Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Is life liberty and the pursuit of happiness only for "real" Americans?


In my last post I wrote about some of the shortcomings of the economic plans set down by his O ness. I lamented about the help everyone else in A-merry-ca seems to be getting except poor people and people of color. As is usually the case, you folks followed with some really deep and thoughtful comments. And you really had me thinking about some of the different ways that we could change our reality.

But here is the thing; regardless of what type of economic policies are implemented, and how it's shaped in Washington; is there a segment of folks in A-merry-can society that will never be happy with this president no matter what? And would those people do everything in their powers to undermine this president -or anyone that is perceived to be a threat to the A-merry-can ideal or way of life- even if his policies were good ones?

I was reading over at BroadSnark, and Mel wrote a post that had me thinking about that.
"White America's Existential Crisis

'People have, apparently, lost their minds. There seems to be a panic that we have lost the fabric of our society and I’m having trouble getting a handle on what has happened that is so drastic that people would think its tyranny or fascism or hitleresque or stalinesque' (Jon Stewart)
That quote is from Stewart’s interview with Lou Dobbs (video below). Dobbs never really answered Jon’s question, so I’m going to try.

There is a certain segment of the American population that really believes in the American foundational myths. They identify with them. They believe that America was built by a handful of white, Christian, men with exceptional morals. Their America is the country that showed the world democracy, saved the Jews in World War II, and tore down the Berlin wall.
These people have always fought changes to their mythology. They have always resented those of us who pushed to complicate those myths with the realities of slavery, Native American genocide, imperial war in the Philippines, invasions of Latin American countries, and secret arms deals.
And we have been so busy fighting them to have our stories and histories included in the American story that we sometimes forget why the myths were invented in the first place.
No myth illustrates the slight of hand behind our national mythology quite like the myth of the cowboy. In the mythology, the cowboy is a white man. He is a crusty frontiersman taming the west and paving the way for civilization. He is the good guy fighting the dangerous Indian. He is free and independent. He is in charge of his own destiny.

Read
Richard Slatta’s Cowboys of the Americas and you will get a very different picture. In reality, the first American cowboys were indigenous people trained by the Spanish missionaries. In reality, more than 30% of the cowboys on Texas trail drives were African American, Mexican, or Mexican-American.

And cowboys were not so free. Cowboys were itinerant workers who, while paid fairly well when they had work, spent much of the year begging for odd jobs. Many did not even own the horse they rode. Frequently, they worked for large cattle companies owned by stockholders from the Northeast and Europe, not for small family operations (a la Bonanza). The few times cowboys tried to organize, they were brutally oppressed by ranchers.

So what does all this have to do with Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, teabaggers and white panic?
Marginalization and myths have always been about economic exploitation. White supremacy is not simply personal bigotry. It is the systematic exclusion, dehumanization, and erasure of the majority in order to preserve economic dominance for the wealthy minority. And while white men may be in most positions of wealth and power to this day, only a very few of them really benefit from our current economic system. White supremacy helped distract poor and working class whites from targeting their economic exploiters. White supremacy helped mask the lie of equal opportunity.

When you know the real history of the cowboy, it makes the selling of Reagan and Bush as cowboys seem like an inside joke. The mythological cowboy is the heroic figure that many Americans wish they were. The fact that the cowboy was actually an exploited worker is virtually unknown.

When Americans vote for a president, they want to see that heroic version of themselves looking back at them. They want to see that free cowboy of the mythology. No matter how poor or exploited white people were, they could always take subconscious comfort in the fact that, when they looked at the highest power in the land, they saw an idealized version of themselves.
And then came Barack Obama.

Pop.
It’s a powerful thing to be able to identify with the people who are your leaders, to feel like they are one of you. It’s a feeling that many people in the United States felt for the first time when Barack Obama was elected. It’s equally powerful when your elected leaders are clearly not like you, when the fact that they do not represent you is glaringly obvious.
I had my whole life to get used to the idea that the government was never made to really represent my interests. Many of these angry people are the very white, Christian, men that this country was supposedly built by and for. And this is the first time the myth of America has been unmasked for them."
[More here]
I guess my question is this: If we had the perfect economic climate for black folks and poor people in A-merry-ca, and everyone started working again, would we even be able enjoy it? Is the American dream for certain people just a myth? And if it is just a myth; would it be in the best interest of certain people in A-merry-ca to let us all fail just to keep that myth alive?

143 comments:

  1. damn, field, you just keep depressing the hell out of me. You ask a good question, and I fear I know the answer. I fear there aren't enough idealists in this country to produce the perfect economic climate, and your question about whether we'd even be able to enjoy it. . .if I can't even imagine that it could come about, I can't even contemplate that question.

    thanks for the link--

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  2. buffbbaygrl10:37 PM

    would it be in the best interest of certain people in A-merry-ca to let us all fail just to keep that myth alive?
    YES!
    The failure would be felt by the poor and middle class. The wealthy land barons would be no worse for the wear. So why not damn us all to a dismal future?

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  3. If Jim Crow could last through the Populist Movement and the Depression, why would you think they would have not have us fail?

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  4. fn:

    i love your raw truths this week!

    your blog is on fire!

    the american dream was real once...

    but it has been sold out like all else

    shame!

    http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805088385/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261021926&sr=8-1-catcorr

    http://www.amazon.com/Bait-Switch-Futile-Pursuit-American/dp/B001GQ3DTW/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_6

    ____

    may i nominate jeff johnson for field negro?

    http://aliciabanks.vox.com/library/link/6a0123ddb39306860b01240b8581df860e.html

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  5. you touch on some fundamental truths here, especially the realization that the sitting govt. does not represent you or those you identify with.

    The one thing that I will submit, as probably the pastiest one here, and I wager the only one here with true cowboy roots (Wyoming, NOT Texas).... is that race is not THE issue here, but rather it is simply the hinging contributing factor.

    There are those whites for whom race or racism will always be tops, and these folk are truly marginal, but for the rest it is other issues, primarily partisanship.
    Right/left is a bigger divide than black and white... Most teabaggers would have voted for Colin Powell guaranteed.

    But its the fact that there is a left leaning Democrat that has them upset... then insert race and BOOM. No Boom without the party affiliation.

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  6. Anonymous11:07 PM

    FN, you never commented again on the other cupid topic with 347 comments. What are your opinions on all that said after? Inquiring minds want to know.

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  7. Anonymous11:27 PM

    The people who are up in arms about Obama are the rednecks, christian nuts, and militia member. The people with real stranglehold on this country (rich oligarchs) have no fear of Obama; they know poses no real threat.

    America is a very easy country to divided. It's diverse and heterogenous with a variety of fault lines. The top of the pile has proved very adept at exploiting those fault lines to keep those at the bottom permanently divided.

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  8. Greg L11:30 PM

    I was speaking to a friend about the conversations we were having on this blog today. We both concluded that the existing economic situation was based on a several myths. The first myth is that the founding fathers were "God fearing" men and that we've gotten away from that ideal. The only problem with that is that God fearing men don't enslave men nor extirpate native peoples and take their lands. The country was born with the idea of exploitation and that's been a continuum to this very day. The basic problem with the economy is the entire idea that it's been based on from day one and that idea has created the weight that will result in collapse. Everything that we're experiencing now is a function of the idea the country was founded on.

    I'm a one who was trained to believe in the primacy of capitalism as anyone who comes through America's business school is so indoctrinated. I never thought that I'd question it, but I have because I've come to see it as it is. I don't think that it's possible for our economic system to exist in current form at this point. The question is what comes next and how one can position themselves to survive.

    I don't know if that answers your question Field, but that's how I'm feeling.

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  9. Anonymous11:40 PM

    The only problem with that is that God fearing men don't enslave men nor extirpate native peoples and take their lands.

    That's what God-fearing men have done since time immemorial-Christians, Muslims, you name it.

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  10. I could have said it better, Field, but I didn't. Hahahah. Just messing with you, Yardie. Mel's words are brilliant. However, because it can't be distilled into a couple of cliche bytes, the average white fool/Palindrone/Tea Partier couldn't even begin to digest it. So they just give a preemptive vomit.

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  11. Anonymous12:11 AM

    Dynamite posts, Field. As always. A little depressing, but nothing that a little sensimilia can't cure.

    Sincerely though, my friend. These are some fantastic write-ups and they are inspiring some stimulating dialogue from the commenters.

    Peace and God Bless.

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  12. FN:

    Keith Olbermann hit the nail on the head tonight with his Special Comment and you did the same with this post. BRAVO!

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  13. Anonymous12:20 AM

    I never saw a unreal American.
    but your just sitting and spining
    has nothing to do with race.fact;
    if you and your wife make 58,000.
    the government will help you with
    healthcare,59000,they won't.Your boss can take an 8,000 dollar penalty.Then your on your own to
    get health insurance after taxes
    not pretax.If the states have a tort reform law,the Fed can withhold monies(field you always seam to avoid tort)little to close to your wallet is it?All the trade
    unions are just figuring out they got screwed.What happen to the 250,000.Oh now they are going to cure fraud!!Going to add what 16 million people and nothing gonna change,how about now your gonna see nurses instead of doctors,your gonna have a computer contact you
    and make sure your keeping off the KFC.Why is the government the biggest employer,yet they don't produce nothing!Where do you come off thinking healthcare is your right? Because you were born in America? what about the rest of the world with there starving bloated babies.Haiti where the woman sells dirt pies,they have a teaspoon of butter.where is there right? May sound cruel.But after your born your only rights are for the government protect the country and not tell you what to do.The rest is up to you.Now before you hit me with the privilege,What about Benjamin Banneker,Booker T. Washington,George Washington Carver,Ida Wells-Barnett,W.E.B. Du Bois,Mary McLeoad Bethune,Jessie Fauset,E. Franklin Frazier,Charles Drew.I quess they were all house !!
    You want healthcare buy it!!! I ain't doing your momma or your sister,just ain't my problem.I think I should decide where my money goes,not the government !!

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  14. Anonymous1:15 AM

    The civil rights movement of the 1960's have left many people with the belief that the slave trade was exclusively a European/USA phenomenon and only evil white people were to blame for it. This is a simplicistic scenario that hardly reflects the facts.What these records show is that the modern slave trade flourished in the early middle ages, as early as 869, especially between Muslim traders and western African kingdoms. For moralists, the most important aspect of that trade should be that Muslims were selling goods to the African kingdoms and the African kingdoms were paying with their own people.
    In most instances, the Europeans did not need to use any force to get those slaves. The slaves were "sold" more or less legally by their (black) owners. Scholars estimate that about 12,000,000 Africans were sold by Africans to Europeans (most of them before 1776, when the USA wasn't yet born) and 17,000,000 were sold to Arabs. The legends of European mercenaries capturing free people in the jungle are mostly just that: legends. A few mercenaries certainly stormed peaceful tribes and committed terrible crimes, but that was not the rule. There was no need to risk their lives, so most of them didn't: they simply purchased . The taking of slaves by Muslims was extensive but would not be as obvious to people in the twenty-first century because fewer known descendants of slaves were around to remind people of it -- the Muslims were castrating their slaves .At Least That Bad America, let you keep your dick!!

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  15. Anonymous1:22 AM

    Field, why not "bottomline" your post with Socialism...that is the solution to your ideology.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Gregory1:25 AM

    Want a portrait of white panic?

    Take a long look at Constructive Feedback. S/He's about as white and panicky as they come.

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  17. NSangoma1:30 AM

    ~
    Anonymous 1:22 AM, yo' mama.
    `

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  18. agape20101:33 AM

    @FN:

    Ahhhh! I see someone has woken up to the reality of what is real and what is a dream (as in the American).

    I was the first perosn I know to call Bush (before he took office) a "cowboy" and when I said it I was crying because I was well schooled on what a "cowboy" looks like on the white man. I also know where and how the term was coined for black and brown men (boys) who tended to the cattle (cows). I called him that because I knew he was going to play the "John Wayne" (white saviour) role on Americans. And I knew white America would fall for the hype...and they did...and will again.

    Having said that I have been saying for some time on your blog about the effects of the Willie Lynch Law. It was not just effectual on blacks, but whites as well. To this day I still have to train "my good white folks" to know, there is no such thing as white skin privelage with me.

    Of course there were white men meeting in Virginia as early as July poised to derail any and all effort put out by this administration to help poor people (all colors) in any way. How do you think this country was built...on the backs of slaves and poor whites. How do you think this country (what they haven't sold) is sustained? By keeping poor people poor. Poor people are a GDP....I thought you knew! Peace.

    ~agape2010~

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  19. coffee and cigarettes1:46 AM

    Anon..
    "You want healthcare buy it!!! I ain't doing your momma or your sister,just ain't my problem.I think I should decide where my money goes,not the government !!"

    Healthcare is not a luxury dumbass, it is a human right. It is not the same thing as buying a flat screen TV or fast car. The quality of and access to healthcare should NEVER be determined by how much money you happen to make.

    I think I should decide where my money goes,not the government !!

    Yes, it is clearly better to give all your money to insurance companies and private corporations who are not elected by you, can not be held accountable by you, and whose primary purposes are profit..smart

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  20. And if it is just a myth; would it be in the best interest of certain people in A-merry-ca to let us all fail just to keep that myth alive?

    Yes.


    The plutocrats, hypercapitalists and other greedheads don't care. America has been rotting from within for some time and any time anyone attempts to make healing, there's an army of lobbyists, oligarchs and CEOs rushing to destroy any hint of a level playing field.

    Maybe President Obama wants to get to a second term to start revamping things? Who knows? But I wonder what kind of country we will be in 2012 if this current economic raping and pillaging is allowed to continue.

    America, how you gonna win when you ain't right within?

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  21. mellaneous2:42 AM

    Field you got real deep on us. First let me remind the poster who said that the American Dream was once a reality that there really is no such thing, which is why like someone once said you have to be asleep to realize it. And to the other poster who introduced the foolishness (they didn't cut off everyones penises and they weren't considered animals) about the Arab slave trade. Lord please help me understand how it helps anyone to point out that "they did it too" as if that somehow eases the pain of slavery or absolves the guilt of the pigs who practiced chattel slavery in the US. For the uninformed that form of slavery decried that slaves were not human beings.

    Anyway Field as you are well aware we live in class society and this economic system Capitalism has built inequity built into it, and as someone else said its not based on race but on class. But race is used to distract some and to make it easier to play colored folks over against white folks economically.

    The capitalists would never grant full employment, it wouldn't be profitable --unless it meant everyone could get at least a dollar an hour. The system needs some unemployment to keep the others in line. The high unemployment has the effect of making the employed a bit more docile and compliant these days.

    While socialism as we know it has its flaws something close to it has to be enacted for us to have real justice and to live like real human beings in the world.
    The solution is the same in 2009 as it was in all the eras in which workers yelled that this system isn't working, its the same solution that got Malcolm X and MLK and others killed.

    Others can pipe in and say what they will, but one must admit that capitalism left to its devices is going to lead to the demise of civilization. I mean just take a look at its track record. It always puts profits before people and in the case of the US it advances it interests overseas in the so-called name of US citizens by encouraging you to place your interests above those of the rest of the world. I rest my case.

    liberation then peace

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  22. Anonymous2:43 AM

    "Want a portrait of white panic?

    Take a long look at Constructive Feedback. S/He's about as white and panicky as they come."

    CF is not white, he is a brother who has a very sharp mind.

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  23. Mack Lyons3:55 AM

    It's actually simple what happened. Those who considered themselves "true Americans" -- those of the WASP persuasion -- bought into the primped and prepped "Cowboy" ideal. That's what they wanted to be and that's how they wanted to see America. Note that this particular vision of America was devoid of all of the niggling, annoying things that would put such a vision in doubt, especially when it came to "outsiders" who threatened to end that vision by their very presence. This included the whole Slavery ordeal. The "true Americans" wanted to put that behind them and let "bygones be bygones" while turning a blind eye to the recreation of the conditions that allowed the system to continue unabated and unpreturbed.

    Anything that disturbs the Cowboy ideal is subject to hatred and scorn. Thus you have collective white hatred aimed at the Black community for having the nerve to ask to be treated like normal citizens. In Cowboy America, they either existed only on the fringe edges as help or they didn't exist at all. "True Americans" are always afraid that if the Black community attains too much power, the Cowboy ideal will be destroyed and they'll have nothing to look up to, and looking up to those they considered their inferiors just won't do.

    Obama managed to disrupt the Cowboy ideal in a big way by letting "true Americans" know that the highest office in the land was open to everyone, not just those who represent "true America". Hence the reflexive reaction of running him out of office using anything they could get their hands on. Instead of crosses and pitchforks, they used birth certificates and ties to Islam. Meanwhile, corporate America is taking advantage of "true America" and it's longing to bring the nation back to the Cowboy idea and the whitewashed environment it represents by stirring up populist action against measures coming from the White House that would actually benefit all Americans, even the "true" ones. "True Americans" have no idea how hard they're being played.

    On a sidenote, Ronald Reagan, otherwise known to his most devoted worshippers as "Ronaldus Maximus", was the perfect embodiment of the "cowboy" ideal. Hollywood trained, with that "aw shucks" Midwestern-but-not-quite-southern demeanor that endears "true Americans" and other gullible souls, with a very "heroic" visage....conservatives are still looking for a replacement. The Chimp wasn't quite it, and neither is the woman who could see Russia out her patio deck.

    No matter how poor or exploited white people were, they could always take subconscious comfort in the fact that, when they looked at the highest power in the land, they saw an idealized version of themselves.

    That explains why poor whites are easily duped into taking their frustrations out on blacks, instead of banding together to bring down the wealthy elite and affect genuine change.

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  24. Mack Lyons3:56 AM

    The civil rights movement of the 1960's have left many people with the belief that the slave trade was exclusively a European/USA phenomenon and only evil white people were to blame for it. This is a simplicistic scenario that hardly reflects the facts.What these records show is that the modern slave trade flourished in the early middle ages, as early as 869, especially between Muslim traders and western African kingdoms. For moralists, the most important aspect of that trade should be that Muslims were selling goods to the African kingdoms and the African kingdoms were paying with their own people.

    This may have been true, but the above is often used to excuse whites from owning up to their roles in the trade and by extension, their roles in perpetuating racism towards blacks. This straw man don't wash with Blacks whose main concern don't lie with the Arabs who are a sea and several countries apart, but with whites and white privilege in their own backyard.

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  25. Anonymous5:56 AM

    Mack Lyons said:
    "This may have been true, but the above is often used to excuse whites from owning up to their roles in the trade and by extension, their roles in perpetuating racism towards blacks. This straw man don't wash with Blacks whose main concern don't lie with the Arabs who are a sea and several countries apart, but with whites and white privilege in their own backyard."

    My response:
    I hear what you're saying but if black American decendants of slaves are owed reparations by white America they/we are ALSO owed reparations by black Africans. I want reparations from BOTH white American and black Africans.

    Also, if reparations are ever awarded to black American decendants of slaves then dark-skinned blacks deserve MORE of the money than light-skinned blacks. After slavery ended, light-skinned blacks discriminated against the "darkies" on a MASSIVE LEVEL. And they still do, they're just more subtle about it.

    Finally, Arabs in the Sudan region are KILLING and enslaving black Africans to this very day. Look at what these Arabs have done/are doing in recent years in the Sudan.

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  26. Filled Negro:

    My goal is to make sure that "Depressed Negroes" like you (and others) NEVER are allowed to take their own personal demons and have you PROJECT them upon the REST OF BLACK AMERICA!!!!!

    Ironically most people experience joy when they "live vicariously" through people their favor and obtain motivation as such. YOU and other people who have a GRIEVANCE MILIEU about you figure that YOUR depression is in fact "The Black Man's Depression".

    Do you and Francis Holland (who is self-diagnosed as having "Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome" despite never being a damned SLAVE) and Angry Independent not see that GRIEVANCE is your currency of exchange?

    [quote]It’s equally powerful when your elected leaders are clearly not like you, when the fact that they do not represent you is glaringly obvious.[/quote]

    Filled Negro: WHY AREN'T THESE WORDS SPOKEN AGAINST THE LOCAL LEADERS IN PHILLY AND YEADON that YOU have a greater proportional say in them representing your interests? ARE YOU ANY MORE HAPPY WITH THEM than with Bush/Cheney or Obama and the Federal Democrats?

    The key problem with you and other Serial Chasers, Filled Negro, is that you CAN'T DEFINE THE TERMS OF YOUR IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL HAPPINESS.

    Instead your HAPPINESS is IN THE CHASE!!!!

    Your happiness is embedded in the CARROT that is dangling inches before your fingers. You receive an endorphin rush on ELECTION NIGHT through to the INAUGURATION BALL. Afterward YOUR DEPRESSION SETS BACK IN.

    You go FOR ANOTHER HIT by seeking to EXPAND THE POWERBASE of your IDEOLOGY.

    The key point of your discontentment is NOT the disappointment in the leadership that you have NOT YET FALLEN TO YOUR CONTROL. Instead your discontentment is resident in the TURF THAT HAS BEEN CAPTURED!!!!!

    YOU HAVE NO MANAGEMENT SKILLS!!!!
    The people who live under the tutelage of those that you favor have so many of their Permanent Interests assaulted YET your own ideological bigotry ill-affords you the ability to press upon those who actually run the KEY INSTITUTIONS THAT ARE FAILING THEM to come through for them as you and they had promised if the community supported them.

    Instead, Filled Negro, you seek PERMANENT EXPANSION. After having taken control over the local area and still not satisfied you synthesize new RIGHTS AND ENTITLEMENTS. These "Social Justice" elements that had been delivered LOCALLY per your previous struggles against greedy CORPORATE EMPLOYERS are now focused upon the CENTRALIZED NATIONAL GOVERNMENT........as your enemy employers have departed from your area after having been sucked dry from your antics.

    HERE IS YOUR ANSWER FILLED NEGRO and other PROGRESSIVE-FUNDAMENTALISTS:

    The reason for your insatiable appetite for the PERMANENT STRUGGLE is because ultimately you are not empowering the people who you purport to advocate for to BE THE PRIMARY AGENTS FOR THE DELIVERY OF THE STANDARD OF LIVING THAT THEY SEEK.

    Instead you make them CONSUMERS OF THIS STANDARD and the SOCIETY is on the hook for delivering it to them. The VOTING process is your vehicle.

    From this you have not built up (empowered the people). You have only EMPOWERED the resource distribution system. The people have their ultimate STANDARD OF LIVING decoupled from their own actions of:

    * Academic Excellence
    * Social Discipline and Order
    * Healthy Lifestyle Choices
    * Competent Financial Management


    Filled Negro - I am ultimately not surprised that you are not satisfied.

    YOU, like many 7 year old little boys on December 25 will be DISAPPOINTED that they have not gotten what they wanted after so much anticipation. In the case of the 7 year old little boy (my 7 year old son just left the room) his problem was that he expects to get a Playsation 3 AND a Microsoft XBox 360 and an iPhone.

    What is YOUR excuse for the contents of your list?

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  27. [quote]Want a portrait of white panic? Take a long look at Constructive Feedback. S/He's about as white and panicky as they come.[/quote]

    Gregory:

    Borrowing slightly from the Juvenile song in regards to my "panicky-ness" and "white-ness":

    "I got it from your momma".

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  28. Brohammas, you are right, that is a part of it. But so is race.

    "FN, you never commented again on the other cupid topic with 347 comments. What are your opinions on all that said after? Inquiring minds want to know."

    Anon. I promise I will in another post.

    "As always. A little depressing, but nothing that a little sensimilia can't cure."

    R. Maldanado, I thought you looked familiar...let me stop. I never smoke that stuff.

    Field, why not "bottomline" your post with Socialism...that is the solution to your ideology."

    As Ronald Rea-gun used to say: "Well...."


    coffee and cig...where is your church at? I want to join. :) Man you nailed that Anon. poster with truths.

    Ironically most people experience joy when they "live vicariously" through people their favor and obtain motivation as such. YOU and other people who have a GRIEVANCE MILIEU about you figure that YOUR depression is in fact "The Black Man's Depression"."

    Wrong![un]constructive one, I have never had a bad day in my life. I am damn near as happy as a house Negro. It's the condition of my fellow man that depresses me.
    I honestly wish that everyone was as happy as I was. The conservative, on the other hand, not so much.

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  29. Excellent post... One more fun fact, the Texas Rangers (the epitome image of the Western Cowboy/Law Man) were originally hired guns by white ranchers who wanted the lands owned by Mexicans who decided to stay in Texas after Texas "independence." One of the largest ranches in Texas, King Ranch, is made up of lands "taken" from those Mexican families... Sell the land for cheap or die was the Rangers message. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez is just one of the stories of this theft. Needless to say, this is not taught in Texas history classes, which is required throughout elementary school, junior and senior high... serious indoctrination into the cowboy myth. Another Texas "icon" Stephen Austin, one of the founders of the State of Texas, borrowed the money from his gay lover to "purchase" the state... He is described in Texas history books as one who never married but preferred the company of men... gambling, smoking and drinking in the bars of New Orleans.... There is a wonderful historian who has worked on the history of gay Texans that researched this little gem... Needless to say, that he was gay is also omitted from the Texas history books.

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  30. [quote]It's the condition of my fellow man that depresses me.
    I honestly wish that everyone was as happy as I was. The conservative, on the other hand, not so much.
    [/quote]

    Filled Negro:

    You have no idea how much I have you and UptownSteve pegged.

    I told you previously that I HAVE NO DOUBT that you and Steve are competent Black men who know how to take care of their OWN families. (And that Bowie Maryland is not a murder capital and has great schools).

    This is not my charge against you.

    Instead the key indictment against you is your inability to manage an ECO-SYSTEM in which OTHERS that you presently see grieving can leverage all of the items that I have identified above and thus be the primary forces in their own salvation.

    Instead you and others are content if they are MADE to be "IN RECEIPT OF" this living standard that YOU will for them.

    Unfortunately there is nothing that THEY can do in the way of their own actions which would have YOU to allow them to reside at the point where an otherwise capable adult has rendered him.

    YOU choose altruism and offer to FEED THEM. From this you receive awards from those of like minds who use their freedom of speech rights afforded in this nation to hand out AWARDS.

    You then see agents like UptownSteve point to YOUR award then then ask ME "So what have YOU and other Conservatives DONE to feed your brother as proof that your line of thinking is productive and not self-centered upon consumption? Look at the award that my progressive soul mate has won as tribute to his GREATNESS"

    I dare make note of the fact that they are FULLY EQUAL ADULT HUMAN BEINGS. I then make note that YOU NOR STEVE NOR JODY......ever bothed to ASK THOSE WHO YOU FEED..............

    So what have YOU DONE to feed your brother as proof that your line of thinking is productive and not self-centered upon consumption?

    CLEARLY, Filled Negro - development of COMPETENCY at the periphery is NOT the central focus of your efforts.

    You FEED as a means of gathering up FOLLWERS. A "Perverted Jesus" if you will except the real offered ETERNAL SALVATION.......IF the person dropped his old ways and instead agreed to follow.... living his life in the image of God.

    What does a person gain by following your orthodoxy?

    ReplyDelete
  31. [quote]One of the largest ranches in Texas, King Ranch, is made up of lands "taken" from those Mexican families... Sell the land for cheap or die was the Rangers message.[/quote]

    Thus - following Jody's logic - today's "Illegal Immigrant" from Mexico is merely.......coming home to land that was already theirs prior to the "theft by taking".

    I wonder which band of Native Americans used to reside on the plot of land that she sits in air conditioned comfort upon today? SHE was not the hand who slayed these Native Americans!!!!!!

    This was not done "in her name" either!!! Despite consuming the fruits from these past assaults today, HAD SHE been alive back then she is comforted to know that SHE would have taken the side of the "Native Americans" and had the INVADERS to cease and desist!!!

    You all don't see the irony.
    The science of a prize winning flower garden is to ROPE OFF the plot of land that you desire to manicure and care for the flowers that are WITHIN. From this a bountiful harvest will be derived.

    The Progressive-Fundamentalist is a direct assault to this notion BECAUSE - after having taken control of many "flower gardens" (municipal governments) yet failed to maintain economic and social order - their BOIL THE OCEAN propensities have them to REMOVE THE PLOT LINES in the name of SOCIAL JUSTICE and thus try to HARVEST THE ENTIRE CONTINENT!!!

    This expanded focus in the name of their brand of JUSTICE actually creates DILUTION and DISILLUSION.

    Ironically the very attempt at breaking down WALLS that they see as barriers too often drains the reservoir and drowns all of the inhabitants downstream!!!!!
    After the flood they attempt to take credit for making an EQUAL WATER LEVEL.

    ReplyDelete
  32. uptownsteve9:02 AM

    CF,

    Why was immigration okay when the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free were primarily white but it's "ruining America" now?

    ReplyDelete
  33. uptownsteve9:12 AM

    "Marginalization and myths have always been about economic exploitation. White supremacy is not simply personal bigotry. It is the systematic exclusion, dehumanization, and erasure of the majority in order to preserve economic dominance for the wealthy minority. And while white men may be in most positions of wealth and power to this day, only a very few of them really benefit from our current economic system. White supremacy helped distract poor and working class whites from targeting their economic exploiters. White supremacy helped mask the lie of equal opportunity."

    BINGO!!

    CF (the white conservative's most loyal servant)loves to challenge black folks with "you keep voting Democratic and they have failed you" when the average middle to working class white has taken it in the ass from Republican party (movement conservatives) policies for 30 years yet they keep supporting them because they are convinced the GOP wil protect white folks.

    What I don't get is Republican negroes.

    That's sort of like a fish working the grill at Arthur Treacher's.

    ReplyDelete
  34. UnConn..... your lack of logic makes my brain hurt.... your thus therefore makes absolutely no sense! If you knew the history of Mexico prior to it being a state, you would know that Mexico had and still has a huge indigenous population and that Mexico, when it extended to Oklahoma was settled for CENTURIES by Indigenous and Mestizos. After the defeat of Mexico and at the declaration of Texas Independence, these same Mexicans were given the option of moving back into Mexico, giving up their land, but remaining Mexican citizens or staying on their lands and becoming Texans (this was before Texas was a state). Some made the choice to move and others stayed. For those that stayed, they were the ones that faced the Texas Rangers if their land happened to be in the sights of the land barons who wanted their lands to expand their ranches.

    This is the truth. Something that if we want to understand the complexities of who we are as a nation, as one nation, we must include and understand the stories of all people... not just the ones who tell the story to put them in their best lights....

    ReplyDelete
  35. fn:

    this is how obama is liek hitler:

    No sane person would ever equate homohatred and racism. No sane person would ever equate President Barack Obama/GWB 2.0 and Adolf Hitler. Likewise, no sane person would deny that many distinctions between Obama and Hitler are distinctions without differences.


    Obama is not a socialist. Those who call him a socialist do so only to distract us from his genocidal global script as a rabid and ruthless elitist.


    Obama is not an anti-Semite. His elitist puppeteers know that all wealth always trumps all racism by their own design.


    Obama has not murdered any Jews, blacks, or homosexuals in concentration camps (to date). But, Obama’s legendarily bilked trillions have financially slain millions of persons for decades to come. Obama has decimated poor blacks as never before. Yet, amazingly, poor blacks are his most suicidally loyal worshippers. Obama’s brazen serial betrayals against gay voters and his ongoing bromances with brutal gaybashers like hypochristian Rick Warren and homohating homosexual Donnie McClurkin have murdered the spirits of millions of homosexuals…


    In the tragic case of Obama, stark distinctions are politically insignificant differences! Our denials will never protect us. Obama is indeed petrifyingly similar to Hitler in many ways:


    Obama is blindly worshipped. Hitler was blindly worshipped even as he gassed Jews in ovens. Even as Americans are increasingly homeless, unemployed, and hungry, Obama is increasingly worshipped unconditionally. Obama has not saved one home or job. Yet, his adoring fans endlessly excuse every failure he botches and every blatant lie he tells.


    Obama is coddled and unchecked by all mainstream media. Hitler rigidly controlled media and fabricated truths as he implemented genocide and fiscal chaos. His fans that rule media have blatantly ignored truths about Obama. Truth is always the initial casualty of war. We who seek any truth about Obama lost the media war long ago.


    Obama’s fans are suicidally loyal clones of Nazis. No one dared to speak against Hitler without dire retributions. I am an afrocentric scholar who has dedicated my entire life to global African truths and social justice. Yet, I have received worse hate mail than Clarence Thomas or Michael Steele since I proudly voted for Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, Obama’s horrid antics to date have made each moronic missive and harassing incident become poetic justice.


    Most Americans are arrogantly ignorant and proudly illiterate. They know absolutely nothing about precisely how Hitler rose to the absolute power he abused via Nazism in Germany. If they knew Hitler’s history, they would never doubt the accuracy of many undeniable and valid comparisons to the affiliated ascensions of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.


    Hypocritically, Obama’a adoring fans never objected to Bush being called Hitler. Still, Obama is Bush 2.0. The New World Order is in progress. Obama is its new blackish face. Obama and his Nazis will continue to blur distinctions and differences each day...


    Your denial will never protect you. Your knowledge will. Study the similarities between Hitler and Obama here:

    ReplyDelete
  36. fn:

    i love this poetry u penned:

    "And while white men may be in most positions of wealth and power to this day, only a very few of them really benefit from our current economic system. White supremacy helped distract poor and working class whites from targeting their economic exploiters. White supremacy helped mask the lie of equal opportunity."

    this is exactly why blacks racists are suicidal as they cheer on obama ONLY due to his blackish mask

    what has obama done beside show his blackish face to garner such passionate loyalty????

    he is NOT even black
    he is bi-racial
    i will not erase and disrespect his stellar wf mom who reared him SOLO!!!

    i think his cool bohemian mom would be absolutely disgusted at the fully corp green sellout her bi-racial son has become

    what u penned is illustrated in an excellent movie (the chmaber) where rich whites keep the poor of all races battling as they dog them all:

    http://www.amazon.com/Chamber-Chris-ODonnell/dp/0783226942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1261062611&sr=1-1

    ReplyDelete
  37. fn:

    bill clinton was no saint

    he even did racist things via sista souljah/ricky rector/lani guinier/his own bi-racial son/his serial bf mistresses/his racist elitist crime bill etc...

    yet
    MOST people of all races lived well when he was in ofc...thus he was beloved

    if obama gave people jobs and homes he too would become as beloved

    bill clinton was adopted as an honorary bro by the very same black racists who instantly betrayed him and his wife when they dared to tell any truths about the blackish obama

    i could not care less what color obama is...i hate him for his bloody red deeds against the poor/gays etc!!!

    i hate him just as i hated his wm clone gwb...equally!!!

    ReplyDelete
  38. There will be race wars. The wealthy are the ones that will ignite it, like they usually do. But there will come a time when the "skinny man will be at the fat man's gate".

    There was a report out yesterday that the country will remain white majority about 7 years longer than earlier predicted because of the current change in immigration. The comments that came from some of the white folks were plain ignorant and hateful. There were some common sense ones, as well, but far fewer.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Good write-up, FN. I sort of relate it to Rock 'n Roll music and how it morphed over the years from so-called "race music" to the current tripe being played these days. The sad part is the folks continuing this process don't know they're the minstrels in this A-merry-can vaudeville act.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Anonymous10:38 AM

    AB said:


    he even did racist things via sista souljah/ricky rector/lani guinier/his own bi-racial son/his serial bf mistresses/his racist elitist crime bill etc...

    OMG. Clinton's biracial son??? CALL OUT THE PADDY WAGONS!!!

    You know, you are insane. And notice that no one responds to anything you say; that's why you just keep posting over and over again. To yourself.

    You're too stupid to realize that the biggest failing of Clinton's was his lack of funding for AIDS until way late in his presidency--which disportionately affects people of color. AND GAYS, whom you claim to represent.

    EARTH TO AB...

    ReplyDelete
  41. assnon/uts:

    you are an arrogantly ignorant blatant liar

    you are also dyslexic and an idiot

    i did not mention aids nor defend bill on that note
    so
    why did u?????

    and his son is ANCIENT news to millions in ar

    just like all of obama's IL dirt was cleaned up before he went to DC

    so was bubba's!

    see obama's main mistress:

    http://rightvoices.com/2008/10/12/an-affair-to-remember-obama-who-is-vera-baker-why-doesnt-michelle-like-her/

    see bubba's son & a few of his bf side pcs:

    http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/clintbon.htm

    ReplyDelete
  42. see more dirt on obama's renowned bisexuality in ar

    bubba betrayed gays as a het

    obama betrays us a a bi DL bro = worse!!!!!!

    http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:2hSh1DZ5zQcJ:obambi.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/obamaspenis/+obama+penis+larry&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

    ReplyDelete
  43. correction:

    see more dirt on obama's renowned bisexuality in IL..not ar

    see donald young videos:

    http:// aliciabanks.vox.com/library/videos/tags/murder/

    ReplyDelete
  44. uptownsteve10:46 AM

    I wonder what time she tutors inner city kids.

    ReplyDelete
  45. assnon/uts:

    millions of illiterate gullible fools like you refused to believe that old geezer klansman strom thurmond had a black daughter for decades too

    he hid her even better than bill is hiding his son allegedly at pvt boarding schools in va

    http://www.blackcommentator.com/21_re_print.html

    ReplyDelete
  46. uts/assnon:

    i wonder if you pretending to fret over my personal schedules will mask the fact that you were just too inept to even post as assnon

    huh?

    how is my daily mutli tasking relevant to the fact that you are in deep denial about obama and bill???

    ps

    i also despise obama as a married bi cheater on the DL who dares to deny my wife and i equal marital rights!!!

    fyi

    ReplyDelete
  47. uptownsteve10:54 AM

    AB

    "millions of illiterate gullible fools like you refused to believe that old geezer klansman strom thurmond had a black daughter for decades too"

    Nah actually I had been hearing that all my life.

    My paternal grandparents were from Edgefield, SC (Thurmond's home) and the rumors had swirled for years.

    The white media never ran with it.

    ReplyDelete
  48. uts:

    so why did u bust your silly self posting as assnon and feign denial then?...

    spare me your perpetually dishonest bs!

    ReplyDelete
  49. the white media has "not run with"

    DROVES OF chi town dirt on obama

    from murders to mistresses!!!

    even post DC

    http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1919195,jody-weis-michael-scott-suicide-120309.article

    ReplyDelete
  50. the media have not run with LOTS on obama

    yes
    ALL politicos get this a lot

    but gwb and his cousin obama have taken this truth to new hts since
    2000

    they will do so until 2016

    and the worst is yet to come

    obama's BEST bogus pr will be re: africom

    ReplyDelete
  51. uptownsteve11:11 AM

    "so why did u bust your silly self posting as assnon and feign denial then?..."

    Wha?

    ReplyDelete
  52. uts:

    stop playing

    you are a repulsive brazen lying cowardly dog....

    not even man enough to admit that you are too foolish to mask your MO when u post as assnon...

    pathetic!

    ReplyDelete
  53. Anonymous11:37 AM

    CF,

    Why was immigration okay when the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free were primarily white but it's "ruining America" now?



    Italians, Irish, German etc. were not seen as white when they first came here. That was a prime mover behind the "second Klan" of the 1920's-they opposed immigration, even though it was European immigration.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Anonymous11:40 AM

    That explains why poor whites are easily duped into taking their frustrations out on blacks, instead of banding together to bring down the wealthy elite and affect genuine change.


    Multi-racial societies DO NOT WORK. Why do you think it's so easy to divide people based on race and ethnicity? Because it's natural for people to side with those who look similar to themselves and who share a culture.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Anonymous11:44 AM

    I am not UTS.

    You posted about how beloved Clinton was and left out his biggest failing. I know, I know, expect logic from AB?

    NOT.

    Of COURSE, your post devolves into saying Obama is bi.

    What I wonder, Steve, is if the meds kick in at all.
    Probably not, because she's only tutoring the voices in her head.

    ReplyDelete
  56. ASSNON UTS:

    YOU ARE OFF ON YOUR USUAL TANGENT

    I NOTED BILL'S RACISM BEFORE YOU DID

    WE ARE NOT DISCUSSING AIDS

    AND YOU ARE FOOLING NO ONE!!!!

    EVEN WHEN YOU LIE IN STEREO AS YOU TALK TO "STEVE" AS ASSNON...HA!!!

    BUT

    ON AIDS:

    AT LEAST BUBBA NEVER DENIED IT WAS BIO WAR AS THE BLACKISH OBAMA DOES INCESSANTLY!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  57. see the truths aboutd aids that all politicos evade

    especially obama and his brazen constant denials that aids is indeed bio war

    http://www.boydgraves.com/

    yet another reason obama deserves NO adoration from blacks!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  58. uptownsteve11:55 AM

    "Italians, Irish, German etc. were not seen as white when they first came here."

    But they became white mighty quick, didn't they?

    Were they subject to Jim Crow?

    But you still haven't answered the question.

    Outisde of extremists like the Klan, European immigration was welcomed, even encouraged by most Americans.

    Now immigration is considered a bad word, at least by Republicans.

    Why is that?

    ReplyDelete
  59. DITTO!!! Uptown my internet Hero..Happy Holidays!!

    ReplyDelete
  60. Anonymous12:07 PM

    Why is that?

    You say the Klan was an extremist group but millions belonged to it in the 1920s. the Klan controlled whole counties in places like Ohio and even the state government of Indiana. Their platform at the time was anti European immigration, anti-catholicism and anti-unionism.

    Immigrants from that period had a very hard time adapting. The American La Cosa Nostra evolved from italians seeking an entranceway (albeit an illegal one) into a business world they were not allowed into. Immigrants were also expected to assimilate. Stop speaking your native tounge; never fly a foreign flag; change your foreign surname. None of those things are expected of today's immigrants.

    Blacks are a special exception. They have always been seen as the least able group in this country. Not just this country either.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Great post!

    Yes, they do have to keep the myth alive or they would never get any votes from the morons, who I fear may be a emerging majority in America. It's sickening.
    There will never, ever be economic equality. Not even close. They must keep us down, low paid for hard work or else they wouldn't become rich, influential and powerful.
    At least before dumb ass Reagan came up with the myth of the welfare queen, there was at least a small safety net. Even if the Democrats wanted to help us poor folks out, could you even imagine the coniption fits the tea baggin bitches and rethugs would have? They don't even want affordable health care for themselves!
    I think that Bush/Cheney/Reagan/Rove/Atwater have dumbed down America as much as humanly possible. I don't know how they could take Christ's lifes teachings and turn people the exact opposite while calling themselves Christians.
    I think the end of Democracy in this country is close. Hell, it really isn't Democracy now. It's fuckin Capitolism and really has always been. But it used to be a little bit kinder.

    ReplyDelete
  62. uptownsteve12:15 PM

    Greg Thrasher,

    Please email me later.

    I lost your number.

    vaughnfair@aol.com

    ReplyDelete
  63. uptownsteve12:17 PM

    "Blacks are a special exception. They have always been seen as the least able group in this country. Not just this country either."

    Yeah, right.

    I guess that's why they spent two centuries bringing us over here to do the fuckin work.

    Not real bright, are ya?

    ReplyDelete
  64. uts:

    notice how none of the fiery defenses by you lethally loyal obama nazis do anything to warm that icy chill in our winds????

    "The nation bleeds but we seem to have a president for whom emotion is notional. Obama had to insist to Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes last week that his carefully parsed West Point speech about the surge was actually “the most emotional speech that I’ve made in terms of how I felt about it.” We liked Obama’s low temperature on the campaign trail, but now life is grim and, baby, it’s cold out there. The glaciers are melting, the deserts expanding, the seas rising, even the ice and snow at the North Pole disappearing but most people are frightened of something more horribly local—the loss of their job. Santa Claus is drowning in the cold dark water alongside the polar bears."

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-16/the-tiger-binge/?cid=hp:mainpromo6

    ReplyDelete
  65. Anonymous12:22 PM

    I guess that's why they spent two centuries bringing us over here to do the fuckin work.

    Not real bright, are ya?

    Steve,

    You don't need to be bright to do manual labor. Most slaves brought here could neither read nor write. In fact, they mostly came for cultures with no written language.

    Don't conflate the historical view of blacks in this country with my opinion. I'm just telling you what we both already know: Every group that comes to America ends up looking down on African Americans. That's the sad truth of it.

    ReplyDelete
  66. uptownsteve12:29 PM

    "Stop speaking your native tounge; never fly a foreign flag; change your foreign surname."

    You're a complete moron.

    Eastern and Southern Europeans were required to change their surnames.

    Go to Italian and Polish neighborhoods in any major city and you'll see Italian and Polish flags everywhere.

    Many of the older folks still the language of the old country.

    Immigration is an issue today because the preponderance of the new immigrants are brown and black.

    ReplyDelete
  67. uptownsteve12:34 PM

    "You don't need to be bright to do manual labor. Most slaves brought here could neither read nor write. In fact, they mostly came for cultures with no written language."

    You really are dumb, aren't ya?

    Read your history.

    Those 'necks down in the Carolinas would have starved during the 17th century had the Gambian and Sierra Leone slaves not taught them how to plant and farm rice.

    "Every group that comes to America ends up looking down on African Americans. That's the sad truth of it."

    puh-leeze.

    People call me "sir" everywhere I go regardless of race.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Anonymous12:40 PM

    Immigration is an issue today because the preponderance of the new immigrants are brown and black.

    You don't know much about the history of the late progressive era do you? Most of the labor unions of this country were built by European immigrants who lived in appalling circumstances. They died in large numbers in industry; they had short life expectancies; they lived in clustered "ethnic" neighborhoods where native born whites would never venture. To the native whites of that day, southern and central Europeans were dark or "swarthy" as they called it. There was no "European American" as there is today. Even the concept of a white person was different than it is now.

    Secondly, many of the brown folks who are coming here today come from countries with strong anti-black history. This is especially true of Mexico, which proudly places black face characters on its stamps. Remember what Vicente Fox said: "Mexican immigrants are doing jobs " are doing the jobs that even blacks in the US won't do."

    ReplyDelete
  69. Anonymous12:44 PM

    btw,

    I never said that white didn't learn anything from black slaves. I merely said that they had no written tradition and were not literate. Secondly, the fact that those "necks" learned things from blacks didn't keep them from looking down on them, did they? Perhaps a bond could have been forged between those groups; however, calls for loyalty based on skin color trumped any other considerations.

    ReplyDelete
  70. [quote]Why was immigration okay when the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free were primarily white but it's "ruining America" now?[/quote]

    Steve - One day in your future when your THEORIES are the primary agent defining your existence YOU will have your current disposition forcibly stripped from your body.

    AT THAT POINT IN TIME you will no longer be able to hide behind your "Permanent Chase" milieu and instead you will have to step off of your high horse of IDEOLOGICAL MORAL SUPREMACY. This is because the very system that ABSTRACTS your theories from your REALITIES will be gone. You will then be forced to develop a base of theories that actually WORK. Protecting your family and putting food on your table.

    [quote]CF (the white conservative's most loyal servant)loves to challenge black folks with "you keep voting Democratic and they have failed you" when the average middle to working class white has taken it in the ass from Republican party (movement conservatives) policies for 30 years yet they keep supporting them because they are convinced the GOP wil protect white folks.[/quote]

    WhiteBowieSteve: Check out MSN.com where they talk about how RUST BELT CITIES have it worse in this economic period. Are these REPUBLICAN STRONGHOLDS or UNION towns?

    I assure you that no White Conservative sees me as a TOOL for their purposes. The only people who see me as a threat are the Black Progressive-Fundamentalists who I dare to see as the ESTABLISHMENT and thus force them to own up to their INCUMBENT POSITION and actually deliver upon their promises.

    There are no PORTRAITS of elected officials for me to worship in my house. What about YOU?

    Well Jody - full disclosure. I do have a painting of the "Buffalo Soldiers". These were the all Black regimen who FOUGHT the Native Americans and "stole their land" while wearing the uniform of America.

    Did you know that future-President Roosevelt deployed them to Cuba to fight the Spanish. The Buffalo Solders went through the Cuban forests making loud noises with their "WAR CHANTS". They learned that this ambush sound made their numbers seem larger than they actually were, causing the Spanish enemy to retreat.

    Jody - can you tell me WHERE AND WHO THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS learned this "War Chant" from?

    White Bowie Steve: Where the Buffalo Soldiers "Sellouts", working for "Massa"?

    ReplyDelete
  71. uptownsteve12:58 PM

    CF

    Steve - One day in your future when your THEORIES are the primary agent defining your existence YOU will have your current disposition forcibly stripped from your body."

    Thank God the primary agent defining my existence isn't kissin white ass.

    ReplyDelete
  72. uptownsteve1:09 PM

    CF

    "The only people who see me as a threat are the Black Progressive-Fundamentalists who I dare to see as the ESTABLISHMENT and thus force them to own up to their INCUMBENT POSITION and actually deliver upon their promises."

    That's your delusion.

    You're no threat.

    Where's your consituency?

    Blacks reject you and whites laugh at you as soon as you leave the room.

    Your basic premise, the black America is in a state of dysfunction and dependency because it continues to support the "failed policies of liberalism", is a false one that will never embraced by black America.

    Number two. Your a piss-poor salesman.

    If black conservatives were sincere about reaching the black community then they would be trying to woo us with their ideas and solutions.

    Instead you stand grinning in front of a sea of racist white folks like a fly in the buttermilk (See Alan West on Fox last night) wagging your finger at blacks and telling us how stupid we are.

    How's that been working for y'all?

    See any increase in black converts to conservatism?

    Nah CS, despite your delusions of grandeur, you and others like Parks, Steele and Elder are just race hustlers who would probabaly be parking cars for a living were it not for your artfulness in regurgitating white resentment in blackface.

    ReplyDelete
  73. A Person of Interest1:12 PM

    Hi Alicia! I just stopped by to wish you & yo big ole' behind a Merry Christmas!

    Your pal, APOI

    ReplyDelete
  74. [quote]Thank God the primary agent defining my existence isn't kissin white ass.[/quote]

    How so Steve? Please explain?
    Why is it that when I see various Black leaders go onto Democracy Now - with the various leftwing hosts - they are in total agreement? WHY is it that a Black person who agrees with Hannity is "against Black interests" and a White Butt kisser BUT a person who agrees with Snarling Fox White Leftists is a HERO OF THE RACE?

    Name the number of White Republican Conservatives who get away with threatening to kill Black people on commercial communication sources? Then I'll play the last few songs from Democrats - Young Jeezy or TI and ask you to tell me how THEY get away with doing the same?

    [quote]Where's your consituency?
    [/quote]

    They should be getting home from school in about 1:5 hours.

    [quote]
    Blacks reject you and whites laugh at you as soon as you leave the room.
    [/quote]

    Hummmm
    Of these Blacks that "reject me" and my views - can you argue that they are CONTENT with the results of the people who prove more POPULAR to their present tastes?

    [quote] just race hustlers who would probabaly be parking cars for a living were it not for your artfulness in regurgitating white resentment in blackface.[/quote]

    And could you tell me what the lower 50% of graduates from the Baltimore City schools are qualified to do? Then tell me WHY this is not a point of protest for you?

    Or is it because its not happening in Bowie?

    ReplyDelete
  75. uptownsteve1:36 PM

    CF

    Were you Mayor of Baltimore what specifically would you as a conservative do to improve the schools system?

    I'm all ears.

    Watch people.

    He'll either rant or divert but he won't answer the question.

    ReplyDelete
  76. apoi:

    where is your own christmas photo you fat fool?

    notice how tiger's wife's flat thin behind made him no less of a huge sexist mangy germy pig whore than you?

    happy follydays you sexist troll!

    ReplyDelete
  77. apoi:

    why is it always fat gruesome men like you and that lard assed rush limbaugh who are always calling women fat???

    and never lean sexy gods like blair underwood and brad pitt???

    you are too fat to even show your swollen ugly mug here

    ReplyDelete
  78. Anonymous1:56 PM

    Wow, Field... A thought-provoking post from you...finally. Some of the responses, however...I dunno...
    Sometimes I think that we people of color here exchanged some of our cultural foundation for the sake of "integrating/assimilating". And we have been scrambling ever since to create the icons; persons with whom WE can identify and look up to.
    I'm afraid we do indeed live in "the belly of the beast" that is going through its death throes. Woe the day when the tables are turned; I doubt peoples of color will subject the descendants of the 'founding peoples' and their 'cowboy heroes'to the horrors of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and smack-mouth exploitation.
    "Be careful what you wish for...", someone once said. I'm afraid that if tomorrow we had a perfect economy, our enjoyment would be bittersweet...because the fundamentals of our society and culture rest heavily on the necks and backs of someone else. Someone's labor must be exploited; someone somewhere would have to suffer.
    And you are correct: No matter how destitute and poor; no matter how toothless and in-bred; no matter how ignorant - they (ALL Euro-Americans) have always been able to congratulate themselves... "Well, at least I ain't no ni...er."
    MLK once said, "The moral arc of the universe is great; but, ultimately, it bends toward justice..." I don't know if I want to be here when that righteous 'justice' arrives.
    Thanks, G. Flash

    ReplyDelete
  79. mellaneous2:19 PM

    Uptown the "Anonymous" poster is right about immigration and the discrimination that many swarthy looking Europeans experienced in the 19th and early 20th century. Its in the history books. Italians were forced into mining and the dirtiest and most dangerous mining jobs and so were the Irish. In major cities with packing houses, newly arrived immigrants had the worse jobs, sometimes worse than black folks but definitely doing the work that was reserved for black folks. I believe John Steinback wrote a novel about the packing house abuse of immigrant workers.

    However the Irish were so badly mistreated that they should have never bought into political "whiteness." In fact many of their revolutionary fellows spoke out against slavery until it was decided that the Irish had a better chance of survival in the US by casting their lot with white folks.There is a book by Noel Ignatiev "How the Irish became white" in it the author explains why folks running from an oppressive situation in their own land would turn around and side with the oppressor in another. This is a must read folks. And David Roediger (check the spelling)wrote a book about the same phenomenom in a broader sense in "Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the suburbs" Its deep check it out.

    I would agree with your point about why immigration is opposed with such fervor these days.They, that is many white Americans don't really like what they look like. And Lord help us but some of our good old Negroes are starting to develop anti-immigrant attitudes as well. Help us Lord! And of course its good old American ignorance that makes folks not want to appreciate and respect different cultures and languages etc.

    On a different note.
    Oddly I think I am beginning to understand a little of where unconstructive feedback is coming from, but I don't agree with his analysis either. He too does what he accuses Field and you of doing and that is spending time lamenting the problem. But he does so because though many Democratic politicians have clearly not gotten the job done, the conservatives have not fought on behalf of working people either and definitely not people of color. In fact that is why they are called conservatives they are trying to "conserve" the status quo and thus their economic advantage. There is nothing egalitarian about his message because he proposes organizing with the disease of racism, materialism, militarism still intact.

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  80. In America, hatred of Blacks has always been a substitute for class division, Racism has always been used to bamboozle white underclasses into believing we are a classless society, a view promoted by the wealthy classes, who most certain DO believe in the class system, & defending their interests. The destruction of labor unionism coincided with the integration of Blacks (& women) into manufacturing & trade unions that were formerly for white males. In addition, poor people are characterized as "failed capitalists," which denies their inherent dignity as human beings. Movements to encourage this dignity are either ignored or, when they show signs of success, violently attacked.

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  81. uptownsteve2:56 PM

    mellaneus

    Were Eastern and Southern Europeans subject to Jim Crow?

    Bob

    Good post.

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  82. Diogenes3:21 PM

    White American racial myths are beyond counting. Every fabric of American society is woven from the tattered strands of some well worn racial myth. Before the heroic white cowboy myths, there was the broken but unbowed heroic white rebel officer returning home to defend his pure steadfast women from the brutal raping and rampaging Negro men in the old hollywood hit movie, Birth of a Nation.

    After years of listening to black folks as they struggled to comprehend the relentless racial war perpetuated on them by white people I decided to record my own observation on this 300 year old problem known as American racism. It's a 22 page trip titled "American Racism Dissected" and my goal is to get it into the academic environment on African American studies. (Some post graduate help in expanding a few of the NEW concepts would be very welcome.) Field, I would be happy to send you a copy, if I had your email address. Drop me a note if you're interested at archivist@holyaslars.org

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  83. Anonymous3:26 PM

    No matter how poor or exploited white people were, they could always take subconscious comfort in the fact that, when they looked at the highest power in the land, they saw an idealized version of themselves.

    That explains why poor whites are easily duped into taking their frustrations out on blacks, instead of banding together to bring down the wealthy elite and affect genuine change.


    PREACH!!!

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  84. Anonymous3:27 PM

    No matter how poor or exploited white people were, they could always take subconscious comfort in the fact that, when they looked at the highest power in the land, they saw an idealized version of themselves.

    That explains why poor whites are easily duped into taking their frustrations out on blacks, instead of banding together to bring down the wealthy elite and affect genuine change.


    PREACH!!!

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  85. DuchessDee3:51 PM

    I hope for my children's sake that its not a myth. We All want the dream of land ownership, money in the bank and a great vacation.

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  86. Thanks for the post and all the comments.

    Yes. I believe that there are many people who can never be happy with this president, no matter his policies. But I also believe that there is no policy from above that will resolve our fundamental problems for us.

    A perfect economic climate has never existed, and probably cannot exist. A more just economy is possible, but only if those of us who aren't Goldman Sachs bankers work together to destroy the hierarchy and privilege that keeps our economy so unjust.

    The process of building the relationships and alternatives together is where the opportunity is. But we have to be participants in the process. And by that I mean real participants, not people who just vote occasionally and hope their "representatives" represent.

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  87. I define my american dreams not others certainly not white americans..

    Now I will admit such an undertaking required me to distant a part of me from the common culture and even parts of the hood..

    Whenever a person seeks to define his own orbit, values, mores, goals etc and does not incorporate the existing norms such a person will be confronted with a number of challenges including self doubt..

    It is never easy to create a new trail..

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  88. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  89. Excellent posting there, Field. I think there are all kinds of people who have never been accepted as "real Americans."

    The core mythology centers on the all-white small town. Those people, or at least those among them who are middle and upper class, white, Christian, politically conservative, and heterosexual, are "real Americans." Everyone else, to one degree or another, is a criminal suspect.

    Every society is held together by its mythology, so it's not any surprise that we'd have our myths. I think the one you've identified is going to be with us for a very long time to come.

    I also think that, in the long run, the key is to alter or replace the myth, rather than to just attack it. There are plenty of substitutes out there, among them, "E Pluribus Unum."

    What's a real killer is that most of the white yahoos who turn the myth into a weapon don't realize that they're just as excluded from the myth as anyone else, because in that mythology everyone has a good job, a decent income, and a fair shot in life.

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  90. Anonymous4:24 PM

    No matter what your race, the dream shouldn't be for one of wealth and personal advancement.

    It should be to help those less fortunate than yourself, and especially now as the seas are rising, to save the planet for future generalizations.

    Please don't buy into the dream of materialism and consumerism!

    Work instead for a peaceful, sustainable world.

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  91. Greg L5:27 PM

    >>>No matter what your race, the dream shouldn't be for one of wealth and personal advancement.<<<<<

    Do you think the folks like the Amish are having a problem with the financial crisis now? It seems to me that anyone who knows how to reduce their desires for material things and who has been living that way has no problem whatsoever.

    It is the headlong race into personal advancement and wealth that have created many of the problems we've encountered. We've been indoctrinated into the idea that we have to grow grow grow our income, our sales, our profits and our wealth. When one can arrive at the point where they have enough or limit what exactly their desires are, that's when they're able to jump off the treadmill.

    That's what I intend to do. It's not that I'm not goal oriented and driven, but different stuff is important to me at this point of time in my life. Money is only a resource but not the "end" in and of itself.

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  92. Greg L5:35 PM

    >>>>There is nothing egalitarian about his message because he proposes organizing with the disease of racism, materialism, militarism still intact.<<<<<<

    I'm not reading this into to CF's position at all. I've not seen where he's expressed that any of this is what the African-American community should pursue or support. I read CF as saying that we are responsible for the future direction of our community and we're also responsible where it stands economically, politically and socially today.

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  93. Anonymous5:43 PM

    coffee and cigarettes said

    you dumbass healthcare is a right.

    No its Not you dumbass!!

    Tell me how and who gave you that right and why do you even think you have it!!!!Everything else I wrote,must have missed that,except
    the muslim didn't cut off all the dicks!ha.How come all those other people made it back in the 1800's

    Oh yeah and Whitey panicking! FY
    Don't even lets yourself fall for
    that shit.No whitey just tired of
    paying for the poor black, white or brown dumbasses and you think your owed somethink.well my momma was a whore and my daddy pappa was
    a rolling stone!I didn't study at school cause I didn't want to be
    like no whitey (hmm what did bill cosby have to say about that)If thats the case Obama should be shooting up in some crack house.then black and brown all brothers right.Go to LA and walk youreslf into a mexican neighborhood.dumbass !
    What that obama responsibility
    speech!!Your gonna work,where he tells you.The green jobs are going to prisoners.You want a good job better hurry and get your ass in jail.Ha. Wake up! if poor whitey bitching,what ever comming ain't gonna be good.You think your poor now,you ain'tseen nothing yet.

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  94. [quote]Were you Mayor of Baltimore what specifically would you as a conservative do to improve the schools system?[/quote]

    Steve - everyone realizes that it is ultimately a waste of time debating with you.

    But just for grins - DO YOU RECALL ANYONE ASKING THE MAYOR (and School Board) of Balimore this same question BEFORE they voted for them?

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  95. greg:

    i agree re affluenza

    but

    i am a person who hates to spend money...i never live above my means and i am a bohemian at heart

    but
    america has become so brutal that even basic living wages and modest affordable homes and apts are rare!...the cost of a basic existence in america is soaring daily!

    all who are not really rich...ie earning 200k+ per yr in an avg family are really hurting/one check/layoff away from chaos etc

    i am blessed
    but i feel poorer daily
    and i have felt that way since 2004
    2009 has felt worse than ever
    i fear 2010

    most americans are not rich
    and it is a shame that we must be rich just to exist!
    ie
    i do not think anyone should have to pay for water etc...yet we all must!

    even basic utils are soaring!

    the gaps between the rich and the avg are gaping more each day under obama!

    http://higley1000.com/archives/44

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  96. more on the income gaps:

    http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/28/real_estate/wealthiest_states/

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  97. more on living wages

    http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/

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  98. Greg L6:02 PM

    Alicia,

    I'm feeling you and yes, we've got a very serious problem. 2010-11 is when the shit really hits the fan. The financial crisis is not over by a long shot and high unemployment will be simply a structural feature of the new economic paradigm.

    The only option is self sufficiency in as many aspects as one can get.

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  99. ditto gl

    that is why i run/own 2 of my 4 jobs as indies...

    have you heard that the next wave of foreclosures will leave even the rich homeless?

    and how they are torching their homes in advance to reap the insurance cash?

    and how the dotted wreckage will decrease the value of their affluent peers?

    shame!!!!

    their will be tea parties in malibu in 2010!

    and maybe even FINALLY in the hoods where they should have jummped off!!!

    http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/coming-a-3rd-wave-of-foreclosures.aspx

    http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4271175&page=1

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  100. @alicia, a couple things.

    First off, people in that "third wave" that the MSN article mentions are not "rich." They are people who acted as if they were rich, when in fact they are in debt to their eyeballs.

    Secondly, you need to remember that it's a big country out there. At any point in time, there will be serious problems somewhere, but it's always hazardous to overgeneralize.

    I'd compare to the drought stories that you'll see on TV from time to time. They'll drag a camera crew to some farm and show cracked ground as visual confirmation of how horrible the drought is. What they don't tell you is that the corner of that farm is always dry, even in normal times, and makes for a great photo-op whenever rain is sparse.

    Third, you always need to watch out when relying on people who have made their bones on a particular call, whether it be optimistic or pessimistic. They tend to be one-note people in either direction. The MSN story quoted "perma-bears" only.

    Fourth, always keep in mind that the media doesn't know its collective ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to the economy. They aren't the brightest bulbs on the porch; they are overworked as hell; many of them are lazy and depressed; and at the end of the day, they are in business to tell people what they want to hear.

    The really smart people in the financial world are those who see what others don't see. The value of any accurate investment call exists in inverse proportion to the number of people who believe it at the time.

    Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not optimistic. I think we're in for a decade-long rolling depression. But if you're expecting an outright collapse, I think you'll die waiting for it. It's not going to be that clear cut.

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  101. Anonymous6:36 PM

    AB--for God's sake: EVERYTHING IS NOT ABOUT YOU.

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  102. grinder:

    you sound precisely like rush limbaugh as he blames poor people for redlining and realtors' tiny printed entrapments

    i will remind you that i told you so asap...ok?

    i am amazed at how popular blaming the victims has become just to evade blaming obama in all arenas for all of his sins

    fyi:

    rich people have been laid off
    in droves...THAT is why they are being evicted for 6+ mos late mortgage payments etc

    there are no jobs to replace those lucrative salaries they have lost

    ___

    assnon/uts:

    your moronic distractions will never add to the discourse herein

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  103. you sound precisely like rush limbaugh as he blames poor people for redlining and realtors' tiny printed entrapments

    Hoo boy are you ever wrong about that. Trust me (or not, which you don't), if someone was ever dumb enough to make me the emperor, half of Wall Street would be in jail.

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  104. ditto grinder

    but to blame anyone for their own layoff and resultant defaulted mortgage is classic rush-like brutality

    fyi

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  105. i despise rush

    and all who channel him...

    "If talk radio seems dominated by clones of Rush Limbaugh, Alicia Banks is the answer...Her fans revere her...The creator of two immensely popular radio programs, Banks has her finger on the pulse of American culture. There's a growing hunger for her message..." VICTORY MAGAZINE 1/1996

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  106. Anonymous7:52 PM

    I am not UTS and I posted about not being acquisitive. Your idea of "discourse," AB, is simply listening to the sound of your own words.

    You are the definition of a narcissist.

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  107. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  108. assnon:

    i am in good company with many fellow narcissists herein who ALWAYS speak about their own bios/lives PRECISELY as i do then...

    so why is it ONLY my personal bio that vexes you so??????
    &

    have anything to say about the topic??????

    or will you just selectively police and harp about me??????

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  109. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  110. to blame anyone for their own layoff and resultant defaulted mortgage is classic rush-like brutality

    I didn't do that. All I wrote was that such people were never "rich," as you termed them. To be rich is to have a highly positive net financial worth. Someone who is "rich" wouldn't lose his house as a consequence of losing his job.

    You are confusing income and wealth. A lot of people do it, so welcome to the club. I don't blame people who are laid off. Generally speaking, I sympathize with them, especially given that I directly know what it's like to be laid off.

    I blame lenders for having lent so liberally in this decade. There is abundant evidence that traditional lending standards were simply abandoned. What really gets to me is that the banks responsible for doing that were bailed out because to do anything else would have meant a financial collapse and a return to 1932.

    That is where the punishment comes in. Believe me, as someone with a financial industry background, I know where a lot of the bodies are buried. If I were in control, they'd have hit squads out for my ass because I'd be such a hard-ass that I'd even shock you.

    As far as blaming people for their own mortgage default goes, that's a mixed bag. It really depends on their particular situation. Those situations vary so much that it's impossible to comment in any kind of detail.

    If there's one thing I'd say, it's this: No one should keep paying an unaffordable mortgage out of a sense of obligation to the lender. If you've got a $300,000 loan on a house that's worth $150,000 then mail the keys to the bank, walk away, and don't look back.

    The bank never should have made that stupid loan. Someone got paid to make it, and someone way high up took home a whopping executive bonus for setting up incentives for making a whole lot of stupid loans. No one should feel an ounce of obligation to any bank if they are under water on their mortgage. WALK AWAY.

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  111. Greg L:It is the headlong race into personal advancement and wealth that have created many of the problems we've encountered. We've been indoctrinated into the idea that we have to grow grow grow our income, our sales, our profits and our wealth. When one can arrive at the point where they have enough or limit what exactly their desires are, that's when they're able to jump off the treadmill.

    That's what I intend to do. It's not that I'm not goal oriented and driven, but different stuff is important to me at this point of time in my life. Money is only a resource but not the "end" in and of itself.
    _____________
    I agree with you here, and it's so sad when people strive to advance themselves rather than look to satisfaction and achievement. Everybody wants the same things, a decent place to live and raise our kids, (and health insurance) but how much do we really need?
    My own idea for a long time now is that the consumption society that we base our economy on is toxic, to our hearts, souls, even the environment. Thanks for reminding me of that.

    And FN, thanks for this post!

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  112. grinder:

    scan up

    200+k was clearly my litmus

    semantics are irrelevant when MOST people are making far less than a 10th of that!

    split hairs all u wish

    still, all are moot points when 2% of the richest on the planet own 50% of its wealth...

    http://istealyourmoney.com/wealth-distribution-poverty-riches.html

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  113. grinder:

    hindsight is 20/20

    especially POST realtor scams/adjustable mortgage spikes etc

    http://prm-1.newsvine.com/_news/2009/12/04/3590856-usa-10-million-homes-worth-less-than-owed-to-the-lender

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  114. I agree with you here, and it's so sad when people strive to advance themselves rather than look to satisfaction and achievement. Everybody wants the same things, a decent place to live and raise our kids, (and health insurance) but how much do we really need?

    My own idea for a long time now is that the consumption society that we base our economy on is toxic, to our hearts, souls, even the environment.


    I think people get to make those decisions for themselves. No one has a gun pointed at them and told to consume or accumulate. People do that because they want to. The question is who is enabling this crap, and why.

    My issue is with the encouragement to live beyond one's means. Look, if you make $35,000 a year and have no savings, don't sit there and think you're going to go out and "buy" a $200,000 house with someone else's money.

    And if you're a financial institution, at least if I ran the show there'd be hell to pay if you granted that loan. That's the sort of thing that was going on, and worse. You had people buying two and three and four houses at a time, sight unseen, bankrolled by mortgage lenders who knew they could just package those bad loans into bonds and sell 'em off because the buyers knew the government would guarantee 'em if the shit hit the fan.

    All the high-toned stuff about not consuming is fine and dandy, but my background says to look at the boring shit like lending standards. All of which were simply abandoned.

    And it's not just mortgages. It's also car loans and credit cards. Do you know that the average person has a $10,000 credit card balance? Those high interest rates are what allow the banks to shovel out credit cards to anyone with a pulse. If the rates are cut (which I think they should be), then the flip side will be lower credit limits and fewer credit cards.

    Here's how it works. If you charge 5% interest, it takes 20 loans to make up for one loan gone bad. If you charge 20% interest, it takes five loans to make up for one gone bad. That's the simple math. So, if you cut credit card rates, then the banks will have to pay attention to credit ratings again.

    Car loans are another one. I would prohibit "cash back" deals, because they are invitations to loan fraud. People "buy" a car for the cash they get with it, then default on the loan.

    Now, you need to be aware of something, which is that nothing happens without a tradeoff. Everything I'm suggesting would dramatically reduce credit and consumption, so you'd get your wish of a lower-consumption society.

    But it would come exclusively from the lower end. All of this would put the income inequalities in society in much sharper relief, because people would no longer be able to pretend that they were rich, because they simply wouldn't have the mechanism. (Oh, and by the way, I'd crack down like a ton of bricks on the payday lenders and check cashing outfits, too.)

    I wonder if people are really prepared for the result. You'd have a whole lot of people being forced to realize that, in reality, they are not "middle class," but "working class" or even "poor." Maybe no big surprise to a lot of black folks, but I can foresee one hell of a psychic dislocation among whites who've been living an illusion.

    You don't want consumption? Be careful what you wish for. I'm okay with it, because I think we've hit the end of the trail anyhow. But if you think this will be all warm 'n fuzzy and New Age about having greater meaning in our lives, you'd better think again 'cause that's NOT how it will play out.

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  115. hindsight is 20/20

    especially POST realtor scams/adjustable mortgage spikes etc


    You don't know me in real life. I was pointing out all of this shit on the way up. Wore out my vocal cords doing it, in fact. But I didn't have an ounce of power to stop it. A lot of people were saying things on the way up, and were simply ignored.

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  116. [quote]more on living wages[/quote]

    Alicia:

    With regard to the Living Wages index, I have a question for you:

    Do you place any onus upon the couple who will ultimately bear children to make note of their INCOME and tune their child production in alignment with their INCOME?

    [quote]you sound precisely like rush limbaugh as he blames poor people for redlining and realtors' tiny printed entrapments[/quote]

    Alicia:

    There is a documentary called "American Casino". While its original intent is to go after the bank and financiers that are popularly blamed for the economic situation - it ironically proves to be an indictment OF EVERYONE.

    My view Alicia is that the same type of greed that is seen on Wall Street is ALSO within those of us in the "rank and file".

    "Redlining" of today is merely a product of the risk management which says that a particular area has a certain home value and, on average, people with a given income profile. They fall into the range of "too risky" to transact business with and thus were passed over. (I am fully acknowledging that in the past "redlining" was straight up RACE based).

    Ironically many of the esoteric financial instruments ("no income verification loans", "credit default swaps" etc) where adopted/over used in the context of the call for "expanded home ownership".

    Credit Default Swaps and the "Secondary Mortgage Market" (bundling mortgages from underwriters and selling them as bundles to others) were mean to SPREAD THE RISK that was intrinsic among the communities that you are speaking of.

    This afforded originating banks who previously had to sit on a loan for 30 years to LOWER their lending standards because they knew they could sell the risk to others.

    The "No Income Verification Loans" were originally a legitimate loan product for people on commission or those who lived with "feast and famine". Unfortunately they became misused by mortgage brokers and accepted by underwriters for people who never should have been allowed.

    The documentary actually made an indictment of EVERYONE -including the home owner.

    After seeing the small houses below the Atlanta airport selling for $60K I had believed that the home ownership drive by Bush was sound. I now realize that SOME PEOPLE DON'T NEED TO BE HOMEOWNERS.

    Some people who can't even maintain a 3 year rental lease have no business in a 30 year contract for home ownership.

    I think that now some of the protesters against Redlining now need to be a bit more honest about the give and take of the entire issue.

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  117. Greg L9:41 PM

    >>>>My own idea for a long time now is that the consumption society that we base our economy on is toxic, to our hearts, souls, even the environment. Thanks for reminding me of that.<<<<<

    You're right. The consumption based economy is toxic and at the root of it is the love of money and things. Many have lost their way owing to that alone.

    I have a theory about how the consumption based economy came about.

    Our behavior is often shaped to match what the oligarchs need at any given point. The loss of manufacturing base and the wild money printing starting with the Nixon administration created a situation where wage levels failed to keep pace with the general cost of living. The normal response to those conditions would have been for most to cut back and only consume that which was needed. Prior to the 80's vast numbers of people behaved frugally on matters related to money and were generally debt adverse.

    That particular stance, while working well for individuals, did not fit well for those who knew no limit to their desires (i.e. the oligarchs) and they needed to change everyone's behavior to accommodate what they wanted. They had to shape behaviors where people were less frugal and enable them to fulfill their desires even if incomes weren't growing on an inflation adjusted basis. Slick marketing took care of creating the desire while the Fed's credit creation/money printing processes provided the fuel for the consumption based economy.

    In short, the consumption based economy was something that was simply created as a substitute for manufacturing and selling real things to make real money.

    At its core, capitalism is an exploitative and destructive economic system. As I mentioned earlier, I'm one who was thoroughly indoctrinated in the idea that this was the best economic system ever devised and have lived long enough to see folks pounding their chests about it in comparison to the so-called centrally planned communist economies. It's ironic that one of those (China) is now our banker.

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  118. cf:

    ditto

    i have pumped up "american casino" on my sites and herein

    and i think it should be a CRIME for anyone male/female to wantonly breed serial mouths when one is unable to feed them

    i despise turbo breeders and see them as consummate child abusers
    and a genocidal epidimic

    http://aliciabanks.vox.com/library/post/mandatory-viewing-for-rebels-american-casino.html

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  119. Greg L9:47 PM

    >>>>Now, you need to be aware of something, which is that nothing happens without a tradeoff. Everything I'm suggesting would dramatically reduce credit and consumption, so you'd get your wish of a lower-consumption society.

    But it would come exclusively from the lower end. All of this would put the income inequalities in society in much sharper relief, because people would no longer be able to pretend that they were rich, because they simply wouldn't have the mechanism. (Oh, and by the way, I'd crack down like a ton of bricks on the payday lenders and check cashing outfits, too.)

    I wonder if people are really prepared for the result. You'd have a whole lot of people being forced to realize that, in reality, they are not "middle class," but "working class" or even "poor." Maybe no big surprise to a lot of black folks, but I can foresee one hell of a psychic dislocation among whites who've been living an illusion.

    You don't want consumption? Be careful what you wish for. I'm okay with it, because I think we've hit the end of the trail anyhow. But if you think this will be all warm 'n fuzzy and New Age about having greater meaning in our lives, you'd better think again 'cause that's NOT how it will play out.<<<<<

    Grinder, aren't we headed for this if not already there (i.e. drop in consumption). Credit has dried up and jobs aren't there. The natural result is going to be big declines in consumption.

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  120. cf:

    see more on greed and consumerism

    http://www.amazon.com/Affluenza-All-Consuming-Epidemic-Bk-Currents/dp/1576753573/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261104545&sr=8-1

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  121. Greg L9:52 PM

    >>>>Ironically many of the esoteric financial instruments ("no income verification loans", "credit default swaps" etc) where adopted/over used in the context of the call for "expanded home ownership".<<<<<

    CF,

    The Fed and other central banks had the money printing presses rolling and this was the main impetus behind all these damn crazy loans. In other word, there was limitless supply and that drove things more than the desire for expanded home ownership in my view.

    Either way, right now we're screwed.

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  122. gl:

    ditto!

    the middle class is being systematically nullified
    by obama

    there will be very few rich
    most of us will be poor

    uts' gated enclaves will be relics for most newly poor

    http://aliciabanks.vox.com/library/post/obama-drama-the-poor-are-getting-poorer-the-middle-class-becomes-the-new-poor.html

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  123. coffee and cigarettes10:06 PM

    hahaha thanks field :) great post as usual.


    Anon 5:43

    "you dumbass healthcare is a right.

    No its Not you dumbass!!

    Tell me how and who gave you that right and why do you even think you have it!!!!"

    Look up the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and pay special attention to Article 25(1):

    "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."


    Do we live in an anarchy or in an organized state? If we lived in an anarchy I would understand the dog eats dog mentality..but is it not the responsibility of a functioning government to make sure that all of the primary needs of its citizens are met adequately?

    Also another thing, I think you need to travel a bit and see the health care standards in other developed nations in this world..and then come and talk to me about it.


    "Everything else I wrote,must have missed that,except
    the muslim didn't cut off all the dicks!ha.How come all those other people made it back in the 1800's"

    I'm not really sure what you're on about, but in 1800 in most states only white males who owned property had the right to vote, so I would like to think that our notion of rights has evolved since then.

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  124. coffee and cigarettes10:12 PM

    Oh yeah and Whitey panicking! FY
    Don't even lets yourself fall for
    that shit.No whitey just tired of
    paying for the poor black, white or brown dumbasses and you think your owed somethink.well my momma was a whore and my daddy pappa was
    a rolling stone!I didn't study at school cause I didn't want to be
    like no whitey...

    Yeah whoever you are, black white or purple, its pretty clear you didn't go to school.

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  125. Anonymous12:24 AM

    Most hatred of the black race comes from the documented fact that percentage wise blacks make up the mass of Welfare recipients.
    The base on which the Welfare system is built(financed ), whites, asians and western Europeans clearly see the black race abusing this system at a monumental rate(not something new). They see their monies going to a race that CHOSES to have babies into single family’s at a 70% rate and rapidly rising) ! We see the images of intercities with black men wondering the streets aimlessly , standing on street corners with drug and gang infested neighborhoods covered in graffiti .
    Yet we continue to work our ass’s off and hear politicians and “community organizers” demanding more of money our money for these poor and down trodden people.
    You see like so many issues in this country it’s a matter of publicity and with so many of your race……well let’s just be honest…..lazy, it’s a continuing losing battle of this 12% of our population.
    It’s not to say that a small portion of the black population have risen above the others and made something of themselves BUT the vast majority have simply chosen to drop out of using the excuse that teachers don’t understand the black males all the while school black females excel in these same environment?
    Don’t understand? These young men are being raised by these same black females that are excelling so where in the world is the problem?
    Absent FATHERS maybe….ok then it seems to me that the black community has to no NEEDS to solve that problem first before anything else is done!
    Oh, the white community nor racism is the cause of these absent fathers. And maybe as these young men grow older the mothers begin to fester a bit of animosity toward these young men because they are reminded of the absent fathers.
    Yet another problem the black community has to solve before the elemi nation of this problem.
    Or you (the black community )
    So, you could choose to piss and moan about your present state and even the state of your race 2 or 3 hundred years ago. Typically people don’t give a shit at what happened 30 or 40 yrs ago so 300 yrs ago ……..well an’t happening.
    So, it’s up to you????

    Balls in yo Court 

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  126. Gregory12:50 AM

    The ball remains in your court, anony. It should come as no surprise to you that you come off as a racist.

    "So, you could choose to piss and moan about your present state and even the state of your race 2 or 3 hundred years ago. Typically people don’t give a shit at what happened 30 or 40 yrs ago so 300 yrs ago ……..well an’t happening."

    My grandmother acted like the potato famine happened in her lifetime, rather than 80 years before she was born. I know Scots who let the battle of Culloden Moor influence their politics, despite the fact the event occurred in 1746. Don't even get me started on the crackers who think the south didn't lose the war and surrender in 1865. Those are all white people, in case you are wondering.

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  129. Grinder, aren't we headed for this if not already there (i.e. drop in consumption). Credit has dried up and jobs aren't there. The natural result is going to be big declines in consumption.

    Yeah, like I said in my long comment, I think we're hitting the end of the trail anyhow. But I still think this is going to be a bigger adjustment than a lot of people realize.

    The base on which the Welfare system is built(financed ), whites, asians and western Europeans clearly see the black race abusing this system at a monumental rate(not something new). They see their monies going to a race that CHOSES to have babies into single family’s at a 70% rate and rapidly rising) ! We see the images of intercities with black men wondering the streets aimlessly , standing on street corners with drug and gang infested neighborhoods covered in graffiti

    Yeah, well you want to know what another problem is? "Superior" white people who can't write a clear, correct, concise, coherent sentence, because they slept through their English classes, and their parents were too stupid, too drunk, or too negligent to notice or care. Where in hell did you go to school, and what on earth did you accomplish there? I read your writing, and I am embarrassed, not by you but for you. If you're not deathly stupid, you are doing one damn good job impersonating an illiterate idiot! Not to put too fine a point on it.

    Now, to the substance of what I could glean from your pathetic sentence fragments:

    True enough, there are massive socio-economic failures in significant segments of the African-American population. Broken families, sky-high out-of-wedlock birth rates, crime, and a lack of attention paid to education are unmitigated disasters. I write that here a lot, and take a lot of shit for being "racist" for saying it.

    But don't sit there and bleat about "welfare" costs, because that's not the issue. Welfare expenditures are a drop in the bucket compared to the sort of corporate welfare that gets shoveled out every year. The idea that black people are living in luxury on the dole is pure, unmitigated horseshit a mile and a half high.

    The issue is different. It is lost productivity, hope, and structure. Too many black kids are denied a future before they even get out of the gate, and a whole lot of responsibility for that belongs within the black community itself. But not all of it, by any stretch. And again, the idea that black people are welfare hounds is offensively stupid, and shows that you really don't have a clue.

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  130. Plantsmantx2:03 AM

    "So, it’s up to you????"

    "Balls in yo Court"

    Um. okay....

    I would say that black people have to understand that the world is and always has been about competion amongst peoples, and not just individuals, as people like you wound have us believe even as you're operating as a people. "We're should all be just American" really means "We'll sucker blacks into seeing themselves as "just Americans", while we continue you operate as white Americans without saying so.

    We should understand that we have to go onto a competition footing as a people, and even though we don't like to think of ourselves as a zero-sum people, we have to understand that if and when that's the way others are playing the game, we have to play it that way too. In other words, if other people have to lose for us to win, then goddamnit, that's the way it should be.

    We'll never be "Americans", but that's alright, because being a truly cohesive collective of Black Americans will be even better.

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  131. Anonymous2:29 AM

    Been asking the same thing most of my own white life: how bad will we screw ourselves to spite you. No answer yet.

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  132. Anonymous2:40 AM

    The white craziness is mostly demographic (55+) whenever it's not geographic (rural and/or Southern). It's people who either remember their lives changing after civil rights or who've been raised to resent that it happened who're unable to reconcile their racism to reality. The rest of us usually have some racism ourselves, but with us it's background noise more than core identity.

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  133. [quote]
    Either way, right now we're screwed.
    [/quote]

    Some people fail to understand the great chance of economic collapse in the future as so many forces are drawing from the American treasury.

    It is astounding to see so many people who believe that once their "Social Justice RIGHTS" are obtained that the victory is won. They had better look at the balance sheet.

    If I saw more of an attempt from the Progressives at developing COMPETENCY among the people that you all most advocate for I'd be less hostile to your antics.

    You all want people to "Be In RECEIPT OF" a given lifestyle standard with little worry of WHO financed it and who serviced this standard with the professional skills that are needed.

    What you all need to do is to leverage your control over them and arrange so that they GROW into being the key forces that provide for this standard and are better for it.

    For a people who hate OUTSOURCING you all sure do support it.

    What about INSOURCING?

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  134. Anonymous7:36 AM

    coffee and cigarettes says

    You didn't go to school.

    same old same-o ,dis the person not the facts !

    the universal declaration of human rights summary,you forgot!
    Article 1
    All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
    All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law.( In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence).

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  135. uptownsteve9:14 AM

    "Steve - everyone realizes that it is ultimately a waste of time debating with you."

    CF, you're a total fraud.

    You rant incessantly about how most blacks are fools for going down the roard we're on.

    So when we ask you why and how is your way better, you pout and stamp off in a huff.

    You black conservatives don't get it do you?

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  136. This is really on point, I had to send it around to some folks to read.

    Sometimes I wonder if racism was not today and had not in the past been so entrenched and if poor and middle class whites acted in solidarity on economic issues with their black and other POC counterparts if life wouldn't be much better in this country. This not working together is probably part of the reason why we don't have universal healthcare and lots of the other safteynet goodies like they have in most of western Europe and other industrial "developed" countries like universal early childhood education and significant maternity leave for mothers and so on.

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  137. [quote]You rant incessantly about how most blacks are fools for going down the roard we're on.

    So when we ask you why and how is your way better, you pout and stamp off in a huff.[/quote]

    Steve:

    I ONLY asked you and others who are frustrated with the issues that plague our community DESPITE the increasing power of the MACHINE that they favor over the key institutions that run these places.

    WHY, upon agreeing that there are massive problems despite having the full present of the "pill" that you are pushing do I need to CONVINCE you of an ALTERNATIVE course when you aren't even willing to order a "cease and desist' command against the way forward as you go back to the drawing board and OPEN MINDEDLY weigh the options.

    The bigger indictment is not that "I have no alternatives".
    It is that YOU are stuck in your own ideological bigotry and are unwilling to alter course REGARDLESS OF WHAT I SAY or what the PROOF OF YOUR WAY is ineffective.

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  138. Anonymous11:03 AM

    grinder tried to say.....

    Yeah, well you want to know what another problem is? "Superior" white people who can't write a clear, correct, concise, coherent sentence, because they slept through their English classes, and their parents were too stupid, too drunk, or too negligent to notice or care.
    didn't no we post-to create correctly smelled sentences won't me to arm chair quarter back yo shit???
    Anywho....you come to this blog all big and bad with NO FUCKING ANSWERS!!!!!
    you don't know my race and even if I’m a racist. but that's neither here nor there I’m looking for answers...solutions?
    I can't solve the problem of 70% of black men abandoning their babies. I’m not saying anyone here is doing that BUT you know as well as the rest that visit this post there is a huge problem with the black males in our country and the bottom line is that until people start recognizing this there is not going to be any solution! The whole baggy pants, gangster, bag as many ho’s as I can attitude is really not productive for the black male population (I don’t believe). 12% of the population an’t that much, the hispanic population has surpassed blacks and asins in the last 10yrs.
    I’m not black but I do work with black (and others) male juveniles during the day and I can't help/solve their problems at home BUT I can instill in them a sense of self worth! but it does me no good when they go home to God knows what!? some of them don't know where their mothers are must less their fathers! I can't solve that but this attitude that I’m owed something is really bring them and the black race down (or a lot of them).
    in these bad economic times I’m owed because someone 100 or 200 yrs ago did something bad an't going to get you very far I assure you.
    again you can pick apart my sentences if you want’ it only goes to show your attitude of superiority or attempt at it. So, you keep pointing your finger at everyone you want to blaming them for the ills of the black race, I’m going to poke my finger in the dam until the good Lord brings me home.

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  139. Plantsmantx7:23 PM

    Solutions? I guess you missed it, so I'll say it again:

    "Balls in yo Court"

    Um. okay....

    I would say that black people have to understand that the world is and always has been about competion amongst peoples, and not just individuals, as people like you wound have us believe even as you're operating as a people. "We're should all be just American" really means "We'll sucker blacks into seeing themselves as "just Americans", while we continue you operate as white Americans without saying so.

    We should understand that we have to go onto a competition footing as a people, and even though we don't like to think of ourselves as a zero-sum people, we have to understand that if and when that's the way others are playing the game, we have to play it that way too. In other words, if other people have to lose for us to win, then goddamnit, that's the way it should be.

    We'll never be "Americans", but that's alright, because being a truly cohesive collective of Black Americans will be even better

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  140. Anonymous12:17 AM

    ok, plantboy....

    so. if i understand you correctly to solve the problem of black men creating babies and running away from their responsiblities is to stay a "cohesive collection"

    let's see how that works out for you....

    we'll check with you in a years time and see if the % has gone up or down.

    the 5 has been going up sense the 60's when the majority of the black "cohesive collection" hitched their collective wagon to to the democrapic party.....working real well for you guy's.....

    black schools are shit, familys falling apart with the % of black children being raised by someone other than their parent, no jobs, more black men in prison..yeah their really helping your "cohesive collection"

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  141. Plantsmantx10:35 AM

    ...and white people are perfect, LOL. You know, these days, when whites seek to make blacks the face of this or that social dysfunction, I tend not to argue the point as much as I used to. Let them think their side doesn't suffer from those behaviors, while their problems grow, and grow...

    Anyway, you responded to my comment by reading from the usual boilerplate script, and ignored what I actually said. I understand, very few people say what I said.

    All those problems you mentioned, to the extent they exist, can be improved by giving people a reason not to fall into them, and the best reason is a vision of a prosperous, competitive black America.

    We have to be about us not about "America", and wanting to be accepted as "Americans". Bad schools? Take them over, and educate our children the way we want, for our own benefit. Segregation? don't worry about it. Look for the silver lining. No jobs? Seek to bulid up businesses in the black community.

    Other people pretend that they don't act as a collective while saying that no one should. Unfortunately, we're the only ones who believe that. You, on the other hand, know better. You're here acting as part of the white collective. We have to wake up to how the world really works.We need to give people a reason to do good things and refrain from bad things, and that reason has to be a successful, and yes, even triumphant black America. To hell with the American dream, I'm more interested in a Black American dream.

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  142. Anonymous7:55 PM

    ok, plant you have a couple of good ideas....you prob think i'm somekind of racist? i actually want the prob's solved it's a cycle that has to be broken!

    the question is how to stop this cycle? parents (PARENTS) have to be involved in their kids education and plant that seed in their little heads that they can achive anything in life if they work hard enough.

    and your right the white race certainly has it's issues....but we were discussing the high rate of black children w/o fathers or even parents in their lives.

    but admitting theres a prob is the first step in solving the prob, of course you have to have solutions...realistic solutions? right?

    it's going take a ton of black mentors to infulence the kids in school now and the cycle can be broken....there out there.....

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