It's All About The Company You Keep.

One can only wish the majority of the blacks were like her. She too lament the passing of a white America and the history that was part of its making.

Anytime someone of another ethnicity, namely that of the average white American, points out what they deem to be positive behaviors or traits in blacks, and wonders aloud why couldn't those other blacks be like him or her, that irks me on a deep level. It's a phrase that claims these "positive" traits are not "typical" or the "norm" for blacks and that whatever behavior white Americans see in their fellow black Americans is instead the baseline for how all blacks tend to behave.

This blog post is brought to you thanks to the village idiot a resident commentator over at Redeye's Front Page. During one of his many tirades on how blacks are general failures without the benevolent intervention of and direct governance by white America, he made mention of Elizabeth Wright, proprietor of Issues & Views (blog and website), who recently passed away due to cancer. I haven't heard of this woman before and I can't remember hearing anything about her in the blogging circles I usually frequent, so I decided to do a little research. Gotta love having Google around for these things.

What I found...wooo boy...imagine having to clear a bunch of kudzu and thorn vines from a grove. You can't just burn or bulldoze the whole mess down without knocking down a bunch of trees, so you have to go in with a machete and do what you can.

Elizabeth Wright's views on the black community would have her written off as an "Uncle Tom" (or more accurately, an "Aunt Jemima") at first glance, but I'm not going to do that and just walk away.

In a nutshell, Wright believed that in the quest of granting equality to black Americans, whites ended up prostrating themselves at the feet of a black race who are now coasting along on a wave of hand-me-ups and federal largesse. She believed the "endless retelling" of Jim Crow, lynchings and other heinous actions visited upon the black community are just ways of "race pimps" and similar "extortionists" to keep the pot of psychological racial dependency bubbling. She saw a people who were, in her opinion, being crippled by embracing "perpetual victimhood" and that "white liberals" are to blame for "coddling" blacks. She believed that whites are "disgracing themselves" by apologizing and fretting over race, and that whites should be more outspoken on when to tell blacks to go "sit and spin" when presented with racial grievances, contrived or otherwise.

In other words, she specialized in something I find rather disturbing: the act of chastising blacks and pointing out flaws in black society for the indirect amusement of her fellow white Americans. Not to say that she shouldn't have done these things, but when you have folks from the Council of Conservative Citizens and Stormfront co-signing with you, you should take a good, long look at the message you're sending.

There's something to be said about the company you keep. The "company," in this case, is a collection of groups and individuals who are in the business of promoting a "positive white identity." The Council of Conservative Citizens, Vanguard News Network, American Renaissance, V-DARE, etc, either pay their respects to or make mention of Wright. These aren't places where you'd see a significant amount of black conscious thought, if any. Yet these places make mention of a woman who apparently appealed to their sensibilities due to her positions and opinions on the black community.

So many blacks and their white liberal gurus failed to appreciate those Anglo-originated laws based on “self-evident truths” and the consent of the governed, which were flexible enough to take under their protection the nation’s former slaves. Who will there be to ensure that jobs and scholarships and government contracts, and the surfeit of other entitlements, will be available for a people who have grown used to looking to others for slices from the economic pie, instead of baking their own share of it?

The above ignores attempts to do just that, only to have the whole pie snatched away or spiked with poison: Tulsa's "Black Wall Street," Rosewood, Florida and many other attempts at a separate, prosperous and self-sustaining black community destroyed out of white jealousy, Haiti and other black nations left with dysfunctional governments thanks to constant sabotage and interference from European and American powers. Wright also ignored continuing racial abuses aimed at black Americans -- I wonder what she would have said about Oscar Grant, James Craig Anderson, Brandon McClelland and others?

Similarly, Ed Koch had claimed that in this terrible society of America, “all blacks” face racism “every day.” According to Koch, from the minute a black leaves his home in the morning to go to work, he encounters ugly, persistent racism, which goes on throughout the day. My ears perked up, because I wanted to know in just which city or state or region were blacks being tormented openly and on a daily basis.

Damn. She makes it too easy for me.

I thought reading about Frantz Fanon would prepare me for someone who seems so conflicted. Or perhaps that's the wrong word to use. But how could someone be so resolute in their stand on issues when it meant standing with people who see you and yours as a nuisance or a problem, at best?

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Adventures in Senseless Shit: NBA Edition.

This is just some senseless shit right here. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

When he saw the person he believed robbed him, a former NBA player and Georgia Tech standout fired gunshots from a black SUV, striking a 23-year-old mother of four, Atlanta police said.

Now, Javaris Crittenton, 23, faces a murder charge in the death of Jullian Jones, authorities said Friday night.

“It appears Mr. Crittenton observed who he thought was the perpetrator walking down the street," Major Keith Meadows told the AJC. "It so happens Miss Jones was walking down the street at the same time."

Jones was walking with others near her Macon Drive home in southwest Atlanta around 10 p.m. Aug. 19 when she was shot, police said. Several witnesses told police the shots were fired from a black Chevrolet Tahoe.

Jones was struck in the leg and later died during surgery. Two men walking with Jones fled and were not injured, and investigators now believe one of those men was the intended target.

Investigators believe Crittenton may have been seeking retaliation after being robbed of his jewelry April 21, Meadows said. Crittenton reported that crime to police.

Crittenton is not in custody and is believed to be in the greater Los Angeles area, Meadows said. Atlanta detectives are working with the FBI to take him into custody.

Update:

Former NBA player Javaris Crittenton has appeared in a Los Angeles court and waived extradition proceedings in connection with his arrest in a murder case in Atlanta.

Crittenton told the court Wednesday that he had signed the waiver voluntarily.
He is expected to be returned to Georgia between Sept. 15 and Sept. 30.

Crittenton appeared in court after the Los Angeles County district attorney's office charged him with being a fugitive from justice. He was arrested earlier this week at a Southern California airport.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Former NBA player Javaris Crittenton was scheduled to appear Wednesday in criminal court for a hearing in connection with his arrest in a murder case in Atlanta.

Crittenton was being held on a state penal code violation of being a fugitive from justice, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. He was taken into custody Monday night at John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

And yes, it's the same guy who got into it with Gilbert Arenas back in late 2009:

Crittenton was with the Washington Wizards in December 2009 when he and Arenas had a dispute over a card game. Two days later, Arenas brought four guns to the locker room and set them in front of Crittenton's locker with a sign telling him to "PICK 1." Crittenton then took out his own gun.

Crittenton pleaded guilty in January 2010 to a misdemeanor gun charge and received a year of unsupervised probation. Arenas entered his guilty plea on Jan. 15, 2010. He served a short time in a halfway house.

Senseless, senseless shit.

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Electronic Bingo Boogaloo III: Raids, Raids and More Raids.

Let's get this one out the way, first:

Larry Wyatt said his last $23 dollars were in one of the machines and he wasn't allowed to cash out. "I'm 25 years old and I've got a baby. I'm just here trying to make some money to survive," the West End resident said.

I understand how hard it is to make a living, Mr. Wyatt, but this ain't the way to do it, especially not with your last $23. Find something else to do.

The above was a result of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department serving up another hot, steamy batch of "justice," this time upon Lucky Duck Bingo in Midfield, Alabama. Despite charity bingo being given the go-ahead in Jefferson County, Sheriff Mike Hale, the Alabama Attorney General's office and the district attorneys for the county's Bessemer and Birmingham divisions think otherwise, hence the closure of these and other bingo parlors in Birmingham, Pinson and other cities.

The AL.com story doesn't explain why the county authorities felt the machines were illegal, and the Midfield Mayor Gary Richardson claims to have personally inspected the machines and determined they meet the Alabama Supreme Court's definition of bingo. Nevertheless, the machines were confiscated and the establishment shut down. There's also the matter of the non-refundable $15,000 license fee paid to the city, drawing accusations from the local yokels in the AL.com comments area of impropriety on part of the mayor.

Geez...for an activity that could net Jefferson County and other counties in the state millions of dollars in tax revenue, tens of thousands of new jobs and a way to pay down the crushing debt that's plaguing many parts of the state, the state sure does have a hard-on about cracking down on these "immoral" establishments. But then again, that's just the state doing it's best to legislate morality, again.

Or it could be the ongoing attempts to keep the Poarch Creek natives and other tribes flush with cash, and the buses headed to Tunica, Philadelphia and Biloxi packed with paying customers. Really, I covered this in the other two posts on electronic bingo.

For those wondering if these machines are legal in Jefferson County, period, take a look at Amendment 386: Operation of Bingo Games By Nonprofit Organizations in Jefferson County:

The operation of bingo games for prizes or money by nonprofit organizations for charitable or educational purposes shall be legal in Jefferson county, subject to the provisions of any resolution or ordinance by the county governing body or the governing bodies of the respective cities and towns, within their respective jurisdictions. The said governing bodies shall have the authority to promulgate rules and regulations for the licensing and operation of bingo games, within their respective jurisdictions, provided, however, that said governing bodies must insure compliance with the following provisions:

(a) No person under the age of 19 shall be permitted to play any game or games of bingo, nor shall any person under the age of 19 be permitted to conduct or assist in the conduct of any game of bingo;

(b) No bingo license shall be issued to any nonprofit organization, unless such organization shall have been in existence for at least 24 months immediately prior to the issuance of the license;

(c) Bingo games shall be operated only on the premises owned or leased by the nonprofit organization operating the bingo game. If the premises is leased, the rate of rental shall not be based on a percentage of receipts or profits resulting from the operation of bingo games;

(d) No nonprofit organization shall enter into any contract with any individual, firm, association or corporation to have said individual or entity operate bingo games or concessions on behalf of the nonprofit organization, nor shall said nonprofit organization pay consulting fees to any individual or entity for any services performed in relation to the operation or conduct of a bingo game;

(e) A nonprofit organization shall not lend its name or allow its identity to be used by any other person or entity in the operating or advertising of a bingo game in which said nonprofit organization is not directly and solely operating said bingo game;

(f) Prizes given by any nonprofit organization for the playing of bingo games shall not exceed $1,200.00 in cash or gifts of equivalent value during any bingo session or $2,400.00 in cash or gifts of equivalent value during any calendar week;

(g) No person or organization, by whatever name or composition thereof, shall take any salary, expense money, or fees as remuneration for services rendered in the operation of any bingo game.

It's unsaid whether the staff were complying with any of the above, or if the machines were in compliance, despite Mayor Richardson's personal seal of approval. Given the slant and corn-fed bull delivered most of the time, it's hard to say if we'll ever get a straight answer.

Midfield, Fairfield and many other cities were counting on the bingo boom to pad their coffers, but the raids are putting an end to all of that. At least someone finally mentioned the idea of consolidating these cities into a combined city/county metropolitan government like the ones enjoyed by Nashville, Louisville and other cities. More on that in a future post.

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Meanwhile...

- Turns out Irene didn’t fuck up as many couches as I and everyone else thought she would. Lots and lots of flooding, true enough, but none of the complete and utter ass whupping some people were expecting.

- Only 2% of 1,000 applicants for Florida’s state welfare benefits who applied since the mandatory drug testing began on July 1 tested positive for addictive substances. This is sure to dismay those who were expecting much higher numbers, with all of the Cadillac-driving welfare crack junkies and what not. Since the program reimburses passing applicants the required $30 fee for testing, the program averages $28,800-$43,200 monthly in reimbursement costs, offsetting $32,200-$48,200 in monthly savings from those who fail and are subsequently denied benefits for a year. Unknown legal and staffing costs may wipe those savings off the map.

- If the oil reserves currently parked underneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other locations in the U.S. were to be pumped up and barreled up, chances are that the vast majority of the oil will end up on the open market where practically anyone can bid on it. So why is this woman so obsessed with extracting it, knowing where it will most likely end up? The whole “$2 gas” promise made earlier was designed to soften people up to opening ANWR and saying “to hell with the regs…I want my cheap gas!”

"The day that the president became president gasoline was $1.79 a gallon," Bachmann said. "Look what it is today."

Yes, let’s overlook the price of gas soaring over $4/gal towards the end of George Bush’s administration. I’m sure people won’t be able to remember what life was like before January 20, 2009.

Courtesy of GasBuddy.com

Take note of the ridiculous drop in gas prices from September to November 2008.

- This deserves a good read. Helen Burleson just knocks it out of the park with this post. Courtesy of Harvey's Global Politics.

On a more technical note, I do realize the Twitter/Google+ links at the bottom of each post look fucked up. Well, they are fucked up, but that's because of the current template. I'll sift through line after line of the coding that makes this place look pretty and see if I can set about unfucking it. Until then, do your best to put up with it, as it is.

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Taking a Walk Through the (un)Amusement Park.

The other day, I was nose-deep into Abagond's blog post on Frantz Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks," a book that delves into the psychology of racism from a unique non-American perspective. In a sense, it looks into how European colonialism, the dominance of general culture by whites and rampant racism affected the black psyche, while also revealing a lot about Fanon's own psyche. Needless to say, it's an enlightening read.

Probably less enlightening is the backtrack link found at the very end of the blog comments. The backtrack leads to Unamusement Park, a blog that purports itself to be in support of "white rights, white racial consciousness and positive white identity." It's the sort of thing that makes you groan when you see it, more so when you see what one of the guest bloggers cooked up in his spare time.

The cultivation of "white rights, white racial consciousness and positive white identity" seem like odd concepts for a "majority" group to engage in. Whites are the majority power in many countries, so the idea of "white rights" is already codified into law, except that it's not known as "white rights" -- being the majority, the rights of whites are already assumed and are thus referred to in the general sense, without any racial identifiers needed. Whites are the majority in the world, in regards to socioeconomic and cultural terms, so the idea of "positive white identity" is unnecessary for a group that is not only automatically seen in a positive light by most, but can also manufacture a positive identity for itself with relative ease and force other groups to acknowledge said identity.

"White racial consciousness" seems a bit difficult to parse until it's explained in great detail. The term "white people" is used within the United States to describe people whose ancestry traces back to England, Ireland, France, Germany and other European nations. For Americans, its a way to describe yourself without wasting time explaining how you're Scots-Irish on your mother's side and Polish with a hint of some scarcely-known Moldavian ancestry on your father's side. The concept of "white racial consciousness" may seem innocuous until you read up on the history of so-called "white pride" groups and their track records for promoting and engaging in tactics designed to sew racially-motivated discord and violence against other races. In that regard, the concept of "white racial consciousness" sounds like a softer, dampened cry for "white pride."

With that said, it's amusing to see whites who feel threatened by the prospect of losing that feeling of cultural dominance attempt to reassert their own "whiteness" on the world with the following:

Guest poster "1951" has created no less than five flyers to support his “proud to be white” campaign, which promotes what he calls the “Three Truths”:

white people exist,
white people have the right to exist, and
white people have the right to exist as white people.

After all, as 1951 explains in a follow-up comment,

If we won’t even recognize our own existence, there’s certainly no hope of restoring our civilization. The task of creating an authentic white consciousness among the hoi polloi is therefore, in my opinion, Job One.


If we can get this message across to Joe and Jane Nascar, we will win the war. There will be too many of us to stop.

If you come from an ethnic minority group that's suffered numerous attempts at marginalization, exploitation and genocide, attempted or fulfilled, it's extremely difficult to see the ethnic majority as an "threatened species." The fact that these people see themselves as being in a war for their own existence when such an existence is already all but guaranteed should set off all sorts of alarm bells.

The blog's existence seems predicated towards the assumption that other races not only despise whites, but also seek to marginalize white culture and influence, with the eventual goal of exterminating whites altogether. It's the sort of fear-mongering that lesser individuals like David Duke would say to keep ordinary whites hopped up on racially-driven fear and suspicion of other ethnic groups.

To make things clear, no one despises "white people," again a term used largely by Americans of mostly European descent to describe themselves and others who share the same appearance without having to dive into the rabbit hole of where their bloodlines lay. No, it's the actions of said "white people," individually and as a culture, that people despise. It's a distinction missed by a number of people who claim the rest of the world is out to get whites just because of who they are. Again, it's what they do, in an individual and cultural sense, that draws ire from others.

EDIT: Read the rest of Abagond's posts on "Black Skins, White Masks" here.

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"White Like Me" and Other "Tragedies" and "Lost Causes."

No, Tim Tebow didn't grow a goatee and join the Philly Eagles. That's what Michael Vick would look like if he was a bit more Japheth than Ham, thanks to the Photoshopping wizardry in the latest ESPN article that asks a pretty valid question: would Vick had been subjected to the public and media backlash, not counting the legal ramifications of being accused and later conviction for his role in a dogfighting ring had he been, well, white?

It's a question asked every time a black person is accused of or convicted of a crime that a white person would be less likely to be accused/convicted of. And a number of whites are "tired" of hearing this question asked over and over. But given this nation's rather acrimonious and sorry history of ethnic relations between blacks and whites, it's a question that will be asked again and again until a genuine form of equality is finally met -- one where adverse reactions to another person's color accompanied by a mental and verbal regurgitation of negative propaganda against said people ceases to exist, and one where no one has to enjoy an advantage or disadvantage because he's from the wrong side of the ethnic tracks.

And for the idiots out there who'd think otherwise after reading the above, this is not a condoning of Vick's actions. It's just that most people wonder if a white person in Vick's position would have had the same experience, or if he would have gotten off a bit lighter due to his ethnicity.

Ta-Nehisi Coates wouldn't have been this charitable with the above. And he pulls no punches in his op-ed on the American Civil War. What's interesting about his viewpoint is how he approaches the story from an angle that very few people consider.

Take a look at the Revolutionary War. When people speak of that war, they talk in terms of what the nation gained from that war, which in this case was the American colonies' freedom from British rule and the formation of the United States. When people talk about the Civil War, they tend to talk in terms of what the nation lost. Which begs the question: exactly what did the U.S. lose?

For most people, the answer lies with the approximate 1,000,000 total casualties among both Union and Confederate troops, with 620,000 deaths on both sides. Most people would consider that a tragedy. Except Coates believes that is isn't.

It's really simple for me. One group of Americans attempted to raise a country on property in Negroes. Another group of Americans, many of them Negroes themselves, stopped them. As surely as we lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of the English, I lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of slaveholders.  

For most Americans, the Civil War is a sudden outbreak of a existential violence. But for 250 years, African-Americans lived in slavery--which is to say perpetual existential violence. I don't know what else to call a system that involves the constant threat of your children, your parents, your grandparents, being sold off, never for you to see them again. That is death.

Malcolm X was fond of saying that that there was no such thing as a "bloodless revolution." I don't know if that's true, but it surely was true of black people. The Civil War is our revolution. It ended slavery, and birthed both modern America, and modern black America.  

That can never be tragic to me.

To predominately white eyes, this all seems rather selfish and insensitive. After all, look at those 600,000+ dead and tell anyone that's "not" a tragedy; therefore, most people treat the end of the Civil War as one would treat the funeral of a loved one - somber and reserved, with thoughts about what as lost. But looking at the story from the eyes of a black person who recognizes that the Civil War, however bloody and painful it was, resulted in his ancestors being released from the physical, mental and spiritual bondage that the "peculiar" institution of slavery represented, it becomes hard to understand why anyone would treat the end of the Civil War as a solemn occasion and not celebrate the positives that came from that, just as people do when they celebrate "Independence Day."

And I don't think I'm abnormal because of this. Twenty-two thousand people died in the Revolutionary War, and we celebrate that with hot dogs and hamburgers every year. I'm sure that while Jews feel fairly horrible that the Holocaust happened, very few of them consider the fighting it took in order to liberate the death camps, "tragic." The Holocaust is tragic. Ending the Holocaust is not.

Some people say it was a "tragedy" that it took the Civil War to end slavery, but you rarely hear about how it was a "tragedy" that it took the Revolutionary War to secure America's independence. The compromises offered in both cases were apparently insufficient to stop the events that led to both wars. As said before, the end of one war is treated as a jubilant occasion, while the end of the other war is treated like a man's last rites.

After reading this story, I followed a few links that led me to Spike Lee's mockumentary on what life would be like if the Confederate States had won the Civil War and subsequently took over the United States while maintaining slavery. It also puts paid to the claim that the Confederacy was just fighting for "States' Rights," as it expands on the southern states' push to expand slavery to the "free states" by showing how slavery and various forms of apartheid eventually expanded throughout the states, Mexico and South America. Slavery was very much a powerful economic driving force for the region at that time. The video paints a portrait of a people eventually left economically, socially and I dare may say, spiritually stunted thanks to basing the nation around the concept of holding others in servitude and developing justifications towards such.

After watching the video, my thoughts came back to Coates' op-ed. The similar style between Lee's mockumentary and Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War led me to see how Burns' piece stood as a stark example of how most people see the Civil War. Taken from a comment by Robert Zimmerman:

Now that you point it out, yes, it's remarkable how deeply ingrained the idea of Civil War as tragedy is. For me, thinking about the war tends to set of the Ken Burns effect in my head. And it's not just the slow pan across sepia battleground images. I also get Garrison Keillor's doleful reading of a Union soldier's last letter home and the plaintive fiddle in the background (y'all hear it too, right?). It's the war that pitted brother against brother, and that's a great metaphor for a nation divided. With all that piled on, the war does seem real tragic, which just makes all the stories and images more resonant, which reinforces the sense of tragedy, etc.

That "sense of tragedy" and "solemn respect" remains present whenever and wherever the Civil War is talked about, more so in regards to the Confederates, even if it resulted in freeing millions of people from enslavement. That event is lumped into the "sense of tragedy" overshadowing the rest of the Civil War and from a certain perspective, it may seem as though the freedom gained by those people is actually one of the many "tragedies" to occur during the war -- keep in mind you do have people out there who bemoan what was "taken" from them by the Union and the lost chance to descend from a line of Southern aristocratic Fauntroy-types, with their attendant wealth intact and lineage unquestioned.

Some may find it odd that the end of the Civil War doesn't have a jubilant holiday similar to Independence Day. Others may say it's because we don't have any descendants of defeated British "Redcoats" nursing grudges over being on the losing side of history and if there were, there are precious few around for it to even matter. The "solemn respect" thing may be done out of respect for the remaining descendants of defeated Confederates. Given the "brother vs. brother" framing of the Civil War, it could be a courtesy from one "brother" to another, for the sake of keeping the family together.

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Best of Luck to you, Mayor Johnny DuPree.

Mississippi.

I'll let you tell me the first things that come to mind in the comments. I'll hold my peace for now.

Meanwhile, it looks like the state has a far off chance of making history:

Mayor Johnny DuPree of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, won the Democratic runoff for governor on Tuesday (August 23), setting the stage for a fall general election against Phil Bryant, Mississippi’s Republican lieutenant governor. DuPree becomes the first African-American in state history to clinch the gubernatorial nomination for either party, The Hattiesburg American reports. 

DuPree defeated Clarksdale, Mississippi, businessman Bill Luckett, gathering 55 percent of the vote. The three-term mayor enjoyed the support of “some of the state’s political heavy hitters,” including two of his former Democratic primary opponents and U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, The American reports. 

But DuPree faces a big challenge in November. Bryant has consolidated his support among Mississippi Republicans, and the lieutenant governor has a major fundraising advantage. He has already spent $3.1 million to introduce himself to voters, more than twice the amount spent by DuPree and Luckett combined. 

DuPree also has tough demographic trends to overcome. The Associated Press notes that Mississippi’s population is 37 percent African-American, and that the state has more black elected officials than any other. But the wire service also notes that the trend does not extend to statewide office: Mississippi has not elected a black statewide representative since Reconstruction.

I wish you luck on your history-making journey, Mr. DuPree. Given the state's proclivities, you'll need all the luck and blessings you can get your hands on.

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Meanwhile...

- Philly mayor Michael Nutter is pissed. Some young punk barged into a basketball game at the Kingsessing Recreation Center and fired 11 shots into the bleachers, wounding 6 people. The mayor's so pissed that he's taking 20 "G" stacks ($20,000, for the folks in Colorado Springs) from the city's crime reward fund, putting it out there for anyone willing to turn the "little bastard" in.

The little bastard isn't a 15-year-old misguided "youth." He's around 22, according to the theories about his identity. Not a little bastard, but a bastard just the same.

- Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls it quits, stepping down from his CEO duties and into a presumably less strenuous board chair position. Given his long-running bout with pancreatic cancer, no one would be surprised if it was the leading factor in him stepping down.

COO Tim Cook will take over the CEO role, as he's done twice since Jobs' medical issues forced him to step down momentarily. Turns out the guy's a "local" -- Alabama native, Auburn grad.

- Hewlett-Packard takes a page from IBM's playbook and calls it quits, as far as its line of personal computers are concerned. As a result of shrinking profit margins, HP's spinning off the PC line before the thin black line turns into a sea of red ink. At the same time, the storied company's purchased U.K. software firm Autonomy for $10.25 billion. As it turns out, selling overpriced software is what brings home the bacon these days. (No, that wasn't a pot-shot at anyone, not Adobe or any other company that makes software for graphic designers. Nope, not at all...)

The only silver lining in this cloud is the story of the HP Touchpad. Ridiculed widely for its $499 price tag, the Web OS-based tablet literally flew off the shelves shortly after it was discontinued and subsequently given a $99 fire sale price tag. Oddly enough, there was another, albeit Android-based tablet making the rounds at the same price point. Unlike the Touchpad, it wasn't particularly well-received, and for good reason.

When the folks at Best Buy take the piss on your product, you know it's bad.

- Obama Derangement Syndrome hits its peak. Apparently the man is such a Magic Negro™ that he's supposed to do something about an earthquake.

How can a man possess such power when at the same time, people are calling him impotent?

- Teabaggers just being Teabaggers, again:

Darrel Clark of Farmington said he came for "a chance to see the elusive representative."
"He needs to get out of politics and make room for an American," Clark said.
Luján is a lifelong New Mexican. Clark later explained that he meant an "American patriot."

Sure, buddy. Whatever you say.

As far as the Teabaggers are concerned, Ray Luján's just another wetback with a "D" next to his name. Too bad it wasn't an "R," as they usually make concessions for the ones they "own"...ahem..."one of their own."

BTW, to all the folks on the East Coast, from the Carolinas all the way up to New England, stay safe. Hurricane Irene plans on fucking up a lot of couches in the coming days.

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A Few Transportation Observations.

In the coming months, I'll tackle the issue of Birmingham's "civic anemia," but with other current state and national news coming in, it's been a bit hard to focus on one single issue.

Meanwhile, I've made a few observations about a couple of major southern cities I've had the pleasure of living in, plus one semi-major city. It's the roadway network and how southern cities tend to be laid out. It's also about how such networks affect traffic flow and how they encourage or deter gridlock.

Atlanta is a poster child of Southeastern civic planning, in regards to how the roads are laid out. Outside of the immediate city core, it all goes straight to hell quickly -- the road grid disappears in favor of meandering roads that lead to places unintended and parts unknown. The road network frustrated me to no end the first couple of weeks after my arrival.

In comparison, Birmingham is logically well-thought out, with a northeast-to-southwest grid network that defines the downtown area and most of the neighborhoods around it. The grid ceases to be once you leave the city proper.

Huntsville, Alabama also qualifies as a city with something resembling a semi-sane grid network. It also helps that everything is laid out in a fairly understandable east-west layout -- the major thoroughfares are fairly straight with very little meandering, and they tend to border and confine the otherwise winding suburban neighborhood streets.

Another thing I've noticed about all three cities is the traffic light system setup, from the perspective of the average motorist. Most parts of Huntsville and Atlanta have "smart" traffic light systems, with loop detectors that gauge the number of vehicles at a standstill and how long they've been there, making it possible for traffic lights to give a line of vehicles at a turning lane light the go ahead if there's little to no oncoming traffic. Birmingham, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have "smart" lights -- the current traffic light system in most areas rely on timers, possibly interrupting the flow of traffic during peak hours. A lot of these traffic lights don't even have dedicated lights for the turning lanes.

Without the loop detectors, you're at the mercy of the light's timers. And if the lights are timed wrong, that usually results in traffic jams galore during high volume hours. This is something that U.S. Route 280 commuters in metro Birmingham always complain about, among other things. Given the sheer buildup of retail businesses along that corridor, gridlock becomes a facet of life during those peak hours. U.S. Route 72 from the outskirts of Huntsville to Limestone County has that same problem, further aggravated by the transition of the highway at the Madison city limit from a wide 6-lane thoroughfare with a central turning lane to a 4-lane divided highway. And there are relatively few east-west options that aren't similarly crowded or time-consuming to take.

Atlanta suffers from that same east-west problem inside the perimeter -- all east-west options I've taken so far are surface streets that go through residential areas at slow speeds or meandering roads that actually take you northeast of your destination. Avoiding the traffic that inevitably builds up on the Interstates is an exercise in patience and perseverance.

If you want to know more about these streets, Freeway Jim's YouTube videos are a great way of getting acquainted with the byways and highways of these southern cities. 

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A Party of Hypocrites.

As it turns out, the GOP aren't all that adverse to raising taxes, after all. Even the Tea Party's patron saint of American conservative governance, St. Reagan the Gipper, often raised taxes despite allaying his fellow conservatives' concerns of being swept up in the demonic liberal tax-and-spend waves. Just not on the top 1% of earners in this nation. That remains sacrosanct as far as the GOP is concerned.

Instead, it will be the middle class and working class that ends up shouldering the tax burdens of this nation.

America’s presumably anti-tax party wants to raise your taxes. Come January, the Republicans plan to raise the taxes of anyone who earns $50,000 a year by $1,000, and anyone who makes $100,000 by $2,000. 

Their tax hike doesn’t apply to income from investments. It doesn’t apply to any wage income in excess of $106,800 a year. It’s the payroll tax that they want to raise — to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent of your paycheck, a level established for one year in December’s budget deal at Democrats’ insistence. Unlike the capital gains tax, or the low tax rates for the rich included in the Bush tax cuts, or the carried interest tax for hedge fund operators (which is just 15 percent), the payroll tax chiefly hits the middle class and the working poor.

Any bets on conservatives willing to blame Democrats based on the underlined info? It's perfect - agree to hit the middle and working classes in the wallets to preserve the sanctity of the wealthy's pocketbooks while blaming Democrats for the whole thing.

While President Obama has made clear that he supports extending the lower 4.2 percent payroll tax rate for another year, to keep the economy from contracting further, congressional Republicans have made their opposition equally clear. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. Camp complained that it would push the deficit higher. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the man who’d have us scrap Medicare, concurred. “It would simply exacerbate our debt problems,” he said on Fox News Sunday this month.

Given the prior shitfest over raising taxes (especially when it involved raising corporate and capital gains taxes), this faux concern over a lower payroll tax is just pure comedy.

Meanwhile, the Bush tax cuts remain sacrosanct, as do the idea of raising capital gains and other taxes that affect wealthy individuals and corporations. It's amazing to see the GOP talk about how Democrats exacerbate and perpetuate class warfare, yet the GOP put words into action by doing those very things. Besides, the middle and working classes should be used to eating their own bootstraps by now.

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Dog Whistles in the House Jim Robinson Built.

Something Awful Forums has a long-running thread that keeps tabs on the epic levels of conservative insanity that emanate from the annals of Free Republic -- no linkbacks, because that'd be akin to sticking your Pete Long into a jar full of Syphilis. If you have $10 to spare, you can see for yourself the dozens of pages (not counting the old, archived threads) of conservative dogma and carefully cultivated racism and nativism dispensed by the resident "Freepers."

As an example, here are the responses to the following news story -- "Teen girl gang assaults woman in brazen daylight attack outside Philadelphia City Hall":

To: Free ThinkerNY
Urban negro youth.....savages. Period. Time to take out the trash.
9 posted on Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:00:03 PM by RightOnline
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I wonder how this person intends on "taking out the trash."

To: Free ThinkerNY
“Holder’s People” have nothing to fear these days.
And they’re taking every advantage possible, even to the point of extreme criminality.
Nope. No racial aspect here. Move along. Nothing to see.
14 posted on Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:08:06 PM by Tigerized
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Get it? Holder's a black guy, and these people are "his people," as though he alone is singularly responsible for their behavior.

To: Free ThinkerNY
FREE AMERICA FROM THE MOST RACIST PEOPLE EVER.
WAKE UP AMERICA —2012
23 posted on Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:20:50 PM by TribalPrincess2U (democRATS—just doing al Qaeda ground work? Obama owns it all now.)
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It's implied that blacks are now the "most racist people ever." This comes from a group of people who were responsible for rampant legal and extralegal discrimination against blacks, native Americans, Hispanics and other ethnic groups they didn't like. Whenever non-whites broach the subject of color-aroused mistreatment, the Freeper/Teabagger whites immediately accuse them of being racist pricks for even bringing up the subject of race in our newly post-racial society. Those people got themselves a darkie in the White House -- what more do they want?

It's the aggressor calling the victim an "aggressor" while painting himself as the "victim." Manipulative role-reversal at it's finest.

To: Free ThinkerNY
Reparations h377. Time for repatriation!
They don't want to behave civilized on this continent, let em run wild on their own!
26 posted on Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:28:28 PM by rawcatslyentist (It is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; ~Vattel's Law of Nations)
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Yep! Send those darkies back to Africa where they came from!

To: ladyjane
So why are whites putting up with this hatred from blacks?
Haven't you ever heard of the dog that got put to sleep for always trying to bite the one that kicked it?
48 posted on Thursday, August 18, 2011 10:05:37 PM by papertyger
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Implying that if the black community keeps poking at that poor white dog, the dog's gonna bite back and maul their faces. Nevermind that about 60 years ago, this dog was in it's prime ripping apart black peoples' faces and limbs without any provocation whatsoever.

To: Venturer
Whites have been eating this sh!t sandwich for years now,
Agree.
and they will continue to eat it.
Maybe.
I am amazed at how much Free Republic has changed since I have been observing it. 5 years back half of those in here would have been calling most everyone in this thread a racist, but we are waking up. We are seeing real racism, and it isn't coming from Whites.
Agree. I'd also guess that we're not the only ones opening our eyes.
49 posted on Thursday, August 18, 2011 10:06:14 PM by Ken H
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Blacks are the real racists here. And thus white Freepers perform a Pontius Pilot, washing their hands of past deeds.

To: Ken H
The blatant racism of blacks today is forcing us to awaken.
64 posted on Friday, August 19, 2011 6:30:48 AM by Venturer
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Given the sheer number of rural militia groups, Minutemen wannabes, so-called "patriots" and other groups ranging from neo-Confederates and "white pride" groups to neo-Nazis and conspiracy-driven powder dryers, forcing these groups to "awaken" usually means they're itching for any reason to arm up and purify the American continent of "thuggish blacks," "illegal immigrants" and other ethnic groups they don't like seeing and henceforth would like to kill.

These are some very dangerous bastards we're dealing with. While others would dismiss all of this as the rantings of old white conservatives who are venting and selling woof tickets over the Internet, I say they're psychologically gearing themselves up for morally-justified genocide of non-whites, under the pretenses of public safety. Most people have no idea or could care less about what the crazy guys in the basement are doing until those guys bomb a building or shoot up a public venue. Lunacy has a way of sneaking up on and surprising people.

I'm glad someone out there has the stomach to catalog most of this crap. It's necessary to show people what kind of rhetoric's still floating around in this "post-racial" day and age.

Apologies for the formatting. Blogger isn't that good when it comes to the cut-and-paste jobs that are sometimes necessary.

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400 Dead, 2,000 Wounded Over Tripoli.

Courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald:

Four hundred people have been killed and 2,000 wounded in three days of fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in the Libyan capital Tripoli, the head of the rebel council said on Wednesday. 

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, told France-24 television that some 600 pro-Gaddafi fighters had been captured but the battle would not be over until the Libyan leader himself was a prisoner. 

"According to our information, the number of those killed during the operation which has lasted three days is just over 400, with 2,000 wounded," he said, without specifying if he was talking of both sides. 

"We captured up to 600 Gaddafi soldiers," he added. Jalil said he thought that Gaddafi himself had fled Tripoli, saying he was not brave enough to stay and fight, but "God alone" knew where he was. "I hope that he will be captured alive and tried so the world can know about his crimes," he added.

There are rumors flying around that Gaddafi's taking the very last nap he'll ever take, but nothing substantial. Other reports state he's beat a hasty retreat to Algeria.

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Meanwhile...

- Everyone's keeping an eye on Libya. So far, the rebels have stormed Tripoli, taken over control of the media apparatii and have three of Moammar Gadhafi's sons in custody, all while squaring off against the dictator's forces. The next time you see that rather colorful individual, he may be in chains. Or dead.

- And if everyone's not keeping an eye on that, then perhaps they were too busy dealing with the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that struck not far from Washington D.C. Freepers and Teabaggers expecting D.C. to split into two and be swallowed into the earth like a bad natural disaster flick were sorely disappointed.

- Rep. Maxine Waters went ham on the Tea Party and told them they could all go one-way to a nice and toasty place. Good on her. Tea Party supporters lost their monocles in shock over the news. Maybe they should pack up a few of those sugar-coated Satan sandwiches for a nice snack along the way.

- “Bank of America. We’ll help you out.” From James Mahoney's lips to Rick Perry's ears. So I guess Ricky Goodhair doesn't have to worry about having insufficient funds during his presidential campaign or at any other point afterwards.

- Ohio Gov. John Kasich thinks applying for $176 million in unemployment insurance funds courtesy of the 2009 Recovery Act makes no sense. His unemployed constituents may think otherwise.  Too bad they aren't corporations.

- The Hoyas managed to patch things up after their on-court brawl with the Bayi Rockets. Good on them.

- Dominique Strauss-Kahn is officially off the hook, after New York State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus threw out the sexual assault charges brought against him back in May for his alleged sexual assault of a 33-year-old immigrant maid from Guinea. Given Strauss-Kahn's status, wealth and connections, you could have bet your entire life's savings on him being let go. Rumor has it this isn't the first time he's been accused of this.

Remember, folks, a well-respected national representative trying to get President Obama to focus on the black community's issues is being "hate filled and racist." Witness the color-arousal caused by a "hateful racist" disturbing the sanctity of Obama's racial neutrality. Notice the rhetoric from the so-called "Libertarians" -- these guys wish they could be conservative, but want all of the perks of being mistaken for liberals and can't bear to accept the stigma of being conservative or associate with the loonier Teabagger wing of conservative ideology. These guys can go eat dicks.

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What It Means to Be Impoverished In America.

History is a literal "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" guide when it comes to things that any normal human being should see coming, but usually don't until is well too late. People may read about history, but they don't really learn anything from it unless it happens to be something immediately tangible they can get out of it like financial gain, and even then they end up dooming themselves thanks to the inevitable greed that comes over them. In short, people are forever stuck in the remedial classes, repeating history because they slept through it and failed hard when it came time for the test.

The socioeconomic elite, mainly the wealthy individuals and families who spend their time in the pursuit of money and power whenever they're not pursuing leisure, always allow greed to overcome their best judgment and forget (or don't care) how continuous hording of 99% of the monetary and physical resources, combined with continuous extortion of that last 1% from the 98% who are flat broke always results in said people rebelling against the elite in the worst ways possible. Sometimes the elite manage to escape to various boltholes prepared for such a purpose. Sometimes they earn a spot on the guillotine or gallows. At any rate, desperate people who are eating shit sandwiches while seeing the elites live high on the hog will snap and get their piece of the action by all means at their disposal.

Which brings me to this fellow by the name of Robert Rector, a gentleman in the loose sense of the word who believes that America's poor are living to high on the hog themselves to be technically poor. Granted, America's sky-high standard of living allows our poor to have more material things than poor people in other nations. Actually, that's the point Rector tries to make.

The overwhelming majority of the public do not regard a family living in these conditions as poor. For example, a poll conducted in June 2009 asked a nationally representative sample of the public whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “A family in the U.S. that has a decent, un-crowded house or apartment to live in, ample food to eat, access to medical care, a car, cable television, air conditioning and a microwave at home should not be considered poor.”[42] 

A full 80 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats agreed that a family living in those living conditions should not be considered poor.

I do realize my fellow Americans can be some rather cruel and vindictive cunt stains now and again, and that most polls get their sampling data from populations small enough to fit inside the local Wal-Mart. But having a roof over your head with air conditioning, a car, food on the table and cable TV automatically disqualifies you from being considered "poor?"

To those who subscribe to the "I lived in an old boot, ate grass clippings and watched ants crawl by on the sidewalk when I was growin' up" and "That's not poverty, [add description here] is poverty" memes, it may not be at first glance.

Lets play a game and see how far the average person who's technically not in poverty can get on their normal wages.

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Tim Wise: On White Privilege.

Today may be an off day, so here's a little something from Tim Wise on that little phenomenon called "white privilege."

The problems we all face today stem from divide-and-conquer tactics used by the economic and political elite to keep their holdings and themselves out of hot water. That is all.

EDIT: Today wasn't such an off day, after all.

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My Black Best Friend™

There's a blog post over at Abagond that focuses on the "Black Best Friend" trope that pops up constantly in the media (and in real life, too.)

You can read the post for yourself, but I'll just skip to the meat-and-potatoes of the whole post:

It goes beyond mere self-centredness on Wilson’s part. While Muharrar is hardly Wilson’s slave or Mammy-style servant, Wilson still sees Muharrar according to the same broad pattern that goes back to slave days: 

• as someone who is there to serve white people,
• as someone who is not fully human in her own right. 

“Not fully human” might seem a bit exteme, yet it is Muharrar’s very failure to be a cardboard cut-out stereotype, it is her very humanness, that disappoints Wilson. And, in the end, it is Wilson’s unwillingness to see Muharrar as a person in her own right that ends the “friendship”.

Nail, say "HI" to the fucking hammer.

For generations, blacks have existed under benevolent white stewardship as, well, servants. They were brought over to this wonderful land we call "Home" for the expressed purpose of serving whites, more specifically the white upper classes who could afford to maintain a stable of these not-fully-human human beings. The ones who couldn't were encouraged by the Powers That Be™ to use blacks as a punching bag and a soothing balm for their own shitty situations, so they wouldn't do anything rash like, well, revolt against their socioeconomic condition.

Like all "good things," this one couldn't last forever. The end of slavery as America mostly knew it meant there wouldn't be any more blacks who'd be inclined to continue serving whites, unless they didn't have much of a choice. Let's give a hearty welcome to "Jim Crow," ladies and gents. He'll be staying with us for the next 90 years or so. And as long as blacks were triple-fucked by prohibitions on jobs, housing, political power and social movement, and given a last buggering by continuous propaganda of supposed general inferiority due to ethnic and generic composition, they'd have no choice but to continue being "the help."

Well, ol' Jim couldn't last forever, either. Not even when those nice fellers in the white robes and pointy hats gave him a heart transplant and a doctor's order for more exercise. Black folks got tired of being welcomed when they were "the help," but treated like dogshit everywhere else. In spite of what Jim had put into place, blacks gained political power via protest and activism, and eventually, the world got to take a good look at what Jim did with America's decor (it was a fucking mess.) Even the Soviets got a good laugh or three out of it. The nation's collective ego and facing a choice between Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent movement and the very-much-so violent movements encouraged by others, America finally sent ol' Jim, at this point drooling and rather senile, to the nursing home. Black folks didn't have to be "the help" any more.

These days, it's Jim's beloved grandson, James Crowe, Esq., who's trying to make blacks being "the help" fashionable again. The guy's got Hollywood agents on the phone cooking up new movies treading the same "Magic Negro™ swoops in and fixes Everything™" or "white guy saves black community/civilization/village from themselves and Certain Doom & Destruction™" water. I'll admit, I have yet to see this "The Help" movie, so I'll reserve judgement until I do -- I tend not to watch movies until they've hit the DVD bins.

Loved the video. Loved the ending. Black folks are seldom considered fully human, just human enough to "help" whites whenever they need themselves or something else taken care of.

Americuhhhhh, you need to find somebody new.*

*Yeah, yeah, they're kinda doing that with Hispanics, Mexican immigrants, specifically. It won't last, either.

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Pause.

Some of you may have seen the story of Mickey Gotwalt making the news rounds. The 52-year-old softball coach from Michigan was recently convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a 14-year-old over a three-month period. But while reading the L.A. Times story, the following jumped out at me:

Thomas Warda said at the sentencing hearing for Mickey Gotwalt, 52, that his client "didn't kill this girl," according to a court transcript obtained by the Saginaw News. 

"I mean this isn't — I don't think she's gonna have psychological injury the rest of her life," Warda said Thursday. "I mean he'll be in prison, but, you know, she'll have forgotten all about this at some point."

I doubt that, Tommy. My first instinct was to create a portal through my laptop monitor and travel to the exact time and space you made this rather insensitive comment and drop-kick the living shit out of you, Liu Kang style. An out-of-state criminal record and a long, slow Greyhound ride back south wouldn't be worth the trouble.

Your client didn't kill this girl physically, but mentally and emotionally? She'll have to deal with this crap for the rest of her life. At least the judge had his head on his shoulders:

"The victim of this offense will be impacted the rest of her life. This just doesn't go away," Joslyn said, according to the transcript.

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The Significance of a 0% Corporate Tax Rate

The following was meant to be posted on the 11th of August, but I guess I fell asleep on it or didn't realize it wasn't published. Which sucks, because I wanted to reference this post in the "Bootstraps" post I made earlier. Better late than never.

I mentioned in a tweet a day or so ago about how some FM blowhard advocated lowering corporate tax rates to 0%, if he ever became "dictator" of the U.S. The whole idea behind that (the taxes, not the dictatorship) is with a 0% corporate tax, more businesses will feel compelled to set up shop and do business in the U.S., and not hide themselves and their profits in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, or play shell games like Google's "Irish Sandwich." The "Trickle-Down Theory" comes into play as the record profits made by corporations will somehow find their way into the average American's pocket, in the form of more jobs and of course, more money to spend on the things that these corporations make, which in turn generates more profits, more jobs, etc, ad infinum. It's all about giving the "job creators" more money to create jobs with.

Except that the "job creators" seem loath to create much of anything except a tidy profit in this country. Anyone who's seen first-hand the wonders of corporate outsourcing and off-shoring know that these corporations will have little to no incentive for creating new jobs in the U.S., at least not when they can create those jobs in cheaper locations such as Mexico and China. The costs of labor are low and they don't have to worry about paying health benefits or 401(k) plans, either. So why build anything in the United States, where your bottom line will be eroded by people wanting decent wages and a health care plan so they won't go bankrupt when they fall deathly ill, when you can set up shop in one of the many nations willing to pay their people $5/day, because the standard of living scrapes the floor in those locales?

Another thing that a 0% corporate tax fails to address is exactly who'll be paying these taxes. Certainly not the wealthy, since they'll use every loophole in existence to lower their tax liabilities. There are some out there who want the capital gains tax lowered to insane single-digit percentages for this very reason. And if the wealthy are keeping their pocketbooks closed for the tax man, that leaves middle-class and working-class Americans to pick up the slack. It's uncertain how anyone can run any nation just by taxing the lifeblood out of the middle and working classes while letting the "job creators" create profits....ahem...."jobs". But the Tea Sippers and other advocates of a 0% corporate tax have a plan to take care of that.

That plan involves taking the butcher's knife to "entitlements" such as Social Security, Medicare, welfare and other government programs that function as a safety net for ordinary Americans. And it'll be done on the assumption that Americans, being the proud and individualistic people they are, really don't need any of this stuff. Welfare? Let churches and charity take care of that. Medicare? Let grandma and grandpa fade away with dignity in the comfort of their grandchildren's homes if they don't have the money to keep on living. Social Security? Shouldn't you already have a nest egg that's been taken care of by the tender loving hands of Wall Street? You lost it? That's unfortunate. Go to Wal-Mart and see if they're still taking "greeters."

Cutting out those "entitlements" will take care of the whole "lazy minority" problem that some Americans are still fascinated with. No more of those black "Welfare queens" loading lobster and filet Mignon purchased with state-issued EBT cards into their Cadillac Escalades on 26-inch wheels. Without those "entitlements," they have to go back into the factories and fields, taking up the work their "illegal immigrant" counterparts left behind thanks to those new state-issued immigration laws, as God apparently intended for them and theirs.

Education, apparently seen as another "entitlement" to some, will also have half-dollar-sized chunks torn out of its collective ass, as government cedes the job of providing free education to the nation's children to corporate-supported charter schools and private schools, if you can afford them. The most basic education will come free, but anything considered an "extracurricular activity" will bear fees. Fees that some families can't pay, because they're keeping their heads above water with the factory and Wal-Mart jobs, as it is. Once again, those with the most money will have the most choices.

Without the weight of those "entitlements," shouldn't that leave more money in the average American's paycheck, nevermind how that paycheck is slowly dwindling in a race to match the checks of those in Mexico and other "competitive nations" while the costs of living rises astronomically? Now how are these people supposed to support the consumer spending bonanza that a 0% corporate tax is supposed to bring, if they barely have enough money to spend on the most essential items? Wouldn't Wal-Mart and Dollar General be just a bit worried their customers were becoming too broke to purchase "dollar items?"

Zero corporate taxes, near zero capital gains taxes, an extremely low top marginal tax rate and a number of different loopholes that promote zero taxation. Apparently this is the ideal condition for corporations and the extremely wealthy. Without any "noblesse oblige" to worry about, since the average American is fending for themselves in accordance to the "rugged individual" fantasy, the wealthy are left only with the task of aggrandizing themselves with ever increasing amounts of wealth, something akin to Uncle Scrooge swimming around in a pile of gold coins in his vault. Except that ol' Scrooge has twelve of those vaults scattered around the globe, with plans on a thirteenth vault. The vaults themselves are surrounded 24/7 with armed security, and the compound itself is surrounded by ordinary citizens in incredible poverty, most whom have come to understand that said poverty is merely a failure in personal character and that it's their own fault they're in poverty in the first place.

The nation is run on tax revenue, and it will come from somewhere if this nation plans on existing in its current form. With a 0% corporate tax, it may be the middle and working classes that once again have to bear the load of fiscally holding this nation up.

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Poverty is Your Own Fault and You Have to Pull Yourself Up by Your Own Bootstraps.

Tall boots may have a tab, loop or handle at the top known as a bootstrap, allowing one to use fingers or a tool to provide greater force in pulling the boots on. The saying "to pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was already in use during the 19th century as an example of an impossible task. Bootstrap as a metaphor, meaning to better oneself by one's own unaided efforts, was in use in 1922. This metaphor spawned additional metaphors for a series of self-sustaining processes that proceed without external help. (Wikipedia)

Americans are generally big on self-sufficiency. Given the vast amount of wide-open, uninhabited land and the lack of services and assistance for miles around, you'd have to be. But that was back in the days of the "Wild, Wild West," when vast acreages were available to anyone with enough brass and grit and gumption and whatever other campy resource people had in those days, and when Native American tribes had yet to enjoy the economic benefits of reservation casinos.

Today, those days are practically over, and the tools used by countless Americans to better themselves and their families are slowly being pulled off the table. Meanwhile, increasingly poor Americans are being told to go "pull themselves by their own bootstraps." Which would be fine if the people being told this actually had boots to pull up -- those had to be returned back to Wal-Mart for food and gas money, just before the car was repossessed and the lights were cut off. Let's face it, people need help now and again. A social safety net could be the difference between them making it until they can get it together or falling through society's many gaping cracks.

Other nations across the globe have social nets in place to make the lives of the least among them a bit more bearable -- universal health care coverage, low-cost or no-cost public secondary education systems, unemployment benefits to keep those temporarily out-of-work from starving and rules on work hours and employee benefits to keep those employed from burning out. Of course, these things require taxes and quite a bit of regulation, two things that the Teabagger sect of the GOP and their lest strident conservative fellows strictly abhor.

Nations that don't have these social nets in place are usually the worst when it comes to livability for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Coincidentally, these nations are often the cheapest places for multinational corporations to set up production -- low initial start-up costs, lax or nonexistent regulations and a workforce that's used to a low standard of living, yet thankful for the low wages paid to them.

Now, you have to wonder why the Teabaggers and other conservative "low information voters" (LIV) would willingly discard workers' unions and other social safety measures for the sake of multinationals who see them as being just as expendable as their much-poorer Third World counterparts. The answer seems to be a combination of things that culminate in a perfect storm of general ignorance and willful stupidity.

The first seems to be a trait that's found in nations all over with strong social safety nets -- those nations don't mind having those as long as large numbers of the ethnic majority of that population are enjoying them. To wit, the Swedes don't mind other Swedes using their social welfare programs, but they become rather concerned when large numbers of Turks and other ethnic minorities start using them. The consensus is that the Swedes are generally known as hard working folks who'll put into the system what they take out. Meanwhile, those ethnic minorities are sometimes seen as lazy louts who take out more than the meager amounts they put back in.

The second involves conservative Americans and their reluctance to pay taxes for anything unless it happens to directly benefit them and their immediate communities. Many of these folks suspect that if they willingly vote in a tax increase, that increase simply remains permanent and the politicians will simply burn through the money like a coke fiend on payday. When the coffers are dry, the politicians will go back to the people for another hit, ad infinum, until the tax base becomes too broke to pay anything and the entire system collapses. Most people have little to no trust in politicians other than the representatives of their districts, and even then, there's not much trust there.

How does the second relate to the first? Considering some Americans are already reluctant to pay taxes on things they don't use or think they don't need, they're really hesitant to pay taxes to fund things that benefit other people. Or better still, other ethnic groups.

This is where the "Cadillac-driving welfare queen buying filet Mignon with her EBT food card" meme comes in. It's something designed to tweak the color-arousal in certain folk, with the intent of whipping them up in a racially-motivated frenzy without the need for any explicit racist speech. All you need to do is to tell Average Sam and the other LIVs that those "lazy blacks" don't deserve the unemployment benefits or the food stamps that are paid with your "hard-earned taxpayer dollars." Note how they personalize something that's already in the custody of the local, state and federal governments by the time you're staring at your paycheck stub. The company already deducted that money out of your check and remitted it to the government, but by golly that's still "your" money. Even though you have as much control of it as you do the seasons of the year.

That racial rhetoric not only works on blacks and Hispanics (those damn illegals), but also on poor whites. You know, those people who didn't work hard enough to be well-off like the rest of America and are, in effect, well deserving of their poverty. There's nothing that sets off well-off white American disgust than the sight of poor white trash.

The best way to tell those blacks, Hispanics and poor white trash you don't want your money going into their filthy hands is to tell them to, you guessed it, "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Nevermind if they didn't have boots in the first place - not your problem. They can go to a church-based charity and cop some well-worn boots. Did I mention how Teabaggers tend to be big on church-based charities supplanting welfare programs on a national scale? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but think about it - hundreds, if not thousands of churches doing the work of federal and state governments. The logistics of that would amaze many. The prerequisites that some churches would pose would insult many. (I'll get into my personal theories on "Faux Christians" and how they tend to treat others later on.)

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Adventures in Environmental Disaster.

Image from Black Warrior Riverkeeper

The Birmingham Water Works has a drinking water intake on Mulberry Fork along the Shepard Bend, located in southeastern Walker County, AL, just southeast of the town of Cordoba. This intakes provides drinking water to 200,000 customers.

Drummond Company, Inc. plans to open a 1,773 acre coal mine that's approximately 1,000 feet from this intake. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management, an organization that one would think would pull the plug on such things, gave the company the go-ahead after its decision was upheld by the Environmental Management Commission.

This being the great state of Alabama and all, there's no telling how much grease was put on those skids. Or if the decision was designed as a "fuck you" of sorts to the city by a well-connected Good Ol' Boy network.

The Birmingham Water Works Board is in thorough opposition to the mine, for obvious reasons. Mine effluent dumped into the river and into the intake requires more thorough filtering, translating into higher costs for BWW and its customers. A number of other groups, including the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, is also in firm opposition against the mine.

The decision for Drummond to get cracking on building the mine rests on leasing or purchasing land currently held by the University of Alabama. Without that land, chances of the mine being built become slim to none. Hopefully, this adventure in environmental disaster can grind to a halt before any serious damage is done.

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Banks: Getting Theirs Any Way They Can.

If anyone's noticed, bank after bank is dispensing with their "free" checking services, in favor of accounts with a monthly service fee. One of my "free" checking accounts started charging fees a couple of months ago, while the other will start charging fees this fall. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo is testing out a $3/month fee for using their ATM/Debit cards, on top of the $2.95 most ATMs charge for withdrawals.

The only way anyone can be exempt from these fees is if you keep a $1500 monthly average balance in the account or if you have your employer direct-deposit your paycheck into the account. In other words, you'll need a steady income stream coming into your account, so the banks can have more money on hand to lend out to other customers, since they make a bigger profit on the lending side of banking than they do on the accounts.

In short, if you aren't making the banks money, then they're taking their pound of flesh from you in any other way they can.

This is all coming on the heels of recently-enacted financial regulations that not only cap how much banks can charge retailers per debit card transaction, but also put an end to overdraft fees on ATM and one-time debit card transactions, among other things. And since the banks stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in such fees, they have to get their money back somehow.

If you're the type of person who leaves $3.25 in their checking account, you might want to pad that a bit more from now on. If you use debit cards extensively, you might want to stick with cash from now on. If you're looking for somewhere to open a new checking account, try a smaller local/regional bank or a credit union.

I just might try the credit union route. I resisted thanks to the lack of branches in my area, but with online banking, I should be just fine.

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"When you let us know it is time to let go, we'll let go."

One of the most enduring criticisms against President Barack Obama is that he seems rather tone-deaf when it comes to the concerns and suffering of the black community. And it's probably at this point where the president himself would say he's not just the black community's president, but America's president, too. And that would be all well and good from most viewpoints.

But when you happen to be a part of the 16% of black Americans who are currently unemployed, those words ring hollow. Ditto if you happen to be a black victim of discrimination or unwarranted police violence. These days, it seems the concerns of the black community are the furthest thing from the mind of the president. Of course, black Americans don't expect Obama to cater to their every single wish or whim -- that's a great way for whites to become upset and walk away from Obama in droves. What black Americans want is for the president to acknowledge some of their concerns in a concrete manner, something that he hasn't done much of scratch that, concerns that often lack the appearance as being addressed to the visible benefit of the black community.

In politics, black folks usually stand in solidarity with elected black officials, seeing as they were usually the only ones who could be relied on to actually act in the black community's interests, historically speaking. Black Americans stand by Obama because he represents the best and most reliable chance of acting in the interests of the community. When there aren't any major black political figures available, the black community goes for those who represent the best chance of having their interests heard. Hence why blacks side with the Democrats instead of the GOP, and why Bill Clinton was considered "the first black president" during his tenure.

But thanks to the appearance of inaction on Obama's part and mounting frustration with America's current economic state, plenty of black supporters and politicians are thinking about taking their arm from around Obama's shoulders. To wit, Representative Maxine Waters:

U.S. House Rep. Maxine Waters is asking black voters who are struggling with an unemployment rate nearly twice the national average to "unleash" her and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus on President Obama.

The California Democrat, speaking at a raucous town hall in Detroit hosted by the CBC on Tuesday, said she doesn't want to attack the president from his base unless the base gives her the go-ahead.

"If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us," Waters said. "When you tell us it's all right and you unleash us and you're ready to have this conversation, we're ready to have the conversation."

Judging by the reaction of the audience, including someone yelling to Waters, "It's all right," the president will be hearing very soon from the congresswoman and her fellow caucus members.

Since Obama took office, he has resisted pressure from the CBC to create jobs programs specifically targeting blacks, saying that improving the entire economy will help all groups.

Waters said the Congressional Black Caucus "loves" the president, but it is frustrated.

"We're getting tired y'all," she said. "We want to give him every opportunity. But our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. ... When you let us know it is time to let go, we'll let go."

You're probably wondering why in the world would Rep. Waters and any other black politician would seek permission to criticize and otherwise not support Obama. For starters, Obama still enjoys a relatively large amount of support from the black community, and secondly, her fellow politicians and spokespersons would most likely go on the defensive in support of Obama. Yes, black folks realize the man's a bit tone-deaf and some even wonder if he really understands what it means to be a black person in America, given his half-white heritage and otherwise unconventional upbringing, but they're not about to see their own jump down the man's throat without just cause.

This interview in Time Swampland goes into further detail about what Rep. Waters felt Obama's done so far and what Rep. Waters would like to see Obama doing for the black community. Others may see it as a temper tantrum from someone who not only doesn't get that Obama has to build consensus and work towards the benefit of the entire nation, but also someone who allegedly hasn't done much for her constituents.

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A Few Bumps in the Diplomatic Road and Other News.

Diplomatic relations aren't all peaches and cream, but you have to wonder what was really behind the following events:

- Vice President Joe Biden started out his 9-day diplomatic tour of China by meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jingping in a venue that was open to American and Chinese press. After Chinese officials concluded Biden went on too long at the podium, they started giving reporters and press staff the boot.

Only minutes into Biden's remarks, Chinese officials had begun to direct reporters toward the exits. Most reporters and the vice president's staff objected, saying it was important to cover the entirety of Biden's opening statement, as had been the agreement between officials beforehand...

...Soon the stern shooing turned into forceful shoving. As reporters tried to stand their ground, Chinese officials locked arms and pushed forward in a show of overwhelming force. Soon enough Biden did finish, but reporters had difficulty hearing the entire thing because of the fisticuffs.

Hours later, Biden held another meeting with the chair of the National People's Congress, Wu Bangguo. And again, Chinese officials attempted to force reporters from the room even as Biden was still speaking.

It's unclear whether the officials were booting out both groups or just the American press at both times. At any rate, it's not a good look on them. And then:

- A huge brawl broke out between Georgetown University's Hoyas and the Bayi Military Rockets during what was supposed to be a friendly exhibition game. You know, for diplomacy and whatnot.

There were an estimated half-dozen individual altercations on the court, and eventually some Chinese onlookers joined the fracas, including one wielding a stanchion. 

For those at home wondering what the hell a stanchion is, it's one of those posts people attach velvet ropes on, like at the movies or swanky dinner events.

As the brawl spilled beyond the baseline, an unidentified Bayi player pushed Georgetown’s Aaron Bowen through a partition to the ground before repeatedly punching the sophomore guard while sitting on his chest. 

Some people would pay good money to see that scene on video.

Apparently the game was jacked up from the start, with lots of altercations, hard fouls and hard feelings:

Wang wrote that the game was tense from the outset and had to be stopped earlier after two players exchanged words. At one point, a Rockets player even berated John Thompson III as the Georgetown coach yelled instructions to his players.

The hard fouls and constant bickering eventually devolved into bedlam when Bayi big man Hu Ke was called for a foul against Georgetown guard Jason Clark. The senior made it clear he did not appreciate the hard foul, sparking the initial exchange of shoves that led players from both benches to run onto the court in defense of their teammates.

Not a good day for Americans on the diplomatic front in China. You have to wonder if it's all just ill will spilling out after the U.S. nearly ran its economic train off the track, to which the Chinese economic machine is hitched up to.

Meanwhile, some folks are bitching about the new custom-made buses the U.S. Secret Service ordered and put into service this week. Apparently, ordering two new buses with permanent security measures from a bunch of French-Canadian commies is an "outrage," while racking up tens of thousands of dollars a month by leasing the buses, and then eating the expenses of retrofitting and stripping the buses is the Patriotic Way™ of doing things. 

This is an outrage that the taxpayers of this country would have to foot the bill so that the campaigner in chief can run around in his Canadian bus and act as if he is interested in creating jobs in our country...

Thanks, Ranch Prius. I'm sure you'll ignore the fact that one of your GOP presidential nominees will enjoy this fine piece of Canadi...wait, it was partially built in the U.S.

Geez guys, if you want to be asses about these things, why not lease your own damn bus or take a Greyhound?

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