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Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Even Innocence Can't Stop Texas Death Machine
Rick Perry
If you are thinking that Texas governor Rick Perry might make a good president, consider this quote made by a primary voter during his race with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. A voter said of Perry, "It takes balls to execute an innocent man."
As of Sept. 5, Perry has executed 235 people, or one every 17 days, and the next execution is imminent. This figure should be shocking for several reasons. The death penalty, as practiced in America, is a highly flawed process. The Innocence Project has received widespread publicity for the fact that it has freed hundreds of inmates from death row. Before the advent of DNA, death row convictions largely relied on eye-witness evidence and questionable testimonies. In many cases these testimonies where given under duress or even extracted by good-old fashioned torture.
Some of the techniques used by the Chicago Police Department, for example, include beating suspects with phone books (they don't leave bruises), whippings with rubber hoses and chaining suspects to radiators. The Illinois criminal justice system was so flawed that a few years ago former Gov. John Ryan released all of the inmates from death row. And a Chicago Police captain, who lead a squad that extracted several false confessions using torture techniques, was recently jailed for his crimes.
At this time, I don't have evidence that Texas law enforcement officials have extracted confessions using torture, but there is ample proof that the Texas criminal justice system is highly flawed. Craig Watkins, the first black district attorney of Dallas County, went through past death penalty cases and found most of them were suspect. According to a 2007 NPR report, Dallas had gone through 36 cases and found 12 of the men innocent. The Dallas DA's office has exonerated more than 20 people so far.
So from this information, you can summarize that a good number of the 235 people that Perry has killed were likely innocent. Apart from the inaccuracy of the death sentence process, one also has to look at the racial aspect of it. According to the Innocence Project, there have been 273 post-conviction exonerations and 70 percent of those exonorees where minorities.
This leads to the troubling case of Duane Edward Buck, an African American who killed two people and wounded another person in a 1995 domestic shooting. During his trial Dr. Walter Quijano testified that Buck was more prone to violence because he was African American. According to Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Bobby Ray Sanders, "The prosecutor asked if Butler's African-American race increased the likelihood of his being a further danger. The psychologist said it did. As it turned out, Quijano made a reputation of testifying that a person's race or ethnicity, namely black and Hispanic, made it more likely that they would continue to be a threat to society -- something (John) Cornyn as attorney general noted was, in fact, an egregious error." According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Quijano has also given testimony in 100 capital cases.
There are several major problems with Quijano's testimony:
- Most scientists agree that race is an artificial construct of society. What does Quijano defines as race, skin color or ethnicity? Is an African native raised in an upper-class London neighborhood as likely to commit violence as an African American kid raised in an impoverished single parent home in South Central? One could argue that they both come from the same race, but their backgrounds are very different.
- While about 60 percent of the inmates of the American justice system are black or Latino, it could be argued that this has more to do with racist sentencing practices than cultural behavior. Studies have shown that convicts faced harsher sentencing for possession of crack, which was used by black drug users, than drug users who used cocaine, which was seen as a drug used by wealthy white people. So it could be argued that the reason why there are more blacks and Latinos in jail is not because they are more prone to violence, but because the racist justice system is more likely to throw them in jail for crimes. In addition, there is a much greater chance of a crime being investigated if the victim is white. Crimes against minorities are often not a high priority for police. The vast majority of capital crimes involve white victims, while a much higher percentage of victims of capital crimes are in fact minorities
- Quijano's suggestion that blacks and Latinos are more violent than other races ignores several historical facts. For example, World War II, the most violent war in the history of mankind, extinguished about 72 million lives, and it was conducted largely by Europeans (whites).
- The introduction of Western (white) colonists to Africa, the Americas and Australia has been a disaster for native people. White people spread across the United States because of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the native people. The Native American population pre Columbus was estimated to be up to 18 million, now it is down to about 4 million. In Australia, the indigenous population, before the advent of white people was between 750,000 to 1 million, now the figure is down to about 400,000.
- Many black nationalists such as Malcolm X have accused white people of being the most efficient practioners of genocide. Joseph Stalin was believed to have killed about 20 million people, and Adolph Hitler was responsible for about 10 million deaths. Europe has been awash in bloodshed for centuries. The longest period of peace was post-World War II to the Yugoslavian war in the 1990s.
- Criminal profilers have said the majority of serial killers are white males. The most notorious killers, people like John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson, were all white. It is only in recent years, where we have heard of black serial killers like the DC Sniper and the Grim Sleeper. In addition, the majority of work place and school shootings are committed by white males. So one could make an argument that white males are more prone to serial killings and work place shootings than people of color.
You can find incidence of violence and mass murder among all races. Ghengis Khan and Mao Tse Tung, both Asian, were efficient killers and in Rwanda an ethnic war generated more than 1 million corpses in less than a year. But it's particularly shocking that a so-called expert would use the questionably concept of race to justify the execution of black and Latino prisoners.
Unfortunately, this callous disregard for human life is not surprising in Texas, a state that seems to revel in its frontier attitude towards justice. This is exemplified in the troubling case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texan who was given the death penalty for arson.
A Texas arson investigator later concluded that there was no evidence of arson and sent his findings to the Gov. Rick Perry and the Board of Pardon and Paroles to no avail. It seems that once the Texas Death Machine has been set in process, not even innocence is enough to stop it.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Threats of Insurrection, Violence Are Common on the Right
By Clavell Jackson
It is clear to me that there is a large segment of this country which is clinically insane -- and much of this madness is motivated by the election of President Barack Obama. There is even a term for this -- Obama Derangement Syndrome.
There is plenty of evidence of this on FOX News and AM radio, but that pales in comparison to the hard-core lunacy on web sites such as World Net Daily and Big Government. World Net Daily, also known as World Nut Daily, is home to conspiracy theories which warn that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim and also publishes the embarrassing work or real-life ditz and Saturday Live vet Victoria Jackson (no relation). Jackson's drivel is so factually and grammatically incorrect that even a high school paper would hesitate to publish her articles. One of her recent columns accused Obama of being similar to Hitler, because Hitler "had a white mother, had a secret army and hated Jews."
Right-Wing Watch, a web site funded by People for the American Way, tracks inflammatory comments from the Religious Right, a group that has always mixed madness with political intensity. A recent article on Right-Wing Watch about William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, an anti-immigration group, said Obama is such a threat to White America that his group no longer accepts him as a legitimate president and was considering "extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent." Yes, a political group just threatened a violent insurrection against the U.S. government.
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. Over the last three years we have seen an increasing tide of disrespect and violent rhetoric coming from political figures and media commentators. Lunatic presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) once said that she suspected Obama of having anti-American views and former Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle suggested angry voters should take up "second amendment remedies" if the polls didn't work.
Is it any wonder that many media sources reported that Obama was getting 30 death threats a day stretching the Secret Service to breaking point. Yes, many people are upset about the recession, but this is more than economically-motivated frustration. This is refusal to accept Obama as the nation's leader. America has been through tough economic times before when Franklin Roosevelt was president, but we didn't see this level of violent rhetoric. FDR did face an attempted coup from a group of oligarchs, including Prescott Bush, who wanted to install a fascist government. You won't find much information about the "Business Plot," in American history books though.
I have to believe that much of this is racial. Although the myopic GOP continues to say that is not, the evidence is in plain sight. FOX News has a long string of racial slights such as accusing Obama of "having hoodlums in the hizzouse," and "chugging forties." Glenn Becks rants were so offensive, FOX finally had to let him go. And there is a long history of racist comments from GOP politicians which include comparing Obama to a monkey, using the phrase "tar baby" and sending cartoons of the White House lawns festooned with watermelons. If you want to see really vile comments check out the commentary section on Foxnews.com. A recent story about Somalia referred to the country as "Niggadishu." Note to the GOP, if you can't see it, that's because you don't want to see it.
Many of the Obama haters will call him a communist, a Muslim, a liberal, even if he is none of those things. Obama has pursued largely moderate positions, to the point of alienating his liberal supporter. But it seems that some white people cannot swallow the idea of a black man in the White House. How dare Obama address the nation, how dare he go on vacation, how dare he take off his jacket in the Oval Office and how dare he fly on Air Force One? Like the other presidents didn't do any of the same things.
This hatred has sunk deep into the core of the political system. We now have an opposition party that will vote against any legislation if it has the hint of making Obama and the Democrats look good. As the recent debt crisis showed, Republicans are willing to crash the economy to achieve their political point.
The future does not look any better. If Obama wins a second term, and I believe he will, the GOP will try to impeach him. Presidential candidate Herman Cain has already said this would be a good idea! It will probably fail and cost the nation a lot of time and money, but as long as it gives the Democrats a black eye, the GOP is happy.
We are only in the Summer of 2012, we have almost a year of political campaigning ahead of us and I am already exhausted. We've got a bumpy ride ahead of us.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Tea Party Monster is Choking its Republican Creator
It's a sign of how awful the mainstream media is when some of the best reporting is found in Rolling Stone. Yes, Rolling Stone, a magazine that is known for covering drug-addled rock stars, broke the story that took down former Afghan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And Rolling Stone Matt Taibi has also done some of the most hard-hitting and insightful writing about the mortgage crash and Wall Street's shenanigans.
Taibi also did one of his trade mark acerbic pieces about the Tea Party. Taibi says, "A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it."
The article features an illustration where a Frankenstein-like monster, representing the Tea Party, is being stitched together by Sen. Mitch McConnell. It's interesting because the Tea Party, which was a creation of the Republican party, is beginning to look like it's eventually going to choke its creator.
The fiscally conservative Tea Party was supposed to have sprung up in opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation. But where were these people when President George W. Bush was waging two unfunded wars, giving tax cuts to billionaires and pushing the Medicare prescription drug benefit? According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office, Dubya increased the deficit by $5 trillion, while Obama has only increased the deficit by $1.4 trillion so far. (In spite of their reputation for fiscal conservatism, Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased the deficit, while President Bill Clinton left a budget surplus.)
In reality, the Tea Party is a triumph of branding. It was the same GOP repackaged in a new shiny box, kind of like the new coke. The Tea Party, a supposedly grass roots movement, is actually funded by Americans for Prosperity, a group that is headed by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey. It's sponsored by the Koch brothers, some of the wealthiest political backers in the country. The brilliance of the Tea Party is that it managed to get middle-class Americans to get out and march in the sun for policies that benefit billionaires!
But then something unexpected happened, the Tea Party began to get out of control. The Tea Party's popularity let clueless politicians like Christine O'Donnell, who has never won a race in her life, and Sharon Angle, who became famous for running away from the media, and mistaking Latinos for Asians, get a national spotlight. O'Donnell and Angle were so wacky, that voters ended up electing Democrats, even though the mood of the nation was supposed to be turning against them.
But it didn't stop there. The Tea Party movement also swept up politicians like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who bragged about secession while balancing the budget with Obama stimulus money, and the idiotic Rep. Michele Bachmann, who claims she is for small government, even though she has received millions of dollars in federal money, and used to work for the IRS!
Now we have a lot of angry, white people who are pushing for the Tea Party's fascist mantra. The Tea Party is steering the Republican party even further to the right. So what happens when you push a party that is already pro corporation and anti-regulation even farther? You get fascism. As Benito Mussolini said, fascism occurs when the state and corporate interests merge.
Mainstream Republicans are worried. Former White House adviser Karl Rove actually said Tea Party presidential candidates were coming across as too far right. In an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Dallas Tea Party leader Phillip Dennis called Karl Rove, "a big-spending, big-government moderate!" Now when Karl Rove, the man who was nicknamed "Bush's brain," is called a moderate, the crazy train has left the station.
The thing is politicians like Speaker John Boehner and Karl Rove, are old-time insiders. They know how the system works, and they realize that Republicans can't get elected if they let a bunch of lunatics, who say they want to let the U.S. default on its debt, who don't believe in global warming and who want to turn Medicare into a voucher system, get elected, the Republicans are screwed. Senior citizens vote en masse, and they won't take kindly to politicians who want to eliminate the programs that keep them alive.
And it seems the American public is finally waking up to the fact that by voting in Tea Party politicians, they essentially handed the lunatics the keys to the asylum. Tea Party governors Rick Scott, John Kasich and Scott Walker are already facing revolts at home as voters realize they are trying to cut essential services and go after teachers, cops and firefighters. According to a recent New York Times article, the Tea Party is less popular than Muslims and atheists.
But the genie seems to be out of the bottle. The Tea Party has unleashed a wave of wild-eyed ideologues who are going to drive the Republican party right off the cliff. And right now the Democrats are pulling up a deck chair and grabbing some pop corn.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Bachmann campaign means the joke's on us
Bachmann
If you want to read some really depressing writing, read some of ex-New York Times writer Christopher Hedges' work. Hedges writes some of the most insightful and frightening articles and books documenting the gradual descent of America. One of the central arguments of Hedges' book, "Empire of Illusion," is many Americans are so poorly educated they can't tell fiction from reality. During the last Mid-Term elections this became increasingly clear as many Americans, clueless about the true causes of the financial collapse opted to vote in members of the same party who had been largely responsible for the economic disaster.
It also explains the success of Rep. Michele Bachmann, who recently won the Iowa Straw poll. According to Rachel Maddow, she managed to pull this off after she bought and handed out about 6,000 ballots.
Bachmann is the type of candidate that makes the rest of the world scratch its head. Is it any wonder why Standard and Poors decided to downgrade the United States' triple A credit rating, when you have people like this in charge of this country?
Bachmann is a sad joke of a politician. Almost everything she says is a lie or wildly incorrect. If Bachmann tells you she is going to the bathroom, double check it. Bachmann tells so many untruths that one must assume that she not just fact-challenged, but a shameless liar.
She claims to be a small-government conservative, but has spent years sucking on the government teat. Bachmann used to work as an attorney for the IRS, where her job was chasing down Americans who didn't pay their taxes. While she was at the IRS, Bachmann also took liberal use of their maternity policy. Yet in spite of this, she has cast herself as a Tea Party favorite, a party that is supposed to stand for taxed enough already!
Bachmann's family farm has also received more than $250,000 in government subsidies and her husband's Marcus, an unlicensed psychologist, has received more than $130,000 in Medicaid payments, even though it has been accused of using reparative therapy, which aims to make gay people straight. And while she brags about serving as a foster mom to 23 children, she fails to mention that she also received money from the government for her generosity.
The Bachmanns also used a federally-backed loan program to finance their home, even though Bachmann later criticized the program. Basically, Bachmann's believes it's great for me, but not for anyone else.
And there is the issue with her problem with facts. But here are just a few whoppers:
- She confused the home towns of serial killer John Wayne Gacy and actor John Wayne.
- She said the Founding Fathers, fought against slavery, even though most of them were slave owners, and there was that whole thing about the Civil War.
- She also signed a pledge stating that black families were more intact during slavery, even though slaves could not legally marry.
- And most recently she confused Elvis' birthday with the day he croaked on the toilet.
- Last weekend on "Meet the Press," she denied calling for the United States to default on its debt, yet on July 28, CBS.com featured video of Bachmann vowing not to raise the debt ceiling.
In addition, there is her frightening fundamentalist views. Former Evangelical Frank Schaeffer describes Bachmann as a dominionist, an extremist sect, which wants to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. While she was still a home maker in Minnesota, she tried to get the Disney carton "Aladdin" banned from her Christian school, because she though it promoted witchcraft.
With her extreme views, her faulty memory and her blatant hypocrisy, Bachmann, should have trouble getting elected to the local school board. But somehow, she has not only been elected to Congress, now she is among the front runners in the Republican presidential race. This is not without controversy. The conservative Wall Street Journal, recently wrote an editorial where they essentially said of Bachmann and the other GOP presidential candidates, "Isn't there anyone else?"
Why do some Americans support Michele Bachmann? Maybe it's her religion, it surely can't be for her spotty resume and her legislative achievements. In a Politico article, a Minnesota Democratic legislator said Bachmann had no significant legislative achievements.
Maybe it's like what Hedges says, Bachmann supporters can't tell fact from fiction. They are attracted to Bachmann's fervor and religiosity, even if she is a pathological liar and doesn't believe in half of what she says. Consider this quote from a Daily Beast article: "Donna Fouts, 73, doesn’t seem to care that Bachmann planned to vote against the debt-ceiling compromise that would ensure the arrival of her Social Security check and the military benefits owed to her sons and nephews. 'Well, I’m sick of all them other politicians that tell me what to do with my life, she answers. 'Something about her tells me to follow her.'"
So people like Fouts want to vote for Bachmann because she sounds good, and makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside. And they trust her to solve the Middle East crisis, fix the nation's economy, and track down terrorists? God help us!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Why A Black Spider-Man is Important
A small ripple occurred in the Marvel universe, when it was announced that following the death of long-running Spider-Man Peter Parker, he would be replaced by a Black Latino teenager named Miles Morales.
Now, I should add that this happened in the Marvel Ultimate series, which updates long-running super heroes with a distinctly more modern spin. By the way, Col. Nick Fury, head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. spy agency, has also be been "retconned" (retroactive continuity) as an African American, which is why he is played by Samuel. L. Jackson in the movies. (The original Nick Fury's image was based on Dean Martin.) Peter Parker is still alive and kicking Marvel's other lines.
Changes like that are not unusual in the super hero universe, which has some of the most creative writers in the world. Characters are regularly killed, resurrected, sent to alternate universes and sent back and forth in time on a regular basis. In addition, there is a central idea that a super hero mantle is like a crown that can be passed on to different people. Several characters have worn the cape and cowl apart from original Batman Bruce Wayne. And other super heroes such as Captain Marvel, Captain America, the Green Lantern and the Flash have been played by different people over the years.
But with Spider-Man becoming black, it is a turning point. Spider-Man is one of the most recognized characters in the comic book world and some would call him the flagship of the Marvel line.
While some people have applauded this bold move, it has also becoming politicized. The right-wing noise machine, which tries to pin anything bad on President Barack Obama, claimed this was another incidence of the politically correct media run amok. Right-wing lunatic Glenn Beck said that "Michelle Obama had lead to a gay black Spider-Man." And of course, he got 80 percent of the story wrong.
The First Lady had nothing to do with this choice. The writer of the new Spider-Man line had merely said that in the future there could be a gay super hero. But when did the right-wing media ever let the facts get in the way of a good story?
There are many critics who wonder why the need to change Spider-Man's race, but to me it makes a lot of sense. The world is changing and diversity is becoming the norm, the president is black and so is Will Smith, arguably the world's biggest movie star. And the music world has long been dominated by black artists. The public has different expectations, and Marvel realizes that. Today many young people have black idols, so why not a super hero?
There are many black, Latino and Asian super heroes in the pantheon, but most of them are minor and not on the level of Spider-Man. The comic book world has been surprisingly progressive with pushing forward ideas of racial inclusivity. The super hero genre has always had a subversive message. While many might see Superman as American as apple pie, he is actually an illegal alien trying to blend in. Critics have pointed out that Superman's creator Jerry Siegel was Jewish, and that is where much of the Man of Steel's dual identity comes from. Siegel also had to deal with having to live a double life as a Jewish person in a largely Christian country.
In addition, Marvel debuted the character Black Panther, an African super hero, before the political movement, also named the Black Panthers, was born. Comic book legend Stan Lee said that his creation of mutants like the X-Men was a way of trying to explore issues like prejudice. And what could more be like racial prejudice than people being discriminated because of the way they were born -- an issue that Marvel's mutants constantly struggle with.
But a Black Spider-Man can also lead to a host of new story lines. Spider-Man has always struggled as the everyman super hero. Sure he can climb walls, but he still has to struggle with paying rent and a demanding boss. Now, with Miles Morales, he can deal with host of other issues such as racial discrimination, profiling, immigration, ect.
And this is an important message to all those people of color who still read comic books. As corny as they are, with their spandex costumes and ludicrous plot lines, super heroes are mythical, idealized figures. Children look up to them.
Many black celebrities and even politicians say they were comic book fans. President Obama is said to be a Spider-Man fan. My theory is that comic books have always been a fairly cheap art form, so whether you were a kid living in the American ghetto or a kid living in an African village, you parents could afford a comic book.
And when kids opened those pages, they found a world where people, who had many of the same problems as them -- discrimination, bigotry, poverty -- were struggling against the odds, and sometimes succeeding. This is a powerful message.
As a kid growing up, I read comic books and pretty much all of the heroes I followed, Tony Stark (Iron Man), Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Clark Kent (Superman), were all white.
I think it's great that the billions of people around the world who still read comics can look at a super hero and see someone who looks like them staring back. Just like seeing a black president, it says that someday you can be the most important person in the world.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Right-Wing Pundits Strive to Keep Americans Dumb
Bill O'Reilly
I do not understand the American right wing. I don't understand how people who make less than $100,000 vote for policies that benefit millionaires, and I don't know why people who are on their third marriage constantly prattle about family values.
Much of the commentary coming from the right wing is baffling because it is glaringly inaccurate. Some would say it is blatant lies. Liberal media watchdog group Media Matters is constantly kept busy fact checking and stating the errors from the right-wing noise machine.
In many cases, it is obvious that the commentary is incorrect, so I must conclude that this is done deliberately. Right-wing commentators must know they are talking nonsense, but they continue to say it because they need the great unwashed masses to believe, and act on it.
For example, Americans are lead to believe universal health care is an evil socialistic plot . This message is constantly repeated in the right-wing media, yet European countries like Sweden, Norway, France and Britain, have socialized medical systems which are far superior to the U.S. The United Nation ranks France as having the most efficient health care system in the world. (The U.S. is ranked no. 37.) In addition, you don't see Canadians scurrying across the border to use our profit-driven health care system.
I was reminded of the fallacy of the right-wing media when watching Bill Maher's "Real Time," often the most intelligent hour on television. Right-wing commentator Margaret Hoover, a great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover, said that you could not compare Andres Breivik, the suspect in the Norwegian massacre, to Muslim terrorists. Hoover said that unlike Al-Qaeda, Breivik was not connected to an internationally terror network.
Huh? How can a commentator with a national stage spout such nonsense? There is a long trail of evidence showing that Breivik had connections with Islamophobes in America, such as Pamela Geller, author of the blog Atlas Shrugs, and the neo-fascist English Defense League in Britain. Geller has gained prominence for her virulent hatred of Muslims. She has also been given a platform on FOX News to promote wacky views such as accusing Jewish Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan of supporting Nazi ideology.
Commenting on Breivik's ties to the international Islamophobe network, Max Blumenthal writes: "Judging from Breivik’s writings, his hysterical hatred of the Labor Party’s immigration policies and tolerance of Muslim immigrants likely led him target the government-operated summer camp at Utoya. For years, the far-right has singled Norway out as a special hotbed of pro-Islam, pro-Palestinian sentiment, thanks largely to its ruling Labor Party In 2010, for instance, the English Defense League called Norway a future site of 'Islamohell,' where unadulterated political correctness has ruled the roost, with sharp talons, for decades.'"
And Slate.com writer William Saletan states: "In a manifesto posted online, the admitted killer, Anders Behring Breivik, praised Geller. He cited her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and the writings of her friends, allies, and collaborators—Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, Islam Watch, and Front Page magazine—more than 250 times."
To add insult to injury, FOX News blowhard Bill O'Reilly said that the liberal media was eager to brand Breivik a Christian. According to O'Reilly, "no one believing in Jesus commits mass murder." Of course, as Bill Maher pointed out, anyone with a superficial knowledge of history can reel off a long list of "Christians" who have killed large numbers of people.
This is ridiculous. O'Reilly and other right-wing commentators must know what they are saying is BS. O'Reilly is not a stupid man, before he went down the FOX News hole, he was an Emmy-winning journalist and he also has a master's degree from Harvard -- one of those Ivy League colleges that he lambasts.
In a Playboy magazine interview Deepak Chopra says that O'Reilly is not as ignorant as he seems, and just plays a bigot on TV. And this may be true with other FOX commentators. A few years ago, Gretchen Carlson, a Rhodes scholars, said she had to go and look up what the word ignoramus meant.
So if we assume that FOX News commentators know what they are saying is incorrect, what is their goal? To keep the ignorant in the dark, if that is the case, they may be a method to their madness and it seems to be working.
A 2010 University of Maryland study described FOX News viewers as "the most consistently uninformed." The study said that FOX News viewers were more likely to believe blatantly incorrect statements like Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and President Barack Obama was largely responsible for the deficit. (All the facts point to the Bush tax cuts, two underfunded wars and the Medicare drug benefit as causes of the budget deficit.)
Is it any wonder that FOX News viewers constantly regurgitate these lies? And maybe that was Roger Ailes goal all along. Ever since his days in the Nixon White House he has dreamed of creating a propaganda network that broadcasts directly to American living rooms. Maybe FOX should change its motto to "We report the propaganda, you decide to believe it."
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Lupe Fiasco Bashes Obama, Gets FOX Gig
Lupe Fiasco
We live in cynical times. Many black people have realized the best way to get publicity it to say something negative about President Barack Obama. FOX News loves this stuff and this has been proven accurate by the recent news that conscious rapper Lupe Fiasco has recently been invited to debate Bill O'Reilly on "The O'Reilly Factor."
Now you would wonder why O'Reilly, a noted hip hop hater, would have a mildly famous rapper on his show. FOX tends to view any rapper (and black person) as a thug, as seen in it recent trashing of Common, a rapper famous for writing love songs and being a vegetarian. However Lupe Fiasco recently called Obama a terrorist, for his support of the American war machine and in particular his support of Israel.
Lupe Fiasco is considered to be one of the more deeper thinkers in the rap community -- but even that isn't saying much. Hip hop's golden era of Public Enemy is long gone. Most of today's hip hop is knee-deep in materialism, violence and sex -- all messages approved by Corporate America.
I tend to think that entertainers should stick to entertaining and people shouldn't turn to them for political guidance. Political comic Bill Maher said he deliberately changed the format of his show "Real Time," to limit the celebrity segment, because so many of the entertainers could not string together an intelligent sentence.
Fiasco has written some intelligent songs criticizing conflict diamonds and has supported worldwide clean water iniatives, but you wonder how deep his knowledge is? Some of his comments on Global Grind, show he is all over the place. He said "admires some of the things that Glenn Beck does," and questions why Obama is raising funds for his campaign, but doesn't give "$100 million to the people of Detroit." Even more damning in his initial interview, where he called Obama a terrorist, was his admission that he doesn't vote.
Lupe Fiasco simply does not understand how the political system works. I remember reading an Vibe magazine interview with Jessie Jackson about 10 years ago. Jackson said he once encountered an young man who was angry at the economic situation. After listening to the man rant for several minutes, Jackson asked him if he voted, the young man said no. Jackson then said that he was outside the political system, and the only way to effect change is from inside the system.
The political system runs on money, and in this society money equals power. Lupe Fiasco is a man of means, I bet he could raise $1M. He could use that to create a Political Action Committee (PAC), called say LupePAC, and donate $1M. That PAC could hire a dozen lobbyists who could badger politicians until they affect the political change that Lupe Fiasco wants. A PAC could also hire a PR company to make sure the airwaves are flooded with issues that LupePAC supports. They could also make sure armies of volunteers are kept informed with e-mails and phone calls urging them to contact their elected representatives. That is how you get things done, son.
And this has actually happened. Hip hop veteran Russell Simmons has created political action groups to lobby politicians to reduce mandatory drug sentencing laws, which have been responsible for sending many black and Latino men away for long sentences.
Maybe Lupe Fiasco, like a lot of people on the far left, simply do not have a realistic understanding of the political system. The system is horribly tarnished by money, and it moves at snail's pace. More pointedly, the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling allows unlimited amounts of money to be dumped into the political process. If liberals want real change, they need to reelect Obama so he can appoint more progressive voices to the Supreme Court. They also need to elect more progressive representatives and senators, and make sure they stick to their campaign promises. But this is like the chicken and the egg problem, in a political system ruled by money, progressive voices have a hard time getting elected because they get outspent in the fundraising arms race.
As Jesse Jackson said, if you want to effect change you have to work within the system. Choosing not to vote is like opting out of the system. And those who choose to opt out of the system have no room to complain when things get worse. Just look at what Republican governors like Rick Scott and Scott Walker have done in their short terms. This is what happens when people on the left stay home.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
An Open Letter to African American Herman Cain
Herman Cain
Dear Herman,
You don't know me, and until recently I didn't know you, but because I am a political junkie, I have been forced to learn about you. And boy, where do we start?
Firstly, I have figured out your game. I know you are not really running for president, you are running for a position on FOX News. You see, running for president is a great branding tool, because it raises your profile and the press writes about everything you say and do. No one knew who you were a few months ago, and now you are household name. And after you lose, you can go back to your media career and sell some more books.
There is a long history of no hopers running for president -- talk to Donald Trump. Cybill Shepherd, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson also said they were running for president at one point, and look where they are now?
But this letter is not about your political views, and it's not about the fact that business skills do not necessarily make a great president. We all remember how well the last "CEO president" turned out. But this is about your apparent self loathing of black people and Africa.
I was particularly disturbed by your recent comment stating, "I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African-American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people."
Herman, this sounds dangerously like self hatred. Malcolm X said, "You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself." If you are black man living in America, how did you get here? How were the original black Americans brought to America, and where did they come from? And why is a black man trying to deny his link to Africa? I can't imagine that an Irish American would ever deny his cultural ties to his ancestral home.
Herman, I can understand how you may feel that you have nothing in common with Africa. Your view of Africa is probably formed from the America media, which shows nothing but starvation and warfare. But you can't run from your roots. You are the descendant of Africans, and there is no hiding it.
If you ever did a DNA test, you would discover what ethnic group you are descended from. And if you actually visited Africa, you would see people who look just like you. You might actually learn that it looks nothing like the images you see on FOX and CNN.
Herman, in my 40 odd years on the planet, I have learned that you can't run from who you are. You have to embrace it -- both the good parts and bad parts. Let me tell you my story, I come from an African family who also lived in the Diaspora. When I was younger, I was embarrassed by my African name and wanted to be like other Africans in the Diaspora, who had Westernized names.
I even lived in Africa and was turned off by the chaos and poverty I experienced over there. It has been a long journey, but over the years I have learned to embrace my African heritage, I have studied and learned of the contributions African have made to the world civilization. And I have learned that Africa had empires, language, art and religion long before Europeans arrived. I am a black man, my parents come from Africa, and I have an African name. Herman, this is your background too. Running from it would be like trying to run from your shadow.
Yes, there are some cultural differences between Black Americans and Africans, but we have a shared heritage. Maybe we are not brothers, but were definitely cousins.
So do us all a favor and just accept who you are. This is really getting embarrassing. Odabo, brother. (That means goodbye in Yoruba!)
Photo by Gage Skidmore
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
FOX News, Right-Wing Media Propagate Racism 2.0
Roger Ailes, president FOX News
Many people on the right like to think that with a black president in the White House, racism is dead. They even have prominent spokespeople like Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who beat their chest and say, "How can America be racist if a black person is the Tea Party's leading candidate for president?"
Racism exists in 2011, but in a different form from the racism that existed in the 1960s. Back then racism was blatant -- whites only lunch counters, segregated drinking fountains, and black people completely barred from high-level jobs.
However, because racism was out in the open, it was much easier to challenge by direct action such as protests, boycotts and marching. Forty years later we have made a lot of progress, but there are still many racial disparities. Structural racism exists, but in a more subtle and amorphous form.
Right wingers fail to see these disparities. So I ask them, if you think America doesn't have racial problems, let's look at this from a scatological approach. Let's analyze America by its by products.
And what do we have? An ineffective criminal justice system that is predominately black and brown, black unemployment at twice the unemployment rate of white people and consistent evidence of police brutality and extra judicial killings mainly focused on black people.
What we are dealing with in the 21st century is what I would call Racism 2.0. Racism 2.0 is much more difficult to analyze and fight. At times it is like boxing a ghost, an enemy you can't see or lay a finger on.
With Racism 2.0 we do not have blatantly segregated neighborhoods, but we have redlining, where black home buyers are steered into black neighborhoods, or given loans with higher interest rates than whites. There are also incidents where white homeowners refuse to sell their homes to people of color to make sure the neighborhood's complexion doesn't change.
Racism 2.0 is seen in white flight, where wealthy and middle-class whites move to the suburbs, ostensibly for better schools, but also to get away from the colored folks. It is also seen in public education where wealthier whites take their kids out of the state-funded school system and enroll them in private Christian academies. Then these same people refuse to vote for funding increases to public schools, because they claim they don't have children in the system.
And most importantly it's seen in the right-wing media, which is full of race-baiting stories. Last year, the White Right, as activist Tim Wise likes to call them, spent hours of air time running stories about the New Black Panther Party and alleged voter intimidation.
After months of hype, the story was eventually debunked when a Bush appointee said that the right-wing's accusations about the Justice Department's failure to look into incidents of vote intimidation against white people were false.
The main culprit of Racism 2.0 is FOX News. The brain child of Roger Alies, who cut his teeth running dirty tricks for Richard Nixon, FOX News is a primary distributor of neo-racist propaganda. With Barack Obama, a black man with a Muslim name, in the White House, FOX News has made its viewers feel they are under siege. FOX realizes that is audience is about 90 percent white (figures backed by Nielsen), and they make sure they fine tune their message to fit the tastes of their audience, who are scared about the nation's changing demographics.
But in 2011, it is politically incorrect to say that you don't like black people and even FOX realizes this. So instead they use a series of code words to imply animosity. These phrases include implying Obama is a Muslim, using his middle name, Hussein, and implying he has foreign values, as mentioned by Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.
And then there are phrases that skate as close to outright racism as you can get. FOX commentator Eric Bolling recently said Obama should have been dealing with the tornado victims instead of "drinking 40s." (He was actually drinking Guinness while he was in Ireland.)
Now anyone familiar with urban media realizes that 40-ounce malt liquor is associated with inner city black people and was heavily marketed towards this group. It has also been embraced by the hip hop community.
And not surprisingly FOX News tried to turn rapper Common's appearance at a White House poetry reading into an example of Obama associating with a gangster and thug. By the way, Common is an intelligent rapper, who is also a vegetarian and has campaigned for gay rights and animals rights. He has also appeared on Sesame Street and in Gap ads. Yeah, real dangerous.
As the great comedian Dave Chappelle once said, "I am a connoisseur of racism." And I think that applies to black people in general, we know it when we see it, even it comes in version 2.0.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Herman Cain is a Placebo for White Racism
Herman Cain
After watching Tea Party favorite and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's new campaign video, I finally came to a realization. I had long wondered what was the attraction was for the only African American Republican presidential candidate. But then I realized that Cain is running as an apologist for white racism. And that is why the Tea Party loves him.
Cain, with his rags to riches story of rising from the son of a chauffeur to a CEO, fits in perfectly with people who want to believe America does not still have issues with race. Republicans can vote for Cain and say, "Well, we aren't racist, we voted for a black man." I guess they have forgotten about all those signs they had at the health care rallies a few years ago, depicting President Barack Obama as everything from a witch doctor to a monkey.
I have several problems with Cain, apart from his apologetic tour. He has no political experience. His only other political campaign was losing a GOP primary in Georgia, and while some may see that as an advantage, it isn't. The last time a non politician was elected to the White House was Dwight Eisenhower, who lead Allied forces in World War II. And if you want to know how well non politicians do in office, just ask California how Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out.
Cain's main selling point is his business experience. But after the Wall Street excesses that nearly crashed the world economy, why do Americans keep screaming for government to be run more like a business? Do they really want government run like Lehman Brothers and Enron?
Corporate chiefs don't have the temperament for the political world, as can be seen in the disastrous reign of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is fast-gaining a reputation as the worse governor in the country. Scott, a former health care executive who was fired after his company received the largest fine in American history for Medicare fraud, is facing animosity from the left and the right.
Scott has barely been in office six months and Floridians are already talking about a recall. Cain has already flubbed questions about the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so who knows how worse he will do under even more scrutiny?
But the really troubling thing about Cain, is how he is so willing to pander to racial politics. He bandies about phrases like, "leaving the Democratic plantation," and being a "Son of the South."
Cain is appealing to Nascar Dads, which is ironic because many of these people also expressed some of the most virulent hatred towards Obama because he was "Muslim," or "foreign." And at his lowest point Cain, pandered to bigots by bragging that he would not name a Muslim person to his cabinet. (He later tried to backtrack on this.)
Republicans like to say that Cain's popularity shows that the GOP has embraced diversity, but I suspect that if he was made the Republican presidential candidate, he would split the party. Some of the ex Dixiecrats, who were seduced by Nixon's Southern Strategy, would split off and join a party that expressed more radical racial views.
But even if Cain was white, he would still be like Sarah Palin, a joke of a candidate, who has no chance of getting elected. He is just lapping up the media attention in his "I'm Trying to Get Paid" tour." The campaign has done wonders for his name recognition. And if he has to become the latest conservative black minstrel, he seems wiling to pay that price. He has plenty of company alongside Alan Keyes, Juan Williams and Jessie Lee Peterson in FOX News' Brotherhood of Self-Loathing Brothers.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Obama, Osama and the NBA Factor
Osama Bin Laden
I first learned of this on social media and I soon started checking out reliable news sites to confirm the news. Soon, the AP and CNN confirmed that a military strike had indeed killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.
But this leads to a deeper point about the presidency and race. Obama has already broken through the glass ceiling and achieved a position that many thought was reserved for white men. That in itself has created much anxiety among some White Americans who were already fearful about their rapidly shrinking majority.
I believe many white people were secretly scared not of Obama failing, but of him succeeding. This is what I call the NBA factor. The NBA was once an industry made up of exclusively white males. But in the 1950s, black athletes were allowed to compete, and eventually dominated the industry. Now the NBA is almost 80 percent black and black athletes are the face of the sport.
The NBA is an example of a place where black men have been given a chance, and have not only succeeded but also dominated. The NBA factor translates these fears to the board room and now politics. I believe many white employers are reluctant to let black men into the board room, because they are scared of them succeeding.
Obama’s presidency was unique because he simply couldn’t fail. If he done a terrible job, many Americans would have said, “That’s the last time I am voting for a black candidate.”
Now Barack Obama has done a more than competent job as president. including rescuing the economy from collapse, saving the U.S. car industry, passing health care reform, withdrawing troops from Iraq and now killing Osama Bin Laden, you have to wonder if some white people are saying, “It’s like the NBA, now they are going to take over.”
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Phony Conservatives Court ‘Values Voters’
Gingrich
One of the mysteries of the GOP is it's relationship with so-called values voters. This issue has become especially pertinent considering that several Republican presidential candidates are planing to speak at “Rediscover God in America,” a telecast that will beamed to millions of church goers.
One of the speakers at this event is Newt Gingrich. Yes, that Newt Gingrich, who is married to his third wife, who used to be a staffer. The same Newt who got booted as speaker of the House for failure to impeach President Bill Clinton. While he was trying to impeach Clinton, Gingrich was also getting blow jobs from Callista, now wife no. 3. Apparently, he did this so he would not have to lie about having extra-marital sex. Like Clinton, apparently Newt does not consider oral sex to be sex.
My first thought when I read about this, why do social conservatives keeping buying this crap? You often wonder who is really fooling who here?
Most of the GOP presidential candidates seem to be sophisticated political operators and I doubt if they believe in the Rapture (even though they claim to) or really hate gays. Evidently they must be okay with gay people, because they tolerated former closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, running the GOP during the Bush years.
The conservative voters who are supposed to suck up this family values crap, are not much better. The Conservative South is known for its frequent divorces and remarriages, high teen pregnancy rate and high STD rate.
The GOP sticks to these wedge issues because it knows that they will always garner the votes of “conservative” working, class people. It seems that while Jim Bob and Darlene, might like universal health care, voting against gay marriage and abortion is more important.
In reality, Americans love their porn, quickie divorces, the right to choose and don’t mind gay people, as long as they stay in the closet. And here are two statistics that indicate how conservative red states really are. According figures from the adult entertainment industry, the state that consumes the most online porn is conservative Utah, second only to Missippi. And the no. 1 day for online porn use? Sunday.
One of the speakers at this event is Newt Gingrich. Yes, that Newt Gingrich, who is married to his third wife, who used to be a staffer. The same Newt who got booted as speaker of the House for failure to impeach President Bill Clinton. While he was trying to impeach Clinton, Gingrich was also getting blow jobs from Callista, now wife no. 3. Apparently, he did this so he would not have to lie about having extra-marital sex. Like Clinton, apparently Newt does not consider oral sex to be sex.
My first thought when I read about this, why do social conservatives keeping buying this crap? You often wonder who is really fooling who here?
Most of the GOP presidential candidates seem to be sophisticated political operators and I doubt if they believe in the Rapture (even though they claim to) or really hate gays. Evidently they must be okay with gay people, because they tolerated former closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, running the GOP during the Bush years.
The conservative voters who are supposed to suck up this family values crap, are not much better. The Conservative South is known for its frequent divorces and remarriages, high teen pregnancy rate and high STD rate.
The GOP sticks to these wedge issues because it knows that they will always garner the votes of “conservative” working, class people. It seems that while Jim Bob and Darlene, might like universal health care, voting against gay marriage and abortion is more important.
In reality, Americans love their porn, quickie divorces, the right to choose and don’t mind gay people, as long as they stay in the closet. And here are two statistics that indicate how conservative red states really are. According figures from the adult entertainment industry, the state that consumes the most online porn is conservative Utah, second only to Missippi. And the no. 1 day for online porn use? Sunday.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
King Hearings Make Muslims The New Racial Bogey Man
As a black person who has lived 40 years on this planet, I’d like to think that we have made racial progress. But then you hear about things like Rep. Peter King’s Congressional hearings on Islamic terrorism.
King’s hearing on home-grown Muslim terrorism kick off Thursday. This McCarthy-like circus is the culmination of about 12-month of rising anti-Muslim hysteria. This has included protests in the streets of New York over Park51, a mosque scheduled to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero, demonstrations against mosque construction in California and Tennessee and frenzied warnings about alleged plans to impose Sharia law in the United States. (It should be noted that Muslims currently account for less than 0.5 percent of the U.S population.)
This Islamophobic propaganda has been disseminated by a host of shrill, racist commentators. People such as Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, who claimed that the NASA sign had hidden Muslim symbols, Pam Geller, a lunatic blogger, who claimed that President Obama was Malcolm X’s son, and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who has said we should end Muslim immigration.
And all of these propagandists get an open forum on the neo fascist/neo racist FOX News, which is ironically partially owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who also funded Park51. (Although this has been covered extensively by Think Progress and “The Daily Show,” you won’t find this information on FOX or other right-wing outlets.)
Islamophobia is not just words, it has spurred violent action. In Sacramento, two Sikhs were killed in an attack which police believe was a hate crime, and a video from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed Tea Party protestors haranguing Muslims, including children, at a fundraiser in Orange County. Speaking at the event, Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly said, “As a matter of fact, I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.”
Now King brings this rising Islamophobia to a head with his farcical hearings. King claims that about 80 percent of American mosques harbor radical imams. Ironically, he doesn’t plan to call any senior law enforcement or intelligence officials to testify at the hearings. Maybe, because they would disprove his accusations.
According to an article in Think Progress, more domestic terrorist attacks have come from non-Muslim terrorists, than Muslims terrorists. Writer Zaid Jilani says: “In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attacks plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.” Jack O’Reilly Jr., mayor of Dearborn, Mich., a city with a 30 percent Arab population, has described King’s accusations as “just not true.”
King himself has a long history with terrorism. His great uncle was a member of the IRA, which was responsible for a series of terrorist bombings of London in the 1970s and 1980s. King was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and according to the New York Times he said, ““If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.” He was also accused by a Belfast judge of being “an obvious collaborator.”
It’s questionable why King has launched his quixotic campaign against terrorism. His anti-Islam hearings could be a cynical attempt to boost his profile. And it's seems to be working, because he is all over the media. If you didn't know who he was before, you do now. Maybe King, like pseudo-politicians Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, he is following the format of making outrageous comments to sell more books and book more media appearances. But this sudden outburst of Islamophobia is more calculated. Studies show that anti-Muslim rhetoric spiked in the run up to the mid-term election. This is really about politics and scaring people into voting against their own interests.
The upper-class whites who controls this country don’t care about working-class whites who drive Toyotas and shop at Wal-Mart. The only thing that alligns them with working class whites is racism. And over the last 40 years, the Republican party has mined that fear to get people to vote. For a long time it was blacks, with fears of integration and “welfare mothers in Cadillacs,” then it was fear of gays, who were destroying the traditional family, then it was Latinos threatening American culture with the Spanish language. But all of these minority groups have largely been mainstreamed.
The new ethnic bogey man is Muslims (read Arabs.) The right doesn’t seem to care that not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs. To them it doesn’t matter as long as it gets NASCAR dads and Tea Baggers to forget about their vanishing 401ks, declining home prices, the awful health care system and the cost of two foreign wars. Muslim is the new black.
What do you think of the Rep. Peter King hearings?Market Research
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