The OWL

Friday, March 8, 2013

STATE LEGISLATURES (Red/Blue)

Where the "Action" Is??

All Black American readers might recall an earlier blog about state legislatures (SMART-ALEC? - 4/17/12) in which I raised the question whether these law-writing bodies were undermining Democracy in the United States. As more states turn "red" during this period of political/social/economic transition in our country, we all need to stay focussed on these law-makers.

The fact that we have been in a long transition away from a Peonage Economy, lasting from the end of Reconstruction (1877) until 1965, obscures the economic meaning of many events since 1965. Instead, we've been consumed with the political and social aspects of our transition.

During the transition of 1877 - 1965, the various states enacted laws (Codes) to re-define the economic relations between former black slaves and whites in their state. Those "black codes" addressed every aspect of economic and social relationship that existed between blacks and whites in their states.

Our Supreme Court is currently reviewing an Alabama law regarding the lifting of provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As the operations of ALEC reveal, the state legislatures are busy re-fashioning economic relations between the races in many other ways. The Media pays very little attention.

Citizen/voters in the various states of the United States are notorious in their neglect of code-writing at the state level (from City Councils to State Legislatures). Yet, the laws they write; some of which seriously impact our daily lives, go un-noticed! This is especially true for minorities -- blacks in particular. In the "old" days, legislatures were free to state openly their racial motives. Today, everything has to be more "implicit".

Our mind-sets and habits have to change; if any "gains" from this transition are expected to last.

Stay Vigilant! Run for Local Office!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

POWER: Gender and Complexion

PERMANENT Change?

The President "sprung" for dinner last night at a posh Washington hotel with his arch (mostly "Johnny Reb") Republican enemies in the Senate. His guests might be the first to recognize that the window of opportunity is closing for one of them to become the "first" to declare he's made "friends" with the first Black President. They won't have Obama to kick around for much longer. His second term can go by pretty fast.

They're already targetting Hillary, who is cued up to become the first Female President in 2016. Johnny Rebs can't be politically viable at home if they are "friendly" with any non-white who is a serious competitor for power in this country. The same applies, to a somewhat lesser degree, if the contender is white, but female.

What about those non-white, and female, voters who voted for Obama? What will they do after this term passes? One thing that the non-white voters (both male and female) must recognize is the economic impact of a return to white rule (whether female or male). After all, the real color of racism is GREEN! Failure to learn the true meaning of the change brought about with the 2008 and 2012 elections could be disastrous for those minorities who have always fared poorly under white rule. If these past eight years have not convinced them to permanently change the way they acquire and manage money, their return to the bottom of the economic pile will be accelerated after 2016.

Scott Joplin, inventor of Ragtime, named one of his most famous rags, The Entertainer. Eldridge Cleaver, in Soul On Ice, draws the distinction between what he called The Omnipotent Administrator and the Super-Masculine Menial. Entertainment, in music, dance, sports, etc., have been a mainstay for black citizens of this country since the days of the Minstrel. Their creations have wide appeal all over this planet. The entertainment path, however, has not produced much lasting wealth for blacks, for more than a hundred years! Its time to learn 21st century economics and learn how wealth must be built in the future.

The green lessons are the ones to be learned as we adjust to 21st century global economics. If we succeed, we will become the change we seek! The Obama family is a model for some of us; not Messiahs!

Stay Vigilant! Check your wallet!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

SLAVERY IS ...

Check-Out "YOUR" Circadian Rhythms

As governments continue to weaken and crumble under the forces of global corporatism, we all need to review the bidding, so to speak. Whatever we were taught as children was "right", "normal", or somehow to be expected, is being up-ended everywhere these days -- in so many ways.

In Black Voices From Reconstruction mentioned in yesterday's blog, the New York Daily Tribune reports a meeting in 1865, in Savannah, Georgia, of "black leaders" with Secretary of War, Stanton, and General Sherman. Their Spokesman, a 67-year-old Baptist preacher named Garrison Frazier, told them that blacks believed that: "slavery is, receiving by irresistable power the work of another man, and not by his consent."

One explanation we're given for the soaring stock market, while unemployment remains high, and wages are stagnant; is that productivity gains are huge!

As the Republican Party, shock troops for corporate interests, continue to press austerity onto the workers and house-holds of this country, we should all be able to resonante with the good Reverend Frazier. Productivity Gains will continue to mount as we work longer hours, on multiple jobs, under steadily worsening conditions.

Your Circadian Rhythms are probably suffering mightily under these forces. Are you anxious a lot lately? Do you get restful sleep? Do you get any sleep? Right behind sleeping problems lie eating problems. As a single parent, I had to invent ways of appearing to be in two places at once. Now, all parents face this problem; due to insufficient hours in a day!

We can no longer afford to separate our politics from our economics, or from our health concerns.

Stay Vigilant! Get Some Sleep!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

BOTH "SIDES" Are To "BLAME"! (??)

What'a Load'a Crap!!

The Cracker Media (not the Respected Media) is in high gear spreading the theme that both "sides" are to blame for the miserable excuse we have for government in the United States today. This is blazoned on the Republican shield, as they go down to resounding defeat on issue after issue, and is their only defense for their deeds over the past 13 years! After losing the election in 2012, they are now dedicated to destroying President Obama's second term and regaining national power.

But, let's just consider their deeds since 2008; since the election of the first black President of the United States: Who represented the other "side" of Rush Limbaugh? Who was the other "side" opposing Mitch McConnell?

What was the other "side" opposing Donald Trump? John Boehner? Eric Cantor? Paul Ryan? Can we get serious, here?? If you're trying to make the case that the Democrats were largely absent in their role as "loyal opposition", -- to just about anything --; Touche!! The President won re-election with little support from his Party. Bill Clinton, at the midnight hour, proved to be the only exception. What's up with Harry Reid?? Fixing the 60-vote-rule in the Senate was a "no-brainer". What castrated him?? Thank God for computer-savvy kids!

So, where are we? Amazon sells Black Voices From Reconstruction, by John David Smith. This 1997 book prints the words of emancipated slaves at the end of the Civil War; their first experiences with "freedom" (with whites from North and South); their understanding of "freedom"; and the general attitude of the winning North and losing South toward black people; are there to read.

Most importantly, however, you will see the blueprint the Republicans are following today in their fight against President Obama. It is strangely the reverse of what the Republican Party of that day did in Congress, and to President Johnson, as they rammed through the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to our Constitution.

That period in our history from 1865-1877, represents 12 years of Congressional response to the defeated South, and strangely defines the mind-set of the Republican Party today -- in reverse! What the Republican Party of today is up to, is the fashioning of a 21st century Jim Crow. One that is sized to handle the global economy we find ourselves in. In the new Jim Crow, not only black Americans, but young women of all colors, Hispanics (who can't "pass" for white), poor whites, all other non-whites (regardless of income class), and gays; will be included among those "out of power"! Read the book and see if you see what I see. You may see your own "dog" in this fight!

Stay Vigilant! Get Involved! Get Prepared for 2014!

Monday, March 4, 2013

If MACHIAVELLI Led a RELIGION??

Would it be JUDEO/CHRISTIAN?

Read the news today and you have to do some serious research to understand the "real" story that is unfolding before you. Just as most opera-goers rely on the their programs to tell them the story (because they don't "speak the language"); most consumers of today's "news" have to work hard to avoid being "mushroomed" by what they're being told.

Check out Machiavelli:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli , and the history of the Jews in Spain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Spain, and you're returned to 1492.

You find Popes involved in the budding Atlantic Slave Trade; Queen Isabella in Spain cleansing Christianity of Muslims and Jews; and the earliest days of Europeans in the Americas. A great starting point for understanding what's unfolding (or unraveling) before us today. Major, time-worn, stories are "cracking" in many ways that foreshadow a very different future for us all. Could we be approaching a new "Enlightenment"? Is the White Supremacist world, that began forming then, finally approaching its end? Will we emerge with new world religions? Or any religions at all?

We're taught that "truth, crushed, shall rise". Is now the time we all have to face some stark, uncomfortable, and revolutionary "truths"? Could we have spared ourselves a great deal of grief if we read, and took seriously, The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio , written in the 1300's?

Machiavelli reveals the source of the morals, politics, and economics that prevail today. Boccaccio connects that to early Christianity. Syria shows the stresses, or cracks, within the third Abrahamic Religion: the Moslem faith. Israel shows us the stresses, or cracks, within the Abrahamic Religions.

The Protestant off-shoots from early Christianity profitted mightily from chattel slavery and the re-ordering of world affairs along color and racial lines. The cracks within the Protestant faiths of the world, and the realignment of those U.S., fundamentalist, deep-South, Protestants, with the politics of Israel; complete the circle of woe.

Stay Vigilant! Stay Involved!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

WAR: In this AGE of MEDIA

We Make War the Way we Make Money??

It is somewhat true, as the Wag said, we make war, based on the same economy we have at the time. During the Agricultural Period, people packed picnic baskets and went out to "watch" the war. During the Industrial Period into which I was born 73 years ago, the factory produced the ways and means of war. Today, the media is the weapon. From the Arab Spring to Syria, we should all sit up and take notice.

We've been absorbed in the past year or two with the drama unfolding in our national politics and economy; and rightly so. We've dodged a "bullet"; this time from domestic enemies. But their prime weapon was media. They inhabit that portion of the media I call "Cracker Media". It is driven by people who are racist, overly "religious", hateful against women, and so ignorant it would make your head spin (if the brain in that head has not been "zombiefied").

The Cracker Media sprang from the political base fashioned by the Republican Party under President Nixon. Over the many years since, they've taken over our government, while preaching their hatred for "government". They say it's "too big". They're too stupid to realize that the population at the time of Nixon had grown by more than 100 million people by the time "W" and the Supremes set upon us in 2000 (a 50% increase). These media operatives are found even in "respected" networks; fed also by talk-radio.

The "war" in Syria is the one we should pay most attention to. The future wars may look like this.

As the skullduggery of religions over centuries comes undone, people set upon each other, fed by religious lies and tribal wounds. Reason and knowledge seem to be helpless in the face of it. That should scare the crap out of all of us.

Be aware, it was technology, not some hack actor from Hollywood playing the role of President, that "won" the Cold War. As someone on the front-lines as those technological breakthroughs were made, I know for a fact that the Cold War was "done-for" before 1980. It was known in government circles in the 70's, that the Soviet Union could not "keep-up" and was on the verge of collapse. That same technology advance brought us the Media Age.

But, guess what? Those wise heads who designed this government are getting the last laugh. Even against big Media. After 5 years of throwing everything -- all the king's horses and Queen Ann too -- the Cracker Media has been bested by a wiser President. The Republican Party is staggering toward oblivion!

Stay Vigilant! Get Involved!

Friday, March 1, 2013

CPAC - "CRACK" ??

Conservative "Ingredient"?

Welcome to Romneyworld!

CPAC, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Political_Action_Conference , the "embryo" of Republican "leadership" is displaying a curious crack. Crack; a crevice, an opening, something to smoke, seems in evidence at the top of CPAC, and the Republican Party. In their up-coming session, those Republican candidates who lost the 2012 election will headline CPAC. Their best candidate for winning a national election in the future is not invited!

Not since Papal Schisms in the Catholic Church, have we had more than one Pope at a time. We have two Popes now. Another crack appears; this time at the top of the Christian religion. Since the rise of CPAC in the 1970's, religion has played a strong role in our Conservative Politics. From Fallwell until today, a blend of right-wing religious fundamentals have provided the base of the Republican party. The Catholic Church has moved into a prominent position within CPAC, in opposition to the Obama administration. The 2012 election results show that they no longer are supported by the majority of voters.

Due to some substance they seem to share, CPAC members don"t seem to care about not having the support of the majority of the voters in this country. They could be heading into a future wherein they act as a permanent "drag" on our national economy and politics. A series of "manufactured" crises looms ahead.

Following the 2012 election, the first crisis they presented was the Fiscal Cliff. Losing the showdown on that, they have next presented us with Sequestration. It will take months to determine how this country and the Republican Party fare in this caper. Using the filibuster rules in the Senate and the "power of the purse" in the house, the Republicans can hamper the political function and the personal finances of many citizens. Continuing Resolution, and Debt Ceiling crises lie ahead. Many of those who will be hurt can not afford to support the Party financially. If, over the long road ahead, they withdraw their support, we may snap back to some type of normalcy.

The Catholic Church is also a nation-state that intervenes in politics and personal lives all over the world. This split signifies difficulties for the Church as they confront their history. Centuries of deception and cover-up have been recently revealed. It is questionable where this "crack" leads.

It should be no surprise that confusion and harm reign whenever and wherever religion invades politics.

Stay Vigilant! Stay Involved!