If Not Today, We'll Try Again Tomorrow

Ever been to your local jail? I played a gig at the jail. 90% of my audience was black. Now there is no way that racism creates that kind of disproportionate number. There aren't enough racist cops on the street to do it and in this case, a large percentage of the cops ARE black.

Only poverty and a thug culture can create that number. This is a Chinese finger puzzle. The only way out is for one side to push TOWARD the other. Only the blacks can look at their culture and decide how best to change it. Many have. Ask Cosby.

At the other side, we can ALL work on the poverty trap.

How do we do that in a broken economy? I don’t know, but we’ll have to do it together or it won’t get done. Nothing will change.

Actions speak louder. Choices illuminate character. The wisdom of choice is not in how it makes us feel but in how it enables us to change for the better.

Reverend Martin Luther King was a fighter for the spirit as was Gandhi. If we are to stay on the road to social justice, we need a fighter for the spirit.

Does our judgment hold us back?

It is not just about freedom from Jim Crow, but from judgments that imprison our hearts and separate us from each other. We forge our own chains that way. When will we spiritually understand the deep meaning of "Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Racism doesn't end the day we quit hating each other for what we are; it ends the day we start loving each other for what we are. We can break those chains.

We have to get the mote out of our own eye first. Then get on the bus.

Today we celebrate the legacy of Reverend Martin Luther King. We'll all get through this. If we can't do it today, we'll try again tomorrow.

The Dream Speech

We come to the anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, and of course, it is folded into the current political contests. That is understandable. Regardless of what we pretend, race and gender are twin elephants in this room. The story of gender is so old we can barely tell it. The story of race is very fresh in my mind. I was born in 1954 and grew up in Alabama. That story circumscribes my life tightly.

It's a story with many sides. Media, movies, popular books, etc., tend to tell only one. That would be the real value of The Conversation: to get all the stories out where all sides can hear them and maybe understand the demons each has living inside them to this day.

We didn't get over racism. We decided to do everything in our power to keep it from being passed on to our children.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

We found out too late, they pass it on to each other. But this much is true: our children in Alabama play together today and no one gets in their way. Whatever we could not fix in the inequalities of wealth, we've done a lot for opportunity and equality before the law. While there are exceptions, we do live together peacefully.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

Things have changed. Responsibilities have shifted. This is where Obama and I agree.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I can't get past Obama attending Trinity with his family for twenty years and denying he knew what his pastor was on about. I can't understand a man exposing his children to so much racist rhetoric unless this is the way he wants them to perceive the world they live in today. There are so many contradictions in his character, one wonders if the demons he is wrestling with will get the better of him.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Amen, Reverend King. Amen.

Smoking In The Boys Room

Jake Tapper at ABC reports that he smelled cigarette smoke on Obama. Yesterday it was video of Obama being rude to a fan seeking a photo.

Hmm... Obama lies about Rezko, his resume, the Kennedy's, his contributions from big oil, and on and on and on. In fact it's hard to find out where he told the truth about anything. But sneaking off to suck on a cancer stick? Wow! What a big phony!

"SMILING FACES SMILING FACE SOMETIMES THEY DON'T TELL THE TRUTH!"

... then someone with a real nicotine aversion finds you out.

Money Needed for Beer, Pot and A Hooker

We can bitchslap this country into a depression.
We can forget everything that makes us proud of who we are.
We can lose the election and continue the war.
We can ignore the homeless. We can walk past the hungry.
We can saddle our grandchildren's grandchildren with debt.
We can keep on polluting the air for them.
We can keep on teaching them to hate.
We can keep on showing them how to lie.
We can pave a road straight to hell for them and light it like the second coming.

... or maybe

we could remember that there is world of hurt out there

... and do something about it.

Do the right thing by America
If you call yourselves leaders
Show it. Embrace the change.
Be the change. Join hands.

Everyone needs a friend.
Everyone follows a leader.

Hillary/Obama 08

Listen To Mario

Here's how it plays out. Obama squeaks out a narrow victory in the General Election. Once in office, lacking a credible legislative agenda, the ultra-left wing extremists in the DNC are able to force bills onto the floor with more spending, reparations, etc. With the US economy tanking, a recession becomes a searing depression. Inflation soars.

In two years, the Republicans sweep both houses of congress with calls to repeal Obama's socialist agenda. In four years, the executive branch falls to the Republicans.

So much for the election we couldn't lose.

Obama didn't throw his grandmother under the bus. He exaggerated a situation he thought would buy him time. It worked. None of the people in his circle who made the statements causing the uproar are allowed anywhere near a microphone. That is working too.

The problem is, it won't work all the way to November much less for four years.

He had a normal upper middle class childhood and found himself feeling guilty about that. Why? Ask him. He has led a very successful life but is still telling us about his pain filled background of self-loathing and doubt? Why? Ask him.

In fact, this man is not a race candidate. In the mixed neighborhood I grew up in, the blacks would have referred to him as an 'oreo' and me as 'buttermilk'. Those names stick hard and hurt but we raise ourselves above them and move on because we learn that the only names that matter are the ones we call ourselves. The beliefs that matter are the ones we choose.

Justice is not found in nature. It is found in the choices of the heart.

Obama didn't move on. He married, embraced his wife's faith and church. He chose a base of political support that chooses to preach Black Liberation Theology. Obama can't speak to those beliefs so he puts them down as 60s rhetoric but they still are the tightly held beliefs of his base in Chicago.

Obama is a man with demons. He needs to work those out and the conversation will help. But he can't be doing that and running the country at a time of economic crisis and threats to our security. Give him some time and one day he might be ready for this.

But that time is not now. He is unelectable.

Bosnia: well that was dumb, big girl. On the other hand, screw the lie. I saw the movie, folks. She was there. Where was Obama? She was in the Senate for the vote? Where was Obama? She was in the White House for eight years? Where was Obama?

Tell you what, I'll trade you a verse of "My Baby Does the Hanky Panky" for a verse of "Papa Was A Rolling Stone". Then we can all drink ripple and smoke gold together while we dance on the grave of the Democratic Party.

A caucus is not an election. It is a screamfest. Rumors are it is getting mean at these. The caucai are getting caca. Should we mau mau our way to the nomination?

How did the guy at CNet put it?

Write like a strategist and think like a stoner.

Now the TUCC scrubs their site. For a campaign that is rumored to be very good with technology, not knowing about Google cache wasn't too bright either. Nor is ignoring that your competition and not just a few nutcases have it archived in their personal cache.

We've let our parties be hijacked by the extremes. Bummer.

Scrubbing the web site is just the opener. It gets even more Orwellian from this point forward. It is one thing to misstate memory. It is quite another to start erasing it. That's fear. With a double digit lead and the press piling on, moves like this means the Chicago machine is terrified of what has yet to surface.

You want to win this. Listen to Mario. Mario knows things. Like getting 28% back in the fold is the difference between winning and losing no matter who is nominated.

Or ID_NilCorrecto: Mario is Italian. Italians know things. Capiche?

The following video has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this blog, but seriously, doncha need a laugh right about now?

Come Together

Blackmail. Hate. Muscling. Orders to Get Out.

Not really the election I was looking forward to.

Don't let either side divide us. Don't come together for Hillary. Don't come together for Obama.

Come together for each other.

Or have you already? Someone said that Senator Obama being elected would be the fulfillment of Reverend King's dream. When the black and white children began to play together in Alabama, and no one stopped them, that was the fulfillment of the dream. That dream was for black and white, together, unbound.

I suggest both candidates get over themselves and sit down and work out the deal for a victory in November for all Americans.