Rush Limbaugh’s NFL Gambit; What’s Really Going On?

There has been a lot of ink, most of it male and liberal and white, about Rush Limbaugh’s failed attempt at becoming a National Football League franchise owner. Though I agree with many of the commentaries and critiques I think they are missing the point in all of this. Like this piece by Dave Zirin breaking down what he calls Limbaugh’s ‘defeat’ at the hands of Limbaugh’s “compadres on the right”. True, but I smell a rat. While I don’t agree with Limbaugh and the point of view he advocates, it doesn’t sound as if he is an unintelligent man. Despicable? Yes. But he’s not stupid. He had to know this NFL franchise ownership thing wouldn’t go. He didn’t actually lose any money in this scheme and his ratings will go up at least temporarily from it for sure. So what is really going on here?

Rush Limbaugh knew this deal would fall through, as it has. And this scheme fits right in perfectly with the way the ruling class handles the right wing populace of the United States. Constant victimization by liberals/nonwhites/feminists, you get the picture. Limbaugh knew this would be shot down and then he would turn around and… Well, he doesn’t have to actually say anything much. The right wing impulse to search for an angle of victimization runs deep enough that the script already runs inside their heads. This kind of stirring up of the right wing base is what the endless so-called fight to end abortion is all about, the ten commandments in public buildings and things like that. Fights that will last forever and keep alive the idea of being oppressed and victimized by various groups even as the right wing consolidates more and more national and international power. Forever a victim.

I see this as a particularly dangerous moment. Perhaps not but it does seem to signal a shift in the scale of gimmicks and tactics employed by the right wing in stirring up their people. Sports is a very large stage for sociopolitical messaging. And the NFL is the largest of the Big 3 pro sports messaging vehicles. I guess we will see how this continues to unfold but it doesn’t add up to me that this was a misstep by Limbaugh, that he didn’t predict the pushback and striking down of this effort. These things were certainties.

White supremacy, always the prime political mover in this country, has been on the upswing in the United States since the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama gained momentum. It continues to arc upwards and this Limbaugh stunt just appears to be another episode in what may turn out to be a particularly sordid, and maybe violent, chapter in this country’s white supremacist history.

Republican Healthcare Disruptions Working

CNN and the entire network of corporate news outfits are all talking about the Republican effort to disrupt the so-called healthcare town hall meetings. There is a lot not understood about this effort.

First off, this isn’t about Obama’s plan. This is all about single payer healthcare and finding ways to keep it off the table. The first strategy was to simply ignore those in favor of single payer and in left opposition to Obama’public option plan. But the single payer activists made enough noise and managed to get enough support in the House of Representatives that the ignorning tactic wasn’t going to work. Now we are looking at the second act of a plan designed to keep single payer off the menu.

The US population want’s healthcare reform. When polled, one discovers, unsurprisingly, that we also want single payer healthcare reform. Therefore the choice has to be removed from the table where it has been presented and hidden from the view of those who don’t yet know about it. To achieve this, we are seeing a tactic we should get used to: loud racist attack from the right wing, followed by tenacious defensive response from the liberals. All accompanied by around the clock TV/radio/internet coverage. All working to keep the attention of viewers/listeners/readers focused on the ‘main event’ and keeping activists feeling that there duty is to battle racist conservatives. This is the first time we’ve seen this regarding a major policy initiative since Obama was elected but not the first time this strategy has been deployed. The first instance was the 2008 presidential campaign.

Last year when Obama was backing off all the promises and positions that allowed him to gather speed and momentum as a contender he began getting significant pressure from McKinney voters and former supporters of Dennis Kucinich. When this pressure, like the single payer pressure, became too much to simply ignore, out came the racist canards from first the Clintons then the McCain campaign. The intention was the same in both cases-to decrease support for left pressure and redirect it towards defending against racist attack. This is what we are seeing now with the Republican townhall meeting disruptions CNN is so eager to cover everyday.

White liberals elected Obama because he was better than the Republican alternative. But the selected Obama over Clinton because of their racial insecurities. It is these insecurities that will be exploited to push back against left opposition for the next three and a half years of this administration. If not longer.

The US must find a way to counter this strategy or it will see nothing come of healthcare reform, the Employee Free Choice Act or any legislation we hope to affect progressively.

Israel Is Burying Children Alive: Obama’s Response? ‘No Comment’

I am ready to die 100 times to bring back my daughters.

I am amazed that Anwar Balousha can even muster the courage to speak those words.  In just a couple of minutes yesterday, Israel killed his five daughters.  The three day death toll of Israel’s seige of Gaza neighborhoods stands officially at 364 this morning according to the WaPo.  I have nothing significant to say and this post is really only to feel like I’m not just standing around doing nothing, which is what I am doing and what I will continue to do.  War is being waged on my brothers and sisters and I sit here behind enemy lines, at a keyboard, in pain.  Impotent.  All I will do is say that it is wrong.  I won’t walk into the Israeli consulate and open fire on those who respresent and protect the killers.  I won’t even throw a rock through the window of their tony offices.  I surely have more power than I pretend to not have.  I could get press when they hauled me away to jail.  The peace movement, surely the only thing more impotent than myself, would denounce me.  I would probably lose a job I’m going to be laid off from anyhow.  But I won’t do anything.

I am afraid.

So I sit here in digital solidarity with so many others around the world protesting rhetorically.  Saying what everyone knows.  Israel is fascist.   Israel is killing our children.  Our voices pale so in comparison to the one who could lend so much assistance to the dying in Gaza.  But on this question, like many others to come for sure, Barack Hussein Obama has failed and continues to fail.  When asked for his take on the situation, his response is swift and ready.  “There is only one president at a time” comes spinning out of his mouth with the same calculated deliberation as the missile that spun to rest on the home of Anwar Balousha.  In macabre silence, president-elect Barack Obama stands with the killers of Zion as they target and kill police officers, eight university students yesterday.

Because it is so little, because people are dying while I sit here, half dressed, typing I am embarrassed.  If nothing else I can say, I must say, as a citizen of the US south, as a man of African descent, that Barack Obama is a fraud.  Like those before him, he’s a killer.  He is soon to be President of the United States which a  longer than necessary synonmy for fraud and murder, for genocide, for capitalism, for callousness.   Barack Obama is not Black.  He’s an embarrassment to humanity.  Not unlike or more so than those preceding him, but along with them.  Obama is not Black.  He’s disgusting.  Obama isn’t Black.  He’s the President.  The distinction apparently needs to be made.

Of course there are those out there that, while US bombs explode in the faces of  Palestinian college students and grandmothers, we must give him a chance.  It is time for you silly people to grow up.  Obama could save lives without speaking a word.  With an email, with a press release, the killing would end immediately.  But he won’t do this and besides repeating the line of the media, Hamas this or that, he won’t even say why.  If you understand how the world works in this regard, then you know why he won’t say.  If you don’t understand, you’ll say give him a chance or something else to prove your ignorance.  I am not a fool.  I’m a coward.  Or maybe, as my country marches deeper and deeper into fascism, my refusal to put my body and life on the line for Palestinian children may prove foolishness in the end when I, too, end up in a prison like Gaza.  Or maybe worse.  It’ll be too late then, of course.  And I won’t even have wordpress to make me feel better about how little I did to stop the killing of the US and by extension, Israel.

What would I do if I were Anwar Balousha?  I have no real illusions about what a rock through a window of the Atlanta Israeli consulate will accomplish.  I still can’t help but wonder if fear isn’t the foundation of the logic of my inaction.

Jilted Workers Takeover Chicago Factory: Obama Says They ‘are absolutely right’

For many of us who have been less than enthusiastic about the possibilities of a Black representative of the empire known as the USA, Barack Obama’s endorsement of the actions of the workers at Republic Windows and Doors may come as something of a surprise.  I don’t think it should.  Even though Obama was bankrolled by Wall Street, publicizes his plans to expand the War On Terror, and wholeheartedly endorsed the no-strings billions for the banks in his run-up to being elected, now that the election has passed we should all be prepared to embrace the reality of an Obama presidency.

On the one hand, we will see the lion’s share of the checks he wrote during the campaign bounce higher than Kurt Cobaine.  On the other hand, in a period such as the one we are in and with things slated to get worse in ’09, Obama can’t, at least this early on, dismiss or even demure from taking a stand for the plight of workers.  More importantly, his endorsement is about credibility in a period when institutional credibility is low and likely to sink much lower.

Obama (the ruling interests he represents) and the corporate media, at this point in time, can ill-afford to be seen as dismissive of the plight of workers.

1) The media is seen, correctly, as having missed the boat many times this year, with repeated pronouncements that things were okay right before major banks died.   The things they trust so dearly, opinion polls, are indicating that people don’t trust them the way they used to.  With the pain coming in ’09, this is a problem that must be attended to immediately.

2) Obama is going to make extraordinary requests of the American people in the next year.  He can’t afford to expend capital dissing workers who complain about blank paychecks before he is even sworn in.

3) Control in an ostensibly democratic society hinges on public opinion which is synonymous, in terms of power, with institutional credibility.  The office of the president is a major institution in our system of beliefs.  Another institution suffering from a significant credibility deficit is the media, which has deviated from its norm and is giving the Chicago factory occupation story ample coverage almost universally with positive spin.

The major internet portals like comcast and Yahoo! can serve as barometers for the mood of the ruling class message.  Dependably offering up reports on the latest person to get hit in the head with a manhole cover followed by celeb updates, these pages are directed at the masses of viewers, not news junkies.  What one finds on these pages is distracting BS and the public line on major issues.  When stories like Chicago, almost always dismissed by corporate media, are embraced positively by corporate news managers, the decision is often linked to institutional credibility or specific propaganda messaging needs or both.

Here it is both.  Credibility is vital for what is to come next year.  But not only that.  The system is not only suffering from being not being believed.  But it is increasingly seen as ruthless and uncaring about anyone other than the rich.  Focusing positively on small examples like Chicago functions as a facelift for this institutional PR blemish.  As opposed to focusing on the much larger and far more significant broad problems of home foreclosures, wages and poverty generally, small highlighted examples such as this can be cost-effective ways for the rulers to appear human.

This isn’t all bad, of course.  If workers receive some compensation and are more secure and stable because of it, that is a step in the right direction.  Capitalizing on this moment to enable more advances and wins by workers is where the value lies in this moment, as with many similiar instanceances that have come before now.  That is the challenge.  And we mustn’t become distracted by teasing and tickling from Obama or corporate news.

Obama Administration To Enter With A ‘Bang’

That apparently means reneging on yet more campaign promises.  This ones a doozy for ‘the people’.

Bush’s tax cuts for the rich…Obama will now defend them.

Please Don’t Stop The Music

It’s been goin on two weeks since ‘change happened’ and while folks aren’t popping shots into the sky and dancing in the streets like they were Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, white and Black liberal types and the mostly white liberal sector of the antiwar movement are still jigglin to the beat.  Forget Fiddy and The Game, wax gangstas all of ’em.  The gangstas in DC are currently being replaced by the new don and his crew of gangstas.  It’s ironic how kids are get bum-rushed by white and Black parents alike who want to know why they listen to music that says such horrible things.  It’s ironic cuz the parents of these urban and suburban hip-hop heads who maintain a steady diet of fake gangsta rap, their parents are in love with the real thing.

This time the papers didn’t lie.  Change did come.  The Obama gangsters debut release looks like it will be much harder than the Bush Boys’.  Like their kids, the liberals aren’t listening to the lyrics, just dancing to the beat.

In the past week and a half, Obama has brought in Rahm Emmanuel, Lawrence Summers (the Harvard prez who thought women’s brains were too small to do math and science), Eric Holder, looks like Hillary Clinton will be the foreign policy rep and Obama’s intelligence transition team is composed of CIA spooks who pushed for torture, invasion and have a hard-on for tapping folks’ phones.  All this done with just a week of being prez-elect.  What will Obama do when he’s actually in office?  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Meanwhile the folks over at Dailykos, DemocraticUnderground, Bartcop, Buzzflash and other liberal nightclubs are shaking their asses off to this stuff.  Ask them what they think about Obama’s love for hardcore Zionists, war-hawks and prison industrial complex hangers on and they say to you the same thing their kids say to them; I like the beat.  No one seems to know (even though it’s all on the front pages of even the biggest fishwrappers) or care about what President-Elect Obama’s lyrics seem to be screaming with his new roster of goblins.  This album promises to be nastier than anything Luke ever put out, harder than E’s, Dre’s and Cube’s rawest shit, scarier than Bushwick Bill’s best stuff.

Will liberals stand still long enough to listen to what the gangstas are screaming?  Is it too late in the night for that?  Are they too drunk off the power of their ‘win’?  I guess we’ll see.  Either way, the hangover from this night out will be one they won’t soon forget.  Hopefully.  And what of the Left?  When the libs wake up from the long night out with a hangover and crackers in their eyes will their be anywhere to go sober up?  I predict that it won’t be sooner than many think before the bar closes, dancing stops, hangovers hit and pots of hot reality java will be the order of the day.  The question is will they be takin the forty weight to-go, back to the streets or will the coffee shop be full of a new wave of radicals?

BREAKING THE SILENCE: Fulfilling The Promise

Update 11/13/2008:

“What Good is a Song”, a public affairs broadcast of WRFG-FM- 89.3 FM will feature
Dr. Marimba Ani, Afrikan Scholar, Warrior Woman, and Author , on the “Friday Night Drum Report”., November 14, 2008 @ 6:00pm- 7:30pm

Call-in @ 404/523-8989 or on-line @ http://www.wrfg.org
From my very serious sister, Marimba. On this historic day, digest slowly please.

BREAKING THE SILENCE: Fulfilling The Promise

by Marimba Ani

Amura Onaa tells us that when our Ancestors were being torn apart from each other, we looked into each other’s eyes and made a solemn promise. We promised to reconnect with each other so that this tearing apart would never happen again. It is the Afrikan belief that we are our Ancestors reborn, and through this spiritual rebirth, we gain eternal life. The promise could only be fulfilled by future generations returning as Afrikans who had made this sacred promise to each other. What our Ancestors suffered over centuries, could only have been survived because they had hope. But what could possibly have given them cause for hope? If they had not survived and bore children who bore children who bore children, we would not be here. It is the Afrikan belief that we choose to be born when we are in the spirit world, and that we make a contract to fulfill a purpose in this life. All of this can only mean that we have chosen to be born Afrikan and that we are the hope of our Ancestors. Our purpose on this earth is to avenge our Ancestors and to achieve the victory: Afrikan sovereignty through a Pan-Afrikan world order based on the principles of MAAT. It is our choice to fulfill The Promise to our Ancestors by achieving the victory denied them.



It is now Tuesday, November 4, 2008. Is this the final act of assimilation, accommodation, and integration? Is this how we are fulfilling our promise to the Ancestors? Has America made restitution for what was done to them, still being done to us? Is the Maafa over or has it merely morphed into another, more insidious form of genocide? Are we now experiencing a life-threatening condition of cultural AIDS in which our immune system has turned on itself? Has the Yurugu virus mutated so that it looks like us? Are we participating in our own self-destruction?



We are witnessing a time of the most blatant acts of genocide such as “Katrina” (Maafa – 2005), in which thousands of our people were slaughtered, left to die, placed in disease-producing holding pens, forcibly relocated, separated from their families and support-systems, and their (our) children “lost”, all this for the purpose of corporate profit and for the illegal misappropriation of land.



In our time, Afrikan mothers are being incarcerated in increasing numbers, so that their presence in the u.s. prison system almost equals that of Afrikan men and fathers, who have, for more than a century, been sacrificed to the prison-industrial complex.



We are living in the time of Blackwater, mercenaries used by government and corporations. We are living in the time of American support of European Hegemony taken to the most extreme levels ever in history. We watch as America’s bank, the so-called “world bank,” sucks the life out of Afrika, Jamaica and other Black nations. We are living in the time of the IMF, the Federal Reserve, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers and more.



The Patriot Act is an updated McCarran Act of 1950. We are living in a time that can be understood as part of “the process of Fascism”. Fascism creates a demon, sells this demonization to the public, then uses it to control (intimidate, detain, torture, kill) anyone who challenges the state’s abuse of human rights. In the l950’s the demons were the “subversives,” and the “communists” ´throughout the “cold war,” in 1968, following the assassination of Dr. King, the demons were those suspected of being “guerrillas”, and by 2001 the term “terrorists” had been accepted as describing the new “demons.” Should we allow the original, the real terrorists to define “terrorism” ?



This brief statement is only meant to point to the reality of the times in which we live, the political legacy that we have inherited as “americans,” and what we need to be aware of at this “historic” moment. In the 1960’s, our people were regarded by the rest of the world as leaders in the struggle for human rights as we fought to expose and confront the genocidal policies perpetrated by the american government towards Afrikan people in the u.s.



We stopped organizing. We stopped confronting “the system.” We became part of “the system.” We sent our sons to fight for u.s. monetary gain. We did not see value in self-determination, self-definition, and self-reliance for our people. Those who were politically conscious read and talked about ancient history. We no longer concerned ourselves with contemporary events, systems, or political realities. Instead of expanding our movement to become a world movement, a truly Pan-Afrikan movement, we were content to become “individuals” in the “greatest” (most materially powerful) country in the world.



So now we are “making history” by being swept up in someone else’s definition of what history is. We are “making history,” by capitulating to integration, accommodation, and assimilation. We have reached the mountain top, for we have been able to vote for a “first to.” The struggle is over. We have won. We can proudly say that one of our people represents the most repressive, destructive, inhumane, anti-Afrikan nation ever to have existed! We are proud to be part of a multinational corporate structure run by sociopathic adolescents who think nothing of stealing from their own people. (Imagine what they will do to us.)



We say that we vote because our Ancestors died to get the vote. Yes, if you decide to vote, that is your “right.” Do not, however, blame it on “the Ancestors.” That’s like saying Black people died to go to school with white people, so I will make sure that my children go to white schools. I have a personal experience of that Movement. Registering to vote in Mississippi was a means of confronting a system of oppression head on. Today we vote to avoid confrontation with a system that is Fascist. In Mississippi, attempting to register, meant putting your life on the line, if you were Black. This effort became part of a strategy to expose the system of oppression that existed in this country, which continues to exist even though we, Black people, can now “vote” (even in Mississippi). No, that is not what our Ancestors died for. They died to fulfill The Promise. And that is the question that we should raise. “What are we doing to fulfill The Promise?”



Is this occasion “historic” because it represents the abandonment of our sacred obligation to the Ancestors? Will we go down in “his” story as having finally capitulated and become satisfied with the evil that is represented in contemporary globalization, privatization and international capitalism? Have we aborted our movement for freedom, liberation and sovereignty? Or have we merely redefined that objective in “american” individualistic, “what’s in it for me” terms? Have we now “won”? Or have we simply taken the easier road, finding it more comfortable to be colonized than to fight for liberation? Are we excited about the possibility of being closer to power than we have ever been beforeS, even though that power rests on the exploitation, even murder, of Afrikans and other non-Europeans throughout the world? Have we even dared to ask ourselves “what kind of person would want to be president of the United States of America?”



What is the significance of this moment, Tuesday, November 4, 2008, in “our” story?



Let us make this a time for reassessment of our lives, each of us. Let us reconnect with each other in ways that will help our people to become self-sustaining. Let us read and study and become aware of what this country stands for in the world. Let us teach and learn about the monetary system.



Organize, Organize, Organize!
Food cooperatives,
Investment groups
Independent Afrikan schools
Alternative sustainable energy
Communal and collective social entities
Susus (saving together)
Vehicles for harnessing and sharing our resources
Ways of educating ourselves for optimal healthy living
Methods for alternative social organization
The study of ways in which our Ancestors organized communities, so that we can get ideas for the future (doing Sankofa)
Black political conventions
An independent Afrikan/Black vehicle for political action and race (Kanda) decision-making
A Back-to-Afrika process.





We must read the following:



Blueprint for Black Power (Amos Wilson) (especially chapter 31)

The Choice (Sam Yette)

There is A River (Vincent Harding)

The condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States of America (Martin Delany

The Miseducation of the Negro (Carter G. Woodson)

The Destruction of Black Civilization (Chancellor Williams)

Two Thousand Seasons (Ayi Kwei Armah)

Wretched of the Earth (Franz Fanon)



By Europeans:

The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)



And watch:



Goodbye Uncle Tom

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist Addendum

End Games

Loose Change

The Corporation

(pass this on and add suggestions)



Go to:

http://www.libradio.com

http://www.blackagendareport.com

http://www.houseofknowledge.com





Let this be a beginning again for us. Let us have the courage of Martin Delany and others, who organized the Black Convention Movement, and sought Afrikan sovereignty in the 1850’s. Let us recapture the spirit of the 60’s, with its “togetherness” of our people, only now with greater clarity about what we want. Let us revive the independent political party movement of the early 70’s (NBIP and CAP), when our people came together in activism in Gary, Indiana and elsewhere. Let us organize with our people, out of love for our people. Let us build a movement without hierarchy among the most economically depressed of our people; a movement that will be responsive to the immediate survival needs of our people, while raising the political consciousness and knowledge-base of us all. Let us study together and build together and fight together and teach each other. Let us build a revolutionary Pan-Afrikanist movement of all of our people, so that we can hold any and all elected officials accountable for their decisions and actions. Let us be in the vanguard of the movement for radical upheaval of the american reality. Let us organize a support system for the Katrina resistors. Let us not forget them. Let us organize sustainable struggle and self-sustaining institutions that can protect our people from the intentional “disasters” of monopoly capitalism, and save them in the natural disasters caused by the greed and selfishness of the rulers.



Let this be the moment in which we step back onto the stage of history, shouting ourstory to the world. “We are not capitulating.” “We are not allowing ourselves to be part of a Fascist nation.” We are not giving up our people, our movement, or our Ancestors for “one america.” Let us be unrelenting in our confrontation with the anti-Afrikan, anti-human mechanisms of oppression.



Never forget that our power is in our connectedness. If they did not succeed in disconnecting us through the middle passage, through enslavement and lynching and incarceration, let them not succeed now through the duplicity of false “democracy.”

Let us not believe the hype. This is not our victory. This “historic occasion” is a victory for america, it is a victory for the status quo, for all of the things that we should be fighting against. Be in Washington DC in January to make demands on the new administration. If you voted for it, make it work for you!



Let us make this a time for real change, a time for fulfilling The Promise. Tugane pamoja tutafune nia yetu. “Let us come together and define our cause.” Let the circle be unbroken.



Marimba Ani,

A Race Woman, A Cultural Warrior.

Election Day

Today is a big day here in Georgia for liberals. I don’t think conservative folks really think there is much of a chance of their candidates, McCain and Palin, makin it into the White House but Obama supporters seem upbeat. And, according to the polls, for good reason. By almost every polling indication it seems that McCain needs at least a 5% swing between him and Obama in order to win. I’m not a big fan of polls as they seem designed to coerce opinion rather than reflect it. But they are usually pretty accurate. No poll being run on McCain-Obama has a 5% margin of error so a McCain victory seems highly unlikely.

I called and emailed a few friends about what they were doing this evening while the results from the day came in. To be specific, I asked them what they were doing/where they were going to watch the circus. Down to the individual, my Black friends laughed and offered fun suggestions, my white friends got upset, calling me a nihilist and cynical. I was confused after receiving the first response like this from a white friend. After the second one, I was up to speed and remembering something I’d somehow forgotten over the past couple days, the racial realities of this election. The reactions to my calls and emails reminded me that white folks, white liberals or as many of my white friends refer to themselves, progressives, this election represents a lot more than even the ‘change’ promised by the Obama campaign. For them, this election represents racial redemption and a deep, deep affirmation of their liberal perspective. A perspective that so fiercely (desperately?) wants to believe what it tells itself and others. That this system works. Specifically around the notion of racial progress. They want to believe that the system of the United States is self-correcting. They want to believe this because of two things. One, they understand that things are fucked up and have been for a long time. They understand that they, as whites, benefit from this fucked up situation. So for the sake of their consciousness and the maintanence of their psyches, they need for this situation to be altered. That’s the first foundational pillar of their intense need to believe that they live in a self-correcting system in which a person from a historically oppressed group can rise to the ‘highest office in the land’. The second reason my white friends are so irrational about this election is connected to the first reason but different. They want, no, they need an alteration of the injustice they perceive in the society but the problem comes in that they don’t want to actually stand up and do much about it. They want it to happen but they don’t want to have to do it. Building a movement requires work. Years, decades of work. A campaign requires a headquarters, 18 months and a lot of money from Wall Street. Reforms can be won and lost. Revolution of the system is what is needed. A movement can force fundamental change in power relations, a revolution. But, and of course, this is terribly difficult, sacrificing work that is also extremely rewarding. A campaign is easier but also can’t bring about revolutionary change.

The promise of Obama represents a psychic relief for my white friends (and some of my Black friends but obviously in a totally different way), and for the white population generally, that they need desperately. Thinking about this when the Obama campaign became popular last year, I knew he would eventually be the POTUS. But having insulated myself from TV and the noise of the campaign generally, I forgot what I should expect when talking to my white friends about this election.

While I can’t take, Obama and this election seriously, my white friends can’t do anything but take it completely seriously. And they can’t but take my dismissal of it as the most foolhardy insult imaginable.  I just hope that a few hours from now, when the Obama campaign is officially concluded, that I can have my white friends back. Hopefully for good.

The Heart of Pop Politics

I came across this story on Daily Kos and I believe it comes close to epitomizing, quickly summing up how centrist, liberal thinking US citz understand and mentally approach political life.

O! That’s Lovely.

It’s an ‘analysis’ of the creative genius of the Obama logo. The post has hundreds of written responses, indicating that it was read by tens of thousands. The post doesn’t surprise as this is the kind of discussion I find to be popular in liberal and ‘progressive’ circles. This conception of politics, who can come up with the most clever trick, is depressingly demoralizing. It assumes people have no real ability to discern their interests and must be lured into one camp or another with patriotic colors and other indirect gimmicky appeals. Being good at this game will gain you instant rockstar status with a significant layer of progressive, usually white, Democrats. The flipside to this love of logos and gimmicks seems to be a subtle but powerful disdain for face to face contact with those most affected by the issues progressives champion. Poor and people of color are, of course, the least likely to be taken in by gimmicky campaign logos and slogans because they are the demographic least likely to read political magazines, newspapers and political teevee, thereby giving them the least exposure to these kinds of propaganda.

It’s ironic that in a campaign constantly evoking hope, this kind of politics is about the polar opposite of hope. This pop politics is based on the belief and understanding that all real hope is lost. The only refuge for change is a battle of gimmicks, tricks and various mind games. Without these logos, gimmicks and other kinds of manipulation and coercion who knows what political decisions people might make. They can’t be trusted.

All these factors add up to a kind of pop politics that speaks to a slim layer of progressive, almost all white, relatively affluent voters that spend a lot of time online campaigning amongst themselves. The majority of people, again the poor and people of color, who stand to benefit most from progressive political policy reside outside the sphere of influence of this brand of politics. But this isn’t a problem because this kind of politics doesn’t exist for the purpose of progressive political change but rather acts as a psychological salve designed to keep it’s target audience away from emotional depression by ensuring that they are busy and engaged with each other in the virtual world. As opposed to getting involved with their poorer neighbors and neighbors of color. Not that they are or would be clamoring to do this only obstructed by the distracting nature of pop politics. Of course they don’t want to talk to poor folks, black and brown folks. And this brand of online gimmicky politics provides them with a whole matrix of reasons and justifications not to.

‘The Economy’ Is Fine

IndyMac denies that it’s close to collapse.  That’s July 1st 2008.  Ten days later IndyMac closes it’s doors.  While this closure may not yet be emblematic of most banks, the underlying fundamentals on display in this instance have been the model for the US economy for a long time now. Even with the ‘credit crisis’ in 5th gear it is not yet chic to speak the truth about ‘our economy’.  That being that our economy isn’t really ours at all but theirs.  And their economy is less than a house of cards.  A house, even if it’s made of cards, is a real thing.  You might say that the US economy has been chugging along on speculative fumes for a long time now.  But even fumes are real.  There is nothing real about the financial world of make-believe that we call ‘the economy’ here in the US.  .

Confidence Is What’s Needed Now

Ben Bernanke - Free Market High Priest

When you hear so-called analysts explain that what we are facing here is a crisis of confidence–that should raise a flag.  A real economy has nothing to do with confidence.  Though the word has become near synonymous with US, and now global, economic problems, it is really still only a gambling term.  Having drank the Kool-Aid for such a long time now, you’ll hear this word thrown around, even on serious financial news programs.  The assumption, that belief and psychology of people are as legitimate as the value of real and actual work done by people, runs deep now and suggestions to the contrary produce blank stares from most.  And from a growing minority, the suggestion creates hostility.  Like an avid lottery player waking up from a dream in which he has finally won.  Coming to, he realizes his winnings were never real.  He would rather lie back down and close his eyes.  Attempt to kickstart his dream, interrupted.  Visibly unhappy with whatever sound woke him to begin with, he ignores it initially.  If the sounds won’t go away, he becomes angry.  This sound isn’t going away anytime soon.  The pitter patter of feet into banks.  Investors realizing the dream is winding down, desperate to not be the last one to wake.  Casinos aren’t economies.  They only manufacture dreams, hope, confidence.  If the marks don’t trust the dealer, the casino folds.  The confidence is almost gone.

Bailouts-They Can’t Work

Upstanding member of his community

As investors wake up and banks fold, followed by the corporations that rely on the casinos to keep them afloat with constant loans, people that actually work will be the ones that actually get fucked with rent due, hungry mouths, empty gas tanks, cold feet and no job.  The rulers are attempting to head off the popular backlash that will come from all of this with fake nationalisation plans that won’t work.  The rich are too afraid of what will happen, even with fake nationalisation, if the government (the poor) begins to even think it controls institutions like banks instead of the market (the rich) running things.  Not that the poor control the government.  Of course not.  But it is a lot more responsive than the market.  So many banks being under government control would be bad for the rich.  But since nothing else will save them at this point, they’ve gotta be slicker than ever in how they do this. It’s the morning of Tuesday the 15th of July 2008.  Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s stocks are down 20% on rumor mill that they are going to be taken over, by the US gov’t.  The broader problem exemplified here is that attempts by the rich to save their own asses using gov’t welfare have them caught in a Catch-22.  Corporate welfare bailouts save the money on a specific craps table but simultaneously undermines confidence in the integrity of the casino as a whole.  They can’t get out of this one with more of the same.  Something fundamentally different is going to have to happen.  The fundamentals of the casino economy have reached their limits.  The word is out that the casino can’t really pay.  The rich criminals need to cash out so that they can skip town now before the rabble outside the building figure out what’s goin down.

• Here is an explanation of how Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae/Farmer Mac were designed to work and what is happening to them right now.

Bush Tours The US

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

This is amusing but the aftertaste disappoints. The problem of course with bashing Bush and the Republicans is that the unstated implication is completely false, that the Democrats (and specifically Obama) will be better. Obama won’t be better. And beyond flowery rhetoric, Obama doesn’t even promise, with any specificity, to be better. Only different.

Rev. Wright Debacle Highlights White Racial Delusions

Finally. The delusion of white Amerikkka is becoming obvious for even the most intellectually stubborn spectators, whites, to see and understand. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one of the top rated Black preachers amongst Blacks in the US is laying bare, the repulsively deluded reality of race neutral politics as it is practiced by Obama or by anyone. The corporate press reflects and conditions white notions of reality as they pertain to race. The corporate press has villified and demonized Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In doing so, they have made a caricature of the views he extolls and represents in his speeches and sermons. Those views are the views of many if not most of Black America.

The campaign against Rev. Wright is therefore serving the same purpose, in this regard, as the Barack Obama presidential campaign. It stands to discredit the very legitimate political perspective and expression of Black people in the United States. This is not a new project. For decades, conservative and liberal forces have colluded towards the end of delegitimizing Black protest and Black oriented struggle by using slogans that Obama has decided to base his campaign on. Things like, there is only one America and as Obama specifically put it, “there is no white America, there is no black America”. Of course this is bullshit. Bullshit stated and repeated to appeal not to Blacks but whites.

Because of the legitimate struggle combined with the concessions made during the 60s by the establishment, whites can no longer en masse simply kill or torture large groups of unimprisoned Black people in this country when we make political grievances. Whites used to do just that when Black folks had the temerity to be so uppity as to protest or try to organize against the force of establishment white supremacy aligned against us. They still torture and kill those of us imprisoned. And on occassion they do the same to ‘free’ Blacks but no longer can they do it en masse as they used to. Therefore, the battle is fought on another plane. Since they cannot kill us, full spectrum informational and ideological white supremacy is deployed in the attempt to remove all legitimacy from claims firmly rooted in statistics and historical facts that aren’t disputed. The Barack Obama presidential candidacy and the Rev. Wright electronic lynching, specifically, are the latest installments of a decades long campaign that makes George Orwell look embarrassingly conservative. Not content with rewriting history but with the likes of the NYTimes, FoxNews, CNN and crazy local media across the country, this campaign doesn’t wait for history to happen but creates reality in real time.

The mass delusion currently afflicting white America encourages and craves the lies of Barack Obama and cannot accept the portrait painted by a Jeremiah Wright. Not even a Wright backed up by millions of real Blacks in this country. But that is the nature of delusion. It, and they, denies reality to the end.

Many Black folks rejected the candidacy of Barack Obama from the beginning, citing the common sense logic that he was brought unto the national stage by corporatists inside the Democratic Party and therefore would be controlled by corporatists and bound to corporate (read: white) logic. The minority of Black voices saying and writing this were hard to hear underneath the cheers of Black and guilty, liberal white voices. That was years ago. Now time has become short and the the corporate (read: white) logic of Barack Obama has come full circle and for lack of a better title, the endgame can be called Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Corporate (read: white) political logic employed by a aesthetically Black candidate can never end up anywhere but where we are now, the rejection of the reality of Black political opinion in this country. Race neutrality, colorblindness and whatever else one might call the rhetorical game that has become the politically acceptable expression of white supremacy and not surprisingly, the main pillar of the Barack Obama campaign, is a dead end for Black people. If it wasn’t obvious in the beginning of the campaign, it can’t be denied now.

I understand the hopes and dreams of the millions of Black folks with Obama dolls under their pillows. I do. But it was a raw deal from the get-go, people. And at this point, the deal has really turned. Maggots are all over it. In his acting performance of angrily denouncing Obama (and all of us) to the cheers of white people, Barack Obama, after dragging Black people all the way to the convention, is pulling off his mask. With only ever having one foot on the reservation to begin with, he has completely, and quite predictably left it. But don’t get mad. And don’t be depressed. That is what the plan was from the beginning. Take a look at a strong, Black woman that isn’t owned by the corporatists and tells all the truths Obama cannot.

We’ll never win playing the corporate game of Democrat and Republican. We must fight outside that entire paradigm. We can win. We must.

NYTimes Suggests Rev Wright (and blacks generally) SHUT UP!

The headline says it all.

Not Speaking For Obama, Pastor Speaks For Himself, At Length

If you’re white and not accustomed to scrutinizing the almost constant psychological racial attacks leveled by the Times and other corporate media, you might not immediately notice the acid nature of the NYTimes rhetoric.  Pastor speaks for himself at length?  For surely Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, the late Jerry Falwell…none of these white guys ever spoke at length worthy of notice by the Times.  Right?  What the supremacists over at the Times mean, of course, is that Wright and other blacks as well, should keep quiet with critiques of our apartheid society, the United States of America.

I get it.

However, it is a little surprising to see that the NYTimes has the temerity to print garbage of this caliber. I probably shouldn’t be surprised considering the way that they are cheerleading the wholesale theft by the financial sector to the tune of billions and the promotion of the ongoing Iraqi slaughter.

Oh well. n/t

Hillary Hates This Ish

We all know that Obama is faking it.  So don’t take this the wrong way.  I’m not an Obama-ite.  But even though he’s faking it, he CAN pull off the fake.  Hillary can’t.  And no white guy ever running for US Prez could ever even think about pulling it off.

This is essentially what whites, and by whites I mean not the guilty ones voting FOR Obama, this is what is
hated about a candidate like  Obama and about any  upper echelon black politician and black people somewhat generally.  Because we have to live in dual realities cuz of white supremacy, we learn to speak several dialects.  White people can’t do this and the ones that understand the power of being able to do so, resent Black people for having the talent.

Ironic isn’t it, that we only have this talent because of the privilege white folks enjoy all the time to begin with.

Barack, like many Blacks before him, will attempt to look as if he will use this talent for good.  But of course he’s a corporate imperialist just like the others, so don’t hold your breath.

Condi Rice: Liar Extraordinaire

To be named liar extraordinare is no small award if you exist in this time and have a job in the US government. Condoleeza Rice passes the test. Faceoff between her and Congressman Wexler from Florida. It’s not as nasty as some are claiming it is. I think it’s more a case of us Americans are used to not having any kind of confrontation or accountability whatsoever. Whenever we get even a whiff of almost, it seems like a big deal. Anyhow, here’s the clip. Is she the biggest liar in the administration? No. But she might be the best liar. Unlike the others who lie then allow you to point out the lie, Rice lies and just keeps lying, keeps talking. Doesn’t allow you to repeatedly point out her lies. She knows she’s lying. We all know she’s lying but she’s smart enough to not allow the Congressman to repeatedly point out where it is that she’s lying, thus she comes out not looking so bad. And there you go.

These people are so good at this that you begin to wonder if they actually believe what they are saying. Okay, they aren’t that good. It’s amusing to watch nonetheless.

The 9-11 Truth Movement Is A Waste Of Time

From the afternoon of the attack til now, I’ve been convinced that the official line about 19 hijackers was BS.  Watching the news coverage from my job at Bank of America, I saw them broadcast the names and photos of the 19 that afternoon.  Since this was a logical impossibility, having the photos and IDs of the hijackers so quickly, I knew that there was a scam in the works.  Many smaller pieces of evidence since have only reinforced the power of common sense exercised the day of the event.  I don’t claim to know who did what or any of that unified conspiracy knowledge stuff peddled by some that lays blame at the feet of this or that international cabal.  It was an inside job and a coverup which means that powerful people were and still are involved.

All of that being said, something else is also as obvious as the fact that the attacks were an inside job.  The 9-11 Truth Movement is a colossal waste of time and energy.  Things like this, coverups of this magnitude are rarely uncovered.  This isn’t my opinion, this is a fact.  And perhaps I shouldn’t have written that because that’s not the most important thing.  The important thing is that even if it was uncovered, it wouldn’t matter.  No one would believe it.  This is as obvious as was the fake nature of the attack and subsequent coverup.

This country is collapsing and has been for some time now.  Economically, militarily, socially.  These are not new revelations.  Anyone that has been following the deconstruction of the manufacturing sector for the past 30 years knows this.  Or anyone that has ever examined white privilege and white racism must at least have a hint regardin the US’ cancerous social decay.  And militarily, well the military has become an almost complete mercenary outfit.  With much of it contracted out to outright mercenary gun-for-hire agencies and most of the remainder professional gun for hire types who will follow much any order, no matter how immoral or illegal.  So the country has long been in decline.  The 9-11 Truth Movement people are generally underdeveloped and quite naive politicos–I shouldn’t even call them politicos because the problem is that they have a very limited understanding of what politics, the economy of power, even is.  And the way that they are conducting themselves in the wake of 9-11 is all the evidence one needs to prove my charges against them.

The 9-11 Truth Movement is almost completely white and male.

This isn’t to say that non-whites don’t get 9-11.  We do.  In my opinion, much more often than do US whites (on percentage).  But the nature of the 9-11 Truth Movement makes it so that no actual organizing can or will happen around it.  When I say the nature or character of the movement, I’m referring to its singularity of intention, purpose and focus.  Most of the white men occupying the 9-11TM space are folks that haven’t been really political before in their lives.  Everyone has opinions so this isn’t to say that they haven’t been thinkers, quite the contrary.  There is a lot of interesting thought, investigation and analysis in the 9-11TM.  But politics, inevitably is about action and the progressive political actors (speaking in groups,now) in the United States for the past century have not been white males.  White males, as a group have not, in significant percentages, been involved in any mass movement in the past century.

This is not my opinion.  This is a fact.  And if anyone sees this as being incorrect I would love to see the evidence and hear about the historical movement that I missed.  So this is the correct context through which to understand the white and male composition of the 9-11TM.  As a group of people with no historical movement experience and no willingness to (as a group) embrace the parallel struggles of historically oppressed sectors of the US population.  This aspect of the character of the 9-11TM is, in the end, what makes it a complete waste of time.  It alienates groups of people, oppressed groups, by focusing narrowly on 9-11 (and perhaps abolition of the Federal Reserve, lol) and either ignoring altogether or at best prioritizing lowly, historical struggles against the same oppression represented by the attacks of 9-11.

Initially, I found myself in the ranks of the 9-11TM.  But it didn’t take long for me to realize that the alienating nature of this group, if I allowed myself to become too closely associated with it and consumed by it, would be of hindrance to political work I do in other arenas.  Not because of the label of conspiracy theorist or other slanders.  Black people have been dealing with that garbage from white America for a hundred years.  Literally.  So not because of that but because the 9-11TM is seen as a movement led by white guys who don’t get the intersectionality of oppression, folks that think the world will move on whatever issue they decide to take up this year.  That is not how the economy of power operates.  That is not how politics works.  We need a real movement.

Real movements understand the nuances of the issues of the people composing the movement.  The 9-11 truthers, again mostly white guys, are far, far, far from understanding this.  They think that if they can shout loud enough, proving that 9-11 was an inside job, people, the masses is the term they use, will rise up and see the system for what it is.  This approach taps into the same naivety expressed by the ‘Who-Shot-Kennedy’ crowd.  This sophomoric approach represents not a break from the oppressive nature of politics in this society but is a reinforcement and affirmation of the blinders of privilege, the reason the white 9-11TM can’t break out of the rut it finds itself in.  And the reason most of the white guys that read this will simply dismiss all that I have to say.

I am enraged about 9-11.  But I’m also enraged that 4-5 million people have died in the past 6 or 7 years in the wars being fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the world doesn’t give a shit.  I’m enraged about those millions of lives too.  I’m enraged that 3 and 4 year old kids from South and Central America are hiding in the Georgia woods because immigration officers have kidnapped their parents from work, effectively orphaning these invisible children.  I’m enraged about that.  Grady Memorial Hospital here in Atlanta is being starved of funds and then ‘rescued’ by the same people that were starving it, so that they can take over the operation of it and cut off services benefiting the downtown Atlanta (mostly black) poor.  They are doing the same thing to Grady that they do to public education.  The same thing that they are doing to MARTA.  The same thing that they have done to every public institution in the South since the 60s when integration meant those institutions had to serve non-whites as well.  So I’m enraged and spittin mad about a lot of things.  The intersection of all these things and many more issues is the only place that we will forge the movement that will bring about substantive change in all these areas.

Until the white guys constituting (and dominating) the 9-11TM understand this at a gut level, it will remain the movement hardly worthy of the name and a colossal waste of time.

Irrational Black People Criticize Ron Paul

I have written a series of short essays addressing some problems I have seen with Ron Paul and the rEVOLution he is leading for a reason: to provide a place where those who might be critical can come and see how issues, apparently not important to the typical Ron Paul supporter are addressed when approached from a perspective not overwhelmingly flattering and subjective in the way of approving of Ron Paul. As most of the information readily available about Ron Paul is produced by supporters who are disproportionately white and male. I didn’t expect to have a rational discussion about race and Ron Paul. I did expect to have the lack of rational discussion be squarely blamed on me as the black male and dissenting, critical opinion.

The disposition towards racial dialog that I have observed amongst Ron Paul supporters is squarely in line with the typical exchange, to speak generally here, that occurs between whites and non-whites. To be a little more particular, that occurs between white males and non-whites. Although the culture of discussion produced by white males often overflows and overlaps into the habits of others, too, as it is hegemonic.

So being blamed for irrationality and for generally being a problem is no surprise in the general population and the Ron Paul following appears to be not much, if at all, different from conversations with Bush or Reagan supporters regarding race.

Please note that I didn’t say Ron Paul has the same line on policy as does Bush or Reagan. He does not. But the kind of conversation from their various supporters is quite similar. And in all cases, their supporters, Bush, Reagan, Paul (and other Repubs) are disproportionately white.

This factor never seems to peg on their intellectual radar as to why the conversations go badly. I believe this is because their is an assumption that exists amongst all these groups on the RIght, whether they identify as Libertarian or Conservative. This assumption is that black people are emotional and irrational about race and therefore need not be seriously listened to or their critiques seriously examined by rational thinkers, who will disproportionately be white. This assumption underlies the thinking and sets the tone for irrational conversations from a group that in their view is commonly irrational, black people.

That is why the statement that was in Ron Paul’s newsletter, “only 5 percent of African-Americans have sensible political opinions” resonated with so many black folks as a believable statement to come from a Ron Paul. We black political types, having encountered this paternal approach so many times, understand that this is something deeply held in the minds of many whites and the tiny smattering of people of color who caucus with the vast majority of whites supporting a candidate like Ron Paul. It was something that was in line with the typical argument that comes from whites when the topic of race and politics is on the table. And being that this is the US, a country founded in the enslavement of black people, when is race not on the table in politics. Never.

A typical comment from a Ron Paul supporter that came in from one of the essays was this from someone calling himself Jack,

After reading your post, all I can say is:

There goes ANY chance of a rational and reasonable discussion. You didn’t intend to have one of those, though did you? You just wanted to call us all racists (without even knowing the color of the people you are talking to.)

Later, fool.

The predictable part is that I took pains to point out that I don’t know if Ron Paul (It’s not even about Jack or whoever ALL means) is racist and that it doesn’t matter whether he personally is or not because the important things, the policies, are racist. I explained this reasoning. But Jack, like most whites discussing from a similar perspective, find it much simpler and quite accepted to label a black person as simply irrational when it comes to race. This characterization of black and irrational is common in their circles and needs scant if any explanation. I asked a question,

If a person or group of people advocate(s) policies that prove consistently to be detrimental to a racial or ethnic group does it matter how that person or group of people personally feel about race if the consequences of his policy actions have race-based consequences?

How irrational of me.

I also pointed out that Ron Paul has significant support amongst white nationalists groups like Don Black’s Stormfront where Paul is criticized as not being the perfect white nationalist candidate but they best that they realistically have right now. This too, I assume is an irrational point for me to mention or as a African in the US, to be concerned with.

I am black and live in Georgia. So, I mention that Ron Paul opposed and continues to oppose the Civil Rights Act. This too, I suppose is an irrational concern. All of these things add up to my irrationality in this discussion.

And this is why I thought it important to touch on the subject of Ron Paul. I know that he isn’t going to win the Republican nomination, no less the presidency. But as an insurgent group of Right Wingers with a lot of slick advertising and marketing, I thought it important to illustrate through interaction with them, how much like the typical Republican or Right Winger, Ron Paul supporters are when it comes to the issue of race in the US. Blaming those victimized by racism (the collectivist line), characterizing criticism of racial comments and policy as irrational, these are the typical tactics utilized by the Right. And the Ron Paul crowd doesn’t break from this tradition and in fact reinforces it by at once claiming to be different but at the same time, demonstrating the limits to Right ideology. Effectively proclaiming that those on the Right can differ about war and peace, the Federal Reserve, to a degree the corporatocracy and religion but when it comes to race, for the most part, they stand united.

Criticism from black people about their positions is summarily dismissed as irrational.

This is not the kind of group that I, as a black person want to caucus with. Hell, I can’t caucus with them. And I would encourage any person that identifies as African or as a person of color, generally to look long and hard at the record of a Ron Paul or similar type candidate and not just at their campaign websites or those of their supporters which, of course, will not be critical in important areas. Our objections, no matter how articulated or explained, are simply dismissed. Or at best, they take a speech from their candidate, in this case Ron Paul, and simply quote him. As if the rhetoric of their politician should be more than enough to allay any fears and concerns around race and racial policy. As if politicians don’t say all manner of things and make all kinds of statements and promises. The striking thing is that this crowd understands that politicians do this and this crowd is typically quite skeptical of simple rhetoric. Quite skeptical about issues that they care about. But because the race issue is something that they either have little concern or have a reactionary position on, simply referring me and other black folks to stump speeches or an “issues” page full of campaign trail rhetoric is enough. It is as if they are collectively saying, ‘Look, he said right here on his website that he’s not racist, SO STOP COMPLAINING!‘

And I guess maybe it would be enough…if only I were not so irrational.

Ron Paul and Race

I don’t know how Ron Paul feels about black people.

I do know that Ron Paul released a newsletter that printed some very racist and inflammatory comments.
I do know that Ron Paul opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I do know that Ron Paul opposes Affirmative Action.
I do know that Ron Paul, as do all right wing Libertarians, supports eradication of most gov’t social programs that provide a limited safety net to the poor and people of color in the U.S.

I don’t know how Ron Paul personally feels about black people or ethnic minorities generally. The important thing is that it doesn’t matter, really, what Ron Paul personally feels because he supports an agenda that is hostile to these groups. And about that, I don’t have to guess. He proves it year after year in the US Congress. Dr. Paul has proved it with the totality of his life. Dr. Paul has, for the most part, proved consistent in his right wing Libertarian beliefs. Some people give him kudos for this as most politicians are quite duplicitous and blow in whatever direction the campaign contribution winds take them. However, I can offer Dr. Paul no congratulations for consistent support for policies that have proved to harm the most vulnerable while giving an unneeded helping hand to the most powerful. All under the intellectual guise of enhancing and protecting liberty. The same thing most nuanced right wing Libertarians do. I say nuanced because many right wing Libertarians understand that Africans and other people of color will never vote for them and thus don’t concern themselves with rationals for policy positions perceived as racist. They don’t care. Understanding that their target group isn’t people of color nor is it people concerned about people of color, they dispense with any reasoning for things like opposition to the Civil Rights Act. Nuanced RWLs, however, hope to attract moderate to conservative Democrats (who at the very least, feign concern with people of color) and to convince them there must at least be some rationale for that kind of policy. Even if weak. Understanding Ron Paul and race begs a question. If a person or group of people advocate(s) policies that prove consistently to be detrimental to a racial or ethnic group does it matter how that person or group of people personally feel about race if the consequences of his policy actions have race-based consequences?

I don’t think so.

Interesting Ron Paul Support

Politicians, too often with entangling alliances, can hardly be trusted to do the good things they say they will do. No less tell the truth about the bad they have already done. One way that I have found to be somewhat reliable in predicting the future behavior of a political figure is to analyze the individuals supporting him/her. In the case of Ron Paul and race, it is interesting. Ron Paul, like any politician that wants to get elected these days, claims to not be racist. While I have argued that this claim, true or false is largely irrelevant, what are we to do when unabashed racists with overtly racist agendas, support a Ron Paul.

Stormfront is a white pride internet forum with the slogan, ‘White Pride World Wide’. Any internet political veterans reading this know full well who and what they are. Stormfronters are proud bigots. Some Ron Paul supporters will be surprised to discover that their Ron Paul Revolution holds the distinction of being in the company of David Duke, David Irving and other interesting figures supported by the Stormfront community. Why would a person on Stormfront support a non-racist like Ron Paul? Let’s take a look. Scotsman4096 has this to say to Stormfronters with the audacity to claim that Ron Paul is not the real deal,

If anyone expects better than this from the current crop of political candidates who stand a shot at winning, then that person is dreaming, and quite honestly acting as BAGGAGE to the WN movement, because they’re stalling our progress. Is Ron WN? Who knows – his policies help us, and we need action on our issues NOW, not in 2040 when we’re trying to retake California with tanks.

Brandon, who’s username signature is ‘Our skin is our uniform‘, isn’t convinced,

Ron Paul’s priority is not 100% the survival of the white race, so he is an enemy and a burden just as much as any jew.

Bob Whitaker tries to give Brandon some perspective regarding Dr. Paul’s priorities,

Ron Paul is the last chance the white race has for just 10% of its survival, much less America. He is not your enemy you psycho.
And how do you know that’s not his priority? Remember: the game is rigged. Paul can’t come out swinging.

These are a few snippets of page #1 of currently over 600 pages (and counting) of intensely interested and optimistic discussion regarding their hopes for Dr. Paul’s candidacy. And to be certain that this isn’t some misguided (but ultimately innocent) Ron Pauler that wandered into a racist community on the whole hostile to Ron Paul’s candidacy, if you notice the bottom of the page the Stormfront website actually runs Ron Paul fundraising ads. Stormfront, an advocacy group for white supremacy that supports David Duke, supports the Ron Paul candidacy for president of the United States.

While I’m not surprised to read the racist support of the RP rEVOLution something tells me the average Democrat convert isn’t aware or doesn’t want to admit the true nature of the Ron Paul movement. While ignorant in regards to humanity. Stormfronters are very politically astute and are quite capable of analyzing who is and who is not, as they term it, on the side of the white race. If understanding of fundamental RWL public policy initiatives isn’t evidence enough, Stormfront support for the Ron Paul movement should stand as proof positive that Ron Paul, while certainly not public enemy #1, is unmistakably, not an ally to people of color and our supporters.

Is Ron Paul An Anti-Black Candidate?

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat. This post and these thoughts are not for white Ron Paul supporters. I’m saying this just to be clear as to whom I speak. I don’t expect any white Ron Paul supporters to agree with any of this. And since we all know that 99.9% of Ron Paul supporters are white, I have a very narrow audience with which I hope to communicate some critical thoughts about what is being called the Ron Paul phenomenon.

I don’t know if Ron Paul is sexist.

I don’t know if Ron Paul is racist.

I don’t know if Ron Paul is an imperialist.

But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck….

In the next few minutes I will cite Ron Paul’s congressional record as well as campaign and political history to explain each of these points. The purpose being to make plain that this candidate is to be avoided. Since there are so very many white men (and a few white women as well) that love Ron Paul and are avid supporters of his candidacy, it is important that brown, black, red and yellow people, and women generally, understand what is happening here. Understand precisely what the Ron Paul Phenomenon really is.

Is Ron Paul An Imperialist

I’ll start with this point because of all his political vices this is the negative feature about him that affects the most people, folks inside the United States and internationally. Ron Paul has voted the right way many times on a key issue, the touchstone of contemporary US imperialism, the Iraq war. His votes on Iraq have fooled a lot of people. As a starting point, I will assume that anyone reading this has analytical skills exceeding those of a 10 year old. That is, in my conservative estimation, about the age at which a child can certainly be said to understand and judge the difference between what an adult says and then actually does. If you think that Ron Paul is an anti-imperialist, you fail my test and should maybe click here. If you have doubts about Paul and his anti-imperialist credentials, then read on and not waste time with what Rep. Paul has said but look at what he has done. In this, a period of global anti-imperialist sentiment, structures have been erected that have the power to curb imperialist behavior from rogue states. One of these structures is the UN, a coalition of nations from all over the Earth. Another structure is the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ron Paul hates them both. The UN is for the most part, controlled by the United States so when Ron Paul complains that the UN is an infringement on US sovereignty, don’t take it seriously. It’s sort of like the white southerner that complained that his rights were being trampled on when those he oppressed attempted to ascertain some semblance of control over their own lives. This is, to a degree the check the UN provides. And this is what folks like Ron Paul hate. The UN allows nations historically colonized and victimized by European and US imperialism, to democratically assert themselves in opposing bullying. Keeping in mind that the US, being a superpower, almost completely controls the UN, this function of saying no to US bullying hardly works at all. But even having it exist is too much for Ron Paul. The UN could help curb US imperialism.

Because it could, Ron Paul hates the UN.

To be sure that it isn’t my (or your) imagination regarding Ron Paul’s disdain for global democracy, look at the ICC and Ron Paul. The court would do a great service towards anti-imperialism. It would allow smaller countries without the firepower to push invading countries out, a mechanism to hold them accountable for the crimes they commit in their acts of aggression. The court cannot come into a country and do anything to citizens in the country unless those citizens have reached outside their home country and attacked others. What could possibly be wrong with that kind of system? Nothing, unless you are an imperialist and are concerned about your troops being held accountable for their crimes.

Ron Paul also hates the ICC. And in 2002, just as the US govt was about to kick off its imperial war of aggression against a country with almost no army, Iraq, Ron Paul praised George W. Bush for his stance in rejecting the International Criminal Court. Can’t be a part of something like the ICC when you’re about to invade a country. So, like 10 year olds, if you not only listen to what Ron Paul says but look at what he does, things are clear.

We remember the 80s when US imperialism was running roughshod over Central America. In the 90s and up til now, over US imperial military aggression has been blistering the Middle East. Next up is Africa. Black men and women, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters (who might end up fighting our brothers and sisters in the Motherland) beware!

Is Ron Paul an imperialist? Who can claim to know another’s heart? Not I. Regardless of his personal belief, why vote for imperial policy?

Is Ron Paul Sexist?

Ron Paul is an obstetrician. So unlike other white male right wing politicians, his experience with mothers and understanding of what it means to have to carry a child isn’t abstract. This, unlike other white male right wingers, makes his acid anti-choice position all the more interesting and all the more vicious and toxic. The women’s freedom group, NARAL, the National Alliance to Repeal Abortion Laws rates lawmakers based on their votes on critical legislation seeking to restrict a woman’s right to choose whether or not she has to carry a pregnancy to term. Earning a failing mark isn’t easy. Ron Paul has proved himself up to the task somehow managing a 0% rating in 3 of the past 10 years. And a 30% rating overall. Only a Republican would think himself fit for the presidency of the country with such a gruesome record on an issue so critical to women’s lives. If one hangs ar

Women of all colors (and the men who love them enough to help them in the fight for reproductive freedom) take note. Based on his declared positions opposing a woman’s right to privacy regarding her body and access to health services, does Ron Paul deserve a woman’s vote?

Is Ron Paul a Racist?

If a person or group claims to not be racist but consistently supports policies detrimental to another group categorized racially or ethnically can the question of race continually be ignored? Both then and now Libertarians opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 claiming then and now that encroachment of the Feds in state affairs deprived the states of the liberty and freedom promised in the Constitution. This is a central component to many Libertarians political ideology. Rarely do they bother to answer the charge that questions their absence and total lack of outrage at the deprivation of liberty and freedom to blacks (in the case of the CRA) and other minorities generally. Ron Paul continues this tradition of promoting a policy, states’ rights, that has proved to be functionally racist inside the US. Shay Riley over at Black Prof sums it up nicely,

Such libertarians act as if there was no conflict before Civil Rights Act of 1964. Did the “racial strife” & “racial balkanization” (Rep. Paul’s words) caused by denial of freedom under Jim Crow mean nothing? What about blacks’ individual freedom? Those of whites who wanted to associate with blacks? Here we have Jim Crow’s massive human rights violations — the state as evil oppressor, tyranny running rampant in the South — and yet white libertarian capitulation and appeasement.

Shay Riley of Black Prof

How does Ron Paul answer this charge? He doesn’t. An indication that Ron Paul, like many other candidates in the US political system, believes that the lack of good candidates will force people who if given alternatives would not vote for someone so in opposition to core principles of freedom and fairness. Ron Paul and other Libertarians don’t acknowledge the contemporary or historic obstacles to freedom and liberty faced by blacks and other people of color in this country. Some say they celebrate those obstacles. At the very least they do not acknowledge them. The Libertarian position of states’ rights that Ron Paul supports has been the veritable banner of black oppression inside the United States. This is fact. In 2004 there was a vote in Congress for passage of a 40 year commemoration of the Civil Rights Act, the act that gave expanded, but not full, liberty to and freed millions of black people from white supremacist rule.

Libertarians say that black people don’t understand what they are doing and that they are really trying to help by creating freedom for everyone. This is insulting to those who lived through the blatant tyranny of Jim Crow, which the CRA was enacted to stop. And insulting to those who maintain the struggle against the racially biased employment and criminal justice systems of today.

Ron Paul was very clear about his feelings on the black struggle in explaining his vote against the 40 year commemorating of the Civil Rights Act,

the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

Didn’t enhance freedom? Diminished individual liberty for whom? Rep. Paul argues that whites’ freedom and liberty was diminished by the CRA. He certainly could not be talking about black people’s liberty and freedom for without a doubt the CRA enhanced it far beyond the Jim Crow conditions they were enduring. Paul’s statement is a kick in the teeth to those alive who endured that period and were, to a degree, liberated from state tyranny by the federal legislation.

Does a person who argues against the Civil Rights Act on the basis that it diminished the freedom of the oppressor class, deserve a single vote from a black person? From anyone?

These are the questions I would hope Ron Paul supporters and potential supporters will consider. These questions regarding women’s reproductive freedom, imperialism or ethnic minority freedom are fair and reasonable. And I would hope they would be met with fairness and reason, considered and weighed. And that those considerations will then translate into logical, moral and just conclusion.

Mainstream Press Continues Censorship of Ron Paul

Not.

The New York Times is currently paying, from a front page link, a  drooling tribute to candidate Paul entitled, The Good Doctor.  The Times and the rest of the corporate press always play the public.  It has not deviated in this case.  Ron Paul supporters claim that his candidacy is ignored by the media.  And they are right that is isn’t given nearly the level or character of attention the Clinton/Obama campaigns receive.  But it isn’t ignored either, as we see by the glowing NYTimes write up.

Ron Paul, of course, hasn’t been getting the kind of endorsement from the press that Clinton, Obama, Guiliani, Romney or Edwards have gotten but this makes perfect sense if you understand the system.  The corporate press, ABCNNBCBS and FOX exist as organizing tools.  They organize thought.  They are currently in the middle of a huge organizing campaign.  They are organizing the country electorally around Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.  This  is obvious because the same people that support and own the corporate press are the same people support and own Clinton and Obama. They have organized public thought around those two candidates, as is the press’ purpose.  The goal of the press is to psychologically orient the electorate around Clinton/Obama.  The relationship between these Clinton/Obama and the press is pre-arranged and controlled.  The relationship between Ron Paul and the press is pre-arranged and controlled as well.  And like the Clinton/Obama arrangement it to is to orient the electorate around Paul.  But in his case only a specific sector of the electorate.  And in the case of Ron Paul’s campaign, the corporate press’ organizing effort is not for the ’08 election but future cycles.

This censorship, this fake censorship of Ron Paul’s campaign, is a key organizing tool for building the Ron Paul ‘movement‘.  A well-balanced charade between scant coverage and then reluctant praise.  The purpose of the media’s Pavlovian manipulation is to make the white guys that are the Ron Paul supporters, continue to feel like outsiders to the electoral process and consequently energize them into rebellion to the system trying to suppress their effort.  The media is creating Ron Paul activists.  The routine of scant coverage and then reluctant praise gives Paul continued credibility as an outsider with his marks, white males.  These white males are unfamiliar with the role of outsider.  The elite are using reverse psychology white privilege to run Ron Paul’s presidential campaign.

Reverse Psychology White Privilege: How It Is Working 

White guys are used to being the main attraction.  They would never say that, because it is a condition, being the main attraction I mean, that is normal.  It’s not an event.  It’s part of the fabric of their normal life.  Thus it is invisible.  Therefore when white males (specifically middle class white males) in this country aren’t the main attraction or feel shunned, and thus normal life is upended, it becomes painfully obvious to them.  Unlike when they were the main attraction, which was an invisible condition.   As many groups throughout the history of this country have, and to this day continue to, worked as veritable outsiders to the establishment towards various struggles,  white guys see themselves as an oppressed minority when perceived to be shunned.

Ron Paul isn’t receiving big bucks from the board of Exxon-Mobil but he is receiving money by the bucket from angry corporate white guys working in corporate cubicles across this country.  For to be white in this country is largely to be corporate.  Corporations are the mainstream.  Being white is normal, is mainstream in this country.  White and corporate psychology are to a large degree synonyms.  This may seem like a stretch to some.  It will read as ludicrous to the white guys who love Ron Paul that will inevitably gravitate to this from this or that Ron Paul forum link or search engine return.  But the white mentality in this country is by and large, the same as the corporate mentality in this country.  And this makes sense being that the corporate world is disproportionately white.  And of course.  This makes all the difference in how a movement forms, what its political candidates look like and how well the movement is funded.  So while Ron Paul may seem anti-corporate and anti-imperialism he isn’t.

Tomorrow I will look at how Ron Paul has fooled his movement and how they, in turn, endeavor to fool others as to what Paul actually represents.  More importantly, I will also examine the larger purpose of the establishment organized Ron Paul movement.