Game Changed

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to watch the HBO movie “Game Change”. To be honest, I am not a big fan of Caribou Barbie but it made you feel sorry for Sarah Palin? More to the point, watching it was absolutely smashing and, in fact, terrifying to think how close we were to utter insanity or to America's ruin.

The movie has been scalloped out of the book by the same name and focuses on Palin, rather than on the entire 2008 presidential campaign. The decision to do so was absolutely correct. With her selection as John McCain’s running mate, American politics lost its way — and maybe its mind as well.

I want to be fair and give credit to Washington Post Opinion Writer Richard Cohen. This was a very good piece to which I will quote from it because it was perfect:

“The movie portrays Palin as an ignoramus. She did not know that Queen Elizabeth II does not run the British government, and she did not know that North and South Korea are different countries. She seemed not to have heard of the Federal Reserve. She called Joe Biden “O’Biden” and she thought America went to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein, not al-Qaeda, had attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Not only did she know little, but she was determinately incurious and supremely smug in her ignorance.”

How can someone aspire to being a heartbeat away from the Oval Office without a firm grasp of basic history and current events? Of course John McCain defended his choice of Palin as running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign. In the movie she was portrayed as a liar. In fact, she was called exactly that by McCain’s campaign chief, Steve Schmidt, who came to realize, a bit late in the game, that one of Palin’s great talents was to deny the truth. When confronted, she simply shuts down — petulant, child-like — and then sulks off.

The thing that struck me was the movie has been endorsed by most of Palin’s top campaign aides to put its veracity in doubt. Some of them had come to revile the Alaska governor — enough to leak some awful facts but not quite enough to go public. Had the election been really close, I wonder if they would have run out into the street yelling that Palin — a heartbeat away from the possible presidency — was a monster.

It seems to be the norm in today’s political environment where we see a deluge of dysfunctional presidential candidates. For example, we saw Herman Cain for a while was a front-runner. He had a nonsensical tax plan, zero knowledge of foreign affairs and had never held elective office. Yet, for a brief but terrifying moment, many Republicans were saying he should be the next president of the United States.

Michele Bachmann told a touching fib about vaccinations and slick Rick Perry did not know squat about who governs Turkey, a NATO ally and a vitally important Middle East power. He got wrong the number of justices on the Supreme Court — he said eight — and could not remember a Cabinet department he had vowed to eliminate.

Let’s not forget Rick Santorum who pretends to know his stuff, but his stuff includes a wild denunciation of John F. Kennedy’s famous speech about the proper role of religion in public life and a characterization of President Obama as a snob for extolling the value of college. Newt Gingrich has the wattage to be president, but so does Hannibal Lecter, if you get my drift. As for Ron Paul, he appears to be running for president of some theme park.

I have excluded Mitt, you know the guy the Republicans call “Him”, from the list of fools and knaves because he has too many other issues. But there once was a time when “Him” would not have stood out as the only candidate who knew something about the issues that confront a president. Since Palin, though, ignorance has become more than bliss. It’s now an attribute, an entire platform: Vote for me, I know nothing and hate the same things you do.

I want to repeat as Mr. Cohen said:

Palin is no longer an anomaly. McCain didn’t choose her for her intellectual or experiential qualities, nor because he was geographically or ideologically balancing the ticket. She was an antiabortion woman with a pulse: Enough! She, like the out-of-nowhere Obama, had the stuff of celebrity — the snap, the dazzle, the self-assurance, the sex appeal. She didn’t need to dance with a star. God told her she already was one… The movie had it right. Sarah Palin changed the game.

And in my opinion for the worst!

Former Alaska governor, who abandoned the post, is increasingly irrelevant political figure who continues to make some interesting remarks about President Barack Obama. Like the comment made during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where she said, she thinks President Obama is trying to take America back to the days before the Civil War. She went on to say that she believes that all of us are “created equal,” and that President Obama is seeking to divide the nation.

This was such a powerful commentary that I could not expound upon and wanted to share my sense of it. I will say this: I am so thankful that Caribou Barbie is on Fox and Fools and not in the White House, and to that I say God Bless America.

And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

"Just a Season"

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Whose With You Now - Mr. Cain

For all that I know about faith I have come to understand that we all have a cross to bear and I mean that in terms of the burden race. Let me make that statement more direct – being black. From the first day we were dragged upon the shores of this land people of African decent have had an intense desire that we mind our manners and avoid personal acts and activity that would make the entire race look bad. Of course, or should I say, there were those images we did allow to represent us as buffoons to entertain those of the other hue, which left an impression of our worthlessness.

You know what I mean like the bad hair thing, chitterlings, water mellows, and such! Even when we were made out to be fools on television and in the movies most of us abided by the unwritten rules of deportment. I did say most of us! Well until this year’s human, and I use that loosely, a guy who will inevitably become known as a disgrace to our community and beyond. Let me put it differently; we have progressed to the point where, in my opinion, the buffoonery of a Herman Cain will make us shudder and shrink into the shadows to hide our faces.

For him to suggest that blacks should have gone to the back of the bus and not caused no trouble. Or, to say that African Americans were brainwashed is an unforgiveable insult that has frankly relegated this guy to a place far outside of the antics comparable to Amos 'n' Andy or even a Stepin Fetchit character. He so far as to tell the world that the ultraconservative billionaires the Koch brothers were his "brothers from another mother" and describing himself as "black-walnut ice cream" only drew disdain from our community.

Then came his ignorance, and I meant to use that word, of foreign affairs. Like the most talked about event this year - the war in Libya or the fact that China has had a nuclear bomb for years and lest not forget his long pauses and poor answers to questions about policy issues that presidents confront daily which reflected solely on him and all he could say was 9-9-9! Shocking!!! Calling him an embarrassment is too kind.

And his 999 tax plan is simple-sounding enough that Mr. John Q. Average can feel secure in it because he doesn't think he needs to do the math and not realizing that he would potentially pay more than he does now. Cain sees water-boarding as an "enhanced interrogation technique" and homosexuality as a "choice". Of course he has flip-flopped on abortion depending on the day of the week he is asked the question. Frankly, he was a good ol’ uncle who did what he was told and the ideological Tea Party-esque Republican wanted to hear. He was just a man with a black face belittling President Obama.

I've found no one who pays much serious attention to his comments and behavior, certainly no one in the African American community. Maybe I should digress because “they” seems to always find someone like him who reminds me of my uncle whose name is Thomas but we call him Tom for short. Then came the “jump-offs”, which made his sorry character seem as if it came straight out of central casting for black exploitation. Negro please!!! Did you not know they would dig up all of these white women?

"He's just stupid," a black, politically savvy grandfather in Chattanooga was reported as saying. "He knew he had all that baggage in his background before he ran. He is not qualified to be president." I could not have said it better. So I guess the million dollar question is what does Herman Cain get out of it?

A lot of attention to grease his outsize ego, a lot of money from speaking engagements and book sales, and bragging rights to say that not only did he run for president, but for a brief moment, he was actually the leader in his race. But now he'll have to assess, with his family and us, whether the ride was worth it.

This clown who really had no chance for the Citizen Council to make him their candidate even though he thinks that the unemployed are in their situations because they just don't try hard enough and that blacks are "brainwashed into not being open-minded" about conservative positions; according to him racism doesn't hold blacks back. He believes that God told him to run for president, sort of like the way God told Moses to lead the Hebrews.

Being what Malcolm described as a House Negro allowed him to use his populist charisma, managed to get conservatives to anoint him the Apostle of the Negro Right. One popular conservative said, he’s one of our blacks and he is better than there blacks. I am still trying to figure that one out but where I come from that is code for uncle.

So with Election Day less than a year away the Citizen Council has thrown their boy under the bus and we are left with the prospect of the likes of Michele Bachmann, the flip flopper Mitt Romney who they call “him”, Ron Paul who would rather revisit Jim Crow, Rick Perry whose family owns a ranch called “Nigger Head” and the serial fibber Newt Gingrich. Maybe with a cast of characters like that Uncle Herman should have remained. Wouldn’t that have been a good thing? Not really. One thing history has taught us is that people who can appeal to masses but who avoid the scrutiny of individuals are dangerous. Hitler comes to mind.

There was a line in the movie Men in Black, and I’ll paraphrase, individuals are smart because they are discerning, but people - meaning groups - are fearful, nervous and easily manipulated. That, to me, explains why Cain was doing so well in the polls.

I guess that’s why I have such distain for black conservatives such as Cain. They can hold high the ideals of what America should be. But then they've got to deal with the next cringe-worthy thing they are told to say and there is no place for them when they are abandoned by those who run the plantation. Cain and all his foibles deserve to be in the place he’s in and may he find peace in knowing that he is all alone.

I seem to recall Jesus said in the synoptic gospels that “tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. …it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:23-24

And that is my Thought Provoking Perspective…





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The Insanity of it All

I awoke yesterday to a very disturbing, in fact horrifying, news report that said President Obama had been assassinated. My first reaction was, as expected, NOOOOO! Then as I investigated further I had to consider the source. It was connected to Fox News.

I am all for Independence Day, let me first say but I have to be honest and say “I am more of a Juneteenth kinda guy”. Nonetheless, as I prepared to do the hot dogs and fireworks thing I found out that an anonymous hacker spent Monday morning breaking into a Fox News Twitter account posting fake reports of a presidential assassination.

The prank tweets, six in total, included gory (and entirely bogus) details: two shots at an Iowa restaurant, hitting the president in the pelvis and neck, etc. Fox News apparently struggled for a few hours to regain control of its Twitter account. In the afternoon, it managed to remove the prank tweets and issued a statement on its Web site saying it “regrets any distress the false tweets may have created.”

Adam Peck, a writer for Think, relayed instant messages he exchanged with a person claiming to represent Script Kiddies in the wee hours of the morning right after the hack. One message said, “Fox News was selected because we figured their security would be just as much of a joke as their reporting.” I do however agree with the statement that the reporting on Fox is a joke but it is not a joke to prank the death of the president. Later, I read a report that said the prank was distasteful. I beg to differ.
The Secret Service said it is launching an investigation, given the graphic and serious contents of the prank tweets. “We are investigating and will be conducting the appropriate follow-up,” said spokesman George Ogilvie. Very good – NO GREAT!!! However, many people today obviously have forgotten the horrible history of assassinations experienced in America’s not too distant past.

I am old enough to remember the horrors resulting from the assassination of the four little black girls in the Birmingham church, Dr. King, the Kennedy’s, Medger Evers, Emmitt Till, the three freedom fighters killed down in Mississippi, and what seemed like an endless stream of murder. The wretchedness of this prank is unconscionable. Therefore, I will take this opportunity to remind you that we are living in trying times and all is not what it seems. We are still in grave danger as a people.

Maybe those who so vehemently despise our president and people who look like him should Google the riots of April 1968 and the aftermath of the King assassination. God forbid such an event should happen but it would spark a similar episode on a global scale.

And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective!