Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Double Standard of American Politics
BELOW IS WHAT COMES TO ME BY AND THROUGH A FRIEND AT THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. I AM NOT THE AUTHOR, THOUGH I WISH I WERE. I AGREE WITH THE AUTHOR'S PERSPECTIVE.
If a black Democratic presidential candidate was an affirmative action selection (akin to the legacy selection for McCain) at the Naval Academy and graduated 894 out of 899, Fox News and the conservative right would push this story as the basis for his disqualification for the nation's highest office. The rest of the media would then be forced to report on it, giving the story wide exposure.
If a white Republican presidential candidate graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, he would be celebrated as an intellectual giant ready to lead the country in bold new directions. But since we are talking Obama here, his education fits into the "uppity" and presumptuous narrative.
If you're a Harvard and Princeton-educated black woman married for years before having your first child, Fox labels you a "Baby Mama."
If you are a white woman who eloped and had a baby eight months later, you are Sarah Palin.
If you have studied international affairs for several decades, you're inexperienced at foreign affairs.
If you live in a state that is geographically near a foreign country, you have foreign policy expertise.
If you both write and present your own words, you just give good speeches. If you read someone else's words from the telepromptera superstar is born.
If you are Obama, your greatness must be measured by what you've done and its NEVER enough, NOT by any of the profound speeches you wrote yourself, or the repeated grillings you've taken in the press.
If you are Palin, your greatness is measured by just one speech, written by Bush IIs speechwriter, and you will not take any questions from the press.
If you attend two of the top ivy leagues schools in the country, you are surprisingly articulate. If it takes you several colleges to graduate and you deliver a speech with the phonetic new-clear on the teleprompter, you're a poised and eloquent speaker.
If your staff is so dumb they mix up Walter Reed Middle School for Walter Reed Medical Center in your conventions big night, its because you wanted to focus on education & it would have been political to use the soldiers in that format.
If Obama had done that, he would be eviscerated for not knowing the difference between the two, hating the troops/America & would be dangerously unqualified to be CinC.
If your a liberal mayor and you ask for government financing, your a fan of big, tax and spend, corrupt government.
If you're a conservative mayor and wind up on John McCain's worst pork list in 2001, you are disgusted that small towns like yours are dependent on earmarks, even if your town had no earmarks before you became mayor.
A white woman talkin' tough is an advocate of women's rights, a black woman is angry and bitter. A white man talkin' tough is a straight shooter and a conservative, a black man is a angry gangsta rapper.
If you're a GOPer you naturally wouldn't see what the problem with any of this was, even if you slept for 20 years on a dictionary opened20to the word hypocrisy.
If you're a Republican and you talk to America 's enemies, its diplomacy.
If you're a Democrat and you talk to America 's enemies, its appeasement.
If you're a Republican, you swear Jesus is a registered member of your party.
If you're a Democrat, you appreciate that Jesus was a community organizer.
If you're a Republican and you wind up on the cover of People magazine, it's because you're a regular American.
If you're a Democrat and you wind up on the cover of People magazine, its because you're a celebrity.
If you're a black Democratic man who can fill a stadium with 18,000 people (or worse, a German atrium with 200,000), you're a vapid celebrity. If you're a white Republican woman who can get a room full of fire breathing evangelical right wingers to holler, you're a star.
If you are a Democrat, the days are counted down since the last time you have been to Iraq .
If you are a Republican, you have all the foreign policy experience you need because your state is close to Russia .
If you're a black woman, with advanced academic degrees, and you have children while married, you're a baby mama
If you're a white woman who barely graduated from college, and you get knocked up and then get married after you're pregnant, you're a "Super Mom"
If you are black and your daughter is pregnant, unmarried and has an uninvolved baby daddy, you are a statistic, but if you're a white and your daughters baby's daddy has an explicit MY Space page where, in between four-letter words, he exclaims "he don't want no kids," you get to run for Veep.
If you're a black presidential candidate that has wide appeal and the ability to motivate over two million Americans to re-engage in the political process you're an egomaniac with a messiah complex seeking the spotlight.
However, if you're a right wing conservative – you're applauded for your likeability and called a unifier for the Republican base
If you're white, win a beauty contest, attended 5-6 colleges before finally graduating, join the PTA, are voted to be mayor by 1000 people, govern a sparsely populated state for a almost two years now, and randomly get chosen at the last minute to be VP, you've lived the American dream, she's every American.
But if you're black, raised by a single mother, lived on food stamps, help the community, get into Harvard, become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, build a great campaign organization from scratch, and are voted to be the presidential nominee by millions of people, you are just uppity.
If you are a democratic candidate and people around you complain about the MSM vitriole toward you, you're a whiner.
If you are a republican candidate and you wont answer the questions the MSM attempts to ask about your qualifications for the second highest office in the land, you're being victimized.
If you are a white republican mom with a special-needs baby, you are suddenly the advocate of all special needs families in the US .
If you are an Alaskan democrat mom with a special-needs baby, you just saw state funding cut for programs like special-ed. You're "on your own."
If you are a black democrat homeowner that was preyed upon by mortgage companies and your house is in foreclosure, you made bad choices and don't deserve a house.
If you an older white republican who can't keep track of how many houses he has, then he deserves another one.
Larry Williamson
Director, Publications & Outreach
National Urban League Policy Institute
1101 Connecticut Ave, NW
Suite 810
Washington, D.C. 20036
Phone:(202) 898-1604
Fax: (202) 408-1965
lwilliamson@nul.org
If a black Democratic presidential candidate was an affirmative action selection (akin to the legacy selection for McCain) at the Naval Academy and graduated 894 out of 899, Fox News and the conservative right would push this story as the basis for his disqualification for the nation's highest office. The rest of the media would then be forced to report on it, giving the story wide exposure.
If a white Republican presidential candidate graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, he would be celebrated as an intellectual giant ready to lead the country in bold new directions. But since we are talking Obama here, his education fits into the "uppity" and presumptuous narrative.
If you're a Harvard and Princeton-educated black woman married for years before having your first child, Fox labels you a "Baby Mama."
If you are a white woman who eloped and had a baby eight months later, you are Sarah Palin.
If you have studied international affairs for several decades, you're inexperienced at foreign affairs.
If you live in a state that is geographically near a foreign country, you have foreign policy expertise.
If you both write and present your own words, you just give good speeches. If you read someone else's words from the telepromptera superstar is born.
If you are Obama, your greatness must be measured by what you've done and its NEVER enough, NOT by any of the profound speeches you wrote yourself, or the repeated grillings you've taken in the press.
If you are Palin, your greatness is measured by just one speech, written by Bush IIs speechwriter, and you will not take any questions from the press.
If you attend two of the top ivy leagues schools in the country, you are surprisingly articulate. If it takes you several colleges to graduate and you deliver a speech with the phonetic new-clear on the teleprompter, you're a poised and eloquent speaker.
If your staff is so dumb they mix up Walter Reed Middle School for Walter Reed Medical Center in your conventions big night, its because you wanted to focus on education & it would have been political to use the soldiers in that format.
If Obama had done that, he would be eviscerated for not knowing the difference between the two, hating the troops/America & would be dangerously unqualified to be CinC.
If your a liberal mayor and you ask for government financing, your a fan of big, tax and spend, corrupt government.
If you're a conservative mayor and wind up on John McCain's worst pork list in 2001, you are disgusted that small towns like yours are dependent on earmarks, even if your town had no earmarks before you became mayor.
A white woman talkin' tough is an advocate of women's rights, a black woman is angry and bitter. A white man talkin' tough is a straight shooter and a conservative, a black man is a angry gangsta rapper.
If you're a GOPer you naturally wouldn't see what the problem with any of this was, even if you slept for 20 years on a dictionary opened20to the word hypocrisy.
If you're a Republican and you talk to America 's enemies, its diplomacy.
If you're a Democrat and you talk to America 's enemies, its appeasement.
If you're a Republican, you swear Jesus is a registered member of your party.
If you're a Democrat, you appreciate that Jesus was a community organizer.
If you're a Republican and you wind up on the cover of People magazine, it's because you're a regular American.
If you're a Democrat and you wind up on the cover of People magazine, its because you're a celebrity.
If you're a black Democratic man who can fill a stadium with 18,000 people (or worse, a German atrium with 200,000), you're a vapid celebrity. If you're a white Republican woman who can get a room full of fire breathing evangelical right wingers to holler, you're a star.
If you are a Democrat, the days are counted down since the last time you have been to Iraq .
If you are a Republican, you have all the foreign policy experience you need because your state is close to Russia .
If you're a black woman, with advanced academic degrees, and you have children while married, you're a baby mama
If you're a white woman who barely graduated from college, and you get knocked up and then get married after you're pregnant, you're a "Super Mom"
If you are black and your daughter is pregnant, unmarried and has an uninvolved baby daddy, you are a statistic, but if you're a white and your daughters baby's daddy has an explicit MY Space page where, in between four-letter words, he exclaims "he don't want no kids," you get to run for Veep.
If you're a black presidential candidate that has wide appeal and the ability to motivate over two million Americans to re-engage in the political process you're an egomaniac with a messiah complex seeking the spotlight.
However, if you're a right wing conservative – you're applauded for your likeability and called a unifier for the Republican base
If you're white, win a beauty contest, attended 5-6 colleges before finally graduating, join the PTA, are voted to be mayor by 1000 people, govern a sparsely populated state for a almost two years now, and randomly get chosen at the last minute to be VP, you've lived the American dream, she's every American.
But if you're black, raised by a single mother, lived on food stamps, help the community, get into Harvard, become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, build a great campaign organization from scratch, and are voted to be the presidential nominee by millions of people, you are just uppity.
If you are a democratic candidate and people around you complain about the MSM vitriole toward you, you're a whiner.
If you are a republican candidate and you wont answer the questions the MSM attempts to ask about your qualifications for the second highest office in the land, you're being victimized.
If you are a white republican mom with a special-needs baby, you are suddenly the advocate of all special needs families in the US .
If you are an Alaskan democrat mom with a special-needs baby, you just saw state funding cut for programs like special-ed. You're "on your own."
If you are a black democrat homeowner that was preyed upon by mortgage companies and your house is in foreclosure, you made bad choices and don't deserve a house.
If you an older white republican who can't keep track of how many houses he has, then he deserves another one.
Larry Williamson
Director, Publications & Outreach
National Urban League Policy Institute
1101 Connecticut Ave, NW
Suite 810
Washington, D.C. 20036
Phone:(202) 898-1604
Fax: (202) 408-1965
lwilliamson@nul.org
HE'S GOING FOR IT: McCAIN'S GONNA JUMP THE SHARK
Score one for Johnny. He was the first one to dive head-first into the wading pool when his lackeys this week pounced on Barack Obama for his talking about putting lipstick on a pig. The phrase, McCain's lackey hatchet men, is a Obama's direct shot at Sarah Palin... being as she used the term "lipstick" in her acceptance speech last week.
Jesus Freaking Christ. I mean, who the hell thought that one up? Does McCain have a couple of 11th grade boys, named Bevis and Butthead, on his staff who make up these half-witticisms? Did no one on that campaign staff ever study semantics, linguistics, or even logic when they went to school? There is no connection between Palin's and Obama's comments. Obama mentioned lipstick on a pig. Palin claimed to be "hockey mom" and said the only difference between a hockey mom a pit bull, which is a breed of dog, is lipstick. Therefore, Palin is claiming to be a dog, or perhaps more precisely, a bitch. I mean they do grasp the differences between a pig and dog, don't they?....Hmmmm. Now that we look that this more closely, we see that Palin claimed that ALL hockey moms are dogs/bitches. Well, that could hurt her in nthe polls with the hockey-mom demographic.
And even beyond that lame-brained association, we could help but notice that the Repigs mounted their umbrage-taking campaign when Obama was talking about McCain's lack of an intelligible economic policy. And that's a sore point for McCain because, by his own public estimation, his gasp of the subject is tenuous, at best.... So maybe he brought in Bevis and Butthead to buy him some time, hoping the focus on a non-issue would keep attention away from his ignorance of a very important facet of the presidency.
And this is no small thing. The past eight years have been an ugly object lesson on the dangers of economic ignorance; Enron went down and took billions of dollars of investments with it; Oil refineries in the Gulf of mexico went off-line when Katrina slammed into the coast, and the price of gasoline doubled. And because our fearless leader, Bush The Dim, neglected to seek short-term nationalization of energy distribution, that set the administration's second recession snowball rolling downhill. Now, three years after Katrina, the price of fuels has tripled and because of that, the cost of food has seen a precipitous rise and the entire nation is paying the price for the President's ignorance. People are losing their jobs because employers are cutting labor costs to offset increased energy costs, and higher unemployment leads to increased home foreclosures, tighter and more expensive bank and mortgage loans. And eventually, the problems gets so severe, that the federal government needs to wrest control of the two mortgage guarantors in the nation to make sure they don't auger into the dirt under the weight of $5 Trillion in mortgages, of which 1 in 7 are reportedly either in default or foreclosure.
Tell me, why in the name of Gawd would we elect someone president who has no more grasp of even macroeconomics than the current dumbass mofo does.
Don't let either candidate deflect legitimate questions by manufacturing a lame controversy about something of no importance. Get informed. Ask questions. Demand answers. This nation cannot afford another four years of buffoonery.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
JOHN McCAIN: AGENT OF CHANGE? .... THAT'S GONNA BE A HARD CONCEPT TO SELL.
We see where the Repiglican candidate, John McCain has co-opted the Democratic party's promise of change if he elected to the Whitehouse. Apparently his old message of war-mongering and following the trail that George The Dim has cut wasn't playing as well in the heartland as he had hoped.
But I doubt the new and improved message is going to be any easier to sell to anyone who is even moderately bright. The fact is, McCain is asking voters to elect him to clean up a monsterous cluster-fuck that he bears some responsibility for making. I mean, whether you choose to blame the Congress, the President or the Republican party for a useless war in Iraq, two economic recessions, a disasterous response to Hurricane Katrina, and a 300 percent increase in fuel prices, that fact is that McCain's pecker tracks are all over the policies of the past eight years. ... So why would any sane person want to give him a third bite at the apple, after he's already demonstrated his poor leadership skills.
Here's the thing: Intellectually, McCain's best days are behind him. I covered his west coast primaries in the 2000 cycle and I have to say he impressed me enough to consider voting for him. But that was before he caved in to pressure from Haley Barbour and others in the party leadership to step aside so George Bush could run.
And while the reasons for his decision to step down are now immaterial, the fact is that his ideas and promise of non-partisan politics are now bankrupt. Remenber when he took the so-called "christian" fundamentalists to task for their heavy-handed efforts to control the whitehouse and congress? Yeah, well he changed his mind and bent over for them last year when he begged their forgiveness and their support.
Add that to his vow to stay in Iraq until the U.S. gains "victory" - whatever that hell that means- and we begin to see a man whose appears to be re-fighting a war long lost. But, of course, he can't win the war in Vietnam by committing more troops, money and resources to Iraq and he probably knows that. And he can't reinstitute the Barry Goldwater era of conservatism, and he probably know that too.... Probably. But even if he could, is that the of "progress" we want?
But I doubt the new and improved message is going to be any easier to sell to anyone who is even moderately bright. The fact is, McCain is asking voters to elect him to clean up a monsterous cluster-fuck that he bears some responsibility for making. I mean, whether you choose to blame the Congress, the President or the Republican party for a useless war in Iraq, two economic recessions, a disasterous response to Hurricane Katrina, and a 300 percent increase in fuel prices, that fact is that McCain's pecker tracks are all over the policies of the past eight years. ... So why would any sane person want to give him a third bite at the apple, after he's already demonstrated his poor leadership skills.
Here's the thing: Intellectually, McCain's best days are behind him. I covered his west coast primaries in the 2000 cycle and I have to say he impressed me enough to consider voting for him. But that was before he caved in to pressure from Haley Barbour and others in the party leadership to step aside so George Bush could run.
And while the reasons for his decision to step down are now immaterial, the fact is that his ideas and promise of non-partisan politics are now bankrupt. Remenber when he took the so-called "christian" fundamentalists to task for their heavy-handed efforts to control the whitehouse and congress? Yeah, well he changed his mind and bent over for them last year when he begged their forgiveness and their support.
Add that to his vow to stay in Iraq until the U.S. gains "victory" - whatever that hell that means- and we begin to see a man whose appears to be re-fighting a war long lost. But, of course, he can't win the war in Vietnam by committing more troops, money and resources to Iraq and he probably knows that. And he can't reinstitute the Barry Goldwater era of conservatism, and he probably know that too.... Probably. But even if he could, is that the of "progress" we want?
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