RattlerGator Blog

Thanksgiving 2008

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

Today is a beautiful day in creation here in Tallahassee. The morning sun is shining as we approach the 9 o'clock hour, it is a seasonably cold 45 degrees, the news is blaring babble about the latest Islamo-fascist terror attack (Bombay), and the world continues to turn in fits and starts.

Same as it ever was.

So it may be proper that today I resolve to continue blogging and further resolve to repeat, in modified form, my Thanksgiving post from last year. I think it does provide a window into my soul. I hope it does.

In this new post I will lead with the modification, however. It's a hymn. The maternal patriarch of our family died a couple of months ago at the age of 95 and this song (or a similar one; my memory isn't what it used to be) was sung at his funeral service. This isn't, however, a recording of the song as sung at that service. This version appears courtesy of the good folks at the Alabama Folklife Association. The book and CD from which the song was heard is Benjamin Lloyd's Hymn Book: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition. If you enjoy lined hymns and congregational singing -- enjoy! It begins with a prayer prelude; only a couple of verses are sung but there are seven minutes total. Here are the words (the church is identified as the Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church of Eutaw, Alabama):

Father, I stretch my hands to thee,
    No other help I know;
If thou withdraw thyself from me,
    Ah! whither shall I go?

What did thine only Son endure
    Before I drew my breath!
What pain, what labor, to secure
    My soul from endless death!

Primitive Baptist Hymn #364: Father, I Stretch My Hands To Thee

Now, for the post from last year:

I feel the urge to post a little snippet of a Thanksgiving story that I favor. It comes directly from Booker T. Washington's famous compilation "Up From Slavery" and is pulled from Chapter X, A Harder Task Than Making Bricks Without Straw. The setting involves a student body averse to physical labor, rebellious parents who want their kids "in the books" and not "in the fields," and (incredibly) three failed attempts to construct and fire a properly burning kiln before success was attained. Obviously perseverance counts, especially when one is working against the odds:

About the time that we succeeded in burning our first kiln of bricks we began facing in an emphasized form the objection of the students to being taught to work. By this time it had gotten to be pretty well advertised throughout the state that every student who came to Tuskegee, no matter what his financial ability might be, must learn some industry. Quite a number of letters came from parents protesting against their children engaging in labour while they were in the school. Other parents came to the school to protest in person. Most of the new students brought a written or a verbal request from their parents to the effect that they wanted their children taught nothing but books. The more books, the larger they were, and the longer the titles printed upon them, the better pleased the students and their parents seemed to be.

I gave little heed to these protests, except that I lost no opportunity to go into as many parts of the state as I could, for the purpose of speaking to the parents, and showing them the value of industrial education. Besides, I talked to the students constantly on the subject. Notwithstanding the unpopularity of industrial work, the school continued to increase in numbers to such an extent that by the middle of the second year there was an attendance of about one hundred and fifty, representing almost all parts of the state of Alabama, and including a few from other states.

In the summer of 1882 Miss Davidson and I both went North and engaged in the work of raising funds for the completion of our new building. On my way North I stopped in New York to try to get a letter of recommendation from an officer of a missionary organization who had become somewhat acquainted with me a few years previous. This man not only refused to give me the letter, but advised me most earnestly to go back home at once, and not make an attempt to get money, for he was quite sure that I would never get more than enough to pay my travelling expenses. I thanked him for his advice, and proceeded on my journey.

The first place I went to in the North, was Northampton, Mass., where I spent nearly a half-day in looking for a coloured family with whom I could board, never dreaming that any hotel would admit me. I was greatly surprised when I found that I would have no trouble in being accommodated at a hotel.

We were successful in getting money enough so that on Thanksgiving Day of that year we held our first service in the chapel of Porter Hall, although the building was not completed.

In looking about for some one to preach the Thanksgiving sermon, I found one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilege to know. This was the Rev. Robert C. Bedford, a white man from Wisconsin, who was then pastor of a little coloured Congregational church in Montgomery, Ala. Before going to Montgomery to look for some one to preach this sermon I had never heard of Mr. Bedford. He had never heard of me. He gladly consented to come to Tuskegee and hold the Thanksgiving service. It was the first service of the kind that the coloured people there had ever observed, and what a deep interest they manifested in it! The sight of the new building made it a day of Thanksgiving for them never to be forgotten.

Mr. Bedford consented to become one of the trustees of the school, and in that capacity, and as a worker for it, he has been connected with it for eighteen years. During this time he has borne the school upon his heart night and day, and is never so happy as when he is performing some service, no matter how humble, for it. He completely obliterates himself in everything, and looks only for permission to serve where service is most disagreeable, and where others would not be attracted. In all my relations with him he has seemed to me to approach as nearly to the spirit of the Master as almost any man I ever met.

Ain't that America? Here is a picture of the then-recently-constructed Porter Hall:

Fortunately, Tuskegee University thrives today thanks to Booker T. Washington and generations of others (black, white and otherwise) who kept the faith.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

The Irrevocability of Every Human Act

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

Humble pie? After that presidential election? Oh yes, I'm eating up. Probably not in the fashion many would want or expect, however. That's just not my style.

One of David Warren's latest offerings is a 19-paragraph persuasive sermon that I would like to repeat here in its entirety. I'm choosing to post it in part because I'm still trying to come to terms with the Obama victory and worried about what it says about American standards, in general, and African American standards, in particular. I'm searching, and reading, and contemplating -- slowly but surely. Barack Obama troubles me. Deeply. But he doesn't trouble anyone in my immediate circle of family and close personal friends. To my way of thinking, that requires me to engage in serious self-examination but it also dictates that I contemplate my family and friends.

I have no concerns about standing alone in my present circle. In my mind, I've been my own man since the age of 14 when I began working every day after school. Sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, dumping trash.  Whatever. I've continually made decisions that puzzled family and friends; that trend will certainly continue.

I sense something of a kindred spirit in David Warren and I have no doubt that he is troubled by Barack Obama as well. He writes:

[1] One of the grand mysteries of faith -- of human life -- is the irrevocable act. We do things that can never be undone. We make decisions that, in the clearer light of retrospect, should never have been made. But they were made, and acted upon, and the consequences are now out of our hands. How do we salvage the mess we have created? How could anyone salvage the mess, without the ability to go back in time? Great destruction can be wreaked in a moment; the salvage must proceed incrementally.

Because of our national history as a "can-do" society, Americans naturally have tremendous difficulty with the "proceeding incrementally" thing. In most cases, that's a very good thing to me. Charge hard! That was my Army training. That's the American way.

[2] The western, "Judeo-Christian" tradition is unique among those that have governed the minds of civilized men and women, for its realism -- for its direct confrontation with the irrevocable act. From its announcement in Genesis, the tradition has presupposed a radical view of human freedom. Humans are moral actors who, in effect, lack only the freedom to deny their freedom -- who must therefore take full responsibility for their acts, and for any foreseeable consequences of their acts, to themselves and others. This began with Adam and Eve.

It also explains the balancing act that has allowed this nation to evolve and prosper, as the temporal world and the spiritual world constantly engaged in their dance.

[3] I beg my agnostic reader not to distract himself from this point with vain speculation about whether Adam and Eve were historical people. Let us agree, for sake of argument, that the Genesis story is pure myth. Ask instead: What is this myth expounding?

[4] That we, the descendants of Adam and Eve, are likewise mortally flawed, and yet, unlike mere animals, we carry the burden of responsibility for our acts.

I always come back to this because I've observed the deficiencies in my life and in that of others all around me; whether vicariously present or actually present. My, how we love to engage the act of attempting to dodge responsibility. It is a futile endeavor, however.

[5] We have powers finally of life and death, not only over ourselves, but over our neighbors.

[6] The consequences of our mistakes are written not only into our own lives, but into the lives of others, down to the lives of children yet unborn. Forgetting, for the moment, even heaven and hell, the business of our lives is deadly serious, and every human act has meaning.

Every human act has meaning!

[7] The "game" was not reset after what we refer to as the Fall of Man. It cannot be played again to a different result. God Himself could not "reset the game" if He wanted: for in the Judeo-Christian view, even what God does is done irrevocably.

And we reach part of the mystery that cannot or will not be understood.

[8] This is an extraordinary theological position, and it is easy to understand why "post-modern" or "post-Christian" man, along with followers of every other known religious tradition, should feel quite uncomfortable with such a restriction on God's power. For with such radical freedom comes the pain of radical accountability: to God, and also to each other.

Restrictions. Limitations. Consequences. Why you tryin' to cramp my style, man?

[9] But perhaps we don't care what happens to others.

[10] As I have quoted in the past, let me quote again, the profound words of the late Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, replying to the central lie in Marxism, which remains the central post-modern or post-Christian lie: "A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death -- the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged."

I am tempted to state at this point my great desire to have further discussion on this quotation in the black community but then I recall the uncritical alliance between Obama and his black liberation theology with that of mainstream black Christianity all across America, and the further leadership of so many atheists on the primary policies and programs that define African American politics.

[11] A great danger in democratic politics comes with just this denial. We are tempted to think that just by voting for a demagogue, a charlatan -- for any politician who tells us cynically only what we want to hear -- we can change the facts of nature.

David didn't say it, but I certainly will: or by simply voting for a black man.

[12] We think that we can "make the rich pay," or otherwise transfer our personal responsibilities to the Nanny State. By some mysterious "social contract," we transfer to politicians the responsibility for what we have ourselves decided. And in due course, we may punish them, for what we got wrong.

Preach!

[13] I invite any reader with the stomach for it to consider the incredible demonization of the outgoing U.S. president, which was used in turn to secure the election of the incoming one. George W. Bush, from the balance of evidence a decent man with an honest view of his own limitations, served his country as well as he knew how. He has been made a scapegoat as if he were personally liable for everything that went wrong on his watch. A true scapegoat: for in the end he is blamed even for what was done to him.

It is going to be a continuing theme for me with all of my black contacts, who never fail to demonize or ridicule George W. Bush or Sarah Palin or Republicans in general, to always come back to this point. White liberals play this card so shamelessly, so arrogantly, that I find myself continually amazed. And black people dutifully parrot all of the nonsense back.

[14] John McCain is perhaps lucky to escape that fate. For the same forces in contemporary North American society would turn against him as turned against Mr. Bush -- the vicious machinery of recrimination by which "progressive forces" make their advance.

Not "would," David -- did. Ann Coulter is correct on this score. John McCain was punked by these people. But McCain likely had no choice, and I don't think he ran an awful campaign. When you analyze the media obsession with dragging Obama across the finish line, just try and contemplate what a stronger Republican would have received. We are lucky, however, that such a status quo will never be repeated -- even if Obama runs for re-election.

[15] The president-elect may seem luckier, still, for he has an articulate gift for deflecting his own failures of judgment, and for finding plausible scapegoats external to himself.

Indeed. Being the HNIC means never being held accountable for anything -- in the campaign, that is. But as President? Sadly, I think this will also be the case for him in office among black people. He's not going to be responsible for anything. Them white people; they're responsible for everything.

[16] Watch for this in the trials that will soon beset him.

The most profoundly unserious conversation in American politics is between white Democrats and black Democrats -- that's what I'm going to be watching.

[17] Yet also, he professes to be Christian. So pray for him, that he will find the courage, perspicacity and prudence that come with the remembrance of our Lord.

From the beginning, I've desperately wanted to like this man. More than liking him, however, I will pray for him and desperately hope I will respect his handling of the Office of the Presidency. I'm certainly going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not every benefit of the doubt, which I gave to Dubya, but I'm certainly going to initially try and give him the benefit of the doubt.

[18] The rebuilding effort by the Republican opposition will also need prayers.

Well, politically-speaking, I'm ready to crack some New York and D.C. heads. You can best believe that. But I'm at a very interesting crossroad. I've constantly tried to say to any African American who will listen that we've made a serious mistake aligning ourselves so totally with the Democrats. And it is hurtful to the nation and our political discourse. Witness a President-elect who spends years and years demonizing the President but now asks for reconciliation.

David Warren's conclusion:

[19] Every attempt to disown "conservative principles" -- the principles not only of the free marketplace, but of moral absolutes and human responsibility -- will be a further setback. The abandonment of the specifically Christian heritage on which America was built can only contribute to her further destruction.

Agreed. Time to get to work and do the necessary work.

Operation Shock the World: Sarah Palin Delivers Again!

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

[this is the third of five parts on McCain's 2008 Campaign for President]

I’ll go ahead and predict it right now: Gwen Ifill, author of The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama and moderator of last night’s Vice Presidential Debate, is going to go down in history as a symbolic footnote of establishment cluelessness due to her “Age of Obama” book set to be released by Inauguration Day 2009. Age of Obama? Hell no. Age of Palin? Oh, yes! That said,Gwen was basically fair last night. Fair, however, is not the word to use when describing the absolute riot that broke out when Palin was announced as McCain's VP pick.The response reminded me of the Deep South's controlling power structure back during the civil rights agitations of the 1950s and '60s.

There was a very clear and present danger that appeared on the scene and upset the status quo. And it made for some very ugly situations.

Bull Connor Lives

Most of us know who Bull Connor is; we've seen the images from Birmingham, Alabama of the snarling dogs, etc. Like all human beings, however, Bull Connor was more complicated than the negative iconic figure he has become in the history books. That's what happens when you come down on the wrong side of history and that's what's going to happen with the outrageous attacks by the far left on Sarah Palin and her family. You don't need the links. She, and they, have been trashed all over the place and some of that has been documented on this blog.

She has been viciously mocked in a desperate attempt to caricature her as nothing more than a mere cartoon – yet she is unyielding.

She has been forced to see her family shat upon by people who can’t comprehend that family values isn’t so much about being perfect but far more about properly responding to challenging situations -- yet, still she rises.

She has been stalked by one gotcha-seeking journalist after another-- yet they have failed in their efforts to force her out of this race or irreparably wound her candidacy.

And now she has not only survived the national debate with a prototypical Washington politician (repeatedly rejected in primary after primary by his own party for their nomination as standard-bearer in the race for President), she clearly won the thing.

The Force of a Man and the Grace of a Woman

She, ladies and gentlemen, is one hell of a woman and I'd like to take this opportunity to liken her to a class of American women I know quite a bit about. Women who have much in common with her but who wouldn’t think to draw such a parallel: African American women.

To accomplish my task, I want to share a disturbing 50-year old photograph with you from the American South. It’s virtually impossible for me to summon up the words that might provide sufficient enough explanation for you to comprehend what I feel when I obsess on this picture but I doubt if words will really be necessary:

This is a picture of Dorothy Counts in Charlotte, North Carolina and the day is September 4, 1957. Surrounded by a pack of wolves, she's trying to make her way to the neighborhood school. She's 15 years old. I damn near lost my mind when I first saw this photograph within the last year. On first sight, I could not for the life of me understand why her father or other black people were nowhere to be found. I've since come to understand there was a certain staging at play that day. The white man in the white shirt directly behind her was her protector and probably helped think through the staging of this event for maximum political effect while not allowing a tense event to get completely out of control. Dorothy's father had dropped the two of them off up at the top of the road and entrusted his daughter's safety to this guy.

Needless to say, this is an extremely difficult picture for many people to live down and surely contributed to the integration efforts in North Carolina.

There’s so much to see in that picture but try as you might, you can’t objectively place Barack Obama within the context of the photograph. He has been cherry-picked, and favored, and promoted at every step along the way since he arrived at Columbia University as an undergraduate way back in the day. Cherry-picked and placed in Chicago. Cherry-picked and given millions of dollars to run a program that failed and funneled money to who-knows-where. Cherry-picked and placed at Harvard Law School, cherry-picked and placed on Harvard Law Review. Cherry-picked and placed into the Illinois legislature, cherry-picked and given the 2004 prime time convention speech, etc.

In fact, Mr. Obama and his supporters are taking advantage of the conscious and subconscious American memory of moments such as depicted in the above photograph to escape necessary review while trying to win the single most important political job in the world.

Sarah Palin, however, does fit within that picture and has achieved against the odds at every step of the way in her climb up the political ladder.

Instead of some Charlotte neighborhood we’re vicariously viewing official Washington, D.C. as they surround Sarah Palin; they are not pleased that a supposedly unqualified interloper from some neighborhood no one knows anything about at all (beyond rumors, that is) has entered their midst. They yell, they scream, they seek to intimidate – they heap upon her much rebuke and scorn. All because she’s a fellow American, objectively qualified to enter, who not only had the temerity in her youth of aspiring to the highest office in the land -- she's actually trying do so without going through the Ivy League!

Skanky bitch!

And did you hear: she's oversexed, loose, irresponsible, an intellectual lightweight, devious, from an inferior family, etc. By now, I do hope you're recognizing the similarities of such a litany with the historical slandering (by some) of black women in America. And Palin is something of an athlete, too, and led her high school basketball team to a state championship!?! Come on -- that's stereotypical black female, all the way. As Harvey Mansfield proclaimed in his great piece where he asked this dangerous question, "Was feminism necessary?", she has the strength of a man and the grace of a woman.

What an appropriate line.

I love women like that, women who know how to exhibit strength and grace. In fact, I'm married to one and my mother is the exact same way. I'm sure that's one reason why I was immediately attracted to the idea of Sarah Palin as Vice President. The wonder to me is why so few seem able to see this obvious similarity.

Of course, I do know why they can't see it. They are being told not to see it. Is this a black thing or a battle of the sexes thing? Probably both. Mansfield wrote:

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As sex goes up in social estimation, love goes down. The trouble with love is that it narrows your options and endangers your independence. If you loved a man, you might actually want to put up with, or even admire, his ways. You may be sure that I am not the first one to notice that feminist women are unerotic.

If none of what I am saying were true, feminists would be welcoming Sarah Palin with embraces as warm as they are capable of. They should be happy that their cause has spread to conservatives and become bipartisan. In fact, they see the Palin choice as a gross deceit, and their response is close to fury. Doesn't this suggest that feminism is not in behalf of the women's movement--but rather to promote radical adventures above and beyond its concern for women?

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Yes, it surely does. And this provides an important window into the crisis of black male - black female relationships so lamented in black communities all over this country. The same is true for the larger culture and the war between the sexes. That's why Sarah is such a phenomenon. Her mere presence, her existence, touches and concerns so many people in so many different ways that it is totally unique in American history.

The Palin Effect

What effect, you might ask? Well, we're going to be writing about this woman for decades. She is literally standing on the edge of history! Consider this: after being told by those presumed to be far more knowledgeable and worldly that she was an embarrassment and (incredibly) not even female, she remains undeterred and insistent that she will in fact enter the protected kingdom and she will not, in fact, be intimidated. That’s Sarah Palin, ladies and gentlemen, and that's why I see her when I see that photograph above of Dorothy Counts.

Noemie Emery a week or two ago detailed the effect of Sarah Palin on our body politic. The first effect:

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Call off the funeral. Three weeks ago, the wisdom was that the conservative movement was over and done with. It had burned itself out, taking the Republican party down with it, and setting the stage for the biggest explosion of liberal governance since perhaps the New Deal.

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Official Washington, D.C. can deal with or at least tolerate country club Republicans. But Sarah Freakin' Palin? She gives them the vapors with a quickness! Whatever the psychologica state-of-mind of the D.C. establishment, Emery in essence says Palin proves the point that the big tent Republican Party of multiple coalitions of the willing wasn't, contrary to conventional wisdom, going away.

The second effect:

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Angry White Women. Palin's pick was a hand grenade tossed into the old-fashioned feminist movement's aged and tottering hulk. "Can someone please tell me what the hell happened?" pled Michelle Cottle of the New Republic, as Sarah made landfall.

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I addressed part of the Michelle Cottle bewilderment in a post on September 9th. Palin undeniably connects with women across the political spectrum. To that end, Emery goes on to note some uncomfortable truths for many feminists, such as the fact that women are less in favor of unfettered abortion rights than men are and that George W. Bush won the white female vote in 2004. These uncomfortable truths largely account for the hysterical attacks by the new Bull Connor's of the far left on an obviously qualified woman.

The third effect:

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Hillary's Angle. As fate had it, the phone finally rang at three in the morning chez Hillary Clinton, and this time, it was a true crisis: It was Barack Obama, begging her to save his rear end.

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I'm one of those folks completely unconcerned by polls that presume to show a clear Barack Obama lead, nationally. It makes no sense to me that in a time of financial crisis the country will vote to hand the reigns of the Presidency over to a man like Barack Obama and his sidekick Joe Biden. No way, no how, no Obama. All of these polling outfits are off -- all of them. It's almost as if Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos is still in full effect and all the numbers are being thrown off. Unfortunately, they are dangerously setting the stage for world-class bitching and moaning after Obama loses this race and a dedicated cadre insist the election was stolen from The Chosen One.

I have consistently asserted that Sarah Palin is a political earthquake severely underestimated in the official media of this nation and all associated entities. History is going to prove this to be far more the "Age of Palin" rather than the "Age of Obama."For this reason, it is difficult to overestimate her effect on this political race.

Finally, as an undergraduate at the University of Florida in the 1980s, the Communist Party USA tried to recruit me as a member. I had completed a tour in the United States Army, served in a unit that guarded the East German-Czechoslovak border, and had a Top Secret military clearance. My willingness to observe things for myself and make up my own mind based on my own observations probably made me an interesting candidate to the CPUSA. That, and my one-year subscription to the Communist Party magazine, that is. In the next edition of this series, the fourth of five and titled "Operation Connect the Dots," I'm going to explain why this experience (among others) allowed me to spot Barack Obama from a mile away and why I believe America should reject his candidacy.

White Privilege

For some odd reason, Typepad is not allowing me to respond to a comment in my earlier Operation Country First:The Campain Theme post. So, I'm saying to heck with trying to figure it out and allowing my rant response to EarthTone's comment to be a post in and of itself. Beyond reading or reflecting on the earlier post, you'll need to take a look at White Boy Extraordinaire: Tim Wise. These people positively ooze with condescension.

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EarthTone -- a good discussion? A good damn discussion!?!

If you want to play that game, I'll tell you what that idiot just engaged in.

White privilege!

You see, he's the better white boy who believes in all the better things the *lesser* white people are too stupid to believe. And he goes through recitation after recitation of demonstrating just that fact. Which means, quite naturally, *he* gets to decide all of these things. I mean, hell, he has spoken -- what else is there to say???

And you are crazy enough to tell me that's a good discussion? Well golly gee, I sure hope he made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside as he walked through his "look at me, I'm the good white boy" routine.

In fact, he's so damn privileged -- he and his friends -- they have unilaterally decided that Barack Obama, alone among all Presidential candidates in history, cannot be questioned about his closest friends or any other potentially unflattering factoid from his atypical life.

But I peeped the hand of this particular group of superior white folks long, long ago before I made the switch to the Republican Party. These are the folks who talk a good game and live in the student ghetto during their college days *by choice.* They self-segregate by choice and then turn around and blame other white folks who do the exact same things (even non-white folks: does Barack Obama's kids go to the public school in their rich Chicago, Illinois neighborhood? No, and neither do the kids of his friends and neighbors. You see, there seem to be "problem populations" surrounding that rich neighborhood and they are severely under-performing -- what would our dear Tim Wise say about *that* kind of privilege? Odds are, there would me more of the bitch-and-moan blame game with no responsibility at all shouldered by the relevant populations.)

Hell, it could just be me but that strikes me as precisely how you attempt to effectively cripple a population and convince them only "Massa" can see them through. This black man will have no more of it. More importantly (for this discussion on white privilege), when confronted on the public school issue (a true achilles heel for the Democrats) Barack Obama and his fellow travelers would be given a complete pass -- now what the hell was Tim saying about privilege, EarthTone? But damn oh damn, they (as opposed to the bad white people, a.k.a. Republicans) really really care about the average man. And they really really know what's best for the average man. And the average man had better (how do I say this?) really really do exactly what these fool people tell that average man to do or there will be hell to pay. I mean, who knows? Next thing you know your religion might be shat upon, your daughter trashed, your husband ridiculed, and your intelligence not simply questioned but vehemently disputed. N'est–ce pas?

Congratulations, EarthTone; do you need some bells to go with those shackles?

This clown Tim Wise trashes the average white people who are the backbone of our industry and our military, and the majority of our taxpayers, because he desperately wants to be cool. He willingly tosses around terms like stupid, etc., and tells me all I need to know regarding how he truly feels about my parents, my siblings, my cousins, etc. You too, if you took the time to think about it, EarthTone. For if he dares to casually dismiss Sarah Palin and her family as he obviously has, how can it be denied that deep down he feels the same or worse about average black people. Or average folks anywhere.

EarthTone, beware a fool who desperately wants to be cool.

And just in case you haven't figured it out after Bill Clinton was never able to get 50% of the vote and Dubya earned two terms in the White House -- the Republican/conservative cohort is the majority in this country, regardless of what a poll may tell you.

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Aren't white people sick and tired of this kind of white boy? This black boy sure as hell is. The man quite obviously projects his innate feelings of white privilege on a presumed lower class of voters who identify with a woman of obvious, objective achievement -- political and otherwise -- and has a multitude of acolytes enthusiastically clapping as if they are attending some Kim Jong Il lecture.

Pathetic.

Finally, Barack Obama is not simply living a lie, he is the lie personified. I expect the final month of this presidential campaign to make this point very clear to the American public and I'm more than willing to let the chips fall where they may.

Operation Country First: The Campaign Theme

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

[this is the second of at least four parts]

Through corresponding with friends, it's clear the McCain campaign has hit upon a winner with its theme of Country First. It raises so many compare and contrast questions with his opponent, Barack Obama (e.g., citizen of the world?), that it works on multiple levels for many different individuals. Briefly, it invokes a winning presidential campaign by a Republican Senator (Warren G. Harding) who garnered 404 electoral votes, and it (via a below-the-radar benefit) importantly aligns itself with the traditional patriotism of country music. As a neoconservative, it also directs some fire at me with its theme serving as cautionary reminder of the need for American restraint in advancing the cause of freedom and democracy. Message received (with some caveats, of course). There are many more but I will necessarily limit my focus.

Country First

For my purposes, therefore, Country First as a political theme is first aimed at the base of the Republican Party. McCain's theme reminds the base that he is one of them. More importantly for the national election, though, the theme serves as a psychological mirror intended to force Independent voters or Reagan Democrats and any skeptical Republican recipients of the message to engage an unavoidably inward-directed contemplation in response to the theme.

Contemplation of what? The theme invites individuals to look back on the dissonance in America today and further invites individual voters, in response to that dissonance, to ponder first things. If that invitation is genuinely accepted, the clear bet by the McCain campaign is this: their candidate wins.

Why should that be? Well, when one considers the essential nature of things, one tends to eschew finding a needle in the haystack of life and remaining fixated on that one narrow point (coalitions of the willing, ladies and gentlemen). Yes, you may bring a particular special interest to the discussion. Country First, however, seeks to return the recipient (and, thus, the national political discussion) to an unabashedly American discourse designed to inform our public philosophy vis-a-vis political debate. This is a decidedly nonpartisan approach with a very partisan effect given the near total abdication by Democrat's of any comprehension of putting the American national interest first.

Instead, any embrace of a national interest issue is almost always linked with some global effort that ultimately demonizes some facet of pure Americana.

Boxing Them In

So, as a primary goal, Country First seeks to contrast the other side in this election by putting them in a bad light while extolling the legitimate war heroism and maverick status of John McCain. No one will ever confuse or fault McCain for forever utilizing an unabashedly European approach to politics. No, sir! Barack Obama? Well, let us simply say that he engages in a political discourse that (even when fronted by a plain vanilla metrosexual proxy with exotic melanin) remains antithetical to the American way.

The McCain campaign knows the elaborate and pervasive trickeration that is the Obama campaign and they know it has to be stopped. What kind of trickeration, you ask? The kind that allows a black man to play the presidential election game by a different set of rules that protect him from national review. Wasn't it Jesse Jackson who said (and I paraphrase), we just want America to play the game by the same set of rules? Wasn't it?

Country First is a thematic approach designed to accomplish the task of snapping America out of a hypnotic and guilt-induced trance imposed in an environment where the media and other national myth-makers are completely aligned against you. This means you have to go over the heads of the media and the polling myth-maker's, etc. Any hope for success in this endeavor dictates that, while looking firmly and resolutely forward, one must first go back to the primary myth being utilized by Barack Obama to superficially mainstream his cause.

Sinful by nature, modern psychology has verified the sheer difficulty we human beings encounter when attempting to look within. Can we ever really see ourselves as we are? Not likely. Additionally, if internal insight is supremely difficult for an individual to achieve, is it more difficult still for a national polity?

Relatively speaking, I think not – and herein lies the genius of the Country First theme for me.

Service

Although far more quiet than the self-evident panic that set in after the naming of Sarah Palin as Republican nominee for Vice President, I have to believe knowledgeable operatives among the Democrat's are hoping against hope the nation will not stop to dwell on this Country First theme of the McCain campaign. We've seen, since the awful 9/11 attacks on America, calls from certain quarters to require all Americans to engage the good fight and bear some burdens in response to those attacks. Some of those calls have certainly been disingenuous but service in this environment is a powerful and winning theme.

This comment sent into William Katz at Urgent Agenda on September 3^rd from a man identified as Howard J. Klein explains why:

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Seems to me the slogan “Country First” is a shorthand way of saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” The Dems have slipped so far to the left that JFK is now a Nazi in their eyes.

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Kennedy, a man Obama has studiously attempted to copy and whose family machine has clearly worked in concert with Obama's Chicago machine, made that famous statement with the full knowledge that America was going to continue forcefully challenging the scourge of communism around the globe. Through the Peace Corps, through the military, through diplomacy, through a wide range of American initiatives.

Just as few people around the nation can wrap their hands around the fact that the Republican Party is the historical party for African Americans, few Democrat's today can grasp the political reality of John F. Kennedy. No, no, no. Set aside, of course, the private reality of John F. Kennedy, what they truly love – since they gave birth to it – is the Hollywood myth of John F. Kennedy. The essence of Kennedy has been falsely modified: we've moved from Kennedy the signifier (ask not what your country can do for you or Ich bin ein Berliner) to Kennedy the signified (Camelot) to Kennedy the sign (as presently utilized by Barack Obama).

If you haven't seen the Prayer, God and War video recently produced by Newt Gingrich please do yourself the favor and take a good look at it now. It is quite relevant to this discussion and also illustrative of why Country First works so well.

The Mirror

Historically, a mirror has symbolized one's personal confrontation with an inward-directed unvarnished objective truth and the outward-directed representation of one's physical self. JFK's famous statement at his inaugural, referenced above, served as a mirror with an inward-directed message for the nation and an outward-directed representation for the world to see. It was of America, by America, and for America. Because of their slavish obedience to their European betters (which would shock JFK but perhaps not Jackie O), the American left-wing (including his family) gets the essence of JFK all wrong. They have bought into the European understanding of JFK, the sign and completely forgotten about JFK the signifier. Further, and this is also because of their slavish obedience to their European betters, they have reversed the dynamic of the mirror of truth. They now fixate on an outward-directed changeable truth (as opposed to confronting an inward-directed unvarnished objective truth) along with an inward-directed representation they think the world would like to see.

Why reverse the dynamic of the mirror of truth? Fear. They intuitively have a deep distrust of the masses as well as God. Given this fear, they must work consistently and unquestioningly to add to the dissonance. Up becomes down, white becomes black, Marxism becomes Christianity, and treating the candidates by the same set of rules suddenly becomes racism.

These people on the far left are deathly afraid they are on the wrong end of history and are projecting their deep unease onto others as an unconscious defense against a rather intense anxiety or guilt. I can hear them now: Are you questioning my patriotism? And my response? Well . . . yes, in fact I am.

In my next installment in this series, to be titled Operation Shock The World, I will explore how that fear is demonstrated by the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin from the new Bull Connor wannabes of the far left.

Operation "Deflate the Balloon:" Mission Accomplished

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

This is the first of at least two parts.

There is a multifaceted yet informal series of kill shots being delivered during this Presidential campaign and African Americans are central to the action. I am calling it Operation "Deflate the Balloon" and the tip of the spear has been carried out beautifully by the John McCain campaign. Not only have they accomplished their mission, but they've done so spectacularly. Contrary to the stated opinion of many among our established pundits, who are presently obsessing about a super close electorate, Republicans have been relatively restrained this summer. There is no triumphalism. Or so it seems to me. In the midst of constant advisories about the deadlocked national vote Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan all look good for the Republicans -- at worst, win one and lose one and fight to the end in the other.

At worst.

If that's the case, Obama is a dead man walking -- politically.

Think about it: I don't remember Obama outperforming his polling in the Democrats primaries. In fact, I remember him consistently underperforming his polling. We are less than two months out, however, and time will tell all shortly. We are in the middle of an historic campaign -- more than the far left Democrats bargained for when they maneuvered Barack Obama onto the top of the ticket. It is that forced move that has allowed this informal operation, unplanned and completely serendipitous in nature, to move forward. Thank you, George Soros.

PHASE ONE -- the post-racial celebrity

Thanks to Sarah Palin, the present excitement rank-and-file Republicans feel is palpable. Political operatives would agree, I'm certain, that the smell of victory is how you keep the ground troops excited (and working) and this optimism allows your campaign to fight off manufactured October surprises and glide home on election day.

In a couple of weeks, we will be one month away from election day and so far this campaign gets an A+ on their devastatingly effective summer battle plan. I have dubbed it Operation Deflate the Balloon. The first component of the battle plan has been fairly obvious to see: deflate the balloon of Barack Obama, the post-racial celebrity.

Seizing on the opportunity so remarkably presented to it by the Obama decision to campaign in Europe, the McCain team had to be jumping with glee at the Politics 101 stupidity of it all. The initial celebrity ad skewering Obama through skillful linkage to Paris Hilton was brilliant (yeah, okay; you're famous, but why are you famous?). However, the ad had a stealth quality to it. By making a splash that appeared to be about nothing more than the emptiness of celebrity, it served as a perfect vehicle for what was to come -- deeply fundamental questions that touch upon the mythos of America. It served to fix in place the image of the Magic Negro while simultaneously being dismissive of it (and you know I liked that). The battlefield was now set.

While the "Celebrity" ad may be more famous, I can't forget "The Temple" ad. Again, it was playing off the serious Obama error that will keep giving and giving until all of the post-election analyses are concluded but pay particular attention to all of the images floated into your consciousness:

Devastating.

Notice the good ole boy white males that were menacingly flashed on the screen after the image of Obama was continually diminished? I received an eMail from a friend who saw my earlier post on The Temple/Higher Taxes/Not Ready to Lead ad and wanted to talk about it a bit. This, in part, is what was written:

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I saw your reference to the plantation. I find it interesting that old antebellum plantations often had front porches intended to evoke the imagery of a Greek temple. The Old South combined a reverence for Athenian architecture and Spartan slave patrols with a certain exaltation of the industrial slave plantation, an ideal that Rome had imported from Carthage along with its custom of crucifixion. In any case, Barack Obama does evoke a patrician ideal.

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Patrician. As though a member of the upper class, whether in ancient Rome, the plantation South, or present-day America. Yet he's fighting for the little man, don't you know. Where the ad shows the liberal overlords in Congress, I see plantation masters. And Obama is no plantation master. So . . . what is he, my friends? Overseer? Or . . . well, I've been asked by multiple folks to stay on the high road but I think you catch my drift.

Back to the campaign.

There is quite a bit of idle speculation still floating around concerning Hillary joining the Obama ticket as a replacement for Joe Biden. I doubt if there is any way Hillary would be so stupid as to step in just as this tanker is sinking.

What people are missing is that PUMA’s (Hillary supporters who declare "party unity my ass") are of special importance in mostly Democrat areas. They will serve to make the race closer than it ordinarily would be in blue states and the evidence of such is unmistakeable in New Jersey and New York already. In battleground states, Sarah Palin beats out Hillary straight up — because the contrast between them is so stark and Palin is so fresh in a year that demands change, change, change. Hillary getting back in the 2008 race does not change this election and she knows it. Especially since she will be in the service of a man who genuinely doesn’t know how to respect that middle-road approach the Bill Clinton worked so well in the 1990’s. That approach almost saved a non-believer (in the middle-road, that is) such as Hillary. Had she paid proper attention to the caucus states, she’d be the nominee today. If the Democrats had a normal nominating process, she’d be the nominee even with her early miscalculations.

Hillary has a fighting chance against a possible Palin bid for the Presidency in 2012 but not this year.

PHASE TWO -- the historic African American candidacy

Obama losing allows Hillary to come in afterward and not only seek but deliver serious retribution. They aren’t about to give up that opportunity. That leads me to the second component of the battle plan; deflate the balloon of Barack Obama, the historic African American candidate. If you have any doubt about how effectively the McCain campaign has seamlessly pulled this off, take a look at an opinion piece from Lynette Long in the Baltimore Sun:

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I have given my loyalty to the Democratic Party for decades. My party, which is comprised primarily of women, has not put a woman on a presidential ticket for 24 years. My party stood silently by as Hillary Clinton was eviscerated by the mainstream media. My party and its candidate gave their tacit approval for the attacks on Mrs. Clinton (and, consequently, women in general).

I can vote for my party and its candidates, which have demonstrated a blatant disrespect for women and a fundamental lack of integrity. Or I can vote for the Republican ticket, which has heard our concerns and put a woman on the ticket, but with which I fundamentally don't agree on most issues.

Right now, for me, gender trumps everything else. If Democratic women wait for the perfect woman to come along, we will never elect a woman. I will vote for McCain-Palin. I urge other women to do the same. I promise to be the first person knocking on her door if Roe v. Wade or any other legislation that goes against the rights of women is threatened. But in Governor Palin, I find a woman of integrity, who not only talks the talk but walks the walk. I can work with that. I will work with that.

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I have tried to say to black friends for months now that African Americans have made a very serious error by completely kicking Hillary Clinton to the curb and treating her so shabbily in the process. None of it has sunk in and my commentary usually generates more venom. This is going to be a very hard lesson for black people to learn but apparently a very necessary one as well. I say necessary, because we are just that far gone as a presumptuous population. Jeff Goldstein did a good job of lampooning what passes as elite intellectual thought when he skewered Randall Kennedy's disappointing piece in the Washington Post:

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That Obama has dropped in the polls precisely after the Republicans’ nomination of Sarah Palin to the VP slot caused an outpouring of very real “hateful, snarling, open bigotry” of this Alaskan “snowbilly” and her doublewide mafia by media elites, Beltway insiders, and those whose aversion to religion borders on the religious — a bigotry that until now had been “a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip (”we are the champions of the little people! The working Moms! Unless, you know — they get all presumptuous and whatnot…”) — doesn’t seem to register with Prof Kennedy.

And even if it does, he rejects it — as in fact he must. Because Kennedy’s entire argument is a pre-emptive bit of blame-placing and victimology, a careful attempt to set up the black community, who will vote for a candidate almost exclusively out of racial identification, as the victims of a subtle institutionalized racism for which their is no cure other than to simply vote for a black candidate because he is black.

And is, of course, in Prof Kennedy’s words, given to “progressive politics, cosmopolitan ethos and pragmatic style.”

In other words, an authentic black man — a man of the left.

Up is down. Black is white. Sanford is Townsend.

To me, there's no way for principled African Americans to refute this. So many of us are nothing but navel-gazing narcissists about this issue that white people are increasingly tuning us out. Entirely.

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I keep asking black people, and will continue to do so, have you called George W. Bush a Hitler? A chimp? Stupid? Have you laughed at the outrageous slandering of Sarah Palin? Every far left liberal who has thrown out that kind of foolishness about the Governor of Alaska (the kindest thing many of them have grudgingly said is "empty suit") has telegraphed to black people exactly what they truthfully think of your grandmother, your aunt or your cousin, etc. Especially if they step off the plantation.

PHASE THREE -- the historic American candidacy

The historic American candidacy is what Barack Obama desperately wanted to run. Unfortunately for him, he's a pretender who has the misfortune of the real thing showing up right in the middle of his pretense.

Uh oh.

As I indicated in an earlier post, Guy Rundle nails the woefully mistaken error African Americans have made (of course, he's talking about Democrats but as far as Democrats are concerned and most black folks -- what the hell is the difference?) in showing the nation a categorical preference to vote as a racial bloc:

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We can't stop talking about Palin because her candidacy is not simply a clever tactical move — it's a genuine historic moment, arguably more significant than Barack Obama's rise to the Democratic candidacy. Why? Put simply, it's because the identity of men and women in a society — what they are allowed to do, what is seen as appropriate to them — really runs deeper than what different types of men — black, white, other — are allowed to do.

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Do the math: if America votes in racial blocs across the board, do black people win? Now, lets extend that a bit further. In the phase two analysis above I presented an opinion from a white female Democrat that said gender trumps all else for her in this election. Please review and contrast the piece recently posted by Rod Dreher at BeliefNet in full. For my purposes, however, here's what I want to highlight:

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[I]f you are going to extend your empathy to the African-American who votes for Barack Obama because he sees in Obama something deep and important about himself, and finds that makes Obama trustworthy, you have to extend your empathy to the small-town, rural folks who see the same in Sarah Palin, and have confidence in her. Her experiences have given her a certain place from which she judges the world, and it’s a place shared by tens of millions of Americans — men and women whose views and values are scarcely represented in American newsrooms.

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Doesn't that drive it home? In fact, doesn't that say it all? In my humble opinion the balloon, identity politics, has been deflated and no one is floating above an average American on a theoretically higher plane. This deflating of the identity politics balloon hasn't been completely accomplished and it will likely never be completely accomplished. However, we are now in an increasingly peer-to-peer environment, the way America is supposed to be. And Sarah Palin is the revolutionary change-agent.

Properly exposed, identity politics has a limited utility for African Americans and all other groups. Now we have a race to the finish with the McCain-Palin team clearly in front and the Obama-Biden team panicked in the rear view mirror. In my next From Within The Veil entry, which will be the second part to this entry and titled "Operation Country First," I'm going to do a quick examination of multiculturalism, feminism, Harvey Mansfield, African American women, and Sarah Palin.

Country first.

Think about it.

Betrayal, Revisited

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

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This piece was originally published on April 17, 2006 in contemplation of the foolish Larry Wilkerson; I also subsumed it within a post on the 2007 anniversary of 9/11 admonishing us to keep the faith with Iraq. I republish it now, more than two years after its original appearance, in contemplation of the remarkably foolish Scott McClellan. We know of Colin Powell's close working relationship with Wilkerson -- but inquiring minds can't help but speculate: did Colin Powell and Larry Wilkerson help turn Scott McClellan?

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I have the highest regard for Colin Powell and it would not be an overstatement to say he is a genuine personal hero. This past week has done quite a bit of personal damage to his exalted status in my imagination. This is certainly of no real import across the nation or for Colin Powell . . . unless, of course, it is being replicated in households across America, especially those where one or more members have been service members or officers in the United States military.

It is unsettling to live in a time when a gathering storm is approaching but so many refuse to recognize it for what it is. I think that may be why I coined the term (at least I think I coined it) “punk ass surrender monkey” at a time when so many were signing on to the “cheese-eating surrender monkey” meme a few years ago. That generalized French-bashing meme just didn’t seem to have enough of an edge to me and wasn’t nearly serious enough, and certainly didn’t look homeward.

Are we or are we not serious about this gathering storm? I’ve been wondering about that ever since 9-11. As part of that wonderment, I’ve tried to determine what accounts for the evident blindness of so many.

I wonder no more: for an explication of this “blindness,” including a good working definition of punk ass surrender monkey, consider a recent offering from Gerard Van der Leun – discussing the recent National Geographic exploitation piece, “The Gospel of Judas:”

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Having risen through the echo chamber of “higher” education and survived the ruthless but quiet vetting process of their “profession,” these editors knew full well that what they were putting out into the world was not a “gospel.” They also knew that calling it a “gospel” would ensure greater attention and greater sales. Beyond that, the editors, secular cultists all, also got a quiet little tingle by having, in their minds, “stuck it” to the Christian church once again. As usual, such secularists love to stick it to Christianity.

Addicts of auto-erotic spiritual asphyxiation, their onanistic pleasure in these deeds is only enhanced if they can be performed during the most holy days of the Chritian calendar. Only then can maximum profit and pleasure be assured. This dark thrill of denigration has the immediate benefit of pleasingly confirming them in their own Church of Zero, and the secondary benefit of being much, much safer than, say, sticking it to Islam, a faith that enforces its demands for respect with bombs and beheadings, and whose central message to all cowards is “Don’t mess with Muhammad.” The sad fact of our modern era is that if you denigrate Islam, you often have to bag up body parts and hose down the sidewalk, but when you denigrate Christianity the most you need to clean up after yourself is a warm washcloth.

Your gedankenexperiment for today is to ask yourself, regardless of your religious beliefs, if the editors of National Geographic, being given an ancient manuscript that “proved” the Koran was nothing more than the blatherings of some ergot-besotted Bedouin who had munched one too many hallucinogenic plants while hanging out in a cave near Mecca, would have published the same “proof” as loudly and as broadly? Would they have done so, or would they have issued a Press Release citing concerns for the “provenance” of the manuscript and their employees’ safety?

Regardless of your religious beliefs, you know the shameful answer.

But beyond these considerations, the publication of the “Gospel” of Judas has another, deeper and more lasting benefit to our neophytes of nihilism. It puts one of the final elements of their anti-morality play at center stage. It seeks to sanctify treason.

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Read the full entry; it’s a typically outstanding piece – and especially important as a topic for discussion within an African American culture that takes its faith seriously, but increasingly superficially. Which is why I want to highlight this Van der Leun paragraph:

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It is true that the federal crime of treason is not easily established and is rarely if ever charged. But the formal crime of treason is not what I am discussing here. Rather the more common, garden variety of treason as understood by plain people -- the rabid and unremitting hatred, expressed in word or deed, of the country that gives you the freedom express your hatred. It is the treason of the ingrate, the soul-dead, the politically perverted, and the bitter; it is, as Roger Kimball at The New Criterion discusses, the treason of the intellectuals and “the undoing of thought.”

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The ingrate.

The soul-dead.

The politically perverted.

The bitter.

These are the folks susceptible of becoming punk ass surrender monkeys.

Aren’t we in the black community tired, by now, of being led around by the nose from such disaffected folk looking to use us to advance their fad? People who we good and well know laugh at our faith? People who mock Christianity every opportunity they get?

Tell me again, National Geographic: is it the “lost” gospel or is it the “discredited, false and heretical” attempt to confuse the Christian church? An attempt universally shunted in the earliest years of the church, in fact? Yeah, I thought so.

One of the most powerful sentences in Gerard’s piece for me was this:

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It is no longer sophisticated or fashionable to speak of selfishness as betrayal.

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I’m going to ponder that sentence well into the future, it resonates just that strongly in my imagination.

It is also a perfect entry into another discussion about the bet, the gamble, the diverse leadership of Islamic radicals have made – that the weakness of democracy will inevitably lead to its collapse. All that is required, they obviously believe, is a devotion to being consistently radical enough over a long enough period – and democratic civilization the world-over will eventually grow weary and capitulate. And if they can’t be worn down, they (the ingrate, the soul-dead, the politically perverted, and the bitter) can be counted upon to betray their nation if paid enough.

They may be correct in their assessment vis-à-vis Europe; I firmly believe they certainly are incorrect about America. But here at home, my God – I have to admit they do have the best-intentioned allies any adversary could possibly hope for.

Exhibit A, much to my chagrin, is Colin Powell and his sycophants. Using Gerard’s list, above, they represent “the bitter.” I held out for quite some time that Colin Powell was not engaged in underhanded activities with respect to the Bush Administration but it has become clear to me that Colin is well-trained in the art my mother describes as “throwing rocks and hiding your hands.” Consider retired Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson. I just watched him this weekend on C-SPAN deliver a grotesque display of pure hatred for Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld that was a sight to behold. It was so curious, in fact, that I had to do a little bit of checking on the man. When I found a Dana Milbank column in the Washington Post, I knew what to expect and was not disappointed in the slightest:

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As Colin Powell’s right-hand man at the State Department, Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly [RattlerGator: Quietly? I bet!] during President Bush’s first term. Yesterday, Colonel Wilkerson made up for lost time.

He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. He said of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith: “Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.” Addressing scholars, journalists and others at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson accused Bush of “cowboyism” and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as “extremely weak.” [RattlerGator: quite telling remark, wouldn’t you say?] Of American diplomacy, he fretted, “I’m not sure the State Department even exists anymore.” [RattlerGator: even more telling, still – right?]

And how about Karen Hughes’s efforts to boost the country’s image abroad? “It’s hard to sell [manure],” Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend. [RattlerGator: fertilizer, where fertilizer is needed, should be applied – that’s what we’re doing]

The man who was chief of staff at the State Department until early this year continued: “If you’re unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you’re declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you’re doing a host of things that the world doesn’t agree with you on and you’re doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you’ve got to pay the consequences.” [RattlerGator: that’s called accepting the requirements of leadership; maybe when it bites Wilkerson in the ass he’ll remember his Army training]

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Without grace?

Clearly, a European bureaucrat living in that fantasyland of Old Europe where (apparently) young new hires can’t be fired from their under-performing jobs, simply couldn’t have spit out an anti-American spin any better than Wilkerson did.

Now, I’m not saying Wilkerson is a monkey imitating his foreign master – just that he gives a damn good imitation of one. This makes him a punk ass surrender monkey of the bitter persuasion in my conception of things. These are folks who are well-intentioned but mistaken and, through their actions, engaged in doing the necessary bidding required for our adversary to be successful in their fight against America.
And that’s the problem with Washington, D.C. in the here and now – not enough people there have a problem with indirectly doing the bidding of our adversary – and, ultimately, the nation is going to have to do something about it. This is because there are, in actual fact, inherent weaknesses in all democratic forms of government. For instance, no one at that assembly thought to ask Colonel Wilkerson how does one hijack American foreign policy when one is doing precisely what the President wants one to do? As opposed to the foreign policy folks who are supposed to be doing what the President wants them to do overseas but who, clearly, were not.

Precisely who was doing the hijacking here, Colonel Wilkerson?

As Gerard said:

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It is no longer sophisticated or fashionable to speak of selfishness as betrayal.

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Here, in Colonel Wilkerson, is a man who was Chief of Staff at an agency that is constitutionally required to be the President’s – did you read that and comprehend its import – THE PRESIDENT’S – voice overseas. Not the American people and not the Congress – because we’re not talking about any kind of “by extension” situation – we’re talking about direct, in your lane, within your chain-of-command responsibility. You, as a State Department employee, might think you’re a citizen of the world (well and good) but you are not a United Nations unto yourself and you do work for a chief executive. However, when you’re too smart by half, and your government has been exceedingly good to you, apparently this class of folk forgets little niceties like respecting our own democratic processes.

The people elect a chief executive; we do not elect a Secretary of State nor the know-everything bureaucrats of the State Department who would dare spit in the face of the President of the United States. Nor do we elect commissioned officers in the United States military – who are drilled over and over again to stay in their lane, to work within their chain-of-command.

Can you possibly conceive of that man, Wilkerson, seriously advocating (and more importantly, implementing) the President’s foreign policy? I didn’t think so.

Now, is betrayal really too strong a concept to consider here? I say: Not. At. All. It seems to me it is directly on point and somebody has to call this man out on it.

The radical mullahs are banking on the Larry Wilkerson’s of America – so damn smart that they weaken the democratic process from the sheer heft of their own personal intellect, all the while presuming to serve a higher cause – as determined by their “cabal.” Wilkerson, it appears, loosely tosses around quite a few terms that seem to be more applicable to he and his crowd.

You’ve got to be some kind of stupid, or a double-agent of some sort, to seriously put forward the idea of someone hijacking American foreign policy when it is quite obvious you are not only the hijacking entity but the derelict entity, too.

Again, here’s Gerard:

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Betrayal is a common catechism in the Church of the Self. Hymns to Me are the hosannas it hurls at an empty heaven. The politics of such a church require as First Things a rejection of all things not of, by, and for the self. A religion or a country of the people, by the people, and for the people is high on the list of things to be abhorred since it requires an allegiance that is other than to the self. The Church of the Self effectively mandates treason, and we see it now manifested daily in the bright robes of “unstiffled dissent” which shroud an increasingly vicious anti-Americanism that has its roots, not in reasoned criticism, but in unreasoned hate. We hear the hate but what we have not been allowed to see is the treason behind it.

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There is something deeply offensive about a man only recently separated from a position at the highest levels of American foreign policy exhibiting no better home training than to speak in so vulgar a fashion about the leadership of American government. In the speech I saw on C-SPAN there came, inevitably, the question regarding Wilkerson’s former boss – Colin Powell. Why hadn’t Powell done or said more in opposition to those Bush Administration neanderthals when he was in office, the foreign correspondent wanted to know?

I would like to say that Colin Powell didn’t do so because he has better home training than that. There is, however, one problem with this assessment. General Powell’s fingerprints are all over this type of vitriol, including the recent “explosion” (more like a fart) of former military officers doing what they know damn well they should not do.

And the cutesy little answer provided by Wilkerson at that forum just isn’t going to fly. Colin Powell prefers to work within the system to effect change, he said. Is that right? Well why hasn’t he told you to STFU? And if you insisted on your present course, why wouldn’t he then publicly rebuke you? For if ever there was a time for General Powell to step forward and remind some folks of duty, honor and country – this strikes me as that time.

There is something doubly offensive about a man recently entrusted not only with a high-level military commission but subsequently with a high-level civilian post in the executive branch of government, and thereafter waltzing his butt out of that slot and personally attacking the leadership of the United States government.

I don’t give a damn whether Dana Milbank understands that or not. I do give a damn whether Colonel Wilkerson or General Powell honor that fidelity they owe to the United States, and to our chief executive.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama: Get Out Now, 2012 Beckons

From Within The Veil

W.E.B. DuBois said the problem of the 20th Century would be the problem of the color line; solidly within the color line in the culture of the United States stands African Americans, obscured from view by something similar to a veil -- those within are visible behind that veil, but precisely how clearly? Those within obviously see beyond that veil, but again . . . exactly how clearly? I believe the challenge of the 21st Century will prove to be the same as the challenge of the 20th Century (the color line) but with this distinct difference: the "special" burden presented by the challenge and that burden which must be shouldered will no longer be on those from without the veil. No, the special burden in the 21st Century will be on those of us within the veil. As it should be.

This is an open letter to Barack Obama and here is my central point: if you are serious about your faith, Barack, get out of this presidential election right now and get your house in order. Your only true path forward toward the Presidency is to walk away from Trinity United Church of Christ and it is a wonder you have not realized this fact, spiritually, at some point prior to announcing your desire to be President of the United States.

No man or woman who wants to be President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces can be a member of such a church.

Not one.

I think I've had something of an out-of-body experience while first watching and then contemplating different pieces of the Jeremiah Wright media tour. I bet you have, too. My response? Less is more, less is more, less is more. I've had to remind myself of this fact while trying to reason through the internal anger and bewilderment associated with my quite visceral response to the situation he has created. I have no intention of voting for you, Barack, but I want to see you do well. Genuinely. I also know that it will be difficult to walk into that voting booth in November if you still have a viable shot at the presidency and not vote for you.

However, under present circumstances you make it supremely easy to not vote for you regardless of whether you have a viable shot at winning or not.

The fact of the matter on a glorious first day of May is this: baldilocks spoke rather well for me on this subject and, by and large, I've not been able to improve on her words. If you haven't read her piece, you should.

That said, the real problem for you with respect to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the May 2008 problem (obviously, there is the potential for further bizarre developments), is that you consciously attached YOURSELF to Jeremiah Wright some 20-plus years ago . . . all because you (or Michelle, perhaps) was captured -- apparently -- by our love of spectacle. And the sight of a prancing Jeremiah Wright -- in the pulpit, no less -- had to be quite a sight to behold. Now, the entirely predictable has occurred: that spectacle is crashing in on you. And the sight of you with your wife these days? Quite a spectacle, too. Trying to maintain, and move forward, as though this is just some kind of bimbo eruption. This is no simple bimbo eruption! The American voting public has quite a bit of experience in their personal lives (or that of friends and extended family) with that sort of problematic event.

The voting public has absolutely no experience with this kind of foolishness.

Regarding baldilocks' blog post, I do take issue with one major point she made. She indicated support, if I recall correctly, for the proposition that there is no "black church." I strongly disagree.

Barack, remember this central fact: when you failed to step away from your first choice of church in Chicago and, as a quite viable alternative, failed to involve yourself with any of the literally hundreds of mainstream A.M.E. or Missionary Baptist or Church of God in Christ congregations (these are the big denominations most African Americans attend, along with some Roman Catholic and United Methodist Church congregations) all over Chicagoland and, instead, remained attached to Rev. Wright's cause, his fortunes, his solutions, and his grievances -- it communicated a central truth about you. However, choosing to remain in Trinity United Church of Christ for all these years communicates THE central truth about you and it implicates an unseriousness about your Christian faith relative to your more devout adherence to the politics of liberation theology.

Think about that, Barack.

If you win the Democrat Party nomination this year, every voter in the upcoming Presidential election will have to decide precisely what is the calculation between your Christian faith and the murky tenets of liberation theology, and this will not be good for you. I suspect Republicans are more than willing to sit on this particular fact, saving the more explicit and explosive discussion that must be had for the general election. Still, it is a devastating weakness for you that cannot and will not be finessed away by some talented political handler.

I was raised in an old-school, tiny Primitive Baptist Church, Barack, and I confess I'm a troubled sinner who has not had a born-again experience. I don't write as a Christian authority and the material that follows was cobbled together from websites I can't now itemize. Take that for what it's worth. I do, however, contend that I have a fairly good understanding of the black mainstream (religious, political and otherwise) in our great nation. As such, I am not unfamiliar with the black church.

In that black church there is wide variation across many denominations with quite diverse traditions of tolerance, or the lack thereof, for ostentatious emoting -- the kind exhibited by Jeremiah Wright. However, there is also wide agreement in those churches that Christianity's basis is dual, with a related guiding instruction that serves as a third component. What is that basis?

[1] Mosaic law (the Ten Commandments, first five books of the Old Testament, etc.) and, from the New Testament,

[2] the fact that the “victim” (Jesus Christ) already sacrificed himself. Of paramount importance is the teaching found in John 3:16 -- for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The rest of us are supposed to live up to that undeserved sacrifice, and the price of redemption is forgiveness of everyone else. African Americans are a very forgiving people. Properly understood, this forgiveness is a kind of a one-shot cure for the politics of victimology and is administered through the utilization of standard Christian theology, which Liberation Theology obviously isn't.

Liberation theology, including the derivative black liberation theology, ignores the instruction from Christ that:

[3] we are to render unto Caesar that which is his and we are to render unto God that which is His. Although Christians the world-over certainly argue about this point, it is fundamentally true that Christ came to preach the gospel to those who are poor in spirit, to heal those who are brokenhearted over sin, to proclaim liberty from the bondage of sin and Satan, to recover spiritual eyesight, to set at liberty those who are oppressed by Satan, and to proclaim the dawn of the new order where grace is offered to all now.

The human soul, in other words, is the focus and salvation is the key.

Liberation theology hopelessly confuses all of this, perhaps purposefully, and seems to be quite indifferent to any commonly accepted understanding of the ultimate mission of Jesus Christ. Work in the here and now for a just world? Yes. But making the be-all and end-all of Christianity the elimination of earthly poverty and the imposition of earthly justice? No.

Liberation theology is “this world” in focus and devoid of “other world” emphasis. Christians are taught God’s primary concern, however, is not with this world and our deliverance from earthly oppression but, rather, God’s primary concern is with eternity and your salvation from sin, Satan, and death. The genius of America, of course, is that it allows for many cultures to exist side by side. "E pluribus unum" (out of many, one) is the guiding principle.

Barack, many Americans are rightly wary of identity politics because they know the freedom to engage in such an orientation leads inevitably to a Jeremiah Wright arriving on the scene. That, however, is the simultaneous strength and weakness of the republican form of our democratic government and is, ultimately, our heritage as a nation. That heritage (that genius!), however, requires an understanding from its citizenry that is threatened by black liberation theology.

Barack, I'll close with reference to a man I do not know. Stephen Marmer, in a phenomenally good response at American Digest to a great post from Gerard van der Leun on the attempted mainstreaming of race hustling by Jeremiah Wright, wrote this:

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Wright basically asserted that there is inborn biological difference between those of European stock and those of African stock that culture and education cannot overcome.

I believe that biology is important. I believe that culture -- deep culture -- is important. I believe that education is important. The balance among these elements is even more important. But the consequences of the view that there are innate biological differences that trump culture and education is very dangerous.

I do not believe a civil society democratically constituted can withstand such a view. Democracy as we know it in America, that goes beyond mere plebiscite and extends to freedom of speech, of association, to reliable contracts, fair courts, rule of law, and the notion that no one should, on the basis of biological characteristics alone, be excluded from full citizenship rights, cannot withstand the notion that there are innate biological differences between races that trump our common culture and our universal standards of education.

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I, too, commented in that thread and my focus was to (1) compliment Marmer, (2) note that a little bit of knowledge is still a very dangerous thing, and I'm fully aware I may have exhibited the problem in this open letter. I also (3) proclaimed the growing embarrassment that was Jeremiah Wright, and (4) acknowledged that I keep wondering what manner of preacher is this Jeremiah Wright? It was clear to me that he obviously doesn't understand boundaries or his own self-evident limitations. What about you, Barack?

Reverend Wright's attempt to make the negative reaction to his situation out to be an attack on the black church is absurd, and I suspect you know that. Much discussion has been generated during this primary of a possible Clintonian strategy looking toward the election cycle of 2012. I happen to think that strategy works much better for you than it does for Hillary Clinton.

Take a step back, think about the entirety of your life, the centrality of your faith, and do the right thing: 2012, not 2008. Standard Christian theology, not black liberation theology. That is the path forward. I pray that you see it, and once seen, take it.

Pondering Dinesh D'Souza: Part One

At some point during the last 18 months or so, on one lazy Sunday afternoon, I found myself watching a C-Span three-hour interview with the infamous Dinesh D'Souza. If I didn't know he was "infamous" before the program aired, I certainly knew it after the program had concluded. I've watched many of these extended C-Span interviews but I'm not sure I've ever seen one with so many callers allowed through who were antagonistic to the author.

Very curious, I thought.

For a second, that is, until it dawned on me that this was a "colored man" daring to not only question the political orthodoxy of the left-wing but, when called out over this outrage, dared to (in essence) reply: Yeah, I said it!

Nothing, it seems, so upsets the political left, as a person of color who gets out of the prescribed lane offered up by whatever conventional wisdom that might be applicable -- and is unrepentant about it. And Lord have mercy on his or her soul if he or she is dating or married to somebody of European ancestry. The white people of the left wing really feel it is their paternalistic duty to go after the offending party. It's almost as if they have been given license to assume the role of plantation overseer assigned the task of dealing with ornery niggers who need a generous dose of "corrective treatment."

Can there be any doubt that a significant portion of the left wing firmly believe Dinesh is in dire need of corrective treatment? If there was doubt, dear reader, consider this: Front Page Magazine posted an address by D'Souza delivered on February 7, 2007 at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. In the address, D'Souza questioned the settled conventional wisdom in the Western industrialized nations arising in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He criticizes the left and he criticizes the right. He questions the use of the term "global war on terror" and he questions a phrase I have preferred: "war for freedom." Neither, he maintains, adequately frames what we're doing and what we're confronting.

I think he may be right.

D'Souza claimed in that February 2007 address that what America is actually attempting to do in Iraq (and, on this, I certainly agree) is allow for the development of a Muslim sense of democracy that isn't on either extreme of the tyranny spectrum. This is the American attempt to put on the table a "third way" for Muslims to see as a possibility. Not  something simply theoretical; something real. We are, naturally, opposed by some dead-ender insurgents in Iraq but D'Souza also states the obvious: that the Left is in bed with the insurgents in Iraq by doing the political work here in America that the insurgents couldn't possibly dream of doing themselves.

This has been what has infuriated me from the outset of our national response to 9/11 and forced me out of the Democrat Party: the politicization of a process that never should have been politicized. I will never forgive the left wing for that error. Never.

D'Souza closed his early 2007 address with this challenge to conservatives in America:

So, as conservatives – I will end on this note, perhaps. The Bush administration has been fighting – whether it knows it or not – two wars: There is a military war against an enemy abroad, and there is a political war against an enemy at home.

As I said when I first wrote this book, the Left was not in power but now its presence is palpable. And so, in a sense, this has moved the Iraq war, one may say, into a terminal ultimate stage. I think in this book I am questioning a lot of orthodoxies not just on the Left, but also a few on the Right.

But if you think about it, the reason I think we need this debate is that our conservative strategy of the past five years has not been working all that well. This strategy I would summarize as basically attempting to convince liberals that radical Muslims don’t really like you. The idea is that if the liberal only realized this, the scales would fall from his eyes; he would jump on the bandwagon, and we would have a unified War on Terror.

I ask you, has this strategy produced a single convert to date? If not, it’s time to open up the debate. It’s time to think of some new strategies. Ultimately it’s up to people in this room, people like us, to make the difference.

I want to end with that slogan from the ‘60s, “If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Airborne!

In some future post (Part Two of Pondering Dinesh D'Souza -- and God only knows when I will generate that post, given that I started this post on February 13th, 2007) I hope to take another look at D'Souza. That focus, however, will concern the curious conservative attack on him in 2007.

Don Imus: Sticks and Stones?

I really didn't want to spend much time thinking about the controversy currently swirling around Don Imus for specifically disrespecting the black women who constitute the majority of the basketball team from Rutgers that made a surprise run to the championship game. So, I thought to myself (for the last few days anyway), I'm not going to. However, I realize now that I do have to comment on it because the story just won't leave my mind alone, if you know what I mean.

Rutgers, of course, is the largely-unclaimed "University of New Jersey" and not an athletic power in women's college basketball or most other collegiate sports. With its main campus located some 25 miles from New York City, they were a local story for the New York market that is the home of the Imus in the Morning radio show hosted on what is said to be the number one sports radio station in that market, WFAN. One would have thought a leading program on such a station would have recognized what this story was.

It was an historic run these women made.

Storybook stuff.

I suspect this is what angers me most about the riff the guys on that news-talk-sports program laid down about the looks of the women on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights team. Here these young women are accomplishing the improbable and damn near overcoming the odds and actually doing the impossible -- winning the title -- and these clowns use that special feat as a prop to crap all over the history these women made in what was probably a calculated and cynical attempt to create buzz.

Which, of course, it has. I'll grant you it may not have been calculated by Imus for this purpose but the gentleman who fed him the "hard core ho's" line? Yeah, he thought about that. He calculated the use of that line, I'm fairly certain. And he knew that Imus or someone else among the cast of characters would run with it. Briefly, I'm sure. But it would be good for a "drive-by laugh" and off they would go to the next bit.

This is our modern dilemma, or so it appears to me. Bad home training sells and counts on the maintenance of standards in a sufficient number of Americans capable of being shocked by intemperate or insensitive language so that a constituency (any constituency) can be reliably counted upon to be offended in some way, shape, or form by the likes of Imus and his posse.

I've never liked the guy and I've never quite understood his popularity with many people (especially in the northeast, especially among liberal white folks from a variety of different groups). That's not to say I don't appreciate the talent employed by the show. They have some very talented people who put together some very funny radio skits, impersonations, etc. But it's far too New York for me, full of false superiority and a conceit that I find unbecoming.

As I've said, bad home training.

I heard Mike Greenberg say recently that he loved listening to Imus' show while growing up and he also said his recollection was that Imus tended to go after the powerful and not (as in this instance) the powerless. I'm not sure about that, not sure at all. I think that's probably a convenient recollection now that Imus is caught up in a storm. I will acknowledge, though, that it could be right on the money and this does represent a departure for Imus. My bias, however, doesn't believe this is so.

Gwen Ifill has a good opinion piece up at the New York Times. John McWhorter has an equally good piece that serves, I think, as a good counterpoint. I have bounced all over the place in thinking through where I stand on this situation. The black women I know want his behind fired, and with a quickness! I have concluded that, emotionally, I want him fired. Although I have to admit that I want him fired, I don't exactly feel good about wanting him fired. For me, this means that (intellectually-speaking) I'd prefer he not be fired.

Why not?

I presume it's because I have a disdain for punk ass surrender monkeys, and this controversial demand that he be fired strikes me as punkish. Or, overly feminine. It seems to violate a long-learned rule from my childhood and no doubt that of most African Americans before this current rush toward "sensitivity" that is turning our men and women into apology-demanding and overly fragile dependents forever in need of the good white folks to come to our assistance against the bad white folks.

That rule? Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

In preparation for the outside world (and not simply a mean world but a grown-up world that is quite cold and has always been so), it seems to me that the "sticks and stones" rule has far greater utility than this whole "apologize and say you're sorry" mess we're now inundated with. As McWhorter said:

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[T]he quest for an America where no one ever makes passing observations that are less than respectful of minority groups is futile. And why are so many of us so obsessed with chasing that rainbow anyway? The truth is that black people who go to pieces whenever anyone says a little something are revealing that they are not too sure about themselves.

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Roger that. This McWhorter opinion explicitly addresses an insecurity we'd much prefer to overlook.

That said, the black response to the Imus controversy is also more complicated than simply a lack of collective or individual faith in ourselves as African Americans. Which is why I have vacillated on this issue. There's an element here that is fundamental and cuts to the core. It directly speaks to defending black womanhood and when I hear my wife or my sister address the issue, there can be no doubt about that. And Imus, perhaps unknowingly but nevertheless revealingly, most definitely dismissed these women as so much riff-raff. And in doing so, especially in this manner, he also dismissed my grandmother. And my mother, each and every sister, and also my wife. In fact, from an American perspective, he screwed with the yet unborn progeny of black people everywhere.

That's an ass-whuppin' offense, ladies and gentlemen. And I do, emotionally, want to beat his ass.

But more importantly, I don't think he should be fired. From what may be a right-wing fringe of American politics, I found a piece written by Don Krasner that does a good job of placing the controversy in what appears to me to be the proper context (and I have no doubt that many others have done the same):

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Just where do you think Imus felt he had the license to utter those words---if they were indeed so repugnant and offensive? From his buddies in the white Aryan Brotherhood?! Or from liberals in the hip-hop culture, the recording industry, and Hollywood who get rich off the use of that language? Do Jews, Italians, or Latinos denigrate their women in the same manner, let alone permit such language and behavior to emerge as dominant in the culture? Shouldn't Sharpton and Jesse Jackson be spending as much time and effort in preventing the mainstreaming of this offensive language about their women, than in bashing white imitators trying---and failing---to be funny? Shouldn't they be boycotting the New York Times for printing glowing reviews of hip hop music that refers to other blacks as niggers?

The same liberals in the news media who looked the other way or otherwise enabled Imus, easily gave in to their white guilt and provided a forum for race hustler Al Sharpton to lay into Imus; demand his apology and dismissal; and condemn the wall-to-wall white NBC network. This from an individual who is responsible for a career in generating racial disharmony, and has had a lot to apologize for, yet never has. Especially for his "white interloper" and "bloodsucking Jews" comment that resulted in a racial murder of an innocent white merchant in Harlem. Hosts on MSNBC sought salvation from Sharpton, and instead received salvos. Enough to make conservatives giddy.

A couple of hours after NBC fired Imus, Keith Olbermann on Countdown sought salvation from Jesse Jackson. He told Jesse that he quietly counseled the top brass at NBC all week to fire Imus. And how he chose black interviewer Alison Stewart as one of the substitute hosts of Countdown. Unlike other NBC commentators, I suppose this proves that some of Olbermann's best friends are black!

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Indeed.

I've heard that Jim Brown had some harsh words for Sharpton over this incident. Good. I doubt that Jim Brown sees things the way I do but that's not what is important about an icon like Jim Brown speaking out against the good Reverend. Al Sharpton is a New York hustler and in no way, shape or form represents or speaks for Black America in any meaningful way. That's not meant to denigrate the good that he has done. I give him all due credit for those efforts. But I'm also not oblivious to his egregious errors and I give him no pass for them, either. Just as the good that Don Imus has done does not automatically absolve him of criticism over this incident, so too for Al Sharpton. I also know that if close attention is paid to many, many black talk show hosts or black public figures who can often be incredibly loose with their language, we could find a multitude of outrages similar to the Imus rant currently the focus of so much discussion.

Sticks and stones may [tangibly] break our bones but words will [only superficially] hurt us. It's high time we not only re-learn that lesson but toughen up and internalize the time-honored wisdom contained within its' intent.