A War of Their Own

IT HAS COME TO THIS!!! With what most reasonable people perceive as financial Armageddon upon us. The Grand Ol’ Party is really showing the world who the “Real Americans” are and it looks bad. Yesterday, Mr. McCain, the would have been president, called out his conservatives party on their approach to dealing with the great debt ceiling debate. He called their argument “foolish” and “bizarro,” adding that to portray the balanced-budget amendment as a possibility amounts to “deceiving many of our constituents.” He quoted extensively from a Wall Street Journal op-ed that compared tea partyers to “hobbits.”

As children do, the tea party members responded in kind. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) deadpanned that he would “rather be a hobbit than a troll,” while 2010 Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada said “it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land.” Ok, I’m laughing as I wonder if these folks truly understand that this situation is neither a joke nor a Hollywood screenplay. Do they have a clue? Regardless, not only are they mean-spirited – they are childish and immature.

Then there are the pundits who are supposed to have a clue, referred to as the smartest and most astute, are saying that we’re in an epic struggle for the soul of the nation. Charles Krauthammer, for example, argues today that the debt-ceiling debate is but part of a protracted death-match between irreconcilable visions of American political life. He writes:

“We’re in the midst of a great four-year national debate on the size and reach of government, the future of the welfare state, indeed, the nature of the social contract between citizen and state. The distinctive visions of the two parties — social-democratic vs. limited-government — have underlain every debate on every issue since Barack Obama’s inauguration: the stimulus, the auto bailouts, health-care reform, financial regulation, deficit spending. Everything. The debt ceiling is but the latest focus of this fundamental divide.”

Their leader, the Tan Man, complained that Obama moved the goal posts in his negotiations on the debt, but it is the Republicans who are marching these days with goal posts in hand. They want to shrink the size of government dramatically and give the rich more or at least not take anything from them. Then there’s Grover Norquist who has said he would like to see federal spending cut in half to just 10 percent of GDP, and then cut in half again. This is the America they want to see while the meek, poor, and elderly suffer in the name of the Constitution.

Let’s be real, this argument is really about entitlement spending and specifically about how to treat the elderly. That’s where the growth in spending is. “Government” as traditionally construed is something more than a Treasury check going to a retiree. Discretionary spending hasn’t been growing in recent decades. I would bet that, as a percentage of GDP, non-military discretionary spending has been going down in recent decades. This is the war the conservatives already won, circa 1980.

In a recent column, George Will wrote:

“Beneath the tattered, fading banner of reactionary liberalism, Obama struggles to sustain a doomed system. Democrats’ dependency agenda — swelling the ranks of government employees, multiplying government-subsidized industries, enveloping ever-more individuals in the entitlement culture — is buckling under an intractable contradiction: It is incompatible with economic growth sufficient to create enough wealth to feed the multiplying tax eaters.”

Before I continue, lest not forget that God himself told the Tea Party Republicans to lead the country straight into hell. The picture does not get any clearer than that. The influence by their love for the slave owning founding fathers and religion as their Party platform is so very bizarre. With these people every issue be it gun control, abortion, economics or the right to live, their response is the same. "God gives me my rights, and I'm only accountable to Him." Their twisted quasi-religious adherence to a belief that government is bad and all decisions flow from that unalterable belief is a concept that should scare us all.

Then when you factor in the Bachmann’s, DeMint, Palin, Cantor, and the rest of the wing nuts, who all believe the Tea Party has the only thought in this debate that is ruining the country and our democracy. Maybe their leader was right to say to them "Gets your asses in line" but for the reasons of sanity not his wacked out plan. Frankly, this circus atmosphere on display is being viewed by the entire world and is in fact shameful but let’s be very clear as to why this is happening. There are about 30 of these guys and gals in this bucket of crazies out of 433 in the House. The truth is, in this environment, you only need a thimbleful of crazy’s to wreck the whole thing.

Even if the GOP gets their act together and works out a debt ceiling compromise with the president and catastrophe is averted, the world has seen the cracks in America's social fabric and things won't be the same. To be honest, you know you're in trouble when McCain is the voice of sanity. God Bless America.

And that’s my THOUGHT PROVOKING PERSPECTIVE!!!

This is a powerful Video – what do you think?

A War For Your Soul-regular version from Erisai Films on Vimeo.

Truth or Fiction from the “Right”

I have been feeling just a little political lately because of the antics of some on the “right” who I think are wrong. I won’t name names because you know who they are – but I digress! The small town Mayor, couldn’t finish being Governor, and want to be President took a swipe at the first lady during an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s radio show to promote her new book. Yes, she will do anything for a buck and of all places the N-word Queen’s show. This time calling the first lady’s campaign to improve child nutrition another instance of a philosophical devotion to big government - “I think she has got a different worldview and she is not hesitant at all to share what her worldview is,” Palin said. This is the pot calling the kittle black – yes literally.

She continued her delusional rant saying, “And I will take heat again for saying it on your show Laura but she encapsulated what her view of America is, I believe, unless she has evolved and things have changed in the last two years, but she said it on the campaign trail twice that it was the first time that she had been proud of her country when finally people were paying attention to Barack Obama. I think that’s appalling. We can think of this infinite number of reasons to be proud of American exceptionalism and it baffles me that anybody would have that view and then allow that view to bleed over into policy… get off our back, and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track.”

Does that mean when the “Real Americans”, i.e., citizen’s councils, were alive or that “Mystical Wonderfulness” of America’s past?

I’m going to step gingerly into this notion held by those who claim to be “Real Americans” concerning the African American Diaspora and this “Mystical Wonderfulness” of America’s past. Speaking from the perspective of someone who knew Jim Crow, I can tell you their view is dubious in terms of reality, actually its outright wrong when it comes to African Americans, Blacks, Afro-Americans, or the Colored struggle from the beginning.

Most of these folks, of the other hue, see no shame or disgrace in neglecting the truth. Their argument is, usually, “I was not there” or “I had nothing to do with it”. However, they are very comfortable with being the beneficiaries of the atrocities that lead to their belief that entitlement is their God given right under the constitution they so often speak, which by the way declares people of color three/fifths human.

Because of Caribou Barbie’s continued insane comments, and others, attacking the first family I was compelled to offer this “Thought Provoking Perspective” because of what I view as the need for moral growth. The place that they, the Tea Baggers, the Grand Ol Party, and the Republicans want to take us back to does not hold that “Mystical Wonderfulness” that I or most people of color want to return too.

This brings to mind a most ridiculous comment I read in the Washington Post Sunday that basically said; what are African Americans complaining about concerning an article in which the author said on his first trip to Washington he recalled seeing signs that said “Colored Only”. Yes, in the Capital City of America, and let me add that it was about a generation ago. I thought the statement was an anomaly, maybe even quixotic. Obviously, this guy was not one the signs were speaking to.

In this guy’s confused rant, he asked, referring to the “Mystical Wonderfulness of America”; was Brown v Board of Education a mystical? Was the Voting Rights Act or Civil Rights laws mystical? Then came the elephant in the room, what about “Affirmative Action”? These might sound like reasonable questions, to the ill informed, but let’s put them into context.

First, did he know that after the wretched schemes and policies to deny African Americans the right to an education the Supreme Court decided that “Separate but Equal” was unfair. But what he, they, and most people don’t realize that after the decision was rendered it took 13 years before integration became a reality. It also took three Supreme Court cases to do it. I’d say that’s “Mystical”.

Secondly, the “Voting Rights Act” and the “Civil Rights Act” came about after they were partially granted after the Civil War, then taken away after Reconstruction, it took nearly 100 years for African Americans to be able to vote or use any public accommodations with white people. This is also to include the kind of oppression mandated by American law that was far worse than the modern era of apartheid in the 1990’s. Yeah, sounds “Mystical”.

Finally, the red herring, Affirmative Action. Well that attempt to redress past wrongs was the biggest farce known to man. The so called Affirmative Action policy was never intended to address the wrongs or as Dr. King said to repay the bad check that America rendered unfulfilled. It was suppose to direct 10% of business, give us an opportunity to be hired, and to level (somewhat) the playing field – it did no such thing. What it did was create a new word in our lexicon “reverse racism”, which in most cases the courts agree. So “Mystical” is an interesting word to use or as Brother Malcolm would say “hoodwinked”.

These views are straight out of that old “States Rights” playbook used by the demagogues whose descent into amnesia, refusal to face the truth or use their message to intentional misrepresentation history. Frankly, these malicious untruths are insulting to anyone who has read a book. What is scarier is that the GOP has begun its accent to power and Caribou Barbie has aspirations of being the President.
Let me propose this thought; African American people are the only ethnic group, other than the American Indian, who has been in America consistently and longer. Most of the British who settled left, most other ethnic groups came after the forced migration of Africans.

So my question is who’s the “Real American”?

Back to the Future

The insight of history is a powerful thing and I have lived long enough to have had the opportunity to witness many things. I can remember watching the KKK marching through the rural area where I lived as a small boy carrying crosses. I have also seen those strains of thinking espoused by the John Birch Society, the religious right, compassionate conservatives, and other right-wing groups during the segregated days of 1950s and 60s. Today there is a new repackaged conservatism that is a diverse movement with many philosophical threads and tensions who call themselves the Tea Party.

In my view, the rise of the Tea Party movement is nothing more than a throwback to an old form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies that government has undertaken since Roosevelt as unconstitutional, to include many civil rights initiatives. The reason, I believe is because from that point in our country’s history the government became socially conscience and began to address the needs of the elderly, the poor, and the least of thee. This element of society typically perceives these issues as dangerous threats to freedom and to the well-educated elitists that support "American values" or as they say the “Real Americans”.

Let me be a critic for a moment. These compassionate folks tend to show their compassion, often times, in support of big-business with their public rhetoric intended for their own self-serving agendas. For example, last week Rep. Joe Barton apologized to BP as if they were the victims of what is happening in the gulf. While basically calling the President a thug with the "shakedown" comment of the company for $20 billion on behalf of those hurt by the gulf oil spill. This is embarrassing precisely because it underscored how far this element is to the extreme as it relates to mainstream America. When faced with a choice between supporting a large British corporation or a federal government battling for compensation of the disaster's victims, Barton sided with Big Oil as did many of his conservative counterparts.

Now, the guy did or was forced to apologize because of pressure from other Republican leaders, but many in the party and on the right continue to echo his views. Like the Republican Study Committee made up of more than 115 House conservatives called the escrow fund a “Chicago-style shakedown” while leaders of certain factions of the Tea Party called it “extortion”. Could it be that the stock they may have in such companies really be the reason for their greater concern.

A group called Tea Party Patriots that describes itself as "a community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!" Tea Party Nation says it is "a user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers." My question is to them; have they read the original Constitution? These Founding Fathers were really terrorists and the same men who owned slaves, wrote in it that Negroes were 3/5th a man, and denied women all rights. Is this what they want to go back too?

What's remarkable is the extent to which the movement has displaced the religious right as the dominant voice of conservative militancy. The religious conservatives have not disappeared, and Palin, a Tea Party hero, does share their views on abortion and gay marriage. But these issues have been overshadowed by the broader anti-government themes pushed by the New Old Right, and the "compassionate conservatism" that inspires parts of the Christian political movement has no place in the right's current order of battle. This seems un-American to me, dangerous, and frankly resurrecting an American that even they want to forget.

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HOW DOES CARABOU BARBIE SLEEP?

Since this woman was plucked from obscurity to be John McCain’s Republican vice presidential running mate she has complained about the "lamestream media" relentlessly. I wonder if it has dawned on her that she might be lame. I suppose it is not her fault that she was woefully unprepared to be McCain’s nominee or knows much about any of the complex issues facing the rest of us who live in the real world.

However, it is her unwillingness to state the facts correctly, then or now, that astounds me. Her self-appointed grandiose as the darling of the “Tea Baggers” movement, and dare I say, an ideology that is just a step away from the Klan, that shocks me and her vision of reality is dangerous not to mention antiquated. The days of “Whites Only” signs may be alluring to some, but I have seen them and trust me there is nothing appealing about that sort of intimidation.

There use to be a worst than Jerry Springer Show on television many years ago hosted by this guy Morton Downey Jr. who use to call this kind of nonsense “PABLUM PUKE”. I’ll simply call it speaking with fork tongue. The reason that I am rendering this commentary is because of Barbie’s recent Palinesque backward thinking comments concerning follow Tea Bagger and Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul. She was asked this straightforward question put to her during a Fox interview that troubles me: Was Paul right or wrong in his view that the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far in banning discrimination in private establishments?

She responded this way:"I think there is certainly a double standard at play here. When Rand Paul had anticipated that he'd be able to engage in a discussion, he being a libertarian-leaning constitutional conservative, being able to engage in a discussion with a TV character, a media personality, who perhaps had an agenda in asking the question and then interpreting his answer the way that she did, he wanted to talk about, evidently, some hypotheticals as it applies to impacts on the Civil Rights Act, as it impacts our Constitution. So he was given the opportunity finally to clarify, and unequivocally he has stated that he supports the Civil Rights Act."

I saw the chilling interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and other interviewers, and they did not ask Paul about "hypotheticals." They asked whether he supported prohibiting private business owners from keeping blacks off their premises. Paul said he "would have tried to modify" the public accommodations part of the law and that “when you blur the distinction between public and private ownership, there really is a problem.” Paul had every chance to clarify in real time and he didn't. Let me add, when any sane person living in this century questions the Civil Rights Act or suggest a return to “Jim Crow” - we should question their motives. By the way, if you did not know, the Klan was formed in Kentucky after the Civil War to retain that slavery like ideal, which might have something to do with it.

Then there was CARABOU BARBIE’s best defense concerning what I think is an untrue-offense response to questions about the oil spill in the Gulf to which the "drill, baby, drill" cheerleader suggests that the president is on the take from Big Oil:

"The oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now -- I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration. If there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."

Did she say “complexity”? The complex part - “complexity” - is that she actually had the nerve to say something like that considering her sorted history. The Obama remark is just one instances where she has said things that were untrue, not accurate, fictitious, or just plain lies. At least according to public campaign finance records that says; it was her camp who took more money from Big Oil. With respect to her response to Paul’s comment, when someone suggests returning to the days of “Bull Connor, Birmingham, or Selma – I just have to ask “how do they sleep at night”. Frankly, it sounds bigoted and racist to me.
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“The John T. Wills Chronicles” designed to be a potent source of empowering knowledge for the enhancement of community and to PROMOTE LITERACY. I will be using this online information source as the new home for my blog “Thought Provoking Perspectives”. http://johntwillschronicles.com

I'm “Going Rouge”

I thought about writing this piece a while ago but wondered if it was really worth the words. Then I said, well why not. Words are powerful and capable of creating images that can often create an illusion. That is exactly what I discovered during my cursory review of the book written by someone for the quitter - “Caribou Barbie”. Our freedom of speech affords everyone the right to say whatever they want, within reason - of course. The right-wingers have reacted to this book as if it was the Bible. Liberals find it more in line with creative fiction or a vengeful attempt to place blame on everyone for everything but the author. I would fall in the group who has a perception of reality.

I was in Wal-Mart standing at the counter, you know, where they keep all of the tabloid papers. The book caught my attention and to my surprise there it was at the unbelievable low- low price of $4.00 reduced from twenty-four dollars. No wonder it is a runaway best seller. I must say I personally don’t put much creditability in her mainly because she is (wink) one of those “Real American’s”. As an African America I know that is a buzz word akin to supremacy and oftentimes what comes with, I will use a Native American phrase, “they speaks with fork tongue” willing to say anything regardless of its merit. However, as a talking head what she says is comical and very entertaining.

Aside from all the other nonsense we know about her – SNL, the interviews, and being devoid of facts. I was glad to read where she said she has not ruled out a third party bid for the 2012 election. Despite what is predicted (according to the movie) to happen in 2012, which I suppose means - if she wins. I for one support her in this independent bid, if we can believe it, to challenge President Obama. This would be great – not the part about the world coming to an end.

I guess what I am saying regardless of her positions and all the wining she does in the book, and there is a lot of it, which seemed at times too outrageous for her to believe. I am reminded of this quote: “Pundits seemed to assume that I was thinking only of my future on the national stage (YEAH). And no matter how many times and in how many ways I repeated that Alaska came first (BUT SHE QUIT), the opposition interpreted every position I took through the prism of my supposed "national ambitions" (BUT SHE HAS A TOUR BUS TOURING THE COUNTRY). Hmmm.

Like I said in the beginning, this topic is really not worth the words nor do I feel the book is worth $4.00 and surely not a President Palin ...

JUST A SEASON