Hypocrisy in Black and White, The American Way

A couple of things are sticking in my craw today....

 One is the fact that Troy Davis is scheduled to die this evening for a crime that he may not have committed. Yesterday, the Georgia Parole Board refused to grant Davis clemency, stating there was more than enough evidence to show that Davis was the gunman and that the 7 of 9 witnesses against him who  later recanted their testimony, were apparently confused.

What it boils down to is another Black man is being lynched in Georgia. Davis is convicted of killing a white police officer. If Davis had killed a Black cop, he would probably have been sentenced to life in prison, all other things being equal.

But this is America, where equality and justice are still determined by the color of your skin. Studies continue to show that when the victim is white, 9 times out of 10, the Black defendant is given the death penalty...regardless of where the trial takes place in this country.

And believe it or not, a sitting United States Supreme Court Justice says it's okay to put an innocent man to death in America because the Constitution doesn't address the matter.

 Current  historical revisionists would have you believe, lynching is a thing of the past, doesn't happen anymore. Well, au contraire, mon frere, lynching has never been outlawed in America either. It just became not so classy to do so. Now it is done on the back roads, by drunken men in trucks who like to re-enact history, or  left up to the American justice system and police officers trained to coerce confessions to make it all seem legal and above board.  America's facade of pro life humanitarianism for all has slipped badly this week.

We're more worried about Palestinians killing Jews and vice versa than we are about what is happening inside our own borders.

No justice, there should be no peace if another innocent man dies.  However, Black America has been strangely quiet on this subject. Maybe it's because we're too busy bustin' a cap on each other to worry about another soon to be dead Black man.

Where is the outrage?  Where are the calls for justice from the Black blogosphere? Where are the Black celebrities willing speak on Troy Davis' behalf?

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Wow! Black churches have discovered there is an epidemic killing the Black community. It's call HIV/AIDS!  The headline trumpeted yesterday in the blogosphere.

So what do I do.... jump up and down, be happy, congratulate them? I've only been doing radio, TV and newspaper and magazine articles since 1984 on Blacks and AIDS.

I've lost 3 relatives and 15 friends to the disease. I don't even know how many of my friends are HIV positive, but I'll bet there are a lot of them, though.  All died in secrecy and some in isolation and fearful estrangement from their families. All of them considered themselves Christian, with many of them diligently attending Sunday services. Two were ordained ministers.

Straight Black women are the most at risk group in America today.

Am I supposed to welcome Black Churches, finally, to the last dance?  Maybe I should just  suppress my own anger and move on. Better late than never, right?  About damn time!

 Fuckin' hypocrites!

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Double WOW!

Only took LGBT equality some 60 years to the day after Blacks were allowed fully into the ranks of the military...Not because whites were suddenly become altruistic, seeing the error of their ways...The government simply needed more cannon fodder to fight the war du jour in Korea...

So on Day 2 after the government repeals that misguided policy formerly known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell...time for a reality check...

Sun still come up....check!
World still here....check!
Rain not turned radioactive...check!
Military not imploded....check!
Osama, Franco, Hitler and Mussolini still dead....check!
GOP still marching goose step over a teabag created cliff...check!
Obama still in the White House.....check!
Straight marriages still sanctified....Please!

9/11 + 10, A Family Conversation

My family has come home for a visit and like always the central meeting point is our parent's family room in front of the television. Some old habits never die because that is where we spent most of our family time growing up, watching a consensus program. In other words it was one we could all stomach at the same time, especially since in those days, we only had one TV.

Most of the time the station played whatever dad wanted, period, and usually what dad wanted was sports.

Today was no exception. We were watching tennis, a Serbian versus a Swiss National, then a Scot versus a Spaniard. But all of us were simply passing time, waiting for Serena, no last name needed, to take the court. We didn't know it, but we had a long wait, because the men played very long, very entertaining matches, well past Serena's scheduled time of entry.

Like always, the conversation bounced around the room. We tend to think alike since we're family. However we, all of us, tend to come to the same conclusions in vastly different ways and this is what makes the conversation so much fun. Never an argument, but always different view points and, yes, times that we agree to disagree. The disagreement always signaled by someone deciding to go help Mom in the kitchen, which meant, they went upstairs to watch reruns of Perry Mason or Cannon with my mother, until they cooled off.

Mom never just sat and watched and talked with the rest of us. She was more “sniper” in her approach. In other words, she would walk to the top of the steps, test the air, launch a volley of thoughts down the stairs toward us, then suck on her teeth to let us know she was done talking and walk back into the kitchen to catch up on her show, totally unconcerned about any blow-back opinion.

Group conversation in my family has always crossed generations with no one being deemed too young or too old. If you could talk, and you had an opinion, then you spoke or jumped into the fray. The young asked questions and sometimes got several answers. It was up to them to sort it out in their/our heads, which sometimes led to off shoot conversations for clarification. Sometimes that clarification amounted to, “don't listen to that fool, he crazy.”

Next to sports, the other favorite topic is current events and politics. The generation of elders prior to this generation was Republican and the talk was exceptionally lively, back in the day. Nothing like an old Black Republican to mess up Sunday dinner. These members have since passed on to that great GOP caucus in the sky. Although I would suspect that based on the composition of today's GOP, if they were still here, my folks would have transitioned into Democrats. But that is only my supposition, based on remembered stances that they periodically took. The current elder generation is Democrat with a heavy dose of anarchist, ready, willing and able to fight, if and when the revolution comes. The conservatives at this time tend to be younger to middlin' in age.

This day was Saturday, September 10^th, 2011, and with prompting from the television, our thoughts turned to 9/11, remembering where we were when we heard or saw. For all of us the images in our mind were as clear as the day we watched the Towers fall. It never occurred to me that you could knock down a sky scrapper, and I still can't wrap my head around what I saw that day. Going around the room, the second plane into the building, the picture of the second plane frozen in the moments before it struck the tower and burst into flames, the pancake collapse of the buildings, the people falling, choosing to transition in their own way, rather than die by fire, the tears we all shed followed by tremendous anger and outrage that someone would dare attack our country.

We lost four cousins that day. All worked at the restaurant on top of the building.

That anger was palpable in the room among us. My dad, a World War II veteran, stung by the ongoing discrimination against Blacks even as they served their country. My brother in law, snatched out of college to become cannon fodder in the Vietnam war, spending his time on the USS Long Beach parked in the Gulf of Tonkin firing missiles at the Vietcong laden coast. My niece, a naval veteran who now makes her living as an air traffic controller in Texas. My nephew, recently discharged from the United States Marines, but not before being injured on his first and only tour of Iraq. Two of us lifelong, active campaigners and outspoken critics of the wars and any and all discrimination against Blacks, women and minorities, carrying scars, wounded in our individual ways, drawn together by name and an act of terror against our home.

The general consensus was that Bush should have listened to Joni Mitchell and paved a parking lot over Al Qaida's ass in Afghanistan. Never should have gone to Iraq. Should have finished what was started in Taliban country. Very supportive of President Obama, but not real happy with his continuation of Bush policies crafted in the wake of 9/11.

Another thing we all agreed on, is that America still has some unfinished business, some scores to settle, for the USS Cole, for Dar Es Alam, for Lebanon, with Iran and Saudi Arabia. We're not real happy about Israel either, We collectively need a Michael Corleone payback for past injuries suffered at the hands of those who dared to strike at us.

An unspoken consensus in the room....we were all still crying, inwardly and outwardly.

Healing is taking a very long time.

ObamaJobs, DOA

President Obama is giving a jobs speech tonight. It may be the best speech he's ever written. Hell, it may be the best piece of legislation that he and his administration have ever crafted.

However, always the Pollyanna,  it still seems as if Obama is banking once again on Congress to grow brains, find their hearts or turn patriotic in order to get help to the American people.

Ain't gonna happen. Bipartisanship died as soon as the GOP laid eyes on Barack H. Obama.  So, suck it up Americans, the GOP is once again raising it's foot and is about to firmly plant it in our collective ass!

The teabag GOP has only one goal...one aim...one working method...and that is to kill anyone nominated by Obama...trash any measure presented by Obama,,,denigrate and disrespect the President every chance they get. It's like Miz Mitch McConnell said at the beginning of the year...the only goal is  to defeat Obama and take back "their" country, nothing else matters to this Congress.

Their sole intent is to knock him on his "elitist" ass and put the "boy" back in his place.

They don't care about "we" the people...they have already stated over and over again their intention to re-draw the American Constitution in their own perverted image. These godless, alleged christians want to imprison women,  re-enslave Blacks, "cure" the gay,  and expatriate Hispanics..unless they come directly from Spain.

What about senior citizens?  Well they want old people to just die, since Social Security is nothing more than a ponzi scheme designed to take money away from the young....Seniors die and there is more money for the godless spawn that they're raising to take over.

Ricki P wants to kill social security, not just reform it. He wants to do away with health care. He wants to repeal all taxes and regulations that apply to rich people and corporations. He thinks gays and lesbians suffer from a mental disease. Maybe he should select Mr Michele Bachmann as his running mate.

Mitt Max Headroom wants to repeal taxes for the rich, kill health care for millions, and change social security and medicare.

Michele B...well...she's a woman who gives a damn what or even if she thinks at all...Once the tall dark and handsome good haired governor from Texas jumped into the race...she became another clueless footnote along with the pizza man, the doctor, the lizard, and the snowbilly.

Their collective jobs plans are non existent, period, while the President's plan reportedly is crafted from old proposals that were previously put forth by the GOP or at least had bi partisan support in their first readings in Congress. But the speech has yet to be given and already teabaggers are claiming amnesia on past acts and bragging about their intent to stay away from the speech.

I have this image in my head.....all the little brained, tiny teabaggers standing outside the chamber with their fingers jammed firmly in their oversized ears, potbellies jiggling in unison, dancing all over the beat, singing "lalalalalalalala" at the top of their voices, in order to drown out the President. Like three year olds throwing temper tantrums...they refuse to listen...total disrepect for the leader of the free world.

Don cha know...taking potshots at Obama is the only game in town in this election season.

Bipartisan action-yeah, when pigs fly! If it's not a go-big, new deal type jobs stimulating program...it ain't gonna work because it ain' gonna pass Congress.

Jobs Bill DOA

US Postal Service-Time to Kill the Dinosaur

There are two things that I used to depend on, that I rarely use these days...snail mail, otherwise known as stuff that I get from my mailman and printed checks to pay my bills.

Junk mail...that stuff you are handed by the mailman, but throw away without opening....is now spam. Hundreds and hundreds of junk mail letters daily overload my email inbox. I used to get junk mail from churches in Oklahoma addressed to my grandmother, who died back in 1984. These used to come several times per week. I have received only one in the past two years. Some junk mail was fun to read..but who has time to spend a few minutes lounging on the porch reading junk mail from Oklahoma these days.

Remember going on vacation and running to the drug store to buy postcards to send to the folks at home? Do they still make postcards?

I used to have to buy stamps and international postage in order to submit query letters and article and book proposals. Now I do this at the touch of a keyboard. No postage necessary.

The rise of the internet means, I never see paper checks or written material at all, unless it is election campaign time...not for junk mail...not for payroll checks...not for query letters, acceptance letters or rejection letters...not for paying my bills.... I do that online, too, along with my banking.

I love writing letters, however they only happen via email these days and not very often. The point of writing a letter is to get one back. Most of my friends, don't write letters anymore either.

Last year, I got exactly one Christmas card via snail mail and that was from my mother who refuses to even look at a computer or mobile cell  phone to do anything. She is allowed...she is 82 years old and computers and cell phones didn't exist when she was born and she's not about to let them enter her calm now.

I still get hundreds of cards...just via email. Last year was the first year that I didn't send Christmas cards via snail, but that was because my economy was suffering right along with everyone else's.

Face it...it is cheaper to send an e-card rather than go buy a  paper card at the Hallmark store. I still like sending  paper cards and letters. Guess I'm just giving into the times.

The only reason I know the mailman has come is when he steps on my porch, my three, four legged door bells and personal guardians go crazy. They really, really don't like that postal uniform and try to tear down the door when he shows up in those cute little shorts and sun helmet.

I used to know my mailman by name and his time of arrival. I used to give out Christmas gifts to my mail carrier. My dogs rarely barked because they knew him to be a friend rather than a stranger trying to get into my house. The last time I tipped my mailman, the wrong one picked it up and never passed it on...hence my generosity never reached the person for whom it was intended.

I've stopped that...unless I can hand it to the intended mail carrier personally given the every changing delivery times.

I've long thought that the government should do away with snail mail...stop sending campaign literature and requests for donations via the US postal service. Government agencies say they are going paperless, however, lately I've been inundated with government paper in triplicate rather than duplicate.....seems the feds are the only ones still feeding the dinosaur....feeding him less often..but in bigger meals.

So maybe it's time to kill this dinosaur, ya think?

Save some money...hell...save lots of money....works for my budget.

The only problem that I see is all those people who will be put out of work. The post office used to be the one place that Black people could get a good paying job.The auto industry was the other place Blacks made money. It was the springboard for us to jump into the middle class, enabling us to buy homes in the suburbs and get a taste of the American dream.

Maybe the post office could rethink its operation and train its staff to transfer all services to the internet, the same way banks have taken banking to the world wide web.

It's a thought.

Maybe in a few years.....since Congress will have to study the matter first....we can all take down our mailbox on the front porch. Maybe in the process, Congress can give the go ahead to make America a wifi hotspot...hook everyone up the internet, in order to keep daily communications going for all the population instead of just those who can buy computers.

 Time to kill the dinosaur...put it out of it's misery.

Progress!

PS.....Maybe after the dino dies... we will  also no longer need a chief executive officer who makes bonuses the size of which makes Wall Street honchos envious...ya think?

It's Jobs, Stupid...Not the Deficit!

Zero job growth for August....9.1% unemployment....26% unemployment, if you're Black or Hispanic....If you live in Ohio then you've seen wages decrease dramatically. Back in 2000, the average wage for Buckeye workers was $16.02. That was at or above the national average.

Today, in 2011 the average Buckeye worker wage is $15.00 an hour and dropping, while the national average is $16.00. For those with jobs, work hours have increased, while wages have fallen and benefits and retirement have disappeared.

Corporations continue to make mass profit,  still refusing to "trickle" it down to the people who need it most.  Who knew that the allegedly big-balled corporate bigwigs were such timid  and spineless shit heads as to sit on the money, ready, willing and able to  let America slide into the abyss?

Let's be perfectly honest...reducing spending,  cancelling regulations on big business, while keeping taxes low...hasn't done a damn thing to get this economy working again. Spending didn't get us in this deep doodoo, but big banks, Wall Street corruption, deregulation and tax cuts did.

If anything, the stimulus wasn't big enough.

Face it...we've had a republican system in place for nearly two decades and what have we got to show for it? The corporations have what they want, and beaucoup bucks to go with it. They have the system for which they have been whining. The GOP is controlling the conversation, lying to the public about any progress being made, painting Obama as an ineffectual and failed leader, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Obama is in a box without a lid. He is so  determined to work bipartisanship that he has practically given away the store. He has moved right, sometimes turning his back on his own base in an effort to bring the GOP to the table. All this while being backstabbed by those traitors called blue dog democrats. Case in point last Friday's reversal on environmental regulations, acquiesing once again to the GOP, while the blue dogs silently cheered and once again swore allegience to the Republican Party.

America is caught in a vicious cycle. Capitalism needs people to spend money in order to work, because fully 70% of American economics is based on consumer spending. People need jobs to make money in order to successfully power the system.  It's like Dubya said a few years ago, "ya'll need to go out and buy something."  But we can't because we ain't makin' no money. The corporations are sitting on it refusing to hire, or shipping the profit overseas to tax shelter havens in Europe.

The USA is becoming a third world country of minimum wage and part time workers while  the ball-less wonders of Wall Street are laughing all the way to Lichtenstein.

Back in January, prior to the Teabag takeover, President Obama had the country moving in the right direction. Jobs were being created. Unemployment had actually started to drop. But then the the states got rocked  by the teabag manufactured deficit hysteria.

Deficit hysteria has been created completely out of hole cloth. It is simply another made up problem to cock block this President. Then, it trickled down to the state level.

Incoming teabag conservatives forced through a number of useless cuts to the budgets. Rather than stimulating job creation, these clueless fools are  forcing the layoff of some 50,000 workers per state, per month, according to the Office of Management and Budget, with no end in sight. It's no wonder the unemployment rate stays stagnant.

The dismantling of the New Deal is in full swing, with poor people, old people and the unemployed becoming the sacrificial lambs for the worshippers at the alter of noncompassionate conservatism.

Can't blame Obama, but you can blame those who turned their back on the President, refusing to vote or casting votes for the Teabags in the last election.

"We has seen the enemy, and it is us!"

 We cannot afford to stay home in 2012. There is no riding out this storm. Not this time.

The president is going to talk about jobs next week. He needs to go big with a plan that bypasses Congress or he may as well go home.

Hell...he probably will if things don't turn around soon and sadly, it won't be his fault.

We need to take our country back, Americans and soon. Very soon.