Somebody is hearing it.

I see that Ms. Thing finally went on her dream date with Jackie Jackson after all these years. Nice. When are you Negroes going to try and get me a hook up with Lark? That's the least you could do for a brotha toiling out here in the fields. You mean to tell me that not one of you people know Lark? Or, someone who knows someone who knows her?
Anyway, enough of that. Now on to some more serious matters: I see that a certain wingnut "bloviator" still has O man assassination issues. What gives, here? I mean this has been going on for awhile with this guy. I know I know, if you say it enough and all that stuff, but this is beginning to become a dangerous obsession. Hey Glenn, I don't hear the dog whistle, but I am sure that somebody out there does.

This post is from Jerry Bowles, who seems a lot angrier about this than I am:

"If you check the Google and Twitter trend charts, one of the hottest viral memes running around the internet right now is the Biblical verse Psalm 109:8 which has started popping up on bumper stickers and t-shirts with the seemingly harmless directive to Pray for Obama. Sounds benign enough and the verse itself seems to be a harmless piece of rightwing wishful thinking: "May his days be few, may another take his office."
Where it becomes seditious and anti-American are the lines that immediately follow that one:

“May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.”

Friends, it does not get any uglier than this. As Frank Schaeffer, author of Patience with God: Faith for People who Don’t like Religion or Atheism, said on the Rachel Maddow show:

"...This is the American version of the Taliban. The Taliban quotes the Qu'ran, and al Qaeda quotes certain verses in the Qu'ran, in or out of context, calling for jihad, and bloody war, and the curse of Allah on infidels. This is the Old Testament, Biblical equivalent of calling for holy war. Now, most Americans'll just see the bumper sticker and smile and think that it's facetious. Unfortunately, there are 22 million Americans or so who call themselves super-conservative evangelicals. Of this, a small minority might be violent. But, the general atmosphere here is really getting heated.

And what surprises me is that responsible, if you can put it that way, Republican leadership and the editors of some of these Christian magazines, etc. etc., do not stand up in holy horror and denounce this. You know, they're always asking 'Where is the Islamic leadership denouncing terrorism? Why aren't the moderates speaking out?' Well, I challenge the folks who I used to work with... I would just say to them: 'Where the hell are you? This is not funny anymore. And be it on your head if something happens to our President..." [Link]

Relax Jerry, he isn't as powerful anymore, maybe they will leave him alone now.

Finally, in my ongoing effort to be "fair and balanced", I would like to leave you with a commentary from a black republican that someone sent me. (h/t Mike)

"The message from voters in the 2010 election was two-fold: a rejection of President Barack Obama's job-killing Socialist agenda and a denunciation of the Democratic Party's divisive politics of race-baiting. The accusation by Democrats that the Republican Party is a racist party was exposed, once again, to be absolutely false when these three black Republicans, shown below, won their elections and were added to the long list of black Republicans already serving in elected positions in multiple states at various levels of government. Newly elected to Congress are Tim Scott in South Carolina and Allen West in Florida. Also in Florida, Jennifer Carroll became that state's lieutenant governor, the first black woman Republican ever elected to this position. These victorious candidates received scant media coverage since they contradict the image promoted by Democrats that the Republican Party is racist.
During the election, Obama and his fellow Democrats tried to avoid the political tsunami by resorting to acts of desperation, including scraping the bottom of the Democratic Party's racist barrel. Blacks in Florida were startled and incensed when former President Bill Clinton, at the apparent behest of Obama, tried to get black Democrat U. S. Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race for U. S. Senate and endorse white Gov. Charlie Crist, the one-time Republican who ran as an independent after withdrawing from the Republican Party primary. There would have been a firestorm of charges of racism by the liberal media and black civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, had a white Republican tried to force a black Democrat out of a race for any elected office.

So, what was a focus for the NAACP during the 2010 election? That once great organization was busily digging its own grave of irrelevancy by issuing a bogus and racially incendiary report written by far left wingers in the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. That report falsely accused the Tea Party activists of being racist because they oppose Obama's socialist agenda and want to reduce the size of our government, cut spending and keep our taxes low. Without a doubt, the NAACP report was a blatant attempt to get black voters to the polls by stirring up hatred against their fellow white Americans who Obama described as "the enemy." [More]

Tap tap, skip. Tap tap, skip. You hear that Obama? Leave those good "white Americans" alone, or those dog whistles could get louder.

I love this country.

Obama's Cheerleaders Fall on their Faces

by John Stauber
CommonDreams.org
November 3, 2010

Ouch!

The electoral debacle suffered by the Obama Administration and its Democratic Party will be blamed on many things, especially the secret wealth behind the myriad of coordinated campaign front groups dominating TV advertising in the wake of the Supreme Court's horrific decision in the Citizen United case, a Right Wing coup that essentially drove the nail into the money coffin encasing American democracy.

But let the blame be laid instead with the Obama Administration itself, the phony rhetoric of change and populism it embraced to win in 2008, and the betrayal of its promises of fundamental reform, openness and peace, ideals that so excited new and independent voters just two years ago. I've been writing since 2007 about the sell-out of the peace movement by MoveOn and its co-option as a campaign tool by Democratic Party. Web-centric, navel-gazing fundraising operations such as MoveOn and the liberal millionaires behind the Democracy Alliance fooled themselves into thinking that the election of Obama meant the Republicans were vanquished. But the pro-war, pro-Wall Street, anti-Single Payer reform antics of Obama and the Democrats undercut their reform rhetoric and revealed the hypocrisy of Democratic corporate liberals, or "progressives" as they have come to be called.

Read the rest here.

Comment: What were they really expecting?  And, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for what exactly?

In the coming weeks he will try to act tougher and throw more words around while bombing the hell out of Yemen (the next frontier on the fake 'war on terror').

Onward!

Picture Credit (Caption is mine)

Seeing Red.

I would like to start this post by thanking the people of California- on behalf of the Ganga farmers of my Island home- for shooting down Proposition 19. Thanks to you, their profit margins will remain high. (Speaking of high; WTF was Michelle Bachmann smoking last night? God bless Chris Matthews for calling out her simple ass.)

So this is the day after the "shellacking" (His words not mine) given to O and company by the A-merry-can people. I must say that his wimpy response today left me disappointed. "Humbling"? You "promise to do better"? Somebody pass the barf bag. If I see the tan-man and that dude with the skyscraper hair gloating on television one more time I will puke on Mrs. Field's rug.

I wish some of these poli-tricksters lived in the real world like the rest of us.

Field on his way to work. He spots a reader of the blog (some dude who works in the building) who can't wait to let him have it:

"Yo field, what happened to your boy down in Washington? I guess 'the man' made his black ass know who was in charge" I am thinking he is talking about 5, so I make a comment about Eagles fans being vindicated. "Nahhhh, not McNabb, your boy, Obama. It's time he started keeping it real, field. He needs to realize who put his black ass in power. He forgot how he got there, field. He got to Washington and got new. You know how you Negroes like to do. Then he came around here begging us for our votes at the last minute, after ignoring us for two years. F&^% him! Come on field, blog about that s*%t! I bet you won't do it". I hope he is reading.

You Negroes are angry, and rightfully so. O got his ass handed to him by folks who won't be making your lives any easier. He had his majority, and dumbocrats being the wimps they are, blew it. The ones who did stick their necks out got their asses handed to them because everyone else was in retreat. And, if we are going to keep it real, Only Captain Smith of Titanic fame did a worse job of communicating than O's White House did.

Actually, the Titanic metaphor isn't quite fitting, because unlike that huge iceberg that hit the doomed ship on the night of April 14th, we actually saw this one coming. The republi-clowns made it clear that they wanted his O ness to fail from day one. So they don't mind if the Titanic goes down, they all have lifeboats. The wealthy and the well connected always do. It's those poor folks caught in the bowels of the ship who will perish.

Arundhati Roy: Media, Mobs And The Search For Spectacles

Countercurrents.org

November 1, 2010

Arundhati Roy

A mob of about a hundred people arrived at my house at 11 this morning (Sunday October 31st 2010.) They broke through the gate and vandalized property. They shouted slogans against me for my views on Kashmir, and threatened to teach me a lesson.

The OB Vans of NDTV, Times Now and News 24 were already in place ostensibly to cover the event live. TV reports say that the mob consisted largely of members of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha (Women’s wing).

After they left, the police advised us to let them know if in future we saw any OB vans hanging around the neighborhood because they said that was an indication that a mob was on its way. In June this year, after a false report in the papers by Press Trust of India (PTI) two men on motorcycles tried to stone the windows of my home. They too were accompanied by TV cameramen.

What is the nature of the agreement between these sections of the media and mobs and criminals in search of spectacle? Does the media which positions itself at the ‘scene’ in advance have a guarantee that the attacks and demonstrations will be non-violent? What happens if there is criminal trespass (as there was today) or even something worse? Does the media then become accessory to the crime?

This question is important, given that some TV channels and newspapers are in the process of brazenly inciting mob anger against me.

In the race for sensationalism the line between reporting news and manufacturing news is becoming blurred. So what if a few people have to be sacrificed at the altar of TRP ratings?

The Government has indicated that it does not intend to go ahead with the charges of sedition against me and the other speakers at a recent seminar on Azadi for Kashmir. So the task of punishing me for my views seems to have been taken on by right wing storm troopers.

The Bajrang Dal and the RSS have openly announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal including filing cases against me all over the country. The whole country has seen what they are capable of doing, the extent to which they are capable of going.

So, while the Government is showing a degree of maturity, are sections of the media and the infrastructure of democracy being rented out to those who believe in mob justice?

I can understand that the BJP’s Mahila Morcha is using me to distract attention from the senior RSS activist Indresh Kumar who has recently been named in the CBI charge-sheet for the bomb blast in Ajmer Sharif in which several people were killed and many injured.

But why are sections of the mainstream media doing the same?

Is a writer with unpopular views more dangerous than a suspect in a bomb blast? Or is it a question of ideological alignment?

Comment: Democracy and freedom of speech Indian style?  You think?

Wonder if President Obama is going to even make mention of the Kashmir issue and Roy's situation when he travels to India?

Ummmm .... that would be no.

Onward!

Article Credit

Picture Credit (Unknown)

The Wingnuts Are Coming!!

Congrats to the tan-man; it looks like he will be taking over from Lady Pelosi as the speaker of the house. That sound you hear is country and western music while red state A-merry-ca dances on the O man's metaphoric grave.

We are an impatient lot we A-merry-cans; his O ness wasn't moving fast enough to undo eight years of W, so his party had to pay. And pay they did. As of the field writing this post, the repubs already have a fifty seat pick up in the house, and they are three up in the senate. (Congrats to Tim Scott. Being the first black repub elected from the south since reconstruction is a big deal.) Here in Pistolvania it's still too close to call in all the major races. --It looks like some of you Negroes in Philly actually came out and voted, so it's not a runaway for the R's just yet.

Rand Paul is a projected winner. And so is the hottest thing out of Cuba since cigars; Macro Rubio. -He is the new darling of the wingnut crowd.- They are both already planning to change Washington as we know it. Good luck with that. (Thank god the voting rights act was already renewed) And, as was to be expected, the Wicked Witch of Delaware went down. Apparently she wasn't like enough of us. Former Iggle, John Runyan, might win across the river in Jersey (I swear you people in Jersey need to have your heads examined. John Runyan couldn't memorize Andy Reid's playbook, and you are sending him to Washington to represent your interests?)

Still, flashback two years ago and I bet a scene like this was far removed from the mind of his O ness. He could not have seen this coming. It seems like only yesterday that we were all crying and "kumbayaing" each other while we chanted "yes we can". No more. Politics is all about passion, and the majority of A-merry-cans aren't passionate about their politics. They are too busy trying to keep up with each other to worry about something as insignificant as a political philosophy or ideology. Their vote depends on their pocket books and what they see on commercials. And the guy with the most money controls the message. Hell, the guy with the most money can start a phony grass roots movement and watch it grow.

In the next few weeks you will be hearing a lot about this election. You will hear about A-merry-ca being a center to right country. You will hear that this was a referendum on Obama's policies, and that A-merry-cans got tired of the spending in Washington, blah blah blah. Don't believe a word of it. This was about a party out of power passionately trying to get it back, and succeeding by tricking ordinary A-merry-cans into thinking that they all had the same goals. It was about a few (not all) people in the majority population who suddenly became passionate about politics because of the complexion of the occupants in the people's house. It was about an orchestrated campaign from day one by certain media outlets to drive up ratings with phony and slanted stories, and creating a rabid foam at the mouth opposition to an administration that was led by the perfect boogey man.

So congrats tan-man, I look forward to your reign. But just remember; as long as we are still free to speak our minds in A-merry-ca, I will be here speaking mine. The next two years should be fun.

Halloween in South Africa?

"When did South Africans start observing Halloween?," a close female friend asked over dinner last Sunday night in Joburg.

"That is just so wrong," she added.

"I know.  It is so phony and totally not South African," I commented.

"Forget Halloween boet," said my boy D. who was sitting next to me.  "There are South Africans who celebrate Thanksgiving in South Africa without one American around."

"No way.  How the hell can any South African celebrate Thanksgiving?  It has nothing to do with us.  At the very least Halloween is a contrived American ritual made popular by movies.  But Thanksgiving?," I said.

"Yeah it is disturbing but it happens here," D. replied.

There is just so much wrong with celebrating and observing American rituals and holidays in a country where many folks refuse to celebrate our own public holidays.

August 9th was Heritage Day in South Africa.  One too many South Africans, particularly coloured, white, and Indian South Africans, refused to acknowledge the theme of Heritage and instead  dubbed the day "Braai Day" (Barbecue Day).

I bet a sizable number of the "Braai Day" day celebrants see nothing wrong with observing Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Just last week I was reading a print article by a South African political commentator that was entitled "Will South Africa step up to the plate?"

What plate does he want South Africa to step up to?

"Step up to the plate" is a quintessential American metaphor that references batting in baseball.  South Africa does not play baseball and the metaphor is absolutely amiss inside our popular and political culture.

Yet, if you asked some folks what it means I bet they will think it is 'stepping up to the braai' to get some food on your plate :0)

I have also heard another baseball metaphor used quite commonly.  This one refers to "a ballpark estimate" or "a ballpark figure".

What the hell hey?  We have no 'ballpark' nothing in South Africa.  Why is this Americanism becoming such a permanent part of our communication?

I guess one could deconstruct my rant here and ask why I even bother to speak English being that I am obviously not from England.

You know that answer.

What I don't want to accept is the manner in which most South Africans consume all kinds of foreign things and habits without thinking through the implications.

Halloween does not belong here.  Nor does Thanksgiving.  Neither are in the 'ballpark' of being South African and living here.

I will save my added rant on Hip Hop culture and South African youth for another post.

But please allow me to say to white South Africans that it does not make you 'hip' to say "cool" or "my bad" or "don't diss me" or to constantly refer to the ANC "bling" in your daily lamentations.

Like my boy Eugene might say: 'It just makes you look stupid that's all.'

So stop appropriating and mimicking just because you think you can, "pilgrim" ;0)

Onward!

Field blotter.

This is my field blotter post. A couple of stories tonight have me scratching my head and seeing red at the same time.

The first one comes from New York:

"Timothy West, 26, was cleared of four charges that he entered an Ozone Park home in 2009 through a window and raped and robbed a 21-year-old waitress at knifepoint in her bed.

One juror said the panel believed the victim must have known West, and that she let him into her home.

West has a history of break-ins and was on parole for robbery when arrested, but the jury did not hear that evidence: Buchter ruled it could prejudice the jury against him. "

Huh? Let me read that again......nope, that wasn't a misprint. Just wow! [Story]

The second story comes from Jacksonville, Florida:

"A 22-year-old mother in Jacksonville, FL, just pleaded guilty to second degree murder after killing her young son. The child, three-months old, was shaken to death because the mother had become angry that his crying interrupted her game of Farmville on Facebook.

The mother, Alexandria Tobias, faces up to 25 years in prison."

There seems to be a trend here. We should give out baby making license like we do driver's license here in A-merry-ca. [Story]

Of course we can't leave out those wonderful college kids:

"Police say a Penn State fan dressed in a blue and yellow Halloween costume was assaulted by four unknown fans at Beaver Stadium who mistook him for a Michigan fan.

The Centre Daily Times reports that the assault happened Saturday, the night the Nittany Lions defeated the rival Wolverines 41-31.

Police say the men attacked the fan because they thought the colors of his costume indicated he was a Michigan fan. Michigan's colors are blue and yellow.

The attackers have not been identified.

Police say the victim sustained a possible broken nose and was treated and released from a hospital."

Why are we so angry A-merry-ca? Even the young and educated among us. [Story]

And then, of course; there are the not so young and not so educated. They have some issues as well:

"Wendy Edmond Green, 41, is being held without bond in the Wake County Jail on charges of first-degree murder in the death of her live-in boyfriend, 52-year-old David Reuben Green Jr.

Wake County Sheriff's Office
Police in North Carolina charged Wendy Edmond Green, 41, with first-degree murder after officers found her boyfriend's body stuffed in a freezer in their home.
Investigators had been looking for David Green since early September, when family members reported him missing. On Sept. 7, authorities conducted a search of the couple's Raleigh home but were unable to locate him, Wake County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Phyllis Stephens said.

"They continued to investigate, and went back out there [Wednesday] to do another search," Stephens told AOL News. "[Investigators] were looking around, and they saw a freezer. They opened [it up], and there he was."

Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison told The News & Observer that investigators detected a "powerful smell" during their second search of the home. The power inside the home had been shut off in August."

And please, no cracks about interracial relationships. This could have happened to anybody. [Story]

Finally, if we are talking about crime, we can't leave out my hometown:

"PHILADELPHIA - A 15-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded early today during a dispute inside a bar in North Philadelphia, police said.

Police said the youth got into an argument with a young man about 2:30 a.m. inside the El Callejon II bar at North Second Street and West Indiana Avenue in the Fairhill section.

The older male grabbed the victim by the shirt and shot him once in the chest, police said. The gunman fled as bar patrons scattered.

Someone drove the wounded teen to his home and police were called there, officials said.

The youth was taken to Temple University Hospital in critical condition.

The nature of the argument and what the boy was doing in the bar at that hour are not yet known. "

I repeat: We should give out baby making license here in A-merry-ca. [Story]