportional number of blacks whom are living in poverty and unemployed, Finally, it must also be placed within the context of American history. All three of these things are needed in any discussion of blacks and government assistance.

Mexicans confront racism with white, black doll video

2012-01-02T11:39:00.003-05:00

The results are predictable:

The kids are seated at a table before a white doll and a black doll, and are asked to pick the "good doll" or the doll that most resembled them. The children, mostly brown-skinned, almost uniformly say the white doll was better or most resembled them.

One child in the video with mixed-race features says the white doll resembled him "in the ears."

"Which doll is the good doll?" a woman's voice asks the child.

"I am not afraid of whites," he responds, pointing to the white doll. "I have more trust."

...

The children who appear in it are mostly mestizos, or half-Spanish, half-Indian, and a message said they were taped with the consent of their parents and told to respond as freely as they could.

What is also predictable was the following response:

Commenters have noted that the options were "very limiting" by offering only black and white, or good and bad, when in Mexico the majority of the population is mixed-race, mostly European and indigenous, and to a lesser extent African and Asian backgrounds.

"It is a poorly formulated question, it is pretentious," one user said on the website VivirMexico (link in Spanish).

But this is really not "limiting" at all. Indeed we can propose that the minimal common contact with African people makes the implications even more damning because none of the subjects can even use actual events in their own lives to form these opinions. Thus their ideas about blackness are pure fictions they either came up with or that were passed onto them by their peers. It is also possible and probable that the local media has a lot to do with this.

It is also important given the immigration of Mexican nationals into the United States. If these attitudes are being brought into the US, how does that affect those persons of African descent in those locations?

For Somali Women, Pain of Being a Spoil of War

2011-12-28T12:50:00.002-05:00

Several months later, the men came back. Five militants burst into her hut, pinned her down and gang-raped her, she said. They claimed to be on a jihad, or holy war, and any resistance was considered a crime against Islam, punishable by death.

Gang rape as a pillar of Islam. Well that's a new one to me.

In some areas, they say, women are being used as chits at roadblocks, surrendered to the gunmen staffing the barrier in the road so that a group of desperate refugees can pass.

No comment.

The White Man: The Great Mediator

2011-12-23T11:07:00.002-05:00

It is something I have noticed repeated often in the history of those colonized by Europeans.For some reason the Great White Man(tm) is respected (however grudgingly) as The Great Mediator(tm).

Colonized people who are of different ethnicity's will for some really irrational reasons defer to the power or "intellect" of the Great White Man rather than work out problems among themselves. Today's example comes from Iraq:

But there is no doubt that the US withdrawal has had serious psychological impact because many Iraqis feel the US helped defuse differences between Shia, Sunni and Kurds.

There is something to be said when one needs to have the presence of the colonizer to keep one from killing your fellow countrymen in an indiscriminate manner. It reeks of "oh look the parents have left us alone in the house!" mentality of children and immature persons in their late teens.

Judge Blocks Law Against Human Trafficking

2011-12-23T08:14:00.002-05:00

In an attempt to overturn a South Carolina anti-illegal immigration law a judge apparently has taken a stand for trafficking of persons.

The judge also blocked provisions that would make it a felony to transport, conceal or protect a person who is entering the country unlawfully

Is this not THE definition of human trafficking? This is what happens when so called "immigrant rights" activists get way too emotional on a subject. The judge, in his zeal to protect citizens and legal residents who may harbor illegal immigrants threw in protections for those who transport illegal immigrants. Now such traffickers do not have to worry about being stopped in South Carolina because the police have no such power to stop such traffickers.

Gotta love it.

America’s Silent Collapse

2011-12-21T22:11:00.002-05:00

Sam Smith lays out an indisputable observation of how far America has veered from it's so called "principles":

We have moved into a time in which the Bill of Rights is being routinely trashed, the true unemployment rate is higher than anything we’ve seen since the thirties, our corporations are out of control, no one in power seems to care about climate change, and the only presidential candidate in either major party who won’t send you to Gitmo without an indictment and trial is Ron Paul.

And Ron Paul has no chance of becoming president (which is not necessarily a bad thing but not for his stands on the constitution or the Federal Reserve [sic]).

As if to underscore this issue I just read an article where a set of people were arrested for feeding the homeless in a public park

Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan "Keith" McHenry, 54, were arrested at 6:10 p.m. on a charge of violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks. McHenry is a co-founder of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which began in the early 1980s.

The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.

Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. The ordinance applies to feedings of more than 25 people.

olice had not enforced the ordinance while the court battle continued. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled that city rules regulating how often large groups of people can be fed in a park do not violate the Constitution.

Of course there will be those who say "the law is the law" but you really have to think about a situation where the state gets to dictate how many hungry people you can feed without their approval.

Returning to Mr. Smith we find his comparisons to Nazi Germany:

What surprised me at first was that most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were becoming regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation . . .

Many Americans do not mind that there personal freedoms are being taken away for "security" Do they now mind that their so called inalienable rights as enshrined in the Constitution are being stripped from them? Why has political leadership allowed to get away with blatant violations of the 4th Amendment? How is it that the so-called "liberal" wing of the political class has agreed to sign into law, indefinite detention and imprisonment of persons without trial, simply on the say so of the president or some "law enforcement" official that the target is either a terrorist or has given "support" to terrorists?

Like I said in an earlier post on the growing police state:

I think a lot of people have an idea about what a police state is based on movies and from dictators in the middle east, etc. They fail to realize to recognize the purpose of a police state is population control. Particularly the control of dissident voices and actions within the population. it is the ability to track citizens against their wishes, and it usually accompanied by claims of security and safety. A soft police state is still a police state.

Protecting Civilians from Genocide

2011-12-21T21:03:00.002-05:00

That was supposed to be the so called "humanitarian" mission launched by NATO and given the blessing and cover by the United Nations.

In the middle of August, between the end of the siege and the killing of Gaddafi, Misratan forces drove out everyone living in Tawergha, a town of 30,000 people. Human rights groups have described this as an act of revenge and collective punishment possibly amounting to a crime against humanity.

Tawerghans are mostly descendants of black slaves. They are generally poor, were patronised by the Gaddafi regime and were broadly supporters of his regime. Some signed up to fight for him as the regime fought for its survival.

So I would like to take a moment to thank President Obama, our first president of African descent for sending NATO on this mission to "prevent the genocide of the Libyan people". I would like to also thank the UN Security council for their steadfastness in upholding the value of the lives of the people of Libya. Extra special shout out to Ban-Ki Moon for providing the necessary legal cover for all this "protection".

Thank you!

Low Down Dirty Fishermen

2011-12-20T18:58:00.002-05:00

It appears that some Luo fishermen are making women have sex with them in order to get the "best fish" that they catch.

"When you are a woman and you want to get into the business of selling fish, you must be ready to lose your pride and use your body for bargaining," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "Being ready to give sex as and when it is needed by the fishermen... it guarantees your survival here on the beach."

Needed? That just bothered me in a place that rarely gets bothered. What these men need is a good beat down and a re-education.

Continuing:

Achieng says she is aware of the risks, but the immediate needs of her family override any concern she may have about contracting HIV.

"You know you can get HIV... but then you remember you have a family that needs to be provided for, and you say, let me die providing for them," she said.

This bothers me because if you look to the right you'll see that I actively loan to men and women in Africa in order to help them avoid being exploited and dependent. It bothers me that when I help a woman to provide for her family that she STILL has to deal with this kind of bullshit.

This needs to stop.

Continuing:

A recent donation of six boats to women's groups in Nyanza by the US Peace Corps shows some of the ways 'jaboya' can be addressed; the women are able to fish for themselves, eliminating dependence on fishermen.

"When you have nothing, those who have something must tell you to bend over backwards for them. Now we have boats and we will no longer be at anybody's mercy," Millicent Onyango, one of the beneficiaries of the US Peace Corps' "No Sex for Fish" project.

While I don't oppose the thinking behind this, I do not think that the larger issue is being addressed. The problem is not that the women have to make deals with fishermen, but the kind of deals they are being made to make. Just as I loan equally to both men and women, I do not totally support programs that lead to gender competition and isolation. I would hope that someone in the Luo communities are working to change the attitudes of the men in this situation so that a proper symbiotic relationship can be formed.

De Niggerbitch

2011-12-20T09:40:00.002-05:00

From the people who gave us "black pete".

“She has street cred, she has a ghetto ass and she has a golden throat. Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate niggabitch and displays that gladly"

Dr Goddess deals with these fools:

Once upon a time, yet another international magazine decided to print racist / white supremacist words and imagery regarding a Black artist and then issue an “oops, did we do that?” apology, as if that would be enough to make protestors go away.

If You Don't Submit To It, You Will Be Punished

2011-12-15T11:15:00.002-05:00

Police state at it's finest:

When we were finally brought to the final holding area for our arraignment we were informed that if we refused to submit to a retina scan we would likely be held overnight. The retina scan is a voluntary procedure that all 10 of us had already denied earlier that day. According to our lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild – who are heroes – the lieutenant on duty and the judge said that if we continued to refuse the scans we wouldn’t get out that night. With only a few exceptions due to personal commitments, we all stood in solidarity and refused to submit to the procedure. This was around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, roughly 36 hours after our arrest. Several of the women arrested and a majority of the men were going to spend another night in prison to protest the ever expanding security state. In many ways, this final hurdle was the most egregious encroachment on our liberties. The retinal scan is a voluntary procedure, but if you don’t submit to it, you will be punished.

'Cause I know some of you out there think I'm being over the top when I say "police state". There is no way, no how, that this is constitutional. This is akin to discussions of Dejure and Defacto segregation. Although the law is written to be constitutional, it is in fact used in an unconstitutional manner. No way should it be possible to be *forced* to stay in jail for refusing to do something that you are not required to do.

Invented or Illegitimate?

2011-12-15T08:48:00.003-05:00

So many days have gone by since Newt Gingrich's commentary that the Palestinians are an "invented people". Though such news has made waves among more independent minded people, most are distracted by the $10,000 "bet" that Romney offered Perry over a claim that Perry made.
Though that is not the intended subject of this post I just want to say how silly all this "news" over 'The Bet" is.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have engaged in "The Wager" in which I challenged another blogger to provide indisputable evidence to contradict my "theory" of race:

I'll write you another $1,000 cheque should you find a German Shephard[sic] that gives birth to a poodle[sic] through natural means of conception.

I made that bet with a 99% confidence that I would not have to pay out. This is common when you KNOW you're right to bet someone a large sum which they have no chance of winning. It is a means of showing that you are certain of what you speak. As a matter of fact I believe that it is the BEST way to end an argument with anyone. If they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is, then clearly you should be suspect of whatever they are saying.

I'll note that the person the wager was directed to (and various other persons in the "peanut gallery" STILL have not offered the evidence asked for. But back to Gingrich.

Gingrich is absolutely and specifically correct when he said that the Palestinians are an invented people. He is correct because every nationality is, in fact, invented. Every culture, every national boundary, All of it are invented. The American identity is invented. There were no "Americans" before the United States Constitution was drafted. England as we know it did not exist prior to 1707 and prior to that was a bunch of kingdoms.

Latin America is an invention as well. Canada and Canadians are invented people as well.

Even if you look at biblical history it is clear that Israel is and was an invention. Judaism itself is an invented religion taking large portions of Sumerian and Egyptian theology to create itself.

We could go on and on about all the invented people in history but that really wasn't Newt Gingrich's real point. Gingrich, being the white supremacist that he is, was really saying that European white people, as a body, have the right to determine who is a "legitimate people" and who are "illegitimate people". Gingrich is simply offering, in full view, the white supremacist worldview in which people exist only if white supremacists say so and they exist under conditions that white supremacists determine.

Many of the targets of such ideologies internalize these identifications. African-Americans have called themselves Negroes for generations. They have accepted, largely without question, the One Drop Rule, imposed by White Supremacists to specify who is not white and will generally object to those who oppose such an "invention".

Many people scoff at Kwanzaa, saying that it is "made up" as if Christmas and a fat white man who goes up and down chimneys are somehow more "legitimate" an invention. Or that the claimed birth of a person who is the son of a sky god (even though the birthday could not possibly be at the time it is celebrated) is more "legitimate".

The Palestinian leadership for all their objections to Gingrich's commentary behave exactly as Gingrich meant when they "petition" the UN to recognize them and ask for a state. Did the Kosovars ask for independence? No! They took independence and declared themselves a state. Palestinians generally then accept this idea of illegitimacy each and every time they seek outside people to legitimize their claims to national identity.

The same White Supremacists who say that Palestinians are invented (read 'illegitimate") are the same ones who heartily approved of Serbian independence. This should make it clear what Newt Gingrich (and those who agreed with him) meant when he said "invented". Invented was simply a code word for another I word.

Sounds Fair to Me

2011-12-12T13:34:00.002-05:00

From Fox News:

On Sunday, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commander said the regime will not return the drone, and in fact, considered the spy mission of the unmanned vehicle to be an act of war itself.

"We are not the kind of country to allow our enemy to operate freely within our national security and to continue without any response, but regarding the kind of reaction we will show, our enemies will see its effects," said. Gen. Hossein Salami.

I've seen argument against male self-determination in regards to becoming a parent start and end with "once his sperm leaves his body it's no longer his or his decision." I don't agree with that but if we're to take such an argument to it's logical conclusion, the drone that was in Iranian airspace, clearly without their permission, is THE property of the Iranians and as such, they have a right to do whatever they want to with it.

We would expect that the US, if it were confronted with an Iranian drone flying overhead, would also, understandably, take all measures to down it. They would not be returning the property to the Iranians either; at least not in one piece. Furthermore the US would also take such an action as aggression if not a blatant act of war.

Therefore, the proclamations made by Iran ought to surprise no one at all.

Looking further at the report we see the following:

President Obama was given different options by the Pentagon to go into Iran and either retrieve the RQ-170 or destroy it, but he declined because, sources say, he didn't want such a mission to be seen as an act of war.

Bolton said that's not an adequate excuse.

"The Iranians, in saying they would not give it back, said the very act of sending it over Iran was an act of war, which undercuts the Obama administration's assertion that we didn't go into try and destroy the drone after it was captured for fear of the Iranians saying exactly that. ... So while there may be a lot of good reasons not to go in that is not one."

President Obama is quite correct in his analysis. To further exacerbate this situation by invading Iran (which is exactly what "retrieval" means) is a silly idea. Obama is trying to save US face by attempting to deflect the "act of war" angle by NOT making the mistake of making an unmistakable act of aggression.

This writer would like to remind the audience that when China shot down a US plane in it's territory, the same fools said to go get it. They, however knew better than to try to run up in nuclear China and for all their talk, they got nowhere.

Someone tell Bolton that winning the so called "war on terror" does not include invading Iran.

Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front

2011-12-11T17:26:00.002-05:00

Was only a matter of time.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

The money shot:

"Any time you have a tool like that in the hands of law enforcement that makes it easier to do surveillance, they will do more of it,"

The Decline of the American Middle Class

2011-12-04T20:20:00.005-05:00

Back in August of this year I discussed the economic reality that is facing the US middle class:

Well right across the Pacific is this country with a middle class population that is as large as the entire population of the United States. Let me say that again: There is a country with a middle class population as large as the entire population of the United States. Oh, and that population is growing. There's another country on the Indian sub-continent with a huge population of bright people who are like this other country is growing it's middle class at a fast rate. If you are a company looking to grow and profit would you be looking to America or looking to these places? Don't think too hard now.

Furthermore:

As discussed earlier the race to the bottom is creeping into the middle class as occupations that require expensive college educations that commanded high 5 and 6 figure salaries can be (and are being) sent to anyone with a fast internet connection and a PC. They will gladly do for $20k, if that much, what you ask $100k for. You do the math.

You'll note from the original entry that I did not quote any primary sources. I had simply looked at the facts on the ground and wrote my analysis. Now let us look at what Alan NasserProfessor Emeritus of Political Economy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. has to say on the very same subject.

Here he is quoting one of Obama's advisors Jeffrey Immelt:

“Today we go to Brazil, we go to China, we go to India, because that’s where the customers are.” My goodness, this looks like the Leninist thing about the insufficiency of domestic markets to absorb the economy’s output. The US worker is not only becoming decreasingly important as an input to production, (s)he is no longer seen by big capital as the most promising customer, the most robust source of sales revenue.

Here he is quoting a Wall Street [type] executive:

A US-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told a writer for The Atlantic that “the hollowing out of the American middle class didn’t really matter.” The CEO described the subject of an executive discussion earlier this year: “… if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade.”

Some more from a CEO in the internet business, you know, the ones who trade "free social networking" websites and programs for access to your private information to sell to his (or her) actual customers:

The Chief Financial Officer of a US internet company expresses the same sentiment: “We demand a higher paycheck than the rest of the world. So if you’re going to demand 10 times the paycheck, you need to deliver 10 times the value. It sounds harsh, but maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut.”

There it is in black and white people. You, the 99% are overpaid for the work that you do. Remember that these are the type of people who are bankrolling the major candidates for President of the United States as well as those members in congress. Do you think they are backing and paying for candidates who think you are "underpaid"?

And do note that they are not of the opinion that somehow the retail prices for goods and services ought to drop in tandem with the drop in salaries.

Let's look at some more:

Thomas Wilson, CEO of Allstate, is unabashedly frank about the way in which globalization generates an opposition between working-class and business interests: “I can get [workers] anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business… American businesses will adapt.”

So all the big execs know that the American middle class is screwed and they are planning on who they can sell to instead. Of importance, this statement shows that the exec is of the opinion that the US ought to resemble the markets of current "developing" nations where there are wide disparities in income and wealth. Where if you have the connections and money to sell overseas you do so and you exploit your home labour force as much as possible to maximize profits. This is noted in our next quote:

We can call this the Third-Worldization of the Rest, or, if we focus on the wage-earners of the developed countries, the creeping obsolescence of the working class. Workers can of course never be rendered entirely obsolete. What is happening is that we are approaching that condition asymptotically. One might object that there are clear limits to how impoverished working people can be made – after all, workers have to be maintained as work-ready. Upward redistribution can only go so far. But ever-widening inequality is perceived by elites as feasible by virtue of the limitless possibilities of greater indebtedness. Workers can make ends meet by indefinitely mortgaging their future income.

This reminds me of an observation I made about I, Robot:

Specifically I was struck by the displacement of humans in many jobs. I, robot takes place in 2035, when yours truly will be in his 60's. at that time it appears that robots are rubbish collectors, babysitters, cooks, janitors even bartenders. My question was, what happened to the people who usually do these jobs?.

Workers are expendable and certain workers will become more and more expendable. I also wrote:

But I think that the movie presents a very very real spectacle as to how the elite in the US view the masses. People without "ends" are expendable and replaceable and hopefully we can make them just disappear.

Is this not what the executives are saying?

This subject of mortgaging the future is also the theme of the recent movie"In Time". There, instead of paying actual wages which people spend in order to live, they are paid in literal time to live. While a worker in our reality may decide not to work because he doesn't feel like it, he is unlikely to decide not to work if his life literally depended on it. In this dystopia, time is literally money. Why waste time with negotiating wages when you can cut the chase. Sounds extreme and scientifically impossible but the point is clear: How much work will we get out of you for as little as we can get away with? Let's go back to the article:

Non-union workers contracted by Ford to do inspection and repairs at the Dearborn truck plant make $10 an hour without benefits, which is projected to be less than the Chinese average by 2015.

So 2015, a scant four years from now, US autoworkers may well face having the same salary prospects as the Chinese, though with nowhere near the same cost of living. I bet they'll still be voting Republican though.

In the end though there will be an equalization among workers around the world as the ultra rich and those who own resources (usually one and the same) will force down the wages and living standards of those in the so called "developed world" while doing all they can to moderate the rise of income in the developing world. They will do this by moving production to wherever the customers and the cheapest labour is to be found. This is why many states in the US do all they can to give "incentives" for businesses to stay or relocate in said states. And oft times these incentives come right out of the tax revenue needed for cities and towns to run their public works. Many don't see the problem until the companies up and leave and leave a huge hole in the state and or city budget and a whole lot of unemployed people. Welcome to the new America. Not too much unlike the old one. Just that white folks are no longer being protected by their richer counterparts.

Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial

2011-12-03T19:27:00.002-05:00

There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force” can be held in military custody “without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.

Note that they have put this into a defense appropriations bill so that Senators would have to vote against the appropriations bill in order to kill this little piece of unconstitutionality.

Money shot:

Obama approved of the execution without trial of Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Qaida’s YouTube preacher, based entirely on the unproven assertion that Awlaki was dangerous. Awlaki was an American citizen. So Obama thinks he has the right to kill Americans the government says are terrorists, but he doesn’t want the military to lock them up forever without trial. OK then

Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists

2011-12-03T19:20:00.002-05:00

This from the same NY Times that hosted a thoughtless piece of drivel talking about how Al-Qaeda had "lost".

The party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, appeared to have taken about 40 percent of the vote, as expected. But a big surprise was the strong showing of ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in voting or public life.

Analysts in the state-run news media said early returns indicated that Salafi groups could take as much as a quarter of the vote, giving the two groups of Islamists combined control of nearly 65 percent of the parliamentary seats.

And remember that the entire point of backing Mubarak in Egypt was to keep parties like the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Also remember that one of the platforms of Al-Qaeda is the removal of "leadership" that is "non-Islamic" and who act as fronts for the "liberal west".

Total failure. Total.

Public Sector Meltdown Hits Black Women the Hardest

2011-11-30T20:56:00.002-05:00

So says the article in Ms. Magazine Blog But of course one has to pay attention to the details:

That means, naturally, that black women are feeling public-sector cuts the most. Twenty-three percent of employed African American women work in the public sector, compared to 19.8 percent of employed white women, 18 percent of employed black men and 14.2 percent of employed white men.

You'll note the reference to "employed" women and "employed" men. Of course the problem here is that Black men in general suffer from high rates of unemployment. Higher than that of Black women.

From Crains:

“Black women are a majority [53.4%] of the black workforce, head a majority [52.8%] of black families with children, and were more economically vulnerable even before the recession started,” according to the report.

From Money Magazine:

Overall, black men have it the worst, with joblessness at a staggeringly high 19.1%, compared to 14.5% for black women.

That's the national number.

From the US Department of Labor:

Blacks are the only racial or ethnic group where women represent a larger share of the employed than do men — more than half (54.3 percent) of employed blacks in 2010 were women, compared to 46.3 percent among employed whites. Employed black women still earn less than employed black men.

In NY State the unemployment rate of blacks generally (2010) is 40.8% divided into 17.3 for black males (error margin between 15 and 19 percent) and 12 % (error margin 10=13 percent). No that does not equal 40% so lets take those numbers at the high end of the error margin for both groups. So 1 in 4 black males 16 and over in NY state as of 2010 were unemployed and 1 in 7 (rounding down) black women in NYS in a similar situation.

This is not to belittle the situation that confronts black women but the numbers do speak for themselves. It may be harder out there for them now, but the numbers are not and have never reached what black men have faced and are facing. I'm glad Ms. is concerned with getting women back to work but I'd like for people to be concerned with getting black men into work.

Teach by Example

2011-11-19T11:25:00.002-05:00

Egyptian police crack down. From the AP:

Witnesses said the violence began when riot police dismantled a small tent camp set up to commemorate protesters killed in the uprising and attacked around 200 peaceful demonstrators who had camped out in the square overnight....

Police were firing rubber bullets, tear gas and beating protesters with batons to clear the area on Saturday, said Sahar Abdel-Mohsen, an engineer who joined in the protest after a call went out on Twitter telling people to come down to Tahrir...

While the military tolerates daytime demonstrations in the central square, a symbol of the country's Jan. 25-Feb. 11 uprising, it claims long-term occupation paralyzes the city.

Or was that New York City or Oakland or.....

There Is No One To Vote For

2011-11-18T16:12:00.003-05:00

As a long time non-voter I have long since come to understand the true nature of the political beast that is the US political scene that the occupy people are facing. A lot of people assume that I don't vote because I am either apathetic, "given up" or some other scripted response taught to them by someone or some organization(I won't even go into the "slavery" angle). Every now and then some who understand as I understand come out and speak on who this system works for. Sometimes it's a foreign government official that declares that he or she has "access" regardless of who's in office. Sometimes it's the CEO of some company that declares the he too doesn't vote because his interests are always being looked after regardless of who or what party is in office. Today we find yet another person reaching this realization:

But what I sensed in New York was anger not only at this economic problem, but the fact that the political system is broken. There is no one to vote for as an alternative to pro-bank candidates. So what began as anger has become a gathering awareness that Obama was simply fooling voters instead of leading the change he promised. That’s what politicians do, of course. But people hoped that he might be different. That was the gullibility he played on. He has turned into the nightmare they thought they were voting against.

There is no one to vote for. Exactly. When I size up the candidates I understand that in the great scheme of things the ones who would best represent my interests (and yours actually) will never make it past the primaries. Even the so called "establishment liberals" who bash Republicans at every turn will marginalize true change agent candidates by claiming they are 'unelectable". They will turn from arguments that you should "be heard" to telling you what you should be saying.

For example we have Cynthia McKinney, a black woman with a strong anti-war, anti-corporate platform. During the last presidential election the Black "Left" cognoscenti up and declared that supporting McKinney was a waste of time and votes and that voting for Obama was the right thing to do. So in essence the so called talented 10th spent their efforts in the service of pro-wall Street and pro-war candidates because they wanted to make history rather than stick to their principles. Principles which later showed themselves to be toilet paper thin as they supported, among other things, NATO regime change in Libya.

You'd think these cognoscenti would have encouraged black voters to, you know, vote their conscience or their principles, you know those things that they carp about every Jan 16th or other opportune moments to mention Dr. King and his dream. Oh well.

I have long said that it will not be until the proverbial feces hits the fan that people will realize that they are being had. They are being had slowly but surely. The general population is under the impression that unless something like a Nazi takeover happens that everything is OK. It is not and it will not go that way. The police state is everywhere and visible to everyone paying attention. One only need to move out of the little "permitted behavior" and "permitted discussion" zone to find out. The occupy break ups by various city governments shows that "we" are about as free as the Egyptian was in Tahir square. The differences are simply that there's more money here than there and cultural differences. Make no mistake though as politics go, both governments would do anything to maintain and protect itself from the people. And let us be clear, the protests are thus far non-violent on the part of the protestors, Just imagine what would happen if the protestors decided to do what the Libyans did, or what the Syrians are doing. With what we have seen thus far in NYC and Oakland do you now honestly think that mass beating and actual shootings would not happen here if the protestors actually resisted the police?

Where are the elected officials, supposedly the representatives of "the people"? Have you seen them with the people? Have you seen them have press conferences condemning the behavior of the authorities? Have you seen them point out the constitutional problems with the police actions? No. The ones who have spoken out have said that the protestors should "go home". That they "have been heard" and now "business needs to return to normal". As if they really do not get it.

So when people ask silly ass questions about "what candidate are they supporting" or "what candidate are they fielding" I know they simply do not understand what is going on. There is no one to vote for and when someone with the credentials show up the Liberal cognoscenti do whatever they can to not support them.

Game recognize game.

Sister Citizen Hits Cain Where it Hurts

2011-11-17T14:03:00.003-05:00

Of late I've not found myself on the same page as Dr. Harris-Perry. This being especially true in her recent remarks in regards to Cornel West and her commentary in regards to the racism of white liberals with respect to Obama. But fair is fair and her latest Sister Citizen piece is all the way spot on.

Neither Thomas nor Cain was ever in any imminent danger of torture or murder, both of which are fundamental aspects of lynching. Neither man was attacked by a mob acting outside the normal structures of society and government; the inquiries into both men’s actions have followed standard media, employment and governmental practices. And while television and the Internet helped promulgate their stories, there was nothing particularly technological about their experiences. I suspect that what Cain and Thomas meant was that they were the victims of a symbolic lynching, not a high-tech one.

Kaboom. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Black Theology

2011-11-17T09:11:00.003-05:00

Theology. According to the Webster dictionary theology is:

the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; the study of God and of God's relation to the world

According to the NY Times Africans AKA "black people" did not have "theology until 1836 when it was invented at Union Theological Seminary in NY.

The school, where the eminent theologian Reinhold Niebuhr taught, is also known as the birthplace of black theology. James H. Cone, a foremost scholar in that tradition, is still on the faculty.

I cannot make this stuff up.

Clearly then the staff of the NY Times among others are of the opinion that African traditional religions, which existed prior to 1836, simply do not exist. The Yoruba, Ashanti etc were just having idle chatter when they conceived of, discussed and handed down religious traditions to their descendants. The Kikuyu weren't facing Mt. Kenya for any particular reason at all. They apparently just enjoyed the view.

The further arrogance of this statement is that it also presupposes that somehow the trade in African bodies somehow managed to wipe out traditional religious thinking among those being bought and sold.

It would have been simple for the editors of the NY Times to have stuck "American" before "black" and "Christian" before "theology". That would have made the statement accurate and not totally dismissive of the theologies that existed in African-America prior to 1836.

Those "Unbridgable" Rights

2011-11-15T10:23:00.003-05:00

Since it seems that unless I'm a white man or woman writing for an establishment type newspaper or blog, what I say amounts to a hill of so many beans (yes I'm somewhat bitter), let me go and quote somebody else in regards to those rights that "we" supposedly have in the US.

Here's Dave Lindorff on The Penn State situation:

And yet there are all kinds of laws that abridge freedom of speech and the right peaceably to assemble, as well as the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We’ve all been witness lately to how municipal authorities, no doubt under pressure from the bankers and from the central government’s police and political authorities, have been “abridging,” with the aid of police wielding clubs, pepper spray and tear gas canisters, the supposed freedom of occupy movement activists to peaceably assemble.

This morning upon hearing the news of the removal of the #occupy protestors including the destruction of their property, I reminded the twitterverse as to the laws governing the citizens rights to peaceably assemble:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

And importantly the 14th Amendment which is clear about what the states can and cannot do in regards to the rights of citizens:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In regards to due process, even the severely diluted form that it currently has, has been affirmed by court order allowing the #occupy protestors to remain. I won't engage in my position that the "life, liberty and property are in regards to criminal or civil prosecution and not in regards to the actual rights of citizens.

It's pretty sad when I have to read citizens writings about how the #occupy protestors have to act "legally" as if peacefully assembling isn't already legal. Furthermore claims of sanitation and crime are no legal grounds to abridge the rights of protestors. Sanitation issues can be negotiated with those peacefully assembled to provide public safety while recognizing the assembly rights.

Similarly if crimes are being committed in the #occupy protests then the state has a right and obligation to find those responsible and prosecute them. To report as if the actual protestors are criminals or creating crime is utter bullshit. Similarly claiming that reports of gunfire are grounds to evict #occupy protestors is bullshit as well. Shootings happen outside of all manner of locations including parks, nightclubs etc. Shall we shut them all down as well? I mean people get raped in Central Park. Shall we shut it down and deny people access to the park?

None of this is totally surprising given that a poll taken a couple of years ago found that a good number of Americans are of the bizarre opinion that they have "too many rights".

Clinton and Cain

2011-11-11T14:42:00.001-05:00

Alexander Cockburn:

A luxury suite! One of Bill’s targets, when he was governor of Arkansas, would have been lucky to get a ride home in the troop car, after a brisk session in the governor’s office, with bruises on her arms when she resisted the guiding hand. Who says this isn’t the land of progress? Seventy years ago a black man making the sort of advances of which Cain is accused tended to end up swinging from the branch of a tree, not running for president with a hefty quotient of Americans saying they don’t give a toss about the harassment charges.

Gunfire Before Liberia Election

2011-11-08T07:46:00.001-05:00

From the NY Times

MONROVIA, Liberia — Hundreds of protesters clashed with the police and United Nations peacekeepers here in the Liberian capital on Monday afternoon, leaving at least one person dead the day before a presidential runoff that the opposition has vowed to boycott.

Not a good sign at all. I suppose they still have not learned from that long brutal war.

Paul Craig Roberts on Western Democracy

2011-11-07T10:17:00.001-05:00

Writing in Counterpunch

In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a “mere scrap of paper.” Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of “the war on terror,” itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply “because the president said so.” They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.

Anthony Weiner. Nuff said.

Jack Abramoff Puts The US Government on Blast

2011-11-07T10:09:00.002-05:00

Think about it.He said that he had 100 congress members in his pocket. This is ONE lobbyist. Think of the implications of this when you consider the number of lobbyists in DC.

Remember that candidate Obama made the claim that he would not be held sway by special interests. Now consider just how much money is coming his way. Now watch Abramoff explain how these things go and think carefully as to whether Obama meant what he said or is actually living what he said.

If after watching this video you do not understand exactly how the government is run, why we have bullshit laws on the books and people at #occupy protests being arrested on bullshit charges in direct violation of their rights to peacefully assemble and seek redress, then you really are not all that bright.

Herman Cain on China

2011-11-06T18:30:00.001-05:00

t China was "trying to develop nuclear capability .… "

LA Times

Just wow.

Re: Violent Islamism Has Failed

2011-11-04T09:57:00.002-04:00

Op Ed contributor Richard Dearlove writing in the NY Times suggests that violent Islamism has failed:

Yet what is surprising 10 years on is the relative failure of violent Islamism to make a more lasting political impact. Few of us would have predicted this failure at the time.

Al Qaeda began with the idea of purging Saudi Arabia of “infidels”; it then came up with a complex political model of a caliphate. What we are seeing instead — and I stress that my comments are personal — is a resurgence of moderate Islam and moderate Islamist parties. These groups are now apparently arguing for the very democratic values and individual rights that Al Qaeda was so opposed to. This can be seen in what is happening today in Tunisia, in Egypt, in the sort of things that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is saying and doing.

Dearlove's position requires that one view failure as a total failure to get everything one wants. If that were the case then any negotiated settlement between any parties would be "failure" for all parties involved. No one looks at a negotiated settlement like that.

Furthermore; Dearlove's position also requires us to ignore history of Islam as it spread throughout regions such as North Africa, etc. Muslims have never been stupid. Contrary to what is generally said by some Muslims, The Prophet had no problem with the use of violence and nor did his followers. However; violence was not the preferred tactic of Muslims in their expansion but it was also never "off the table" and that has always been the case. If they were able to get a foothold somewhere by other means they did so. Knowing this we should look at the actual stated issues that Al-Qaeda claims to have.

Al-Qaeda had a deep hatred of secular governments that acted as puppets of the US and Israel. They had a deep hatred of governments that they saw as oppressing the rights of "righteous" Muslims. Yes, they had ideas of re-establishing Caliphates, but these other issues were just as important.

What has happened since 9-11? Among many things we have seen a very aggressive push by the Palestinians to receive recognition in the UN over the usual objections of the US and Israel. We have seen the "Arab Street" previously easily brushed aside, topple US aligned leadership in a number of countries. We have seen so called "moderate" Islamists make it into government whereas before everything was done to keep them out. We see the Muslim Brotherhood, previously repressed taking seats in new governments. In other words, the Arab world in general has become that much more assertive towards the US than any time prior to 9-11 or at the oil embargo.

At the same time, as Bin Laden said, the US has been shown to not really care about The Law(tm) as they claim to be. the US has been shown and documented using torture or outsourcing it. Stuff that has been happening for a long time but was not visible to the US or world population until after 9-11. The US and The West(tm) has been shown to be in cahoots with various dictators as evidenced by it's unwillingness to condemn Mubarak or the leadership of Bahrain.

Indeed just like the violence in various cities in the US made space for and pushed the powers that be to address the "more moderate" elements of the civil rights movement, so to did the violence of Al-Qaeda create a space where the relatively moderate Islamist groups had to be dealt with. This is almost always how violence works in such conflicts. In politics the most radical person is labelled the "extremist", the less radical that person is, the less room the people who are moderate have to move. But when that radical person is way out there the middle ground opens up quite a bit.

In Africa Muslims got their place by way of compromise. Why not let them live peacefully over there, rather than risk constant armed conflict? As the old Yoruba saying goes (paraphrased): Woe to the man who disturbs the praying Muslim.

So no, Al- Qaeda failed at setting up a caliphate. But yes, they did get some of what they wanted. Sounds like a "compromise" to me.

US Admits to "Setting the Course" in Libya

2011-11-02T09:37:00.002-04:00

Every now and then the empire gets arrogant and blatantly displays itself to the people. It's usually quickly done, covered up and those not paying attention miss it. But it happens. Today we got a taste of it. Roger Cohen writing his latest opinion piece for the NY Times reveals the real NATO plan:

When I tweeted a sincere “Bravo Obama” message the other day, congratulating the president on “leading from behind” in Libya, it took only minutes for the U.S. ambassador to NATO to tweet back a sharp retort.

“That’s not leading from behind,” Ivo Daalder wrote. “When you set the course, provide critical enablers and succeed, it’s plain leading.”

Like Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's "accidental" commentary about the NYPD's ability (and assumed new authority) to shoot down commercial aircraft this statement ought not be taken as braggadious. This fellow meant exactly what he said. The US "set the course. and provided "critical enablers".

Since we know exactly what "the course" was, then what this amounts to is an admission that NATO was purposely engaged in regime change with the blessing of the UN. NATO essentially declared war on the legitimate government of Libya (a UN member state), "enabled" and "provided" for a civil war against the government of Libya.

And given that this person is making such claims I will direct the reader's attention to my discussion of the constitutionality of said war:

What part of "coordinates, participates or accompany" does the White House not understand? What part of "Nothing in this joint resolution shall be construed as granting authority to the President with respect to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances which authority he would not have had in the absence of this resolution" does the executive not understand?

The Point of Protest

2011-10-31T09:35:00.002-04:00

I saw the following comment from the Mayor of London this morning:

and London’s maverick mayor, Boris Johnson, concurred. “An excellent point has been made” by the protesters, he said, “but having made their point, it’s time for them to move on.”

I think this attitude is what has made "democracy" in The West(tm) a pale shadow of itself. The point of protest is not to simply be seen and move along. I say that elections serve that purpose. An election is a form of protest. One shows up, marks a ballot indicating what one's issue is and who you think is best able to represent those interests in the established government. Then one goes home and hopes for the best.

However a protest happens when the results of the ballot fail to meet the expectations of the public or a lack of satisfactory response from whatever established governing body to the will of the people. At that point the public takes to the street to let those in power understand that they are not doing what the people put them in office to do and that until they do so the people are going to make things "inconvenient".

If you note the pattern to all the disruptions of recent "occupy" protests, the basis of these disruptions have been "public safety" and "rights of others to not be "inconvenienced". This is a total crock and an "official" way for the state to bypass the right of the people to protest. People do not have "the right to not be inconvenienced". The public is inconvenienced whenever a head of state shows up in their neighborhood. Nobody asks them before hand whether it's OK by them to have their streets blocked off. When movies are shot on location, nobody asks the neighbors whether they mind. The city (or state) simply ups and decides for them. To make matters worse, the city gets paid to make this decision with absolutely no input from the citizens who will actually be affected by these events. Even worse no citizen of an effected area can go to City Hall and demand that whatever "officially blessed" event be stopped immediately due to "inconvenience". This same city apparatus wants to turn around and claim that protestors "wrong" for inconveniencing others with their protests over the government not doing what the people asked it to do?

But this is how those in power manage to kick aside the people. The whole, "OK you've had your say now go home" attitude rather than "exactly what can we do to address your concerns?" attitude is exactly why the protesters are out there in the first place.

Consider this: Just a few months ago, London was burning. When that was happening the persons involved were called all kinds of nasty things. Politicians went out of their way to say that such looting and burning was an inappropriate way to vent anger and frustration. They went out of their way to arrest the "hooligans" and "low lives" and "gang members" they caught on tape. They went to RIM in an attempt to find out who was sending messages and proposed laws to shut down the internet in case such events happened again. Now when people decide to peacefully sit down in public while posing no danger to anyone (despite the health and safety claims) or anybody's property. Those in charge want to malign these people as well. You cannot have it both ways. Protests are not convenient. That is the entire point of protesting. It is to highlight that the present conditions are "inconvenient" and they're going to spread the "inconvenience" to those who think they are above everything and everybody. If those in office and elsewhere do not like the "inconvenience" I suggest addressing the issues. That usually works.

West Sees Opportunity in Postwar Libya for Businesses

2011-10-29T08:05:00.001-04:00

From the NY Times:

Western security, construction and infrastructure companies that see profit-making opportunities receding in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned their sights on Libya, now free of four decades of dictatorship. Entrepreneurs are abuzz about the business potential of a country with huge needs and the oil to pay for them, plus the competitive advantage of Libyan gratitude toward the United States and its NATO partners.

Why of course they do.

No one could have ever predicted that.

Return of the Brain Size Argument

2011-10-28T11:33:00.003-04:00

The man in the video in this linked piece from CNN

says that it

all depends on your brain size and how you use it.

Here's the problem:

Anyone paying attention knows that so called brain measurements were used as proof that the African was not as intelligent as the European. So this guy has basically stated that argument. He sees no black people. and since brain size determines intelligence, since there are no black people, their brains must be small and therefore not as intelligent.

What year is this again?

Just so we are clear

2011-10-27T13:34:00.003-04:00

Oakland California, USA

Tahir Square, Egypt:

Any Questions?

Ghaddafi Iraq Coup Plot?

2011-10-27T11:52:00.004-04:00

From the NY Times:

rebel fighters found secret intelligence documents linking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to a plot by former members of Saddam Hussein’s military and Baath Party to overthrow the Iraqi government, according to an Iraqi official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "

Interesting, but I am far more interested in what followed:

The looted ruins of Colonel Qaddafi’s intelligence headquarters in Tripoli have revealed many secrets. The trove has uncovered ties between the Libyan strongman and the C.I.A. and shed light on negotiations between Chinese arms dealers and Libyan officials during the course of the uprising, an embarrassment to officials in Beijing.

Did I read "ties between the Libyan strongman and the C.I.A."? did I? No one at the NY Times thought, "Hey what's THAT about?"

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

2011-10-25T22:02:00.003-04:00

Watch Pray the Devil Back To Hell on PBS. See more from Women War and Peace.

Tyler Perry...is Right

2011-10-24T09:06:00.002-04:00

Shocking that I would even head a blog post with such a statement. Shocking that I would even muster the energy to come to the defense of Tyler Perry. However; such is the cost of being honest. I found a link to an article where Al Sharpton called folks who object to Tyler Perry's work as "Proper Negroes" Now, on the one hand I find it quite odd that the new and improved, Dapper, Cigar lounging, attack dog for the White House would want to accuse anyone of attempting to be or of being "Proper Negroes" but upon reading the commentary from Perry I had to agree with the following:

“Somebody said to me about the ‘House of Payne,’ ‘Why do you have fat black people on television?’ Because there are fat black people in the world. It’s not a stereotype. This is who we are, we need to stop running from our parents and our grandparents and our uncles, we need to stop running from them and embrace them.”

Mind you I do not watch House of Payne. Never really appealed to me. I also was not a fan of Good Times, though for whatever reason I did have a great affinity for The Jeffersons. Go figure. Tyler Perry is correct in this statement. Why would anyone complain about a show featuring overweight black people? Do these same people complain about Mike and Molly? No? Why not? Fat people can't be on TV? Fat black people are a shame of the race now? And I ask this as a runner and someone who is very fit. I do not see the point of asking this question at all.

I do understand the whole Mammy phenomenon and that some black people may be allowing such stereotypes to guide their thinking on how black people ought to be on screen. I don't think that is fair though. I am not concerned with the weight of the people on TV rather I'm concerned with the actual themes that are presented in the show. I was a HUGE ROC fan. I think I shed a tear when that show went off air. It was funny, it was representative and it also dealt with real deal black working class issues. Apparently the Griot doesn't think so. I suppose it's because the show never got high ratings which is sad because it was a class above many of the "black" sit-coms (or most of them period) And Charles Dutton was a person...of size.

Anyway. Perry is right, these are persons in our community and there isn't a problem having them on screen. We can however critique what kind of themes are constantly pushed or avoided.

Disappearing Black Women

2011-10-22T08:46:00.003-04:00

I was having a discussion on this photo:

I mentioned that generally speaking what we call 'black" in the US is not black and that the media, including much "black" media does it's best to disappear actual black women (and it's usually women but not exclusively) from representations of black people. Out latest example from Kotaku:

Now you look at these characters and then go back and look at the lead photo? Do ANY of these characters resemble the black women above? Since they do not we should ask why are these persons being passed off as "black" people? I might have accepted "person of African descent" or "person of color" but "black"? Really? Of particular interest is the comment by one male character designer:

In describing his influences, Jacques-Bellêtete mentioned he was heavily influenced by Metal Gear and Final Fantasy. Then he went into a two minute riff about "always trying to have very beautiful female characters," noting that these were characters he would want to sleep with. After making a semi-disparaging remark about female characters drawn in a North American style, he concludes "I'd rather have female characters from Final Fantasy or Soulcalibur to sleep with." This draws chuckles from the crowd.

In light of this comment would it not be appropriate to assume that the "black" characters above represent what white males (or males in general in that market) deem to be "sexy" black women? And if so doesn't that then add weight to the argument proposed by the ex blogger at Psychology today that black women...actual black women are deemed the least attractive?

This is not to say that black women are unattractive. I disagree with that 100%. However I'm talking about what perception is out there and certainly the active disappearing of black women in representations of black women coupled with the above quote makes the argument about that perception hard to dismiss.

Beating the Odds

2011-10-21T11:09:00.003-04:00

This morning I had a friendly discussion about the incident of domestic violence which stands a 1 in 4 women in the US being a victim in her lifetime. In her original comment about the subject she said that women face a 1 in 4 chance daily of facing DV (a form of sexual assault) which I pointed out is not the case. It later occurred to me that the importance of differentiating the odds of something happening on any given day vs. the odds of something happening in one's lifetime cannot be overstated.

Let us take the odds of dying. The odds of any one of us dying is 100% (1 in 1). The odds of any one of us dying today is far less than that. The actual probability that any one of us will die today varies with a lot of factors. Do you ride bike in NYC rush hour traffic? Well your odds shot up dramatically. Do you have a heart condition? Yup your odds went up too. On average though the odds of an individual, YOU, dying today is nearly zero even though the odds of you dying at some point is 100%. None of us actually walk around in fear of dying today even though we know that it will definitely happen one day. Yet many people will walk around in fear of an event that has a 75% chance of not happening at all.

Think about it.

Let's look at it this way. If your chance of being sexually assaulted (whether it be by an intimate partner or a stranger on the street) on any given day was in fact 1 out of 4 YOU should be petrified to walk out of the house. Why? Allow me to demonstrate. Say we lined up 4 cards. One card is the Jack of Spades (get it? Jack? Ok...never mind). Say that each morning you had to pick up one of the cards at random which indicted that today you will be sexually assaulted. Each day you would have a 1 in 4 chance of picking up the Jack of Spades. How long do you think you would go before running up on Jack?

Well while writing this entry I did an experiment with 4 pieces of paper. 1 had a "J" on it. It only took my second random (eyes covered and "cards" shuffled) pull to get the "J". If we go by our analogy and started the week on Monday that would mean that on Tuesday I would have been assaulted. Yes, if the chances on any given day that a woman had a 1 in 4 chance of being sexually assaulted or beat up by a man she's involved with I WOULD BE PETRIFIED to leave the house or involve myself with anyone. EVER.

FUCK THAT.

However the true stats are not like that. Thank God. To return to the card analogy the actual odds of any random woman being assaulted is like having a thousand decks of cards splayed out on a table with all but 1 Jack of Spades left and randomly picking a card. You are very UNLIKELY to pull that Jack out. Facing such a situation, most of us would feel very little anxiety at all about drawing a card. The Jack might show up. It would not be pleasant to have picked him, but it's really not likely to happen.

Of course there are ways to increase the odds of pulling a Jack. We can arrange the cards in order and tell the person that the cards are arranged as such. That person could decide to pull from the end of the lineup that is likely to have a Jack rather than the end of the deck that the Jack is unlikely to be. A human example of this would be taking a drink from a stranger. It's still the fault of the stranger who drugged your drink but why exactly would you take a drink from a stranger?

Another example would be if you were forced by circumstances to pull from the side of the line up that has the jacks. The human side of this would be living in a high crime area or being in a community where it is deemed acceptable for men to assault women. These are very real circumstances that many women face. I do not make light of such situations. But as mentioned earlier these circumstances are factors other than simply being female. they are situational and should be recognized as such. For if you take the same female from a "high risk" environment and place her in a "low risk" environment the odds of assault drop dramatically and the cause of that drop has nothing at all to do with her gender.

This shows that we can dramatically reduce the incidences of sexual based violence by dealing with environmental factors that can catalyze such actions. At the same time we have to realize that it will never be a zero level of incidences because there will always be a sick person out there who simply does not care.

So I want to restate that the important thing here is to distinguish between the odds of something happening in one's lifetime and the odds of something happening on a particular day.

TV's and Black Folks

2011-10-18T15:18:00.003-04:00

We have already reported that black people, including children watch incredible amounts of television writing:

This isn't just poor blacks, but blacks across the socio-economic spectrum. She went on to discuss the recent evidence that children who are exposed to television during the first 2 years of thier lives are at high risk for developing ADD-HD. Now we do know that ADD is overdiagnosed in black children (and children in general) but what she pointed out was that the studies showed how the brains of these young children who are weaned on TV are actually wired differently ( much like a crack baby)...

13) Television Watching: In black households, 42 percent of fourth-graders watch six or more hours of televisions each day. Only 13 percent of white fourth-graders watch six or more hours of television each day.

Point 13 is perhaps the most condemning point. six hours of television a day represents 30 hours of television a week. or the equivalent of just under the hours of full-time employment. rto put this in perspective if we look at another article in the same Journal, which discusses gradutaion rates of black High Schoolers, we would note that the national average for black graduation is 50.2 percent and in New York 35.1 percent graduate and in New Jersey the rates is 62.3%. therefore we have corresponding drop-out rates of 49.8%, 64.9% and 47.7% respectively. With the exception of the New York rates, one can theoretically make a direct correlation between television watching and drop-out rates. Remember tv watching and the development of 24 hour entertainment directed at children and teenagers (Cartoon Network and the various iterations of MTV) are relatively recent phenomena so tv watching is currently going up, not down.

Now we have a report in the New York Times re-iterating the call to not have children under 2 years of age even have a TV on in their presence.

“I like to call it secondhand TV,” said Dr. Brown, who is the lead author of the guidelines.

Studies cited in the guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is on, and that a young child at play will glance at the TV — if it is on, even in the background — three times a minute.

“When the TV is on, the parent is talking less,” Dr. Brown said. “There is some scientific evidence that shows that the less talk time a child has, the poorer their language development is.”

So what do you get when you combine a group of people who generally do not speak English "properly" who also engage in a high level of television viewing AND are likely to leave their young children in the presence of a television set (for whatever reason)? Is it therefore not surprising to see the test scores that we see in largely black schools?

closing quote:

“Unstructured playtime is more valuable for the developing brain than any electronic media exposure,” the guidelines said.

The Difference?

2011-10-18T08:45:00.002-04:00

In discussing the fake plot to assassinate a Saudi Ambassador with a bomb detonated in Washington DC, Deepak Tripathi makes a rather insightful comment:

Hillary Clinton is arguably the most interventionist secretary of state of the past half century. While Obama struggles at home with an increasingly belligerent Congress, Hillary Clinton has, in effect, seized control of U.S. foreign policy, which she conducts with far less diplomacy than military threats. Like the Bush-Cheney administration, we are witnessing an Obama-Clinton presidency, which brazenly engages in targeted killings in any country it wishes and, at the same time, accuses another country of plotting an assassination in Washington.

I've already made my objections in regards to the use of drones as well as my objection to the killing of a US citizen for, as far as the actual evidence shows, running his mouth in support of an ideology he ascribes to; an action very much covered by the 1st Amendment. But the continued targeting of individuals in countries in which the US is not at war is in essence no different than the so called plot. If the logic here is that AL-Q represents a threat to the US, then Iran can equally say that the Saudi's, whom they have what cannot be described as a warm relationship, represent a threat to Iran. And if the US can take the claim that killing those who advocate against the govt. of the US is enough to warrant a targeted killing, then so too can Iran decide that a Saudi national who represents a government which is quite open in it's hostility towards the regime in Tehran is a valid target. If the US can claim that it has a national right to kill said person on foreign soil, then so to does Iran.

You don't have to agree with Iran's reasons for it, you simply have to acknowledge that what's good for the Eagle is good for the Mullah.

From Our Ancestor Kwame Ture

2011-10-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

The Iranian Conspiracy

2011-10-12T08:39:00.003-04:00

So allegedly the Iranian government, or portions thereof, hatched a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador. The Ghost had a hearty howl upon hearing this news report as he recounted the many previous plots uncovered by the US that turned out to be wrong. Not saying that it's not possible for such events to have actually originated in Tehran but a simple cost-benefit analysis just doesn't make this story sound all that likely.

Think for a minute as to what Iran stands to gain or lose with such a plot given the risk of being found out as well as the risk of being fingered after the fact. Consider as well the benefits to the US and Saudi Arabia to have such a plot originate in Tehran.

What does Iran stand to gain from such an assassination? Bragging rights that they got him. And.....and......well nothing else comes to mind.

What does Iran stand to lose from such an assassination? Outright hostilities from the Saudi's who would be backed by the UN security council as well as the Arab League. Outright hostilities from the US due to such actions being taken on it's soil and against an official ally.

Condemnation from the Mexican government for involving it's citizens and therefore sullying it's already bad reputation for lawlessness among the international community and further straining ties to the US.

What does the US stand to gain from such a plot? A plain as day excuse to allow Israel to bomb Iran. A plain as day excuse to bomb Iran itself. A plain as day excuse for leveraging the US military in Mexico by claiming that organized crime syndicates there represent a clear and present danger to US national security. A plain as day excuse for further harassment of Mexicans in the US and stricter immigration and naturalization processes.

Downside for Saudi Arabia:....I'm thinking....I'll get back to this one.

Downside for the US: I'm thinking....thinking...proxy war in Iraq?

Downside for the Middle East: Shia Sunni conflicts taken to another level. This could be taken as an "upside" for the US since such conflicts could be the necessary excuses for continued actions in the region with continued use of drones to kill off "unwanted" players in the region.

Min you that as of this writing I haven't seen any of the evidence or know any more details than anyone else not in the intelligence and justice [sic] communities. Again, it is entirely possible that some group within the Iranian govt. decided this would be a good idea. There are stupid people in all organizations but with today's ability to false flag an operation that as far as I know, never even got past the conveniently planted "informant" should have intelligent people asking questions.

No Religious Tests

2011-10-10T18:42:00.003-04:00

So apparently not only do some people in the Rick Perry camp think that Mormonism is a cult but also think that not being a "true believer in Christ" is a disqualification for the office of President of the United States. While the Ghost could care less what anyone thinks about someone's religion, it strikes him as particularly odd that a party that purports to be about the "protection of the constitution" would apparently have not read the document. Surely if these persons had actually bothered to read said document they would have stumbled across this particular item:

Article VI: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Mind you that the Ghost had gotten on some lefties case for making fun of Christine O'Donnell of Delaware over the whole "witch" rumor.Not only was it not funny, but if lefties also want to claim "constitution" then they too had to make her religion, whatever it was, or her lack of religion a thing not spoken of.

If I were in the Romney camp, my next advertisement would be Romney sitting on a stool against a white background or perhaps a blow up of the Constitution in the background and I would read Article VI (perhaps even recite it while looking dead into the camera). Then close with "This is America." No name calling. No mention of his religion or any other. Just a direct message to the voter (including those outside the Republican party that he would need to win) showing that he knows what the qualifications of office.

Derrick Bell

2011-10-06T09:45:00.003-04:00

Transitioned yesterday along with Rev. Shuttlesworth:

In his 20s, while working at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, he was told to give up his membership in the N.A.A.C.P., which his superiors believed posed a conflict of interest. Instead, he quit the Justice Department, ignoring the advice of friends to try to change things from within.

Thirty years later, when he left Harvard Law School, he rejected similar advice. At the time, he said, his wife, Jewel Hairston Bell, asked him, “Why does it always have to be you?”

In “Ethical Ambition,” a memoir published in 2002, Mr. Bell wrote that his wife’s question trailed him afterward, as did another posed by his colleagues: “Who do you think you are?”

And lets say it, that most of us wouldn't even do that and the only other high profile academic I know of to do anything close is Cornell West.

In 1992, he told The New York Times that black Americans were worse off and more subjugated than at any time since slavery. And he wrote that in light of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education, things might have worked out better if the court had instead ordered governments to provide both races with truly equivalent schools.

I've been making the same argument for some time. There are many teachers, particularly those in schools with a high concentration of black students who agree.

Enter the Shadow Realm

2011-10-05T22:08:00.002-04:00

Palestinians have won an initial vote for UNESCO but:

But full membership in Unesco could mean a legally mandated cutoff of all contributions from the United States, both dues and voluntary.

Existing United States legislation appears to mandate the cutoff of money to the United Nations or any of its agencies if they grant “full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood,” and more legislation along the same lines has been introduced.

Clear and present blackmail.

Taxes as Profit

2011-10-05T14:59:00.003-04:00

I rarely mix my technology blogging and, well, the rest of my opinionating (not even a word) but the Macalope has posted my exact feelings about the whole tax cuts for businesses argument:

Karl starts with Amazon, which he thinks is headed for DOOOOM because he expects the U.S. government will close the tax loophole that’s meant the online retailer hasn’t had to charge sales tax in most states for all these years.

In short, this is a firm that only exists because of its ability to evade that tax structure. When, not if, that ends, the company is a literal zero.

Uh…

…

…

Wow!

That's been my argument for a long time. If your entire profit strategy is to pay as little taxes as possible then you're really not going to be in business very long and, erm, taxes will not help you.

When is a Terrorist not a Terrorist

2011-10-03T19:35:00.002-04:00

From the NY Times:

Mosque Set on Fire in Northern Israel

The attack followed a series of similar assaults on mosques in the West Bank by arsonists suspected of being radical settlers as part of a campaign known as “price tag,” which seeks to exact a price from local Palestinians for violence against settlers or from Israeli security forces for taking action against illegal construction in Jewish outposts in the West Bank.

When they are "radical settlers"

Or from the LA Times:

REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM -- Jewish extremists are suspected of torching a mosque in a northern Israeli town early Monday, the latest in a string of anti-Arab attacks that have enraged Palestinians and alarmed Israeli security officials.

note: The LA Times said that the extremists had created "terror cells" and that the action was an "act of terrorism" but still did not call the persons who did the act "terrorists".

Speaking of Police State

2011-09-30T16:04:00.000-04:00

A rare mainstream commentary on this:

Is The US a Police State?

2011-09-29T18:05:00.002-04:00

Title of a Counterpunch article by John Grant.

We are inundated in this country with propaganda boilerplate about being the greatest democracy in the world. No, we’re not a police state like our friends in Saudi Arabia or our former friends, and current enemies, in Iran. Our police agencies have figured out how to accomplish police state repression in a “softer,” more sophisticated manner.

Of course I made this argument a few times (1),(2), (3), particularly in my American Big Man series. I also tweeted about the most recent example that happened on the run up to the 9-11 10th anniversary commemoration.

One thing that I've thought about is the Posse Comitatus Act. Original:

Sec. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress ; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section and any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment[5]

In 2006 the act was amended to allow the military to step in to restore public order. This was then reverted back in 2008. Now the reason I bring this up is due to Chief Ray Kelly's interview with 60 Minutes in which he admitted that the NYPD has the capability to bring down commercial aircraft. Despite his later denials, I believe him 100%. The NYPD is perhaps the most militarized police dept in the nation. It occurred to me that such militarization of the police is a direct end run around the Posse Comitatus Act. Instead of bringing the military into the domestic sphere merely extend the power of domestic police to include capabilities and equipment previously available only to the military. In the end you get the same result with a different name.

Many people are under the impression that the Posse Comitatus Act provides a blanket ban on the military in the domestic arena. But the Coast Guard, a part of the Navy can and does enforce domestic law. The Insurrection Act already provides for use of the military, and most importantly the Congress may authorize the use of the military to enforce domestic law at any time.

As I said on Twitter; I think a lot of people have an idea about what a police state is based on movies and from dictators in the middle east, etc. They fail to realize to recognize the purpose of a police state is population control. Particularly the control of dissident voices and actions within the population. it is the ability to track citizens against their wishes, and it usually accompanied by claims of security and safety. A soft police state is still a police state.

Why Multiculturalism Fails and What It Means to Corporate America

2011-09-28T11:55:00.002-04:00

This from Diversity Inc. I usually find myself disagreeing with a lot of the commentary from that publication, but the cited article hits the nail on the head. I've been saying similar things about Europe for some time.

think multiculturalism, as practiced by countries in northern Europe and Great Britain, is a failure. Group performance, whether it be in a country or a corporation, requires clear values....In my opinion, multiculturalism is economically and politically detrimental. A society does not benefit by fostering enclaves of people who refuse to knit into the society as defined by its stated values. I know that some people will disagree with this, but I also feel that it is the nation’s right to purposefully work toward limiting the operations of those who do not wish to live by the stated values, and that citizenship must overtly include living by our standards as defined by the foundation documents.

I said something similar back in 2009:

This simply does not apply in Europe. The answer to "Who is French" is "I'm from here. I am a Gaul." That is the end of the conversation. No immmigrant, no matter how long they have been there can make such a claim. A Gaul can say to be French is to be, x,y and z and that's it. The Frenchman has every right to determine for himself what Frenchness IS and is not. And they can change that definition at will. Nobody else has the right to tell the French what French culture is. Equally the French cannot tell the Yoruba what Yoruba culture is and WHO is a Yoruba. Catch my point? ...

Self determination is the right of all people. That includes Europeans. I think it is foolish to simply talk about the recent Swiss vote as merely or solely about xenophobia (a term I think is way overused) or Islamophobia (another overused term). But one has to take into consideration the hostility that European concepts of freedom took with the Cartoon mess. You have to think of the Director who was killed over his movie on the abuses some women in Muslim countries undergo.

A lot of people did not like that I stood up for the self determination of Europeans. But this is about consistency. I simply cannot honestly call for self-determination of the African while saying that the European has no such right.

More Drones

2011-09-27T14:43:00.002-04:00

I post on the rise of drone warfare because I seriously think that it is going to lead to a LOT of problems worldwide. Right now we, as in those in Europen and the US, do not have to think about these things but it is only a matter of time before the threat escalates whether by drones created by other countries or by hackers who break into the control systems of US and European drones to ill effect.

From a recent article in Counterpunch

Professions are supposed to operate within an ethical code and exercise independent judgment. Doctors have a duty to prevent harm. Biologists and chemists should urge their colleagues in physics to take a greater role as to where their knowhow is leading this tormented world of ours before the blowback spills over into even more lethally indefensible chemical and biological attacks.

I doubt that the attacks will become chemical. It could happen but I'm not looking at that. I think there is a larger danger whenever enemies decide to stop trying to target obvious and well secured targets like NYC. Of course it would make for great bragging rights but are rarely successful. There are far more vulnerable places where a remote control car or helicopter could be quite a problem, particularly with web enables devices.

Anyway I have said it before, when warfare becomes detached from actual human risk, then warfare becomes that much more dangerous to the target and more likely to be started by those with the automated systems.

Rep. Maxine Waters on Obama's CBC Speech

2011-09-27T10:02:00.002-04:00

The California Democrat, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, says she found the president's language "a bit curious." She says Obama didn't address Hispanics in such a blunt manner and would never use that language in a speech to a gathering of gays or Jews.

Huffington Post Maxine Waters: Obama's Speech To Congressional Black Caucus Was 'A Bit Curious'

The commentary in question:

I'm going to press on for equality. (Applause.) I'm going to press on for the sake of our children. (Applause.) I'm going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I am going to press on. (Applause.)

I expect all of you to march with me and press on. (Applause.) Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. (Applause.) Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We've got work to do, CBC. (Applause.)

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who thought something was amiss with that commentary.The whole implied "crybaby" and "lazy" commentary was unnecessary and he knows it. And it's a part of a pattern.

We have Obama back on Father's day 2008 talking about how black men need to "shape up". On father's day. The one day where father's are supposed to be getting props. I've never seen Obama say squat about mothers who are not doing their jobs properly (or at all). Not even Michelle manages to shit on women on Mother's day. I won't even get into the nasty words that this administration has had in regards to it's liberal base.

Like I said a week or so ago, it's apparently cool for politicians to roll up in black events and tell us about the stuff we're doing that they don't approve of. Don't see that happening elsewhere. Usually the politician, you know, tells us what they will do to help us (whether they mean it or not).

About The Death Penalty

2011-09-23T09:28:00.005-04:00

And so the execution of Troy Davis has come and gone. The black twitterverse and Facebook realm was alight with commentary about this execution and about the death penalty in general. I want to take the time out to discuss my opinions in regards to the death penalty.

The death penalty as "punishment" or "justice" has been around for about as long as humans have been on the planet. I would suppose that other species have death penalties but I don't know that they are actually capable of projecting the concept of "justice" into the future as a consequence of past behavior. Various means of implementing such punishment has come in many forms. The Guillotine being particularly famous but also including death by burning, drowning, stoning, etc.

What generally separates the death penalty in the past from today is that in the past such a punishment was meted out by the community and in front of the community. The consequences of actions that warranted death were generally known and approved of by the community and so there was often not a problem with implementing it. Witness stoning: Done by a community. Burnings: Community events. Also many times the bodies of those who have paid this price are left in public areas as reminders to the community that the community will deal will those who break the rules. It cannot be argued that such a participatory punishment and public reminder had a deterrent effect on those who were more amenable to visual re-enforcement.

A lot of these same societies also didn't have prisons the way we have them now. Personally I think it was due to the clear example of "community justice". Rather than pay to have people locked up somewhere punishment for crimes usually came in the form of servitude (Note that this is how many African-Americans got to the Americas). Those crimes that were deemed too horrible for such punishment ended up being executed. This was often for the safety of the community. You can't have someone who is determined to kill just wandering about.

Today though we house death row inmates away from the eyes of the public. Out of sight out of mind until perhaps the day of execution where there is a news report about it. The place where the condemned is strapped to a table (or chair) behind a partition. A few people, reporters, victim's family and perhaps some state officials get to watch the actual execution. The public can go their entire life not having actually seen the execution much less have to bother with actually participating in the act supposedly done on their behalf and safety. But that's not so strange for a modern society that is very removed from the facts of life. Rather than actually killing our meat for consumption we "outsource" it to farmers and we just have to walk into a store and pick up the end result. Never do we have to actually have our hand in the process. This disconnect from the actual process of execution and it's original intent in small communities (where everybody knows your name) is part of why we can question the practice.

This brings us to the common comment that the death penalty does not deter crime. Proponents of this line of thinking believe that since crimes that qualify for the death penalty still occur (or increase) that therefore there is no deterrent. The problem with this line of thinking is that I have not seen any research presented where they have actually found people who have not committed a crime because they knew the consequences. That is we simply do not know who among us has thought of committing a crime and thought 'you know what...shit's not worth it." For example, there are many people who have considered killing their boss. Some have ruminated on how it could be done and most of those are stopped by the realization that they are likely to get caught and killed (death penalty) and therefore they quit their job and go onto greener pastures. These persons are not included in the "deterrent" argument because they are not included in the research.

Furthermore; how many people who have been convicted of crimes like robbery with a weapon committed the felony with a gun with no bullets because they did not want to trigger harsher punishment? How many people were in a group committing a felony like assault but were put off when a member of a group actually kills the victim? How do we know that person was not aware that such an action has now put him or her in jeopardy of far worse punishment, like the death penalty, than the "simple" assault would have resulted in?

How many suspects who upon discovering that the crime they are being charged with is a capital offense then give up valuable information as to the actual person who committed the crime in question? Is that not an "effective use" of the death penalty?

Furthermore no amount of laws will stop a person who is hell bent on doing whatever it is he or she wants to do. There are plenty of laws against child pornography. Well known too. Still though men get caught with images of children on their computers and they KNOW that it is illegal. Should we scrap laws against possession of child pornography because a segment of the population isn't deterred?

There is a law against assault. Well known. No death penalty involved. Yet and still thousands of assaults happen every year. Perhaps we should scrap the punishment for that since clearly it's not stopping people from committing that crime.

I could go on and on like Badu but the point is clear, deterrence is about the general population and signalling those who may be considering crossing the line. No punishment or consequence will deter those who simply don't give a damn. And personally I don't want those who don' give a damn walking around.

The third argument I've seen put forth against the death penalty is the "redemption" argument. People change and therefore killing them is immoral. I think this argument holds little water. People who like to kill rarely show redemption until the full consequences of their actions are brought to bear. As a matter of fact I argue that in general people are not redemptive until they have consequences brought to bear. Still though I agree that people can change while in prison. I simply do not agree that such a change constitutes a valid argument against the death penalty. I think a person who has redeemed his or herself after the fact ought to come to grips with the idea that they still have caused harm to the community and that by accepting the consequences of that harm they serve as an example to the rest of the community that there is no escape from such consequences.

Let me pause here and state that this is against what most people who are Christian believe in. That is that man is redeemed by the blood of Christ who bore the death consequence of sin thereby allowing the sinner (criminal) a reprieve from these consequences. I refute this particular belief based on the the events at Calvary. When Christ was crucified he was hung with two thieves (I don't think theft should result in capital punishment). The thief on the cross made his last minute statement of belief and Jesus said something to the effect that the thief was "with him" in glory or heaven or whatever. That is that the thief was essentially forgiven and had secured himself a place in the afterlife. However; the thief STILL had to pay the earthly consequences for his actions. Jesus didn't up and say "In that case, my man... come up off this cross right here and sin no more. I got you."

So I think the Christian argument of redemption falls short even if it pulls at the heartstrings and concepts of righteousness.

Lastly we have the issue of racism. It was of particular interest to me that while folks were up in arms over Troy Davis they had little to say about the killer of James Byrd Jr. who was also executed that night. If one is entirely against the death penalty then my twitter timeline and Facebook feed ought to have been filled with equal amounts of dismay over the state execution of Byrd Jr's killer. it was not. The reason for this is that I don't think people are really that bothered by the death penalty. Only a handful of people, including myself raised major opposition to the summary execution of Osama Bin Ladin. Which is relevant because again, if the state has no business executing a murderer, then the US military had no grounds to execute OBL. Gotta be consistent folks.

But the racism angle is important. It is a fact that black men and women face harsher penalties for various crimes. It is a fact that the poor, which black men and women are disproportionately classified do not get the kind of representation in court that could result in far different sentencing (see OJ Simpson and DSK as recent examples of the wealth effect). Knowing this many oppose the death penalty because it is unfairly practiced. Of course the question then is the problem the death penalty or the racism? I say that the problem is the racism and that when you address the racism you then address the disparities in it's implementation. There are a number of things that can be done to accommodate the racism that people bring to the criminal justice system. And let me stress this because people make the mistake of saying the justice system is "racist".

Indeed there was a time when the justice system was specifically racist. There were actual laws on the books directed specifically at black folks. Laws specifically made to regulate black folks behavior and to decriminalize negative behavior towards them. Under such a system there was no doubt that the system itself was racist in fact and in intent. I challenge people to find such laws on the books today. The fact is that the racism we see in the justice system stems specifically from the persons within it. The DA's, the court appointed lawyers and the policeman on the street. But more than anything, the justice system is classist. The better represented you are the more likely you will successfully navigate the system. Success being the lightest possible punishment if any. Clearly those with money and access have more means to vigorously assert their rights and privileges, while those who do not have to depend on the whims of those holding the keys. That is, the laws are neutral, the implementation of them is subject to the machinations of the people. It's like the argument that people have about Taxes. Taxes aren't bad, it's what's done with them that's an issue.

There are those who will say I'm full of shit because prisons are full of black men and women. I only point out the class status of the majority of those persons, not to mention that by the numbers there are not only equal numbers of whites and blacks in the federal system (state is a whole other beast) but those persons represent a relatively small portion of the black population as a whole. And yes, I am aware of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. I'm not saying that you don't have a process, starting roughly in early schooling, that makes a path to prison more probable. That is certainly and indisputably the case. It is simply my contention that the 'justice system is racist" is an easy out for the complex interplay of situations that lands one in prison. For example: Why was Troy Davis hanging out with people who beat up on homeless people? or apparently got into fights with people? Do you hang out with folks like that? No? That's why you're not in prison. Generally speaking, in America racist use the justice system for their own ends, like any other organized group.But that is getting off the point.

The point being I don't think it's proper to predicate one's objection to the death penalty on the basis of racism. Oppose racism simply because it infects everything it touches, but you don't cut off your arm because your finger has gangrene. I don't see many of these folks arguing for elimination of the police because they are racist.

Lastly we have the non-violence principle argument against the death penalty. I'll only buy that argument from people who take that non-violence seriously. And to take that seriously that means you offer no resistance, zero, nada, to anyone who seeks to harm you. That would also mean eliminating any firearms for police. I don't know too many people who are so principled in their attachment to non-violence that they are willing to not defend themselves against assault. If you are one of those persons then I will not argue about the death penalty because at least you are being consistent.

Saved By Washington

2011-09-22T11:22:00.001-04:00

From Alternet

One prominent banker tells Suskind his colleagues expected much harsher treatment from the Obama administration in the administration of TARP and other decisions. "For Washington to not demand anything when it saved us, even stuff that we know is for our long-term good, was one of the stupidest moves in modern times ... I feel like I should go over and hug Tim. It's a shame we can't pay him, 'cause that's a guy who really earned a big-time bonus."

I believe the charge was "Black mascot for the Wall Street oligarchs"?

New Forests Company and Ugandan Govt. Toss People off Land

2011-09-22T10:14:00.002-04:00

From the NY Times

According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, the Ugandan government and a British forestry company forcibly expelled more than 20,000 people from their homes here in recent years, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land...

Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors, often uprooting local farmers so that food can be grown on a commercial scale and shipped to richer countries overseas...

The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations.

The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.

Ron Paul Makes the Case for Single Payer

2011-09-21T08:45:00.007-04:00

I meant to post on this when I saw the commotion over the Republican Tea Party Express "debate". Ron Paul was asked a question about a hypothetical young man in his 20's who decides to forgo purchasing health insurance because he is healthy. This young man then ends up on a coma or some emergency situation. Should he be given medical care.

Many people balked at the shout from the crowd to "let'im die" as well as Paul's comment that "This is America where you have choice."

Putting the law aside in regards to emergency care in which anyone who enters any emergency room must be given medical attention regardless of insurance status. And also putting aside the clear mean-spiritedness of the crowd, Paul was being completely consistent with his libertarian views, in a room of "debaters" who change position depending on which way the southern winds are blowing. But there is something hypocritical of making a mockery of Paul while advancing a healthcare "overhaul" that attaches the entire US population to insurance. Let me explain.

The insurance industry is based on risk assessment. People are given a premium based in part on the likelihood that the insurance company will have to pay out. The more likely the company will have to pay out and the more they think they will have to pay out the more they will charge you for your coverage. If the risk is deemed to high they will simply decline to cover.

The second means for insurance companies to make money is to decline to pay for services. They will make claims such as the "effectiveness of the treatment" and other reasons for not covering a particular procedure or medicine. Even in cases where they will pay, often it is not the full cost of the procedure or medicine and the customer is left to pay the remainder. This is what is referred to as a deductible or co-pay. In some cases the co-pay is prohibitively large even though upwards of 80% of the cost is covered.

If you can't afford the premiums or the co-pay, that's not the insurance company's problem that's your problem. In the auto industry if you can't pay then you don't drive. In the health insurance industry you can't pay then you die I suppose. Yet mandating that we sign up with such an industry is what passes for reform.

Under the new healthcare reform, it is proposed that everybody gets insurance from some company (constitutionally iffy but that is a different convo). Companies reportedly cannot turn a person down based on previous conditions. That is they would not be able to deem a person too risky per the earlier discussion. However; since they must cover anyone, they may increase the premiums (and I suppose co-payments) on such persons so long as such rates are "reasonable". Furthermore these companies can still decline to cover procedures or medication they deem ineffective.

I'm not sure how many people caught Michael Moore's Sicko but, one "nice" scene was the person booted from a hospital after receiving medical care because they had no insurance. Many people balked at that scene but really how do you blame a hospital, which is a business, from not wanting to deal with customers that do not pay? Would you work for free...all the time?

It's not like these hospitals get free supplies. Not as if nurses and doctors are volunteering. Not like all the electricity they use is being given to them pro-bono. If a customer does not pay for services rendered these expenses don't up and disappear. So you know what happens? You and I pay via taxes for all those who are uninsured but use the services of hospitals. And when that money doesn't cover the business expenses of a hospital it gets closed. When that hospital closes everyone who depended on it for services and all those employed by it lose. This is the other side of the "let him die" story.

Now some may object to my use of the term "customer" but that is exactly what one is in a insurance based healthcare system. If one objects to this then the only rational solution is single payer healthcare. Under such a system the question posed to Ron Paul could not be asked. No one dies from lack of money for healthcare, because healthcare is "pre-paid" via taxes, be it income or sales or a combination of the two. If one is actually bothered by the whole "let him die" attitude, then one ought to be equally bothered by supporting a system by which a private company can decide whether you deserve to have whatever procedure and medication paid for.

Bullshit!

2011-09-20T13:49:00.001-04:00

Obama at the UN speaking on Libya:

But he said the successful overthrow of Colonel Qaddafi, with aid from a NATO bombing campaign, had demonstrated that the world should “not underestimate the aspirations and will of the Libyan people.”

Only the MOST DAFT would even begin to entertain the thought that the Libyan rebels could have done anything more than last a few days had NATO not decided that the events represented a golden opportunity to finally off Ghaddafi.

Troy Davis and the Failure of Integration

2011-09-20T08:55:00.002-04:00

As I write this I have just heard that Troy Davis was denied clemency.

I am a habitual ABC News watcher. It's what I grew up on and as they say, old habits die hard. Good Morning America has gone through many changes over the years and is currently "headed up" by Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos. If anyone has been watching the program you'll note that there hasn't been a peep about Troy Davis by the GMA crew or it's black reporters including Ron Clairborn (If it has during the times I've missed please let me know).

This is in stark contrast to the coverage afforded the white girl in Italy who was charged and convicted of murder despite the fact that there was no forensic evidence that linked her to the murder weapon. If you recall, that story ran daily for a while and even after she was convicted reappeared every now and then as the family continued their quest to have their daughter freed from the Italian jail.

Troy Davis, right here in the United States was similarly convicted of a killing of which there was no forensic evidence to link him to the crime. Furthermore; the multiple witnesses that placed him at the scene or as being the trigger man have recanted their stories as well as providing testimony that they were coerced by the police. Clearly with this evidence, killing this man may be another case of an innocent person being killed by the state.

Whether or not the folks at GMA think that Troy Davis is guilty is not the point here. This is simply a matter of fair coverage. How do you explain the coverage given to a maybe innocent white woman in Italy due to lack of evidence, yet not a mention of Troy Davis? Why are we still discussing the wherabouts of a woman who took off to Aruba with a man she met on AdultFriendFinder (internet hook up site) and not a mention of Troy Davis? Is Robin Roberts bothered by this at all? I suppose not and I suppose that I shouldn't expect her to be after how she baited Chris Brown in an interview that was supposed to be about his new CD and not about whether he feels remorse about his actions towards Rhianna. Surely if Robin Roberts (or Ron Clairborn for that matter) had any conviction that the story ought at least be told and Roberts had the power to get it mentioned (would they have fired her if she demanded it? And would that have ended her broadcast career if they did? I doubt it.)

But this underscores the fundamental problem with integration. A problem that was spoken about by the ever spoken of Dr. King Jr. It merely puts black faces on screen, behind a desk, etc. with no fundamental shift in the ideology of society where black men convicted by the state "must have done it" or "done something to deserve it". Where black folks who should be at the tip of the spear for changing the systems in which they have gone into, play a roll no different from those of lesser melanin and kink.

I Suppose It's a Compliment Somewhere

2011-09-19T15:37:00.002-04:00

From a NY Times article on NY Gov. Cuomo's car obsession:

first, to drive from his Westchester County home to a breakfast in Harlem honoring the African American Day Parade, where he gave a speech about gun violence, and then to Eisenhower Park

Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks that there are far more interesting, positive and inspiring than a speech on gun violence to give at a Parade celebrating a people/culture. It reminds me of the many times I've said to leave out the commentary about deadbeat dads and the like on Father's day since we have all year to discuss them. But I suppose if not even the POTUS can resist giving attention to the negativity in black communities, I can't expect Gov. Cuomo to do any different.

Follow Up on Jobs Bill

2011-09-15T10:54:00.002-04:00

I recently posted on my major issue with the Jobs bill as proposed by the president. I pointed out, among other things the overly optimistic projections on how many jobs would be created by providing supporting evidence of past downward adjustments of employment data. Today we have a piece from Alternet that provides more evidence on the matter:

To illustrate just how wide this model can be off the jobs mark, Bloomberg shows that 824,000 jobs “disappeared” after a birth/death model adjustment in February 2010. That adjustment is important because if it was known that job creation was weaker by 824,000 jobs during 2009, additional job creation efforts could have been considered. At present job creation is stagnant and we won’t know what role the birth/death model has on today’s job numbers until 2012. But if history is any guide, job creation may again be overstated.

I have been regularly pointing to the writings of Paul Craig Roberts who has been pointing out the problems with current birth/death model and how it obscures real unemployment.

“We’ve got to have legislation that is supported by Democrats and Republicans,”

2011-09-15T09:59:00.002-04:00

The title statement encapsulates everything wrong with the current Democratic party. You never start negotiations with "What do you want?"

NY Times Some Democrats Are Balking at Obama’s Jobs Bill

Thanks NATO

2011-09-13T20:43:00.002-04:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

Now, rebels have been torching homes in the abandoned city 25 miles to the south. Since Thursday, The Wall Street Journal has witnessed the burning of more than a dozen homes in the city Col. Gadhafi once lavished with money and investment. On the gates of many vandalized homes, light-skinned rebels scrawled the words "slaves" and "negroes."

...But amid these diplomatic gains for the rebels, fears of retribution are gripping several segments of the population once viewed as closest to the regime like dark-skinned Libyans from the south and places like Tawergha.

Nope..no anti-black stuff happening in Libya. None at all.

Is it your Pan-Africanist duty to become a billionaire?

2011-09-12T15:32:00.002-04:00

Headline is the title of an excellent piece by our brother Minister Faust:

a) Every social justice goal we have is much more easily attained when "we" (whoever "we" are) can pay people to work on the solutions full-time, rather than trying to squeeze in volunteer hours on the side while headed for burn-out. In other words, as Ralph Nader put it so perfectly when discussing his philosophical

In essence this is Garveyism. Garvey (and Delany before him) understood the financial base for any prospect of African liberation whether it be a continent and country or a community. The whole we-must-be-broke-or-we-aint-real ideology is not Pan-Africanism in the least bit. It is the attitude of the money holder (and getter) that is far more important than whether he or she has money. Take a read at the original Bro-log, also linked to the right.

Koch Brothers and FSU

2011-09-12T13:32:00.002-04:00

From the Counterpunch article The Koch Whisperers:

The reverse speak of the Koch brand of academic freedom became crystal clear this year with the leak of a contract the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation had previously signed with Florida State University to provide a grant of $1.5 million in exchange for the right to vet and veto faculty hires for an economics program based on “political economy and free enterprise.”

On This Payroll Tax Thing Again

2011-09-12T10:26:00.004-04:00

So I had this discussion online about my objection to the payroll tax break for small businesses that was offered by Obama in his address last week. I followed up with a link to a piece in the NY Times which underscored my point with interviews with actual small business owners saying the same thing I said which is that demand fuels employment not taxes (or lack thereof). This is an important thing to understand because it seems that too many Democrats have begun to believe the Republican line that the government is at fault because it taxes too much. In any case I was pointed to a piece on Media Matters (A Democratic Party front group if you ask me) in which they proclaimed Conservative Media Criticism Of Jobs Plan Only Off By Millions Of Jobs as a rebuttal to my position.

The first problem I had with the piece, particularly in reference to my argument was that are we considering the NY Times "conservative media" now? Last I heard the NY Times was a left leaning outlet that occasionally carries water for government interests. In any case I'll skip over the FOX news reference because, well, it's FOX and continue on to the meat of Media Matters argument:

Zandi: American Jobs Act Would Add Nearly 2 Million Jobs. UPI reported:

President Barack Obama's $447 billion job-creation plan would likely add 1.9 million payroll jobs and grow the U.S. economy 2 percent, a leading economist said.

The plan, which Obama outlined before a joint session of Congress Thursday, would likely cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point, Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said as Obama prepared to tout the plan at Virginia's University of Richmond. [United Press International, 9/9/11]

Well it must be so if Zandi says so. Seriously though I will re-iterate that my objection is to the payroll tax break not the entire proposal. So that there will be "millions" of jobs created does not negate that objection.

Some other nice looking quotes:

We estimate that the American Jobs Act (AJA), if enacted, would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term.

The various tax cuts aimed at raising workers' after-tax income and encouraging hiring and investing, combined with the spending increases aimed at maintaining state & local employment and funding infrastructure modernization, would:

Boost the level of GDP by 1.3% by the end of 2012, and by 0.2% by the end of 2013.

Raise nonfarm establishment employment by 1.3 million by the end of 2012 and 0.8 million by the end of 2013, relative to the baseline.

The program works directly to raise employment through tax incentives and support to state & local governments for increasing hiring; it works indirectly through the positive boost to aggregate demand (and hence hiring) stimulated by the direct spending and the increase in household income resulting from lower employee payroll taxes and increased employment. [Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, 9/8/11]

Notice the opening line about "combined with". This is the crux here. No one. Not one of them has stated that the payroll tax decrease will make millions of jobs in and of itself. It is the spending increases to fund infrastructure, etc. that are going to create jobs (or keep jobs from being lost). This is in total support of my argument that it is the spending and not the tax breaks that is going to do the heavy lifting.

But lets forget my particular position for a second. All these economists, who I'm sure know far more about economics than I do, have had to revise projections and jobs reports. Here's one from June 2011:

After ADP Employer Services reported projections showing that employment increased by just 38,000 jobs in May (down from 177,000 in April), a number of economists have tempered their own expectations for the Labor Department's report.

Fox Business reports that High Frequency Economics decreased its projections from 175,000 to 75,000, while Goldman Sachs lowered its prediction from 150,000 to 100,000.

"As far as we can tell, employers have hugely overreacted to the surge in oil prices, which has slowed but not killed consumption; we expect better in the third quarter," Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics told the news source.

The ADP statistics, which are seen by many economists as a bellwether for the monthly Labor Department jobs report - which comes out June 3 - are particularly surprising because the firm had anticipated an increase of approximately 175,000 jobs.

175,000k to 38,000? Whoops!

How about this one from the Huffington Post:

The major U.S. stock indices fell at the open Friday morning and continued falling, on the heels of a employment report that showed the jobless rate tick up to 9.2 percent in June as non-farm payrolls gained only 18,000 jobs. The Labor Department's numbers fell far below economists' predictions of about 100,000 new jobs and made the previous month's disappointing report seem less like a fluke and more like a developing trend, delivering a sobering portrait of the nation's economic health and dashing hopes for future strength.

100,000 to 18,000? Oh WHOOOPS!

Lets take it back to 2010 shall we? Here's the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

For the second consecutive month, the economy created virtually no jobs, net of temporary Census jobs. The Labor Department reported that the economy lost 131,000 jobs in July, 12,000 less than the 143,000 drop in the number of temporary Census workers. The June numbers were revised down by 100,000 to show a gain of only 4,000 non-Census jobs.

Revised down by 100,000 jobs? Oh. My Bad.

Since three data points reveal a pattern I think it is safe to say that we should take economists wild predictions of "millions of jobs" with the appropriate grains of salt. Again, that's not saying that there won't be jobs created but, well, check the quotes again.

Then we have to get to the other problem with the job creation thing. Common economic models have it that the US economy must create between 100k and 250k jobs every month to simply keep pace with population growth. So every time you see a jobs report that falls below that number you do the math to see what's going on. Here's Paul Craig Roberts on that:

This Labor Day week-end’s job report, announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, September 2, says zero net new jobs were created in August, a number 250,000 less than the amount of monthly job creation necessary to make progress in reducing America’s high rate of unemployment.

So lets look at these predictions when we see what is needed simply to tread water. If these economists are correct and 1.3 non-farm jobs will be created by the end of 2012 and assuming hiring begins January 1 2012 that's 108,333 jobs each month, well below what is needed to maintain employment levels. This means that barring any other change unemployment must rise by the end of 2012.

Going back to my objection to the payroll tax break let's examine a piece by Gwendolin Mink who discusses the dire consequences for Social Security:

he proposed to extend and increase the ill-considered FICA tax cut he embraced last December — a tax cut that directly undermines the financial integrity of Social Security.According to the White House Fact Sheet on “The American Jobs Act” the FICA tax holiday for workers will be increased to a 50% reduction, lowering it to 3.1%. Under the 2010 tax deal, the payroll tax for workers was reduced from 6.2% to 4.2%. In addition to expanding the tax cut for workers, the President proposes to extend the FICA tax holiday to employers by cutting in half the employer’s share of the payroll tax through the first $5 million in payroll...The FICA/payroll tax goes into the Social Security Trust Fund. This is a dedicated fund currently worth $2.6 trillion, which has been built up over time through employee and employer contributions, along with accrued interest. Current and future Social Security beneficiaries receive benefits from this fund. No general revenues are involved, except for administrative and clerical costs.

Under the payroll tax cut initiated in the 2010 lame duck tax deal, the revenue loss to the Trust Fund from the payroll tax holiday is made up through compensatory payments into the Trust Fund from general revenues. The President proposes to continue this scheme — deepening a relationship between Social Security and general revenues (read deficit) that did not exist until the December 2010 tax deal. This will make Social Security increasingly vulnerable to demands for “reform.”

Ahh now we see why Social Security was even mentioned in this jobs speech. Can we say "set up"? Yes, yes we can.

Overall the Media Matters piece is simply reactionary publishing by what I consider a Democratic front group seeking to do battle with Republicans by playing the opposite game instead of doing actual research and analysis. I suppose that's why I don't bother with them too much anymore.

The Icelandic Example

2011-09-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

Deena Stryker reports on how Icelanders dealt with the criminal bankers and the government that enabled them:

What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.

Simple concept really. We didn't create the problem and we're not going to pay you to get out of it.

Hiring Only who Would Have Been Hired Anyway

2011-09-09T20:21:00.002-04:00

Underscoring my argument that these tax breaks for small business hiring is a bad idea, the NY Times posts an article with quotes from actual business owners (disclosure: I have a small business and I'm also speaking from experience):

“You still need to have the business need to hire,” said Jeffery Braverman, owner of Nutsonline, an e-commerce company in Cranford, N.J., that sells nuts and dried fruit. While a $4,000 credit could offset the cost of the company’s lowest-cost health insurance plan, he said, it would not spur him to hire someone. “Business demand is what drives hiring,” he said.

Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest explorers of oil and gas in shale fields across the country, for example, said it has 800 positions open, and has already received tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed. But Michael Kehs, vice president for strategic affairs and public relations, said in an e-mail that the credit “does not drive our hiring.”

Roger Tung, the chief executive of Concert Pharmaceuticals, said the company, a privately held biotechnology firm with 45 employees, would save $150,000 a year from the proposed corporate payroll tax deductions.

But that is still not enough to cover the cost of hiring even one additional employee at the Lexington, Mass., company, Mr. Tung said, once benefits and other expenses besides salary are included. He can only hire, he said, when the economy improves and private investors become confident again.

All of these things I mentioned before. I'll repeat if your hiring and profits are determined by taxes, you won't be in business too long because your business plan sucks.

The Problem with the Jobs Speech

2011-09-09T13:39:00.003-04:00

I had a large problem with the Jobs speech that Obama gave last night and it wasn't that Obama was practically yelling at Congress. Actually he did yell at one point but anyway. The problem I had was with the proposed changes to the payroll tax and other tax deductions aimed at small business.

The first problem is that even though these new proposals are touted as being "paid for", I don't think people understand that it is merely either a shift in revenue from small business to others or that some other constituency (apparently medicaid recipients) will have something taken from them.

The second problem is that why exactly is it necessary to give small business (or any profitable business for that matter) such a gift? Generally speaking businesses hire people when they anticipate high demand for their product or services that cannot be met by its current workforce. Demand for goods and services is dependent upon customers wanting and being able to partake in those goods and services. Why would a business hire people for non-existent customers? In other words, I don't see the point for giving a business a tax cut to hire somebody that they don't need because if that business needed that employee that business would have hired anyway. In other words, businesses don't need a government incentive to hire. Businesses already have a profit motive to hire.

I could see if the government was going to purchase goods and services from a company and due to that demand they went out and hired people. That would make sense. But to simply say we'll tax you less to hire people you don't need, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The third issue is that of the payroll tax or whatever it was that is allegedly taken from the employees cheque. Again while I understand the political motive to putting more money in the hands of the individual I don't see this making a big difference. Remember that this was done before. People who are in dire straights are not going to suddenly go splurge on luxury goods because their cheque has another $25 bucks in it. They are going to go and pay down debt. Those of us who are not in debt are the types who already have a saving habit and you can bet that most of us are going to put that money away as we see the increasing attacks on Social Security threaten our retirement.

I don't think the general population is going to really get back to spending, which isn't necessarily the best thing, until they are out from under the bad debt put on them by the bankers. The fallout from the mortgage scheme needs to be addressed. By addressing the way over sized mortgages a lot of families will have money freed up and would probably get the housing market as well as people like me who simply will not overpay for property go into the market and the spending that requires hits small businesses who will then have a reason to go hire people without government gimmicks.

The Kromanti Language of the Jamaican Maroons

2011-09-09T13:23:00.000-04:00

"Show them who was in control. "

2011-09-09T12:03:00.002-04:00

Walter Fountry's eyewitness account of the civil war in Libya:

In an interview inside his Northwest D.C. home last week, the noted civil rights leader, told the Afro that he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control...

The rebels told Fauntroy they had been told by the European forces to stay inside. According to Fauntroy, the European forces would tell the rebels, "'Look at what you did.' In other words, the French and Danish were ordering the bombings and killings, and giving credit to the rebels.

0% of Thieving Bankers have had Contact with Police

2011-09-08T13:46:00.003-04:00

The UK Guardian has reported that the police in the UK have discovered that:

It's not yet been widely recognised, but the hardcore of the rioters were, in fact, known criminals. Close to three-quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with riot offences already had a prior conviction. That is the legacy of a broken penal system – one whose record in preventing reoffending has been straightforwardly dreadful. In my view, the riots can be seen in part as an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes – individuals and families familiar with the justice system who haven't been changed by their past punishments.

However the bankers who committed massive fraud against the public are reported to have had no prior contact with the police. To paraphrase the paragraph above: This is the legacy of a broken regulatory and penal system...In my view the bank frauds can be seen in part as an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes -individuals and corporations familiar with the justice system who haven't been changed because there have been no past punishments.

De-Industrialized America

2011-09-07T10:51:00.002-04:00

Paul Craig Roberts says it all:

In a word, the US economy has been de-industrializing, moving from a developed to an underdeveloped economy, for the past two decades. It has been the case for many years that when the US economy manages to eke out new jobs, they are in non-tradable domestic services, such as health care and social assistance, waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks. Non-tradable employment consists of jobs that do not produce goods and services that could be exported to reduce the large US trade deficit.

You need to understand this if you want to understand what the US future is going to look like in the near future. I have to keep reminding people that college educated people are in the minority in the US. Jobs that *require* a university degree to do are even less than the number of "degreed people" out there. Generally speaking the "ideal" capitalist labour market is a pyramid with manual labour (manufacturing) at the base employing the most numbers of people and the number of people employed falls the higher you go to the point. What the US has done, slowly but surely is cut off the bottom part of the pyramid on the assumption that the remaining portion would be theirs to monopolize. The idea that the US would be the intellectual labour market of choice for the world. Of course, this racist and white supremacist ideology (that is what it is) assumed that other people and places were not able to develop intellectual capital and therefore the "West" would always be "the brain" of the world. As skilled workers in IT and other "intellectual" jobs are finding out, their cheap counterparts in other countries can program, account, design, etc just as well as they can, if not better now that the educational system in the US is falling apart.

It's not that people in manufacturing in the US weren't exploited. They were, but not to the extent that they are now. Back then people were apparently bright enough to figure out that paying these workers decent wages allowed them to consume. Consumption is it's own issue but we'll not deal with that here. Now these businesses do all they can to squeeze workers by pitting them against people in other lands who, having lived with next to nothing will gladly work for what for an American would be sub-poverty (as in live in a cardboard box under a freeway) wages. But hey...Americans get cheap shit at Walmart, Target and Dollar General.

And these companies are now so bold as to attempt to dictate to the US govt. what tax rate they are willing to pay to remit income they have stashed away in other countries. Can you imagine YOU telling the IRS that you won't pay your taxes until you come to an agreement as to how much YOU think you should pay. This underscores what we are seeing with "austerity" measures being enacted across the world as bankers do everything that they can to avoid taking actual losses by making sure that the governments they put into a bind make sure to pay their bills. But that's another topic for another day.

Drone Wars

2011-09-07T10:16:00.003-04:00

I've written a few times about the increasing use of drones in military conflicts. To say that I am not happy about this course of action is to make an understatement. In times past, the danger of loss of many lives was THE single determining factor on whether a country (or group) not only went to war but for how long that war could last.

One could start a war with a group one thought was easy to defeat, but if the casualties mounted to a certain degree any sane leader would realize that depleting his country (and it's usually a he) of males was simply a bad idea. Groups always had to do the "is it worth the lives" calculus when deciding on whom to pick a fight with (or who to surrender to). Drones changes that entire equation. Since the drone operator does not put his or her (and expect more "her") life in direct risk for the goal, killing becomes easy and bullying other weaker people becomes far easier to do. Even if the enemy can shoot down the drone, it is a drone. Another one, possibly more advanced this time can and will replace it.

Think of that episode of Star Trek, TNG where Riker and crew are on a planet in which all the inhabitants have been killed off by military drones. Each time Riker and crew destroyed one another, more advanced one was created and sent after them. Are we not headed in that very direction? There is already much discussion about the automation of these drones in such a manner that they can pick and choose who and what to kill based on "algorythms" rather than "is this right/moral" or "can I look my wife and kids in the eye?" or other human constraints on wanton killing.

Now that the robot genie is out of the lantern it will not be put back in. The recent Counterpunch article on the expanded use of drones makes this clear:

During the four years from 2004 through 2007, the CIA carried out a total of only 12 drone strikes in Pakistan, all supposedly aimed at identifiable high-value targets of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates...

Under Panetta, the rate of drone strikes continued throughout 2009 at the same accelerated pace as in the second half of 2008. And in 2010 the number of strikes more than doubled from 53 in 2009 to 118...

During 2010, the CIA “drone war” in Pakistan killed as many as 1,000 people a year, compared with the roughly 2,000 a year officially estimated to have been killed by the SOF “night raids” in Afghanistan, according to a report in the Sep. 1 Washington Post.

Now consider the other aspect of the use of these drones...a lot of this is going on in a country in which we have not declared war. If there is no declaration of war, then all innocent people killed during these attacks are not "collateral damage" but are actually murder victims. Furthermore; these activities have shown that the idea of extra-judicial killing is simply non-existent now. If the president of the US declares that you are a terrorist (or Ghaddafi) he (or she at some point) can simply send in the drone and kill without so much as a peep from lawmakers or international bodies.

It is very clear that drone warfare has rapidly changed the face of international conflict, possibly more than suicide bombers have.

RE: What The Left Doesn't Understand

2011-09-07T08:57:00.003-04:00

Meant to post a short comment on the piece that appeared in the NYT entitled What the Left Doesn’t Understand About Obama/ particularly this part:

The most common hallmark of the left’s magical thinking is a failure to recognize that Congress is a separate, coequal branch of government consisting of members whose goals may differ from the president’s. Congressional Republicans pursued a strategy of denying Obama support for any major element of his agenda, on the correct assumption that this would make it less popular and help the party win the 2010 elections. Only for roughly four months during Obama’s term did Democrats have the 60 Senate votes they needed to overcome a filibuster. Moreover, Republican opposition has proved immune even to persistent and successful attempts by Obama to mobilize public opinion. Americans overwhelmingly favor deficit reduction that includes both spending and taxes and favor higher taxes on the rich in particular. Obama even made a series of crusading speeches on this theme. The result? Nada.

Does the writer must really think that 'the left"(really left undefined and is actually made up of many constituencies) does not understand the different parts of government? I would say that given what I've seen come out of the mouths of their Republican peers, it would be those on the right who do not understand this concept. Anyway. "The Left" certainly did understand that congress is a co-equal part of government and that is why "the left" voted in a majority of Democrats into office. That 6 months represented a golden opportunity to do a lot of things and after the disaster that were the Bush years they should have gone for it. But that assumes that the Democrats are actually an "opposition party" as opposed to the upper lip of the same beast.

Secondly, in regards to the filibuster, the Democrats ought to have called the Republicans to task for that. To me these threats from the Republicans are like the the bank robber who comes in and puts his finger in his jacket to make it look like he has a gun and demands that you hand over the cash. One response is to do whatever the robber wants, in which case the robber gets away with robbing a bank with the threat of a weapon but never having to actually show and prove. The second thing is to aggravate the robber to get him to show that he actually has the weapon. Of course that tactic takes risk and someone might get killed. BUT the upside is that you know once and for all whether this robber actually has a weapon and he certainly will not attempt the "finger in the pocket" move again. But this is the problem with Democrats (again assuming they aren't the backside of the coin): They simply are not willing to risk pain. Once the enemy (or the opposition) finds your weak point, do expect them to hit it every time you enter the ring.

I'm not even going to get into the taking the public option off the table at the very beginning of the health care debate. That was simply inexcusable.

Krae-what?

2011-09-01T14:49:00.003-04:00

Saw this post by the infamous Darth Kriss and rather than comment I'll just link to it because he's basically said what needs to be said:

. I mean look at them, they’re trying so hard too. It looks like she popped the lens out of a pair of Captain Crunch decoder glasses and put them on. And tell me the dude standing next to her doesn’t look like his other car is a Nissan Cube. And what’s up with him leaning over to whisper in her ear all “Drake-like”. Dude looks like his internal bass is set to -100....Seriously, this is a joke right. “Freestylin on you barbie hoes”? What’s next? “Cakin on you G.I. Joe niggas…” “Thuggin on you Transformer bammas”. What is this? Hasbro hip hop?

Read the rest

Zoe Saldana Please Sit Down.

2011-09-01T14:12:00.002-04:00

From Fanshare:

It's trendy to hate Americans right now. Deep down, some people are enjoying the fact that the most powerful nation on Earth is struggling a little - and then they deny that's racist! And that frightens me."

Given that there is no American race (Native Americans not included) It is impossible for those who are "enjoying" the fact that the US is struggling to be engaging in racism. Stupid comment. Just stupid.

The Nerve of These Palestinians

2011-08-31T13:20:00.004-04:00

So apparently Israel is saying that it would be a ""strategic mistake by the world" if they were to recognize a Palestinian state:

Upgrading the Palestinians' U.N. status would be a "strategic mistake by the world", a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday, cautioning that Israel had prepared a slew of punitive and diplomatic responses.

I mean the NERVE of these Palestinians to assert themselves. How dare colonized and marginalized people stand up and be recognized as a people and a place. The nerve!

The United States has said it would veto any such resolution at the Security Council, but Israel is troubled by the Palestinian fallback option of seeking upgraded "non-member state" capacity at a supportive General Assembly.

'Cause you know the United States knows all about appropriating other people's land, breaking treaties and generally fucking over native populations for "newcomers".

Corporate Blackface

2011-08-31T11:01:00.003-04:00

From the Inquisitor

The carrier awarded the prize to two white men who donned blackface – a form of theatrical makeup used to create a stereotyped caricature of a black person – and “afro” wigs in an attempt to “honor” their favorite player, Fiji-born Wallabies flanker Radike Samo.

While Radike Samo said he was not offended by the stunt and even posed in a picture with the ticket winners

Well in that case.....

It's The Negroes Fault

2011-08-30T16:09:00.003-04:00

Rolling out on why the Tea Party is in congress:

Although African Americans voted at record levels during the 2008 presidential race, we fell off dramatically during the midterm elections of 2010 and this inaction gave us our own NWA — the group America loves to hate, the tea party members of Congress. In 2010, preliminary national exit polling, the youth vote — 18-to-29-year-olds — that helped catapult President Obama into office comprised just 9 percent of voters this year, compared to 18 percent in 2008.

Yep...it's the fault of black folks. The question I have for this is as follows: Where did these Tea Party Republicans in congress come from? Since we are speaking of Congress then we know that unlike the Senate these individuals represent relatively small districts within states. We also know that these districts are usually drawn up in a way to favor one party over another. They create Republican "safe" districts and Democrat "safe" districts. We know that black folks vote overwhelmingly Democrat. We're not talking 60% or 70% but 90+%. It is safe to say that in the district level black folks were not voting for Tea Party candidates AND that Tea Party candidates could not even make a showing even WITH low voter turn out. Since there are no Democrat Tea Party members that I know of, then these people came from Republican districts where it is also safe to say have little if any black folks in them. Of the ones who may have black folks odds are they either did not vote for the Tea Party candidate or they are Republicans and agreed with the particular candidate in which case they voted their conscience which we cannot complain about.

So given all this, why even try to write an article blaming low black voter turn out for the relative success of the Tea Party when it is highly unlikely that black voters had ANY impact on those district races? Oh right...gotta do the guilt-the-vote thing.

Who'd a Thunk It?

2011-08-26T09:31:00.003-04:00

From the Washington Post:

But a soaring jobless rate among African Americans and a newfound comfort by black lawmakers to criticize Obama’s economic policies are prompting the White House to recalibrate — and to focus more directly on the struggles of black America.

Wait. Let me get this straight. People making demands of the president is causing the president to address their particular constituency? Shocking. SHOCKING!

And the White House announced this week that Obama will pay a Labor Day visit to Detroit, a hard-hit city where a town hall meeting held by the black caucus drew headlines last week when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) decried the black jobless rate as “unconscionable” and blasted the president for his recent Midwestern bus tour that focused on rural white communities.

Shocking! Shocking! Let me catch my breath because I never ever contemplated the idea that pressuring the president would get results. Never. EVER! SHOCK-the-fuck-ING!

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a top outside adviser to the White House on black community concerns, said that political success in 2012 will require more policy specifics.

“There is going to have to be a different and more direct approach,” he said. “The direct approach has to say, ‘Here’s our jobs plan, here’s the plan to get it done and here’s the enemies against it.’ ”

WAIT WAIT WAIT! This would be the same Al Sharpton who was telling everyone to get off Obama's dick? Really?

“We don’t want to come across as being critical of the president,” Curry said. “But if the president can count on 90 percent of the African American vote, then the African American community should expect something from the man who’s getting 90 percent of their support.”

Well look who finally woke up. How long have I been saying this? How long?

“If he comes and speaks out for black people in the middle of this, he will lose his reelection, and you know it,” said Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.).

Earth to Rep. Frederica: If Obama fails to win re-election it will not be because of attention paid or not paid to black folks. That kind of thinking is called "blaming the victim". Racists will not vote for Obama regardless of WHO he helps out. Republicans who hate Democrats simply because they are Democrats will not vote for Obama. People who think that Obama has either caved to big finance or is a "mascot" for big finance will not vote for Obama (or vote reluctantly out of fear of whatever Republican is in the offering). Obama will win or lose because of the policies he puts into place across the board or not. It will be due to the economic and social environment but it will not be because black folks got a few token construction jobs. This whole "Can't be seen with the Negroes" attitude needs to get dead. Quickly.

Obama Considering Something The Ghost Proposed Ages Ago

2011-08-25T15:22:00.002-04:00

From the NY Times:

One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent, according to two people briefed on the administration’s discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk about the information...

But refinancing could have far greater breadth, saving homeowners, by one estimate, $85 billion a year. Despite record low interest rates, many homeowners have been unable to refinance their loans either because they owe more than their houses are now worth or because their credit is tarnished.

This is something I suggested as soon as that bubble popped. Though I would have taken it further and lowered the principle on these homes that were clearly overvalued to begin with. By freeing up the mortgages that people were paying they will spend it on other things. The only ones who will be complaining are those who foolishly invested in mortgage backed securities and frankly I could give a good damn what they think.

Will Obama Denounce MLK at Memorial?

2011-08-25T10:40:00.002-04:00

David Swanson has an excellent piece comparing Obama and King. Powerful stuff

Did Martin Luther King, Jr., not face the world as it is? Was he delusional? Did he stand idle in the face of threats? This is President Obama’s position.

Did King oppose protecting and defending people? Of course not. He worked for that very goal!

I'm not a student of non-violence since I do believe that there are people who will simply attempt to kill you because they are simply out of their minds and have no regard for anyone's life, including their own. But in the larger arena Swanson and King have a good argument and if one is going to tell people in the streets to be "non-violent" by invoking King then one has an obligation to carry that same ideology into the world stage.

Strauss-Kahn and Reasonable Doubt

2011-08-24T08:36:00.004-04:00

"It's not what you know, it's what you can prove"
-Alonzo
Training Day

As expected the case against Strauss-Kahn was dropped. The easy answer is the privilege answer. People with privilege (read money) tend to get the benefit of the doubt when dealing with the authorities than those without. Of interest is that a good deal of people who would level this charge were happy that OJ Simpson received such treatment (though he made it to court). Still though there is water in that argument. Simply put, if you have a shark of a lawyer you have a better chance at maneuvering the criminal justice system than if you do not. And shark lawyers cost money. Lots of money.

There is however a second issue that is just as if not more important here. The US system of criminal "justice" rests on the concept of reasonable doubt. In a criminal case a jury of 12 "peers" must decide unanimously that a defendant is guilty "beyond reasonable doubt". Not all doubt but reasonable doubt. Furthermore it is the job of the state to furnish this proof. Not the defense. Not the media. Not the organization to which you belong to. The state. A prosecutor must (should) have a reasonable expectation that the charges against an individual will meet this standard. Clearly if the prosecutor thinks that the suspect has a weak defense team or some means of robustly defending himself then the prosecutor is going to be far more careful going about preparing a case than if the suspect is some kid picked up on a street corner drug bust. Strauss-Kahn was a high profile person with a "robust" defense team so even after the show of a perp walk and a stint in Rikers was not going to make him fold like a "regular" jump-out-the-shadows rapist would likely do. The prosecutor knew that if there was ANYTHING in the past of Ms. Diallo, they would use it to destroy her credibility on the stand.

Understand that credibility is what a jury uses to judge whether a witness is credible or not. Why should anybody on a witness stand be believed? Their truthfulness can only be inferred by something else. We use education, diction, body language and the like to determine credibility. We do this all the time. Ask how many people will trust the word of someone caught lying about anything in the past and they will tell you that their trust is lowered by such an event. If that person is caught lying multiple times, then that trust is lowered even more. If that person has been caught lying about the same thing they are trying to convince you about how trustworthy would you find them? Exactly.

This was the problem that the prosecution faced. It is not that it was unlikely that Ms. Diallo was lying about what happened in the Sofitel that day. It was that they had proof that she lied about a number of things including a rape claim. If anything that one lie on her asylum application was the most damaging item that the prosecution had to deal with. Statistically men are less likely to believe in a rape accusation. Men are also far less sympathetic to women who have lied about a rape. There's nothing nefarious about this. It is self interest. As a man being accused of rape is a big deal. If the prosecution had to deal with any men in the jury it would take only one to not believe Ms. Diallo for there to be an acquittal. Add to the rape issue the evidence that Ms. Diallo spoke via telephone to a drug dealer of some sort about the case, allegedly saying that "he's rich" and "I know what I'm doing" you have enough technical reasonable doubt that any prosecutor is going to question the strength of his case, particularly in the face of a high profile defendant.

How would the defense play these two pieces of information? Simple. First they will concede to all the forensic evidence. They will say that a consensual sex act(s) occur ed and that Strauss-Khan is particularly aggressive and that explains the alleged digital bruising to the vagina. They will explain that Strauss-Kahn did in fact comment about his position as head of IMF as a means to take away fear of Ms. Diallo losing her job and the payment that would be coming her way (though that would open him up to solicitation charges but lets run with this). They will say that for whatever reason she was upset about the money (or him having ejaculated in her mouth, who knows) and decided that she either wanted more money (backed up by the recent news of a civil suit) or revenge (also backed up by the civil suit). They will say that Ms. Diallo has, in the past used rape as a means of getting what she wanted (asylum) so it isn't unreasonable to think that she is doing so again. Then they'll trot out all the unsavory people she has been associating with. They would question why this woman did not fight this man off. They will ask where are the bruises. They will ask, what kind of woman would allow a man to do these things and offer no resistance that would mark a naked man. Yes, this would be a "blame the victim" fest at it's ugliest.

Does this mean that I think Strauss-Khan did not commit the crime? No. I think he did. His history, which would have been introduced into court (though I have questions as to it's admissibility )indicates a high likelihood that he did in fact attack Ms. Diallo. But as Alonzo of Training Day fame asked: It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Prior history may serve as a pointer but it does not prove this case and the burden of proof is on the state not on the defense.

I would have loved to see Ms. Diallo get her day in criminal court and let the jury decide but I completely understand why this went the way it did.

They Learn Quick

2011-08-22T11:00:00.003-04:00

While at the laundry I read about the Pakistani couple who were shot at in the street. The wife died. turns out the husband had set it up. The kicker:

Parvaiz, according to prosecutors, initially described a trio of attackers: one white, one black and one whose race he said he could not determine. He later changed his story, describing all three as black, before finally admitting to setting up the shooting, according to his arrest affidavit.

And you know that white folks who hang out with black folk are really "black"

Every group of folk that make it to America learn that the blacks are the ones to shit on. They learn quick eh?

The Cost of Pathologising the Body

2011-08-22T09:32:00.002-04:00

The NY Times posted a piece about transgender people who go to unlicensed "doctors" in order to get silicone injected into parts of their bodies in order to look more "feminine". It is a sad testament to the backwards thinking that has gone into making transgender people "normal".

Ms. Quispe, an Ecuadorean immigrant who came to New York at age 9, was determined to get the curves that would make her look more feminine. But she lacked health insurance or the money to pay for surgical procedures that would provide them; they can cost as much as $70,000. So she tried something else: she went to a so-called pumper, a person who illegally injects silicone to modify the body.

For her first injections, she said, she went to the Upper East Side, to an apartment with a view of the East River. In a small room she lay down on a narrow massage table, having paid $1,200 to get four cups of silicone injected into her hips and buttocks — without anesthesia.

When she slid off the makeshift surgical table, she saw bright red drops of blood staining the white sheet. The pumper, she said, dabbed Krazy Glue over each puncture — there were six on each side — to stop the bleeding. Then the pumper covered them with gauze and wound plastic wrap over the wounds before telling Ms. Quispe to get dressed....

t the beginning of July, she was hospitalized for an infection. Her body has been left scarred and misshapen. The skin on her buttocks and legs is discolored, and a lump of hardened silicone the size of a golf ball hangs behind her left knee.

A completely sad event and one that was completely avoidable. This reminds me of an article I read some time ago about the prescription of medication to deal with depression. The author made the point that generally speaking the biochemical process of becoming depressed (and coming out of it) is normal. What is abnormal is the taking of brain altering drugs to "overcome" a natural process of grieving or whatever it is that triggers the episode. The author had a similar problem with the prescription of Ritalin to children who's brains are still developing. Again, the problem isn't really with the brain but with the environment. For example boys being naturally hyper are more likely to be drugged because parents and teachers simply don't want to deal with boys being, well, boys. Of course these drugs have side effects and therefore we have many cases of perfectly fine brains (or brains in development) that are being pathologized for the benefit of pharmacological pushing corporations. And now that the people are on drugs they NOW have actual physiological problems which they did not have before (ever read the warnings about suddenly stopping?).

So back to these "women". What this article fails to mention, and which is absent from the discussion of transgender persons is that there is nothing at all wrong with their bodies. They may think or feel that they inhabit the wrong body but there is, in fact, nothing wrong with these bodies (due exceptions for those born with both genitalia and had gender assignment surgery which is a 50-50% chance of being wrong. And due exception to those with actual chromosomal abnormalities but each of these cases are relatively rare and I mean RARE). The actual problem with these individuals is from the neck up, not from the neck down. Of course this is not a popular thing to say in many circles, but it is the truth. Fortunately at some point it will be possible to identify which gene is responsible for the brain failing to recognize what body it is inhabiting and correct that problem.

I suppose that until then we'll have to continue to point out the fallacy of celebrating a "pregnant" man and other such absurdities in the name of "tolerance". Me I'll just continue to call a spade a spade... or in this case a male a male.