TRAYON DIARIES??

Lest We Forget

The Yin-Yang Media never ceases to amaze!  Today, they blankly report that the "defense" in the Trayvon Martin case has announced two new web-sites; one for raising money (surprise, surprise), the other to air "their side" of the story.  Get up off the floor!  Stop laughing!!

This is NOT funny.  Remember, they're supposed to be preparing for a trial -- even though they've pushed that off for a year.  Remember also there were two attorneys earlier in this case who were fighting with the "defendant" over web-sites for the purpose of raising money for him.  Those attorneys were dismissed, or quit, and now there is a "top lawyer" who has been "assigned" to the case.

We have a front seat to an unfolding drama in which we're the target.  They're trying this case in the media!  The true victim is in his grave and cannot defend himself.  The "defendendant" we're supposed to form a predominant public opinion about, may not ever have to face a jury; or even a TRIAL.

This is a replay of the O.J. saga, with a money twist.  Suppose Johnny Cochran had the insight to raise money by opening a web-site.  Suppose the opposing side did also. Both sides could have walked away with fortunes!

So, what to do?  I propose we all keep diaries.  The Masters of this affair are hoping we all forget, the story will fade, and all of the living will walk away happy.  Except, of course for Trayvon's family.

The state, which pretends they will defend Trayvon "when the time comes", has already peformed its televised "Pontius Pilate" act in this affair.

If you think keeping track somehow, "keeping their feet to the fire" as the old folk would say, is a good idea,  please respond to this blog.



Stay Vigilant! 
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BULLY

Learn What has Happened to "Childhood"

Approaching 73 years in age, grandfather of six grandchildren, former single parent, I was shaken by the docu-movie Bully.  I thought my childhood was hard, but racism, poverty, and other social ills did not result in suicide appearing to be the only escape.

We tend to think the person who commits suicide is the "victim", but if you see this film, you will quickly learn that all of the children are the  "victims" of many things that human beings can change.

Whether the bully, the bullied, the cheerleader or the scared non-participant, all of the children were caught up in a tragedy.  It has all the markings of mob psychology and not all members of the mob were present at the bullying.

Having lost a sister to suicide (as an adult, not as a child), I have "walked in the shoes" of the family members who have lost their loved ones.  In one of my Drucker classes I learned how Voodoo Death Works.  There are strong similarities in bullying; the "selecting out" the roles of the non-bullied, the acceptance (of a sort) of the bullied, and death.

Paramount in this matter is the role of the community.  The predominating beliefs held, the lack of dissent or exception, no safe passages from the pressures exerted.  The "lock" that most often leads to the death outcome is the "shared beliefs" held by the victim.

It seems that as a child we could always find at least one adult who could "hear" us.  Who is willing or has the time today?  No child committed suicide in our segregated small town community.

Stay Vigilant!  We can escape these traps and save our children and ourselves.

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POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY

When The "Saints" Came Marching In

As we approach the 2012 election, the sirens are blaring from the history of our country that most us have never been taught.  One day in Seattle, I stopped in a rare book store and found a copy of Bernard DeVoto's The Year of  Decision 1846.   It was published first in 1942 (my copy was published in 1943) and a young Arthur Schlesinger Jr was a principal researcher.  

The book chronicalled that part of our history when the era of the Mountain Men was fading and the expansion of our country to the Pacific Ocean was underway; driven by President Polk.  It's focus was the unpopular and, to some, "illegitemate" invasion of Mexico by the United States; but also included the rise of Mormonism. 

Most religions prominent in the United States today washed up on these shores from Europe.  Mormonism, however, was born and bred in this country.  It was, unlike others, militant and insurrectionist from its beginning.  Summarily driving out all forms of internal dissent, it quickly moved to form militia's and, later, armies to thwart rule of state governments,  (Missouri and Illinois), and then the federal government.  Theocracy and internal secrecy was its preferred form of government. Its early history included massacres of pioneer settlers. 

Founded in 1830, by 1838 the religion found itself in armed rebellion against the state of Missouri.  This led to its eviction from the state.  Return to the year, 1830, and you will find Alexis de Tocqville here studying the new, young Democracy.  You also will find some things uncomfortably similar to today; like grid-locked government, sharp divisions among the people, and an air of rebellion.  In the next  30 years these conditions led to what we were taught was the Civil War.  The "War of Popular Sovereignty" would have been a more accurate name for it.  It would also draw accurate parallels to what we're facing today.

Before our Yin-Yang Media spreads its soft-soap in support of candidates for this year's election, I strongly advise potential voters to do their own research.  Go on the web and Google Wikipedia's accounts of "1838 Mormon War" and "Utah War".  These accounts will get you started.  It's a fascinating period in our history from many aspects.

Stay Vigilant!  Pleasant reading.

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SIOUX CITY

Kudo's to the Sioux City Journal! Great Journalism!

I read the Christian Science Monitor report on the Sioux City Journal's publication of the death of Kenneth Weishuhn Jr.  The reflection of the role of community is welcome and refreshing.  The response of a community is very important when a child dies.  Compare Sioux City's response to that of the Florida community most recently in the news.  If more communities share the concern exhibited by Sioux City, maybe more of our children can be saved.

The story struck me because I visited Sioux City in the late 90's in search of information regarding the death of another boy, 12 years of age, that occurred in that town in 1933.  He was murdered.  You see, from my earliest memories I was told that my name came from that boy.  He was my Dad's youngest brother, and was born in Missouri in 1921.  Even though I was able to verify much of what I had been told,  more than sixty-five years later;  mysteries still linger.

If you visit the abandoned section of the city Cemetery, you'll find at the bottom of a steep slope, in a ravine, under a spreading tree, a solitary white marble cross.  That is his grave.  Who put that expensive cross on that lonely grave (especially in the depth of the Depression) is just one of the mysteries.

The boy was 3 years old when his mother died.  He and his 5 year old brother and seven year old sister were bundled onto a train by the Missouri state Welfare and shipped to Wichita, Kansas.  From there, he somehow wound up in Omaha, Nebraska and, finally, in Sioux City, Iowa where he was shot-gunned.

I had been told that he was killed in the Depression to collect insurance money.  In my research, I found there was a child killed in Iowa for insurance around that time, but it was not him.  The woman who shot him claimed he had stolen a gold watch.  The trial revealed that the watch had been taken to a jeweler by the woman's husband.  How he wound up with that couple is still a mystery.  I was able to find, in a Sioux City nursing home, his cousin, who, at 4 years old, witnessed the murder.  He said my uncle did not steal the watch.

The murder took place around the time that President Roosevelt closed the banks in this country and had citizens turn in their gold.  Even though we may be facing tough times today, 1933 was miserable  for U.S. citizens.  Sioux City was especially rough!  Children were especially vulnerable. The Sioux City Journal ran a series of articles on the murder and the trial of the murderer, beginning April 25, 1933, and running through May 29, 1933.

If  you should visit the grave, put a flower on for me?  Thanks!
 
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RACE and U.S. IMMIGRATION

"Duck and Cover" won't work for the "Demography Bomb"

When our ally in World War II, the Soviet Union, helped us defeat the Fascists, Russian immigrants were popular on the Bogardus Social Distance Scale in the United States.  By 1952, Russia had acquired "the Bomb", and the Cold War was on.  Russian immigrants to the U.S., and citizens of Russian origin fell significantly lower on the Bogardus scale (compare ratings in 1926 and 1956).

The deck has always been stacked against immigrants of color.  That is because our first law on immigration, the Naturalization Act of 1790, restricted citizenship to white persons.  Many other attempts aimed at limiting immigration by color, and  deporting   immigrants of color (Chinese Exclusion).

The Bogardus scale, which shows the "pecking order" of citizens, based on origin, as they measured themselves, shows a preference by all for "whites" over all persons of other origins.  The scale, re-measured in 1939, on college campuses, shows that "Negroes" at Howard University preferred whites ahead of all others, including themselves.

Fast forward to the Presidential campaigns of 2012.  The Repoobs know well the history above, evidenced by the campaign they're running.  Their anti-immigration rhetoric is targeted against non-whites.  They think they can "etch" away this reality by employing the likes of  Marco Rubio.  Either the mirrors don't work in Marco's house, or he thinks he can skate on his skin here the way his folks could in Cuba.

The Repoobs are "crazy like a fox" in their layering of anti-immigrant sentiment with anti-non-white sentiment.  Those campaigners most clearly evidencing fecal matter for brains are now claiming that Democrats are "Communists".  They're harking back to the Red-baiting campaigns of the 1950s.  These three layers of the campaign (race, inti-non-white-immigration, and anti-Communist) will be dog-whistle themes that hold their base in place.

Demographics are immutable!  Your jobs, your government, your health care, your personal wealth, your religion, and just about everything else are impacted by two demographic realities: people, all over the world, are living longer lives, and: non-white people have higher birth rates than white people.  The Repoobs are using these facts to do three things: grab total control of government in the United States, take control of all of the wealth in the United States, and use law-making to return their "enemies" to peonage.

Because of the Cold War, Red-Baiting, wholesale migration of Nazis to the United States after the War, the United States is woefully vulnerable to extreme-Right-wing political tactics.  Many of our politicians rose to political prominence (most notably Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan) by Red-baiting.

Rather than enabling future citizens of the United States to prepare for their future in a healthy way, the Repoobs are setting up "Armageddon" on many fronts.

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DIALOG ON RACE

Our Nation's Future Depends on the Outcome

Talking heads in our media have often declared that this nation needs a long-overdue "Dialog On Race".

I submit that we've already entered that dialog.  It's disguised as the electoral campaign of 2012.  Judging from the race-laced filth coming from the Repoob candidates and their backers, it will be a lop-sided "dialog".

I refer to them as Repoops out of respect for Abraham Lincoln.  The current imposters killed the Republican Party in the early 1970's.  They've damn-near killed the country economically, and are engaged in an elaborate media-driven campaign to pin the blame on the first Black President; who was able to plug the hole in the economy and put the nation back on the road to recovery.  Looks like they might get away with it.  No good deeds will go un-punished, it seems.

My ancestors and those from surrounding communities must be rolling in their graves if they can see the sorry stage this country has been reduced to.  The grounds were set at least 30 years before the turn of the last century, but this first decade of the 21st century is a "doozy"; due to 6 years of un-checked power wielded by the Repoobs.  The list of their crimes, mis-demeanors, and severe mismanagement will be the stuff for historians for decades to come.

But not today, it seems.  We've devolved to a nation that prefers "hee-hee" and entertainment over thought and introspection.  This has led to a break-down in government function that has the entire world scared for the future.  The Repoobs have joined in lock-step to bring our governments function to a stand-still, and have pushed it toward default on its debts to get their way.

My relatives rest in eternity adjacent to the site of the historic George R. Smith College, the place where Scott Joplin invented Ragtime.  My grandfather's business was two doors away from the Historic Maple Leaf Club.  The town was a Union Headquarters during the Civil War, but the residents were evenly divided in that War.  The Klan reighned well into my life-time.  Supreme Justice Thurgood Marshall warned in 1991 that the Klan switched their white sheets for the black robes of Judges. 

The Klan burned George R. Smith College to the ground in 1925.  My mother's siblings attended  that college, but because it was burned, she attended college in Kansas, graduating in 1929.  Ridgidly divided by race, the entire state operated in a manner more racist than the deep south, according to fellow students from the South whom I met in College in 1957.  In spite of that history, the citizenry was more engaged in public affairs and exhibited a common sense that permitted everyone to survive, however tentative their survival became.  For instance, health and dental care were denied because of race up until the time I left in 1959.  Income had no effect.

Having served for fully half of  the Cold War in uniform, standing at one point toe-to-toe with live nukes, I think I'm qualified to engage in such debate.  Perhaps the internet (a Cold War invention) is the proper place for it to take place?


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"FINANCE'" is not "BUSINESS'"

Finance is to Business as Blood is to the Body

Kids today are into vampire movies and T.V. shows.  They seem to be attracted by blood.  The "Money Boys" (some view as blood-suckers) sprang on the scene in the early 80's with Ivan Boesky.  They have become legion since, along with the damage they've done to our country and its economy.  They want you to see them as "businessmen"; especially the Repoob front-runner for 2012.

Starting with Boesky and junk bonds, old, job-providing corporations met their demise.  The finances they contained were stripped out (pension funds, marketable assets, etc).  As the corpses of U.S. businesses mounted, the excess "finance" (think blood) mounted.

The people who were "laid off"; mostly blue collar in the beginning, ultimately became what are today the followers of "leaders" like Nugent, Limbaugh, Gengrich, Santorum.  What the clowns running in the 2012 Repoob Primary call "losers". ( Remember, losers like guns! )  Read Susan Faludi's book "Stiffed" for a fuller picture of these guys.

This trend paralelled NAFTA and the Yin-Yang Media ignored it.  They probably were'nt smart enough to see it, and besides, they would have to work.  It is a lot easier for them to simply repeat gossip and the keep the "mushrooming" rolling.

By the late 80's you had the McDonnell-Douglas "paint factory firing" and the realization by the money boys that they could combine the slauthering of companies with the manipulation of stock on Wall Street.  Then the "blood" really started flowing.

Drucker warned in the mid-80's to "keep an eye" on the 401K funding because it was "largely un-protected", and that some "smart guys with computers" will find a way to "get their hands" on it.

Voila! Witness the explosion of Hedge Funds in the 90's.  Corporations that produced products that could be "monetized" (think cars, appliances, etc) turned into banks that also manufactured things.

Following the "Red-Neck Coup" of 2000 (aided and abetted by the "Supremes"), the best and brightest of our engineering and technical schools, joined our brightest MBA factories to create for Wall Street instruments like credit-default-swaps (CDS) and Derivatives that ultimately blew up the economy.

Mean-while, the Hedgies, by now "blood banks" were looking for larger targets, both domestically and globally. Remember, just about all of this was enabled by laws passed by the U.S. Congress, beginning in the early 1970's.

There was plenty of excess "blood" to buy politicians, judges, whole countries (think Iceland).

Now they have their head "Hedgie" targeting the White House.

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STEVE FORBES, meet TED NUGENT

Don't you just "love" the Money Boys?

This morning, C-Span hosted Steve Forbes on it's "Washington Journal".  A caller asked what he thought about people threatening to kill the President.  (Check out the video to get the exact interplay).

Steve, in reply offered a defense for Rush Limbaugh and then said he "didn't know" of anyone else  she could be referring to.  Well, Steve, thanks to the internet, someone can fix that problem for you.


Chuck Todd, this morning, on his show, different network, speaking  about Ted Nugent's threats, said they were "ridiculous".  Ridiculous??  Really, Chuck?

Just suppose for a minute we could switch the President to "W", and the "ranter" to "Rev'm Wright".
I damn well betcha you wouldn't think "ridiculous".  More like criminal, maybe?  And, I'll bet the Secret Service wouldn't be just "seeking and interview" with the ranter.  Dont'cha think?

2012 is going to be tough enough without you guys weighing in.


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DICK CLARK

Emblem of Our Black/White Divide?

Our Yin-Yang Media reported yesterdy that Dick is dead at 82.  They all gush about his career and his role as an emblem for teenagers and rock and roll.  For me and my generation, not-so-much.

There was a baby-boom also on the black side of our racial divide.  That divide was held in place by government laws enforcing segregation.  The baby-boom kids, 8 years younger than me, took our heritage blues and big band gifts and transformed them into what they called rock and roll, based on lyrics of old blues tunes.  We also formed a national trend of "hit records", many of them supporting a new dance step, like the boog-aloo, shing-a-ling, the twist, the shot-gun -- the list was very long. 

By law and custom, that music, called "race-music" was banned from the radio, except for stations like WLAC in Tennessee and "Randy's" from Del-Rio, Texas.  We had to tune in after sun-down to catch the long wave and hear the latest tunes.  The 45 rpm recording was our "I-Phone". 

As a teenager in the 1950's, I was able to convince KDRO in my town to let me announce the "teen news" from our side of the tracks.  I noticed all of the records that I stayed up late to listen to, were thrown in the corner and marked "race-music".  They were banned.  I asked if I could have them, they agreed, and I still have nearly a thousand of those "45's".

The white kids from the other side of the tracks heard this music and wanted it.  Some sneaked the recordings home, under risk of a "hiding" from their parents for listening to the "devil's music".

Then hucksters like Clark and Freed entered the picture and decided they could rip off the trend, but keep it white.  There were "cover" recordings of white artists who could get airing.  As the phenomenon grew, it made its way from radio to television.  Again, white only.  Dick, and others, were very good at playing the divide to their advantage.

As we emtered the 60's, it became clear that there were huge dollars in this game for whites, but little or nothing for the black artists or the black communities in general.  The struggle to "integrate" was underway by then and the kids were eager to get on T.V., both as dancers and as performers.  The resistance was so stiff, and lasted so long, that a black alternative, called Soul Train was created.

The world knows what happened when the Brits caught wind of this phenomenon.  Their mop-heads flopped when they made their first invasion; were sent home, re-packaged, and you know the rest of that story.

So, R.I.P., Dick, at least some of us know the true story.

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IS 2012 a REPLAY of 1948?

More from Life in the Land of the "Greater Fools"

In the Fall of 1948, my grandmother came by the house and "sneaked" me out to go with her down to "the tracks" (the railroad station) to hear Harry Truman.  He was "whistle-stopping" in the 1948 election against the "Money Boy" in that election, Thomas Dewey.  Mother died three years before and my grandmother and my dad were warring.  But Dad was away at work, and my older sister who was minding herself and the seven of us was no opposition.

I still carry a cameo memory of Harry, who was also stopping at home, in the next County.   My Dad's sister worked as a Domestic for the Truman family (until she found the Klan Robes, she later told me).

Aside from the cameo of Harry, I remember asking my grandmother, on the way home (everybody walked, because there were very few cars in those days) if she was planning to vote for Truman.

I thought I was going to get a whipping on that very spot.  Instead, she shook her finger at me and told me "In this country, you don't ask people how they're going to vote".  Even though she sent her children to college, she had a 6th grade education.

Fast forward to 2012 and the Yin-Yang Media (almost no one had T.V. in 1948), gives a vote tally, daily, before the Repoob Primary ends, and the election is months ahead.  They somehow "divine" the vote and blab it to potential voters constantly. "Mushrooming" at its extreme!(see earlier blog).  There were polls in those days, however.  Check out Wikipeida to see the Clifford K. Berryman cartoon showing Dewey watching Truman as he reviewed his poor poll numbers, and thinking: "what's the use of going through with the election".

Boehner (Speaker of the House) was on the tube with Charlie Rose this morning exclaiming "people vote their pocketbooks"  stealing for the Repoobs Harry's famous line from the 1948 election.  He's hoping this time around it will work for the Money Boy.  Remember, in 1948, the "Dixiecrats" were Democrats, while today they're Repoobs.

Dewey was vacuuous, hollow, given to platitudes, avoiding of substance on the issues.  Truman was fighting for Civil Rights, help for the poor, and struggling with a "do-nothing" Congress.  Today's Repoob candidate is coming off a Primary season wherein every racist nerve in the country has been yanked.

Harry pulled off a miracle! But he had a lesser-educated, and better informed public to appeal to.

There was common sense in those days, in spite of more overt racism.  Harry also had a public that had sacrificed and won a war that threatened the very existence of this country.  Today, not-so-much!

 "W" told us we had to go shopping and not worry about sacrificing for Repoob wars.   Squandering an inherited suplus, he ran the wars on credit from China.  He said he stopped looking for Bin Laden.

 The Repoob candidate (the new Dewey?) has five golden sons of war-fighting age that never got near the wars.

We can only pray that yet another miracle can be pulled off.

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SMART-ALEC?

Are our State Legislatures the Achille's Heel for Our Democracy?

In the early 70's I completed an MA in Public Administration.  One of the things that struck me most in that program was learning that the federal legislature, our Congress, had discovered that our country had grown too large and complex for our law-makers to cope with. To fix the problem, they created "Administrative Agencies" that would take Congressional legislation, often little more than a "theme" with little or no detail; have those agencies provide the details, and then administer those "laws". Think EPA, HHS, etc.  Lobbyists "help" write the legislation, then moves their people into the agencies to "administer" the laws.

But we now learn, thanks to Trayvon Martin, that the State Legislatures in this country are even weaker, more open to corruption, more lazy, and a doorway for outside "agents" to write and enact law.  It seems that ALEC,  the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, has for decades created "templates" of  legislation and then pushed them on the weak state legislatures.  The "Stand Your Ground" law was one of the laws they succeeded in getting enacted in several state legislatures.

ALEC is not organized as a lobbying entity, they pose as a "think tank", or "educational exchange".  They are a "membership" organization with very small dues paid by legislative members and huge donations from corporations.  Corporate funding swamps the total funding of ALEC.  Check out C-Span's coverage of ALEC on today's show (4/17/12).

Our Constitution does not recognize government legislative entities below the state level.  Remember, the "Supremes" told us in Bush v. Gore that state legislatures hold all the power is selecting the state's representation in the Electoral College.  In case your're wondering, that means your vote can be nullified by the state government.  You can be denied the right to vote.  Yet, more citizens pay attention to their School Board elections than they do to the election of state legislators.

The "Supremes" have ruled in Citizens United that corporate money is protected as free speech.

We regulate speech, however, under our Constitution.  Especially speech used in the endangerment of the public (think: "shouting fire in a crowded theater").  Think also of that money as "dirty money".

If you think, as I do, that "Stand Your Ground" legislation endangers the public; then it would follow that such money would be un-protected.  Anybody see a possible "Supreme" challenge here?

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BLACK ENTREPRENEURIALISM

A History little Known or Understood

One day,  in the 1980's, while waiting for Peter to arrive for a session at the Drucker Institute, one of the other students in the class asked me why I was in the graduate program.  I replied that I wanted business training to add to my career track that had been up to that time in the public sector.  His response was, I don't mean that, but "there's hard times coming, and we might do something for her (pointing to the only female (white) in the class); but we're not doing anything for you people; you've been here for hundreds of years and you don't own a damn thing!'  I told him he didn't know what he was shooting off his mouth about.  My grandfather started a successful business in 1907, which survived until local politicians destroyed all black businesses in that town in 1957.

That student, speaking like he did, represents a low level of knowledge and defective thinking of many U.S. citizens, of all colors, and a profound ignorance of U.S. history.  My grandfather's sister and her husband were key members of the "Black Wall Street" of Tulsa, Oklahoma (see earlier blog).  The story of the Freedman's Bank, alone,  signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, would have told the jackass how wrong he was.

In fact, business ownership among all minorities is low today, compared to white ownership.  That is the result of a history of government actions, at all levels in this country,  that have served to inhibit the formation and truncate the life of minority-owned businesses.  Beginning with the teaching of thrift and saving to slaves by mostly Methodist and Baptist missionaries, the record of such activity was astonishing by the time of Reconstruction.  The systematic government actions of the Jim Crow area destroyed much of the savings, land ownership, and business ownership in the South and in the border states. Those freed and escaped slaves who found themselves above the Mason-Dixon line also found a business climate that was much less onerous.  Even in the North, race riots and lynchings served to reduce the level of economic wealth of all types.  Restrictions to education in all parts of the United States before the 1970's also had its effects. 

In the 21st century, persons of all colors around the world are emerging from the strictures that have been in place for the past 500 years.  This movement should be applauded and assisted by everyone, not preyed upon as the current crop of Money Boys and Repoobs seem prone to prefer.

For the record, Ray Stannard Baker, writer and, on occasion, adviser to President Theodore Roosevelt, began in 1906 and in-depth study and documentation of economic  progress of former slaves in the United States.  Look up Following the Color Line, Harper & Row, Publishers, Torchbook edition, 1964.

All those who want to see a prosperous future for all, perhaps a wise and lauderous goal, should work to restore those values recorded in Baker's work.


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REPOOBS RISE?

"Everything Old may be New Again in 2012"

A venerated Republican such as Richard Lugar, and  one  not-so-much, like Orrin Hatch, seem to be fighting for their political lives within the Republican Party.  They seem to be the latest victims of the Repoob invasion taking place WITHIN the party.  Seems we're about to find out what  Nixon really "hatched" with his "Southern Strategy".  In addition to the people they used to call "Negroes" (never big on the Republican hit list), the Repoobs have added liberated females, gays,  "illegal" Hispanics, and the poor of any color.

Just who are these Repoobs?  The Yin-Yang media would have us believe all sorts of things about them, but, moving forward on the assumption that "they are what they do", history has a lot to tell us.  I find strong parallels to the fight within the Republican Party in its early years and leading up to the death of the Whig Party ( the Know-Nothings were kicking up a fuss).  Look up the "Bourbon Democrats". Look up those early Republicans known as the "Old Radicals".  Look up President Andrew Johnson.  Stir all that hay together and you'll get a whiff of who the Repoobs might be, and just what they're really up to.  Abraham Lincoln tried to build coalitions among his moderate, radical, conservative and moderate Republicans, but the GOP has no one like Abe in the party today.

Aside from crazy stuff like fiddling with women's private parts; the Repoobs seem set on making sure the gang they serve never has to pay, in any way, for blowing a gigantic hole in our economy.   They are committed to the point of driving the country to default to get their way.

The Repoobs of today parallel the Bourbon Democrats in many ways (gold standard, anti-Negro, limited government).  Then, as now, the theme was heavily about a "white South" and the way of life that entailed.  Hence their phrase "we're here to take OUR country back"!  And then what?

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MATTIE and TYLER BRIDGEWATER

Tulsa: where race and class are joined .. again?

Within the past several days, the racial ugliness and death in South Florida have shifted (or more accurately, returned) to Tulsa.  Two more marginal white males have been taken into custody for wanton killing of several persons because they appear "black".  The Yin-Yang media (in this instance, ABC News) has rushed to obfuscate racial connections in spite of Face Book evidence to the contrary.

Mattie Bridgewater was my great-aunt, the sister of my grandfather.  I grew up on stories about the racial pogrom that took place in Tulsa in the 1920's, where they lived and were a part of the thriving Black Wall Street movement of that day.  In his book of that name, Hannibal B. Johnson describes the Greenwood District phenomenon of black entrepreneurship and economic development.

I was told stories of how my relatives fled an on-coming armed white mob; bent on robbery and murder.   It was clear from those stories that the mob was motivated by economic jealousy inflamed by race and class.  Uncle Tyler is described in the book as Tulsa's first black physician and real estate magnate.  I have in my files a complete listing of properties owned by my aunt and uncle.  They now form the campus of Oklahoma State University, Tulsa; thanks in part to the sorry history of federal housing programs and agencies.

Fast-forward to yesterday, and we find the Repoob's candidate for the Presidency in 2012 waving the bloody shirt to rabble in St. Louis.  The citizens of this country can't afford to return to this sorry past.


Pleading for continued silence and waiting to a better time to discuss this threat to our safety and security as a nation is not the wise tactic.  After thirty years of racial double-speak in politics; joined now by gender and class double-speak, the people must awaken and take action to put an end to the spread of this disease.

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC 

MOMMY

Idle Men?  Who's Doing"the Work"??

In one session with Peter Drucker (mid-80's) we covered the topic of women in the "work force".  He told us of two times in the history of this country when we had women in the "work force" and they were driven out.

The first was around the turn of the last century (1900's), during the early period of industrialization. Women were employed in large numbers doing "piece work" in factories.  As a result, those women with children faced problems of who would tend them.  The problem was not solved, children ran loose in the streets and ultimately wound up doing "child labor" in the factories.  Public outrage, particularly after the shirt factory fire, put an end to this and ushered in the public schools and early child labor laws.

The second instance was during World War II, when every able-bodied male was drafted into service to support the war.  We're all aware of the stories of "Rosie the Riveter".  When the men returned from war they needed jobs and, once again, women were driven out.

Peter concluded his tales by stating we were in uncharted territory with the current (then leading edge) advance of women into the "work place" in large numbers.  He asked if we could imagine a world in which men ran the households and held  morning coffee klatches.  He intimated that a world with large percentages of idle men would be a dangerous place.  He also said that women have by nature an advantage over men in that they can "nest", while men can't.

Seems like the Repoobs have waded into this issue looking for a way to beat President Obama.  They are coming to an end of their primary elections where they could easily romp among those voters most likely to "profile" the President.  Now they have to face better educated and more serious voters.  They think they can pass off "Miss Hilly" as "Rosie the Riveter".  Lots'a luck at that!

This is a troubling and very serious set of issues for this country going forward.  For each daughter, wife, mother, and grand-mother, these are gut-aching issues.  I believe the Repoobs are wrong to play politics with them.

As for men, ditto, although society and cultural habits give them a different and more dangerous slant on these issues.  For example, as Drucker pointed out, a man is a weaver, while a woman is a spinster, yet they both do the same task (at very uneven pay, historically).

Multiply this around the globe with all workers under the age of thirty facing very large unemployment rates; the propensity to hire more women because they are cheaper workers ... and you get the drift.

Watch out Repoobs!   You might be "too slick with this trick"!

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC

YIN-YANG MEDIA

If YOU don't See and Hear yourself in Today's Televised Media, YOU don't exist!

Thanks to Trayvon Martin the world today should be wrestling with this uncomfortable fact.  Media apologists, like Howard Kurtz this morning on C-Span, strive to sweep this uncomfortable fact under the rug.  If not for Reverend Al Sharpton and MSNBC, Zimmerman would be a free man today and Travon would join the countless thousands of non-white males who are buried in silence while a money-grubbing and white-biased world goes merrily on its way.

Bull Connor and his German Shephards on T.V. were a major, if not deciding factor in the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement in this country.  NBC's ill-fated attempt to give Nat King Cole his T.V. show in the late 50's revealed, as a white female officer told me in the early 60's "white viewers found him too shocking".  It was reported that NBC tried to get General Motors to sponsor the show and they refused citing their fear that whites in the South would stop buying Cadillacs.  All visual media in those days were "lilly-white".  Madison Avenue made sure of that.

Before Integration, black communities in this country had their own print media.  Before the dawn of television there were large respectable newspapers like The Kansas City Call, and the Saint Louis Post Dispatch that kept even minimally-educated readers well informed.  Today, we've retreated to Rappers and BET to do that job.  We'd be better informed by bringing back the jungle drums!

Today's white media are of a chorus singing, we have to "wait for the facts"!  NO WE DON'T! The most important facts are already known! Trayvon can't be brought back, and, even if the white media engages in another O.J. orgy, what ultimately happens to Zimmerman is of trivial importance.  The Martins were told by law enforcement that there would be no arrest.  The powers that be in Florida were evidently comfortable in the fact that the story would be contained in local print media.  The state of Florida would now have us believe that they would somehow get around to charging Zimmerman.  I've got a bridge for you, if you're gullible enough to believe that.

There is the white media (Kurtz and company) and there is the far-right-white media.  It is instructive that Zimmerman in his desperation sought protection from the likes of Hannity on Fox.  The other networks were complicit in airing the slick media campaign waged for six weeks by the Zimmermans to get their boy off and to sully the image of Trayvon.

We're clearly in the media age and have been for more than half a century.  Mushrooming is far easier today with televised and other visual media. (see my earlier blogs).  Media is a weapon, today!  The military has recognized this, and it's high time that the public recognizes it.  Your Democracy and your freedom hangs on your mature and intelligent use and understanding of media.

 

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC

All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC

THE PEOPLE vs. THE MONEY

"Of the Money, By the Money, and,  For the Money"?

Let THAT roll off your tongue and see how you like it!

Last night I saw an interview of Paul Volcker by Bill Moyers.  They were discussing the upcoming action in Congress concerning the "Volcker Rule".  Paul told Bill something to the effect that "you can't stop greed". 

The Volcker Rule, to my understanding, is an attempt to restore in part the Glass-Steagall legislation of the 1930's that put in place a "Chinese Wall" between commercial and non-commercial banking.  That regulation has been chipped away over time by the Money Boys in both parties, and finally felled entirely by Clinton.  The absence of Glass-Steagall, with the presence and un-checked power of un-principled and greedy Repoobs produced the biggest hole blown into the floor or our economy in our history.

Now the Repoobs are back in full force to take another run at the economy.  They cite the fact that President Obama, along with Paul Volcker "and all the King's Horses, and all the King's Men" have failed to restore our "Shining City on a Hill" in less than four years!  The Repoobs are "exceptional" of course, standing on the Right side of Christianity, and automatically, forgiven for their sins, no matter how big; therefore its all Obama's fault.  The fact that President Obama and his helpers brought about a 10 point improvement in our economy, patching the hole, in less than two years is supposed to go un-noticed by the voters in the 2012 election.  That's just how stupid the Repoobs and their axe-man Karl think we are.  The successes of the President and the Volcker-led team are totally dismissed by the Repoobs.

But, the Repoobs wail, "what about the debt?".  Well, they should go ask David Stockman that question.  He wrote a book in the early 80's, tattling on his boss, Ronnie; telling the People how the Repoobs planned to starve the government by under-funding it.  Remember "Deficits as far as the eye can see"?  After more than 30 years of that crap, the U.S. economy and the global economy that has emerged in that interim, are in "deep doo-doo".  

 Remember, on"W's" watch, two wars were started, funded on borrowed dollars, AND two massive tax cuts were passed!  Never in our history has any President started one war and failed to allow for paying the costs!  LBJ was naive enough to think we had sufficient revenues for both "guns and butter".  Even if the Repoobs gain control of anything in this election, they will be unable to make things any better.  They won't even keep the economy on the path that President Obama has set.

The Repoobs are going to shove on us the face of Money itself, it seems, to replace Obama.  We're supposed to believe that money can repair the mess we're in.  Drucker said that "money knows only money, and very little else".

We're told by the Money Boys that we're in a space fraught with "moral hazard".  By that they mean they will be bailed out with public funds, no matter what they do.  And they've done some really monstrous things!  We still don't know how many of our tax dollars are rattling around in European banks.

We don't have to look back any further than the 30's to see a free Democracy vote itself into disaster in response to dire economic conditions. 

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC

 

UNEMPLOYED

"An Idle Mind is the Devil's Workshop"?

In this blog I will sometimes share stories Peter Drucker told his students when I attended his AEMBA program at Claremont in the 80's.  One story was of "dark factories" in Japan.  They were dark because robots, not people, were doing the work.  Another story was of the portion of the costs of large goods like automobiles were traceable to "benefits" for workers and the need for manufacturers to cut those costs.  A third story concerned the fact that actuarial findings shifted post WWII, showing that people were living longer and the usual methods for figuring pensions and other benefits, like health care no longer worked.  Bottom line:  problems lay ahead for defining "work".

He predicted that manufacturers would eventually turn to robots for all manufacturing; but not before all cheap labor on the planet has been found and exploited.  He was right on!  Witness the wholesale "off-shoring" of jobs over the past several decades.

This week's TIME magazine cites a "Jobless Generation" that is global in scope.  The much ballyhooed "education" remedy seems not be be THE answer, it's only a PART of the answer for this syndrome.

In a panel discussion of the Arab Spring among speakers from Tunis, Egypt, and Jordan recently, it was noted that the more education a young job seeker has, the HARDER it is for them to find a job, because the education model followed requires narrow specialization and many years of study.  Employers are seeking workers with a myriad of skills, knowledge,  and personal traits; AND they don't want to pay wages that were common even ten years ago.  Add to this a clear preference for women over men as new hires, and we have the toxic stew before us in this country.  The white Right and the Repoobs are going nuts pointing fingers at all sorts of "social ills" as the true causes for the economic woes we face.

When you think about it, jobs in the past were tied to physical labor; but not so much today.  They were tied to "careers" that are not the model for jobs today.  Jobs offered benefits like careers, health care, employer-paid defined benefit retirements -- none of which are common today.  These issues are bigger than governments or corporations to handle.

What if, what's really in demand is brain power (what Drucker called "knowledge workers")?  This means that titles, degrees, pedigrees, professions, no longer have the weight or value they held in the past.  "Brain Work" is much more elusive to conceptualize, compensate, legally protect, AND very hard to find.

These factors strike fear in the hearts of those who HAVE income-producing activities (previously known as JOBs); while we're focusing mostly on those searching for jobs??

Could it be that JOB has become a less reliable euphemism for INCOME?  We all may have to think for more carefully, and learn how to protect income-producing knowledge that we possess.

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC 



CRUCIFIXION, RELIGIONS AND REFORM

Nostalgia for the "old" days?

On this sunny Easter morning, the talk shows are all digging deeper into our religions and their impact on the upcoming presidential election.  As terms like "separation of church and state"; "forgiveness for past, present, and future sins"; God's "chosen"; are bandied about, I was led to re-visit a copy of a rare book I have in my library.  It's title is: The Tragedy of the Negro In America , and it was written by Reverend P. Thomas Stanford.  It was published in 1897. 

Published a couple of decades after this nation's return to slavery (name changed to Jim Crow, and new laws enacted), the book has a chapter that looks extensively into lynching of Negro citizens.  In his extensive account of reported lynchings, I was struck with the similarities in the telling, with what we know so far in the Trayvon Martin case.  In just about all of those lynchings described in his book, the officials of the law either stood by without acting, or actively participated.  The white citizens stood mostly mute on these activities, or cited their God as somehow condoning lynching.

All of the religions represented on T.V. today, speaking about their interests in this election cycle, (Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and Mormon) cite in some sense their adherence to a God that is highly selective; favoring the powerful, the rich, the white, and, the otherwise "chosen".  At a time when the entire world is suffering from cataclysmic blows to local and national economies, the joining of religion to politics offers added weight to those who would shift the costs of recovery onto the backs of those who are weak, poor, not white, or, for other reasons, cannot effectively resist.

Even a brief review of history shows that in War, the "loser pays".  Conversely, the winner escapes economic and social consequences.  The wars started by the Repoobs in the last decade were certainly not "won"; and now we struggle over who pays.  The rich and powerful are determined it will not be them.

The Repoobs and the Right are also advancing (similar to the late 1800's) new laws that exempt certain elements of society from the consequences of selective killings (new "Crucifixions"?), along with laws to make it harder for the poor and the weak to vote.  So far, the religions stand curiously silent on this subject; preferring instead to weigh in on the side of the Right in their dog-whistle campaigns of race, gender, and religion.

Reverend Stanford shows from the years 1882 into 1897, close to 1700 "Negroes" were lynched; in ways he found often "too loathsome" to describe in detail.  They took place in locations such as:

Jackson, Tennessee(1886); Columbia, Matagorda, Texas (1887); Lafayette Parish, Louisiana(1889); East Feliciana (1890); Tullahoma, Tennessee (1891); Jonesville, Louisiana(1892); Memphis, Tennessee(1892); New Orleans, Louisiana(1893); Jefferson Parish, Louisiana (1893); Paris, Texas (1893) -- the most gruesome details were given for this one, in which an entire town, and those  for 100 miles in all direction,  came with entire families, camping out, to torture, kill and burn one Negro;  Bardwell, Kentucky (1893); Frederick, North Dakota (1895); New Iberia, Louisiana (1888); Nashville, Tennessee(1895); Rockfield, Kentucky (1897); and Roxie, Mississippi (1897).  Many of these lynchings included entire families of Negroes and random persons caught up in the pograms that followed the lynchings.

I remember a number of these scares when racial tensions flared in Pettis County during World War II.  That the white Right seeks to turn this country back down that road, in the 21st Century; and that the religious voices continue to remain mute on these new laws; only serves to underscore the grave nature of our political situation in 2012.

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC

  



MUSHROOMS, TECHNOLOGY AND GLOBAL ECONOMICS

Trayvon's story begs us all to "wake up"!!

During my career in the military, we often used a term "mushroomed"  to describe a condition in which we were being kept in the dark by the powers around us and fed excrement. The term came from the techniques used to grow mushrooms.   Powerful forces have coalesced to enforce that condition on most humans on this planet. Television, and most other forms of media have become the strongest tools used in this egregious technique.  What was thought to be a technology (73 years old) that would enlighten people has been used to achieve the exact opposite.  The human brain can defeat this effect, but only through access to good information in usable form.  But, we have to work to obtain such information, and the powers know we'd rather "watch" and be "entertained".

In my Drucker notes from one of his classes in the '80's, he stated that technology had advanced to a point where all of the liquid wealth (mostly money) in a country could be moved outside its borders within 24 hours.  Since that time, we've all seen what the Hedge Fund wave has accomplished in driving our economy to a point of collapse.  First, the jobs, and then the money moved "off shore".

We mistakenly think that what we need, to get back to our standard of living, is "jobs", but what we really need is money.  The link between jobs and money has been broken  by technology.  Similarly, the link between economic planning and life span has been broken by technology.  To get a clear picture of how far this has progressed, I strongly suggest the award-winning DVD, The End of Poverty? Think Again.  You can get it online.  Get a copy to play over and over because the information is so densely packed, you will have to take notes.  The photography is stunning.

Armed with my degree in physics in 1962, I set out on a career that took me to the nation's foremost research laboratories in which we developed the technologies that won the Cold War (taxpayer-funded, by the way) and spawned the growth of companies like Apple and Microsoft along with countless others.  During the same period, taxpayer funding was replaced by private capital as the technology was taken through arduous paths that led to current consumer products and even more powerful enabling technologies.

Which brings me back to global economics.  As the DVD I recommend shows you, starting in 1492, there has been a steady progression in which the chattel slavery then introduced to the globe has been morphed into what today is a type of peonage that engulfs us all.  You will have to revisit your history to understand how that has happened, but as you do, don't just look at Cortes, the must successful of the Conquistadors, look at the enabling role of Malinche.  Don't pass quickly over the mention of Moctezuma, look closely at his belief in skin color and God that caused him to not resist effectively until it was too late.  You will see that the figures we see and know about were all enabled by lesser figures (Bishop Bartolome de la Casas, for instance) without whom much of today's miseries would probably not exist.

By choosing to be "watchers" and seeking "entertainment" over information, are we becoming our own worst "enablers"?

Copyright © 2012:  Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC