Race in America

Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole. ~ Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

As a continuation of the Henry Louis Gates thread I'll expound on Race. I don't know Professor Gates, it's possible he's a racist (by which I mean he hates people because they are white or projects his general bad feelings about whites onto specific white people), it may even be probable.

To me the whole concept of Race is a bullshit construct. Historically, it was used as a way to divide poor blacks and poor whites. The poor white share cropper could always hold in his heart the "at least I'm white canard" and allow himself to be duped into believing he and the rich white man were the same despite his malnutrition, bowed back, calloused hands and short life expectancy.

But, our current ideas on Race have been built upon the edifice of the incorrect scientific thinking of the 19th century. This is not to damn the creators of the ideas of race but to point out that as Scientific thinking has evolved and explored new and unforeseen areas while also self-correcting yet there still exist charlatans and demagogues (Jesse Jackson and R. Limbaugh) as in the past who will ignore this and use the 19th century constructs to sunder humanity, usually for political or economic gain.

Humanity is not divided into the distinct Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid classifications, but those divisions still underpin the thinking of many people. Archeology, Genetic Mapping and DNA have shown that all Mankind (to use the outmoded term) can be traced back to the Mitochondrial Eve of roughly 180,000 years ago. And even if you hold to the idea that man emerged and continued evolving several times from Africa as opposed to the currently more accepted theory that the modern strain of man came, almost exclusively, from the last emigration, all humanity are the same species, with minor, mostly superficial, differences. The Human Journey began in Africa, original home to us all.

But it is the doom of man that he must accentuate the differences between himself and his brothers.

In addition to the flawed thinking and perhaps superseding it, we also have the societal constraints on who you are and can be. People have the awful habit of projecting their notions of who you are based on what they see and we are slow too change our minds.

You are (or are supposed to be) what they say you are. You are black, you are white, you are asian, you are hispanic, and so forth. And being so you are also the preconceived notions they feel apply to a person of that persuasion. This leads to the chastising terms like Whigger, Uncle Tom, Oreo when someone steps outside of the viewers' prejudice and does not behave in the way they expect and want you to behave. Don't step outside of the box I have mentally assigned you.

So, I am not the "white cop" who yelled at you, wrote you the speeding ticket and busted you for smoking pot at 16. You don't know my mind and I know you don't care what I think anyway.

I will note a very annoying thing Obama did when he was an Illinois Senator was mandate the completion of "Stop Sheets" by Police Officers. To be completed after all traffic stops for a continuing study on racial profiling by Northwestern. It's not the addition paperwork, but the 5 categories the Officer gets to choose from concerning the race of the driver. The categories are: African/American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Native American/Alaskan and Asian/Pacific Islander. There's no category for Arab or Middle Eastern or Indian. It forces Officers to think in the outmoded method!

Well, now we have the black-ish Obama as President. And old, fat, puffy faced, flabby assed, bigoted toxic white men don't like this, so they project unto him the feelings they themselves possess. They want Obama to hold to the racist views. They want him to be a disciple of Jeremiah Wright because if Obama thinks like Wright then it affords them the cover to vent their racism at Obama.

And woe be anyone who deviates from their bigoted thinking, as Joan Walsh did, becomes the target of outright bigots R. Limbaugh (who labeled Walsh the "Magic Honky" for not hating black folk like Limbaugh) and the Free Speak (sic) police at racist FreeRepublic and Moonbattery who label Walsh and others; race traitors and self-hating whiteys.

Would you contest a speeding ticket from an Officer with chops this magnificent?

Update:
As far as the Obama Kenyan Birth certificate recently revealed by Orly Taitz. Let us apply both the "reasonable man" standard and some conspiracies.

Is it reasonable to believe a paper document has survived for 45 years in the nation of Kenya, often beset by military coups, droughts and famines, and the presence of the completely failed state of Somalia on it's northern border? Yet this document survived, in good condition and was conveniently discovered by Orly Tatiz? That's a reasonable belief?

But, speaking of which, it's interesting to note Taitz is a Soviet Communist, perhaps an unrepentant one at that, seeking to bring down America from within, using a "typical" communist ploy? And how did the Obama-ACORN-Islamo-Black Panther Brownshirts fail to destroy so damning a document? The Right likes to ascribe to the Obambots vast powers of intimidation, computer hacking and conspiracy but the Obama Thugs just happened to miss the one sure fire document which would interfere with all their work subverting and socializing America?

Update:
More Obama Conpriacy the "Kenyan" Birth certificate is from Australia. Australia, Australia, Australia We Love Ya!

The Fascist State & Henry Louis Gates

I should tell you, so that you don't waste your time... You can not make me angry. ~ The Operative from the classic film Serenity.

The Harvard Gates Incident (Gates-gate?) has highlighted a strange dissonance. I'll comment briefly on the actual incident, first.

The officers who responded to a Suspicious Person or possible Res Burg in Progress call, here is the Police version from the Smoking Gun. It ended with Gates ridiculously being arrested for Disorderly Conduct. I am not going to take sides with who is right and who is wrong. Half of the problem (with humanity in general and this incident specifically) is that men are unwilling to walk that mile in another's moccasins.

I work in a smaller suburb of Chicago so seeing a Sgt respond is unusual to me. But, Sgt Crowley did pretty much what I would have done; ask the gentlemen just to see his ID, explain the situation that I was responding to a neighbor's call of a possible Residential Burglary in progress. However, I don't think I would have entered the home (besides standing on the front porch) and I would have had my mic on to record the conversation.

After positively identifying Gates, I would have left no matter what "tumultuous" (good word!) behavior was being exhibited. Also, in Illinois I can not be the victim of a Disorderly Conduct complainant.

But... for the Right this has become a cause. Another avenue of attack onto Obama when he offered his opinion. However, it is a position which undercuts the entire Right Wing Extremist Attack Everything Obama Machine led by She Who Shall Not Be Named 2 screeching about the encroaching Obama-ACORN- Islamo Police State. The Right has been banging the Drum about Obama's Cops breaking into your home and stealing your guns. However, the Gates incident occurs.

So what does it show? It seems the Republicans and their brainwashed Zealots are only afraid of the Police and the Nazi-Obammunist encroaching Power of the State, unless... that power is being used to arrest a Black Man. Of course, the outright Racist Bigots, who flock to the Republican banner, will cheer the arrest of any black man at any time for any reason. But to the Toxic Commentators who propagandize for the Republicans this is another issue to try and wedge apart the 99% of American society it's another tool of division

That is why the Right Wing Extremists are in fits declaring the Police inviolate and the "Official" Police Report Sacrosanct (unless an "Official" Report warns about Right Wing Extremist Terrorism) and yet at the same time they want their teabagging people (Real Americans) to be in mortal fear of the Nazi-Obammunist Police State. This is because to the Right everything is to be used as a political tactic.

But the Republicans don't give a shit about Cops, they care for them the same way they care for the wounded Veterans at Walter Reed.

But, the Republicans Way of War is to say they care, to say they Support the Troops, to say they want freedom and Democracy. As if saying and doing are the same fucking thing.

So, they declare their solidarity with Police Officers everywhere when to Republicans all the Police are, are gatekeepers and warriors ensuring the riff-raff, the American people do not interfere with the Republican control of the Nation and the use of the Government to transfer of Billions of dollars to their cronies and their accounts in Switzerland.

"I suspect some of the police may actually even be fans of Rage Against the Machine. I suspect some of the police come from working class and middle class backgrounds like we do and like you do. I suspect the Cops here today have much more in common with this band, with you people than with the people of the RNC." - Tom Morello addressing the People protesting the RNC on 09/02/08.

Update:
National Guardsman and Boston Police Officer Justin Barrett didn't mean to use the phrase 'banana eating jungle monkey' about Henry Louis Gates "in a racist way."

Obama corrupts America's Pastime (The Perfect Game)

Mark Buehrle (in many ways the mirror image* of Greg Maddux) threw a perfect game for the Chicago White Sox against the strong hitting World Series Tampa Bay Rays. Is Drudge or She Who Shall Not Be Named 2 investigating this? I mean Obama wears a Sox jacket to the All Star Game, makes no effort to hide his partisan loyalities to a mere 3% of the Major League Baseball world and then a White Sox player throws only the 18th perfect game in over 100 years of the sport against a team with as many good hitters as the Rays? Come on.

And to deepen the conspiracy Buehrle was at the All Star game which I understand Obama spent more than an hour attending. No doubt some dastardly arrangement was reached. Obama probably had his ACORN thugs cow Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist of the Tampa Bay Rays into acquiescence for fear of being held in one of Obama's Islamo-Black Panther Prisons.

*- Like the future Hall of Famer Maddux, Buehrle is a great pitcher who relies on control, location and a variety of pitches, however Buerhle throws left-handed and plays for the White Sox. Throughout history the left handed path is the sign of the devil and the Anti-Christ Obama is a White Sox fan while the White Sox are justy seen as the anti-Cubs and the Cubs are the heavenly team.

Can there be any more clear evidence of Obama's Tyranny and desire to destroy the very core of our Nation?

\m/ Thrash Unto Thee \m/

Time for something Lighter...

There has been a recent revival of classic Thrash Metal 25+ years after it's unholy birth in the San Francisco Bay area. The revival is being led by a new group of bands like Lazarus A.D., Evile, Fueled by Fire, Hatchet whose members were zygotes or younger when the Kreators Testament, Metallica and Slayer invented the genre.

Thrash basically evolved from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) when garage bands took the inventive works of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and others then crafted the pinnacle of Metal.

Even bands (Metal Church, Exodus, Exciter, Death Angel) who never experienced the wide spread main stream popularity of the big Thrashers have reunited dusted off their patched jean jackets and recorded new work. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the creation, history, and bands comprising the Thrash Metal genre. Wikipedia articles on subjects of this nature can usually be considered reliable.

Thrash Metal is a fundamental expression of the angry young man. It is an outlet which captures the angry young man's voice as he enters into the early recognition of his power and ability and discovers he is thwarted since the modern age is geared towards women and middle aged men.

Socialist Dick Cheney Sucking off the Taxpayer

Proven coward, 5 time Vietnam War Deferment receiving Chicken Hawk War Criminal Dick Cheney embraces Socialism, by requesting the evil can't do anything right US Government to provide him a service, extended Secret Service Protection, instead of allowing the always preferable private sector do the work. Shouldn't he be using some of the millions he purloined through abusing his office to hire Blackwater or DynCorp instead of sucking off the taxpayers? Dick Cheney hates Captialism.

Gah! Enough with the puke-a-rific Republicans...

Republicans Are Aiming for the Highest Office

No longer are the simply insane Alan Keyes and the slimy well known liar Jerome Corsi tasked with holding aloft the Birth Certificate Controversy. Prominent main line Republicans are tacitly and actively championing the claim Obama is not a natural born citizen and therefore not the legitimate POTUS.

The reason members of the Pro Human Pain and Suffering Chicken Hawk Party of Deferments are running with the Birther Conspiracy is because the Republicans are hoping one of their Extremist followers, perhaps a member of Moonbattery, will assassinate Obama.

No longer are only the Fox Propagandists and R. Limbaugh left to carry the claims Obama is a Usurper in the White House, High profile prostitute Liz Cheney and Republican morons of Congress are getting prime air time to feign ignorance about the Obama birth certificate.

They have created this theory in order to have a rationale for why (even though they may not agree with the murder of Obama) they understand one their brain washed followers took it upon himself or selves to remove the false one from the highest office of the land and free the American People from the Islamo/Marxo/Nazi/Commie/Socialist Obama Reign of Tyranny.

Of course, after hundreds of thousands of hours of ranting and railing about Bullet boxes and Obama's Despotic Tyranny the cultivators of the Assassination will wash their hands O'Reilly style of the murder they are gleefully and fervently hoping and working to achieve.


Liz Cheney Hawks her Tawdry Wares

Republican Hatred and Violence

Peace? Peace? I hate the word.. As I hate humanity, All Democrats and Thee...

Obama has driven the Republican Extremists and their brainwashed followers to Shakespearean levels of Hatred. And as a Lady MacBeth all they can produce is bile and rancor. (Interestingly Obama is then by inference MacDuff, including down to the Birther Controversy). Frame by frame dissection of him on video is analyzed in order to create a distorted controversy. The booty stare smear was calculated by Drudge and Fox Propaganda to be safe ground because the Republican Extremists know their ignorant bigoted brainwashed followers have repressed sexual mores. And so if in their daily lie campaign Hannity can link Obama to a Clinton-esque scandal they know the have created another chain for Obama.

The Republican Extremists also feel they are on strong critical footing when they insinuate Obama has "teh gay" calling him a sissy for his crappy All-Star game first pitch. Gay baiting and bashing has been a staple of the Republicans for decades, famously voiced by the criminal Republican Spiro Agnew, whose comments were often written by the racist Republican bigot Pat Buchanan, when Agnew the Butcher called Vietnam war protesters the "Nattering Nabobs of Negativism" and "an effete corps of impudent snobs".

But, as Obama put up the first American of Hispanic descent and only the 3rd woman to the Supreme Court, the bigoted Republicans are frantic. It's bad enough Obama's President, or as Conservapedia declares the 1st Muslim President as though it's a disqualification, but to have a non christian white male on the Supreme Court for the next 25 years is a terrible blow, for the christian white male privilege is in danger! Recall only 43 of 44 Presidents and only 106 of 110 Supreme Court Justices have been white males.

As it becomes more and more clear the Republicans have completely severed their tennous ties to conservatism, a truly laudable ideology, by allowing Dick Cheney to run around for 8 years committing War Crimes and violating Americans at whim and letting the figurehead Tipsy Canoe use the power of the Federal Government to funnel Trillions of dollars to those who profit off of Death and Mayhem, the call for outright violence and the use of force to overthrow the government will go from euphemistic allusions by Fox Propagandists to an outright call for rising up.

Typical Republican Extremist Catherine Crabill of Virginia let it be known if the Republicans continue to lose they will resort to the "Bullet Box" to settle elections.

This all stems from the Republican Hatred for the Individual. They need to control what you do with your body, what you do in the privacy of your home and what you think so they set up cages for your mind.

They declare the Government is the enemy so you vote them into office so they can then use the power to make billions for their cronies and their families, underfund and ignore care for Veterans, distort and misuse legal powers and place inept sycophants into positions of authority thereby confirming the Government is evil and incompetent, for under Republican control it always is. The Republicans run up huge deficits while they are transferring vast wealth into their coffers and leave the clean up to the Democratic successors. And when the Democrats attempt to curb the never-ending Theft of Nations, The Pro Human Pain and Suffering Chicken Hawk Party of Extremists then use their resources to denounce the Democrats with declarations of Troop Haters and Socialists, for they want Americans to return to serfdom as fodder for Industry or Warfare. To be used and discarded when old and worn down after securing Republican goals.

Hence the recent virulent battle against Health Care reform, continued attempts to dismantle Social Security, the never ending war against Unions, the repeated attempts, such as by Texas Republican Secessionist Extremist Governor Rick Perry, to force creationist nonsense into the education system, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign lands and the in sourcing of illegal immigrants to the US to undercut wages and the living conditions of Americans.

For any and all attempts to better the lives of the poor toiling Americans must be crushed.

Insight into the Extremists Hatred of Obama and Democracy:
The Daily Doubter: Sieg heil (the Pledge of Allegiance)

The Rude Pundit: Right Wingers Ready for Violence to Defend the Rich, White Way of Life

Update:
The Founder and other Members of FreeRepublic have declared their intent to march on DC and Therefore, We the People of America choose to exercise our right to throw off and alter the abusive government.... And there you have it. None of the actions of Bush and his Regime could move them not the illegal wars, 9/11, negligent treatment of wounded Veterans, fiddling while New Orleans drowned, funneling of Trillions to the Plutocrats, multiple violation of US laws, Torture, violation of Habeas Corpus. Nothing. Yet for some reason now they are going for Revolution.

Hopefully, they will stick to the hate mongering rhetoric and not start a conflagration which is sure to cost thousands of lives and end the Dream of the American political system.

Default Humans

To Jeff Sessions, Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, the other know-nothing Republicans and their subservient brainwashed ignorant followers it is a christian white male. All others are a deviation off of the "norm". It is the core message of the Republican Party. We are the rightful peoples you are lesser humans. The white christian male is the good and proper ruler ordained by god any attempts to change this is the true racism.

And to a point this is correct they don't see race. As long as the person recognizes their place and accepts conservative hatred for the individual and the Republican mindset that Americans are only good for years of toiling in Industry and War; to be used up in the flower of their youth and then discarded, when old and broken as useless consumers, as their ideology, then they can be considered qualified. If they do not then they are an affirmative action pick who does not possess the mental facilities for government.

What Republicans Want

They want you to be a cog in the machines of Industry and War. This is why they constantly work to destroy Unions, progressive achievements, undercut true education and promote ignorant bigots and bigoted idiots.

The Pro Human Pain and Suffering Chicken Hawk Party of Deferment Republicans are racist but not exclusively racist, as long as you adhear to the proper ideology you will be accepted into the club regardless of the vagaries of your birth. What they want is the The Re-Rise Re-Domination and Rebirth of the Plutocracy a return to the feudal system of the exclusive and the rest of the nation toiling.

In the Republican world view they want Americans to work from 13-65 and then die. Those 50 years of toiling are all you are good for. And if they can allow in an illegal alien from Guatemala to dig that drainage ditch or outsource that medical notes dictation to India for half your cost then only an evil Socialist or Union would oppose them. Unions unfairly inflate Americans wages who should instead be competitively underbidding their labor down to the amount of a third world wage slave. A Nationalized Government run Health Care plan is good for them but not for you. A government supported pension system should give them money when they are old after their "hard work" but not for you.

Republicans see themselves as Gold in Plato's Myth of the Metals (The Republic Book III):

Citizens, you are brothers, yet god has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command; and these he has made of gold,

Of course, the rest of society the toilers are Brass and Iron, and

when a man of brass or iron guards the state, it will be destroyed.

So the Republicans set up mental and physical cages for Americans because to them the majority of society are slag and have to be kept from destroying America.

And as the Nation slips further into the Reagan/W created Depression without the manufacturing base of decent jobs to pull her out of the slide the Pro Human Pain and Suffering Chicken Hawk Party of Deferment Republicans will increasing see armed violence and insurrection as the only option to regain control, especially if the Hannity Fox led propaganda efforts to smear Obama fail to bring election victories.

The Best and Worst Case for National Health Care

is Dick Cheney. Without the access to U.S. Socialized and Communistic Medical care in place for flabby assed puffy faced bureaucrats involved in Government, Cheney would either have been uninsurable due to his repeated heart attacks or dead.

Worse still is that even though Cheney has turned his "hard work" in Government into a millionaires fortune he has not had to expend one dime of the ill gotten loot towards his medical care. It's covered by the tax payers labor. So the millions he's managed to earn through funneling billions of tax payers dollars to his confidantes and their corporations by using his position and influence is still in his bank account, so he may buy suits and plane tickets, in order to jet coast-to-coast defending his war crimes.

I decided to place my irreverent comment on another blog, that blog owner, as is his right decided to censor and delete my comment and responded in an email with the following:

Cheney is allowed to go to any physician, any hospital of his choosing, that my friend is not socialized medicine it is a gold plan that Obama plans to destroy, I promise not to publish your remarks so people will not know how ignorant about the subject you really are. I'd take the insurance offered to government employees possibly over the plan I'm in. J.C.

Note the "my friend" addition which as pointed out by a comrade from my Corps days is white people speak for I Want To Kill You.

I don't know J.C.'s mind or if the site was a fake personal blog and merely a Republican front for attacking Obama but I wonder if when he writes he'd take the insurance offered to government employees over his private plan he understands he's supporting Big Government Socialised Health Care. Although in his defense perhaps he means he'd take Bush and Republican undercut, underfunded and criminally neglected VA health coverage...

Juxtaposition

So I went and enjoyed the quintessential Chicago Pizza and was struck by the blending of ages in the restaurant. I don't know what the kitchen looked like but I'd like to imagine there are the original old ovens which have baked a billion and one delectable gastronomic delights.

The bar itself, the wall decor and accouterments haven't changed in the 20 years since I first began frequenting the establishment.

However, what I did see in the facilities was an interesting amalgamation of time periods. The floor and wall tiling were very old possibly original, while the toilet and sink apparatuses had the look of late-60's, early 70's and then came the item which stood out in stark contrast. Recently affixed to the wall was a Dyson Airblade.

It's quite neat and does an excellent job at drying hands but, more than that I often enjoy seeing structures in flux and it reminded me of my trip to Paris (and subsequent European trips) and the 1000+ years of a city in constant use and therefore ever changing whilst the old stands alongside the new.

Money!

Yes The Eddie Money! I got a chance to see him on 3 July rocking the Arlington Heights Frontier Days. Money is 60 and his voice sounds it due to his rock and roll lifestyle excesses. But, what was classic were Eddie's comments:

I sold 7 million records and got married four times. I'm broke, come up and buy a CD for $5!
This ones for the ladies who loved me in the eighties!

For the most part, the "true" Money fans arrived early and grabbed prime spots near the stage whilst I was relegated to the 380 foot marker and the majority of the crowd merely enjoyed him as back drop music. That was until he played one of his monster hits; Two Tickets, Baby Hold On, Take Me Home Tonight, then they joined in and sung-shouted the half remembered lyrics.

Of course, the fair also provided the nearly unending fun of people watching, punctuated by spotting a rocking Femullet and of being cognizant of the bad element, a few of whom I noted despite the efforts of the AHPD.