To stand or not to stand.

Over sixty percent of Americans want to give San Francisco QB, Colin Kaepernick, a piece of their minds, because, to them, he has disrespected America by refusing to stand for the national anthem.

Of those sixty percent, I m sure that more than half of them are supporting the republican nominee for president. He is a man who took multiple deferments instead of actually serving in the military like so many other young men did at the time. (He actually had FIVE draft deferments during the Vietnam war. FIVE!) But back to #7.

It would be so easy to rip him as just another pampered millionaire athlete who doesn't realize how good he has it here in America. "The guy makes millions to play a game for crying loud! Why can't he just cash his checks and shut his mouth? He should just take his black ass to Africa and see how good he will have it there"  But I say good for him for making a  stand (or in this case a seat) about something that he believes in. The fact that he happens to be a famous athlete makes his stance even more powerful, and it will no doubt shine a brighter light on what he thinks is the issue of inequality and institutionalized racism in this country.

Also, the fact that he was able to articulate his position in such a thoughtful manner was also refreshing. Obviously it is something that he has thought about, and he did not come to his decision overnight. Watching his impromptu press conference at his locker made that all too clear.

It's also nice to see that he is getting support from some of his fellow NFL players, it can be awful lonely out there on principle island; especially when you are a professional athlete who is expected to be a role- model while toe the party line.  

This country has a lot of problems, but one of the beautiful things about this country is that we have a Constitution that allows us to speak up about those problems without having to worry about losing our freedom. And we are also free to  disagree with each other as many have chosen to do with #7.

I love all the people having jersey burning ceremonies because the guy just made them so mad. ("This is America, damn it!! If you don't like it n****r you can leave.") It's sentiments like that one of course, which make Kaepernick's act of defiance even more irradiating. I doubt seriously if the folks making those types of vitriolic attacks see the irony in all of it.

I have loved ones who fought and died defending the First Amendment right of people like Kaepernick to refuse to stand for the anthem, as well as the rights of those who choose to call  him out as a piece of shit or idiot for refusing to do so.
Personally, I stand for the national anthem, as, quite frankly, I would for the anthem of any country. That's the Jamaican in me. But if someone chooses not to for whatever reason, I am honestly not bothered by it, and if that person happens to be a high profile athlete making a social or political statement; I say go for it.

“To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder".

OK, so it isn't Tommie Smith and John Carlos, but this isn't 1968, either. Although we seem to be getting back there really fast.

*Pic from latimes.com.

Amazing week.

Little known fact about my family: My daddy actually taught homiletics to university level theological students at one time in his career. He loved to talk about preachers and preaching styles, and, as a result, I learned a thing or two about the art of preaching.

So having said that, I will give O's mini sermon today  four out of five possible stars. His spontaneous rendition of Amazing Grace could  have used a little work, but I am not going to quibble. The church was with him, and that's all that  matters.

"As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us for he has allowed us to see where we've been blind," Obama said. "He's given us the chance, where we've been lost, to find our best selves."

He might have given "us the chance", but unfortunately a lot of us are not taking it.

Quite a few of our so called leaders still do not realize that they have been blind, and it has taken them a hell of a long time to  find their "best selves."

I am thinking of people like Clarence Thomas. A man who has found himself on the wrong side of history because of his ignorant and misguided dissent in today's historic (and long overdue) decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, a case that has given same sex couples the same rights and protections under the Constitution as heterosexual couples.

"The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.

 

Thomas went on to write that one's liberty and dignity should be shielded from the government — not provided by it.

"Today’s decision casts that truth aside. In its haste to reach a desired result, the majority misapplies a clause focused on 'due process' to afford substantive rights, disregards the most plausible understanding of the 'liberty' protected by that clause, and distorts the principles on which this Nation was founded. Its decision will have inestimable consequences for our Constitution and our society."

See, this is the problem with this man: He thinks that slaves should have been "Dignified". Sorry, it's kind of hard to maintain your "dignity" when you are being stripped and beaten and sold like cattle. But I digress.

This twisted and sick dissent thinks that majority decision by the court will have a "inestimable consequences for our Constitution. "  Huh????

He is wrong. Had he and his right- wing buddies had their way, that would have had a devastating affect on our Constitution. And, as a result, our country would have taken two steps backwards instead of moving forward into the 21st Century.

So in one eventful week the country wakes up and starts to denounce a symbol of hate that has long been ignored, and we legalize the  the rights of our fellow Gay citizens to legally marry each other.

Amazing Grace indeed.  


Pic by Getty images from themirror.com 




  












 

Garden State blues.

There is a dark shadow of lawlessness that is engulfing those who should be upholding the law these days here in America. You have police officers openly declaring that they don't have to obey the Constitution, because, sadly, they are so deep in the right- wing echo chamber that they have been led to believe that the president himself does not follow it.


"..one New Jersey police officer was caught on video arguing with someone at a municipal building, declaring that if President Obama doesn’t follow the Constitution, then he shouldn’t have to either.


Steve Wronko had a camera inside the public building as part of an investigation he was doing, and Officer Richard Recine tracked him down to ask who he is what what he’s doing there. Wronko repeatedly asserted a First Amendment right to be doing what he’s doing, but Recine was having none of it.
In fact, he said, “Obama has decimated the friggin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn, ’cause if he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”


Police Director Robert Manney appeared in the video too, but after Recine had made those comments, and upon learning what Recine said, he called it an “embarrassment” and said there’s an investigation underway. [Source]


Take those Obama bumper stickers off your cars, folks. The next police officer you pass on the road might be just like Officer Recine.


I am staying in the Garden State for this next story.


You Negroes should really familiarize yourselves with the laws of different states when you own a firearm. Just because you have a legal right to carry in Philly, it doesn't mean that that the same rights apply when you cross over the bridge to New Jersey.


Poor Shaneen Allen had to learn this lesson the hard way.

"The words common sense were mentioned quite a bit during Shaneen Allen's hearing yesterday in Atlantic County Superior Court. Allen, 27, cried for a moment in the hallway with her son Naiare and his father after a judge denied her motion to dismiss weapons charges filed against her in October and refused to overturn a prosecutor's decision to deny her entry into a first-time-offender diversion program.


So Allen walked back into court, turned down a plea deal that would have given her a 3 1/2-year sentence and decided to go to trial in October, hoping a jury would use some common sense and not send a working mother of two to prison for not knowing New Jersey's gun laws.


"There is no public need to prosecute Shaneen Allen. I'm sure the public is just begging for Shaneen Allen to go to jail," her attorney, Evan Nappen, argued sarcastically to Judge Michael Donio.

Allen, who has no criminal record, was pulled over by New Jersey State Police on Oct. 1 while driving to Atlantic City with the father of her sons. She told the officer that she had a license-to-carry permit in Pennsylvania and had her .380 Bersa Thunder in her pocketbook.

New Jersey does not recognize any other state's license-to-carry permit, and Allen was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of hollow-point bullets. She faces a mandatory minimum of 3 1/2 years in prison.

Her story has garnered national attention, and Nappen says it's proof that New Jersey's gun laws are "out of control." Gun-control advocates say there's a positive side to all the attention Allen's case has received.

"Fortunately, the notoriety of this case will make it less likely Pennsylvanians will carry concealed and loaded handguns in New Jersey, thereby making them and the Garden State safer from gun violence," said Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God's Call, a faith-based movement to prevent gun violence.

Donio said Nappen's argument that Allen's gun possession fell under a 180-day New Jersey amnesty period was "ridiculous," but said she could appeal the denial of her Graves Act waiver - if she pleaded guilty or was later found guilty.

The Graves Act requires mandatory-minimum sentences in firearms-possession cases. [Source]

I know what you Negroes are thinking: poor Ms. Allen never stood a chance.


From the initial stop, to getting turned down for the diversionary program, the deck was always stacked against her.


Now let's see if the NRA comes to her defense and stand in her corner like we know that they would have with some other folks.

"Presidential powers" are only for certain presidents.

Congrats to the USA for making it through the "group of death" and on to the next round of the World Cup. I just watched the game against Germany. (I am home, and this has nothing to do with the World Cup being on. I just happen to feel a bit under the weather....) They were outclassed on a wet pitch by a better German team. Still, even though they lost the game they won the battle.


So anyway, "the man" continues to try to show the Negro in the White House who is really in charge.


In a test run to find out the mood for an impeachment battle, John Boehner and his pals are planning to sue the president. And today the supremes ruled that the Negro in chief is forgetting his place here in America.

"The US Supreme Court today limited a president's power to make recess appointments when the White House and the Senate are controlled by opposite parties, scaling back a presidential authority as old as the republic.

The case arose from a political dispute between President Obama and Senate Republicans, who claimed he had no authority to put three people on the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012 when the Senate was out of town.

He used a president's power, granted by the Constitution, to "fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate." But the Republicans said the Senate was not in recess at the time the appointments were made, because every three days a senator went into the chamber, gaveled it to order, and then immediately called a recess. " [Source]

Oh my! Mr. President I feel your pain. What you have to understand is that rules that apply to other presidents do not necessarily apply to you.

As for the lawsuit, well.....

"In response, White House press secretary Josh Earnest accused congressional Republicans of obstruction and said they had left Obama with little option but to make greater use of his executive authority.


"The fact that they are considering a taxpayer-funded lawsuit against the president of the United States for doing his job, I think, is the kind of step that most Americans wouldn't support," Earnest said.


The suit would be filed on behalf of the House and its mere existence would likely set off a partisan struggle. Three Republicans and two Democrats comprise a bipartisan group charged with overseeing House legal matters.
The group must meet to approve filing a suit on behalf of the House, and a party-line vote is all but certain.


Boehner strongly brushed aside a question of whether impeachment proceedings could result from the suit. "This is not about impeachment. This is about his (Obama's) faithfully executing the laws of our country," he said."


When a politician like John Boehner says that something isn't about something; you just know that it is about that something.


Still, I think I speak for quite a few people in this country and say, bring it on.


*Pic from NewsOne

My religion post.

I have a confession to make (although folks who are regulars to this blog probably already know this) I am what Bill O-lie-ly calls a "secular progressive". I don't particularly like religion, and I have never been able to figure out what all the fuss was about.

It just bothers me that people who get up and go to church every Sunday morning to sing, pray, and give ten percent of their pay check to the offering plate, would have a heart attack if their son or daughter brought a mate home from a different race. In spite of what the Constitution says, A-merry-cans have always used their religion to try and regulate the behavior of others, and not for their own personal salvation. I have some fundamental issues with that.

I have, for instance, never been able to figure out how we want to put someone to death for raping a little girl. Yet we treat the leader of a church that turns a blind eye while its priests molests little boys like a fucking rock star. I still can't figure out why some people who claim to be really religious love their guns so much. I guess it's all a part of that eye for an eye thing. Still, it seems a little oxymoronic no? And why is it that the most fucked up neighborhoods here in my hometown has a church on every corner? Is it another case of what came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not so sure. And how can a bunch of wackos fly airplanes into buildings, and kill thousands of innocent people, all because they think that when it's over they can have their pick of virgins in paradise? Now if that's not some twisted shit I don't know what is. But hey, that's religion for you, it can be so complicated.

I say that,---it's complicated, because some good things can come from religion as well. If it wasn't for religion, for instance, we probably wouldn't have had a civil rights movement in this country. Some of our great leaders came out of the church. The church can build character and self confidence. It can be an incubator for really wonderful human beings. Some of our great musicians came out of the church, and some of the great modern philosophers and political scientist based their philosophy on religious principles. In a way I am like an ungrateful child, because if it wasn't for the church my family would not have enjoyed some of the comforts that we did.

So all this leaves me angry and frustrated. Angry because I see all the potentially good things that those who are supposed to be selling us religion are throwing away. Religion is not doing what it is supposed to. In fact, in many cases it is having an opposite effect. And I am frustrated because I have never been able to come to grips with just what the hell makes us tick. What is this religion thing all about? When we die, where will we go?

But at the end of the day all I ask for is tolerance. I am willing to make a pact with the religious among us. I will be tolerant of your beliefs no matter what they are, if you will promise to be tolerant of my non-beliefs; at least until I can figure this thing out.

I just hope it won't be too late :)

King George Strikes Again!

In the not too distant future, thanks to King George's latest edict by way of yet another "signing statement". The little scene I am about to describe to you between the field, his mail man, and the homeland security people, could be all too real.

So it's a beautiful Saturday morning and the field heads to his mail box to pick up his latest bills, and fan mail :) But lo and behold, to the fields dismay, all three pieces of his mail seemed like they were opened and resealed. The field is suspicious, so he tracks down his mail man as he gets into the mail truck a couple of blocks away.

FN: Hi mail man.
MM: Hi field what's up?
FN: Hey mail man, I couldn't help but notice that my mail seemed like it was all opened and resealed. I mean one I can understand, but all three pieces?
MM: Yeah field, it happens. I have been noticing more and more of that lately.
FN: Yeah, well what's up? Are you guys doing it?
MM: No field, you might want to call the homeland security people. Apparently they have been given the authority to do that, even over the objection of our Postal Inspector.
FN: You are kidding me! When did that happen?
MM: Well, apparently last month, congress signed some new Postal Legislation Act, and one of the provisions allowed homeland security to inspect your mail for national security purposes.
FN: Really? Well I am an attorney, and the last time I checked you needed a search warrant to open first class mail in this country. Unless of course you guys-the post office- have reason to believe that there is hazardous materials such as a bomb being sent through the mail system.
But not an innocent looking piece of first class mail from my sister in Seattle.
MM: You are an attorney? Well how come I didn't get a Christmas tip from you this year?
FN: Sorry MM, this was a slow year for me.
MM: Oh. So anyway, you will have to call the homeland security people and take it up with them.
FN: Thanks Mr.Mail man, I think I will.
~Rrrrrrrring, Rrrrring~
FN: Yes hello, is this homeland security?
HS: Yes it is.
FN: Hi, yes, this is the field negro, and I notice that my mail was opened today, and the mail man said you guys did it. Could you tell me what the f**k gives you the authority to open my mail?
HS: Ahh yes field negro, it's a little thing called the LAW! You have heard of the rule of law haven't you? I know that's not a popular thing with you Negroes.
FN: What law? Look, I happen to be a lawyer, and I know of no such law that allows you to open domestic first class mail without a warrant just because you feel like it.
HS: Yeah well you need to go back to law school field. You must have went to one of them Negro Law schools. Look, have you heard of a little thing called a "signing statement?"
FN: Yes I have, it's what the President uses to instruct his executive branch on how to interpret and carry out new laws.
HS: Well go to the head of the class field negro. That is correct. However, our President kind of see them a different way. We have been using them to reserve our President's right to revise, interpret, or disregard laws on national security issues.
FN: But that's not what signing statements were meant for.
HS: Under our Kin...I mean President that's how they will be used.
FN: But you can't just do that, heck Congress can't even veto these signing statements so their is no checks and balance on the executive branch.
HS: I know, isn't our leader brilliant?
FN: Come on man, to quote the leader of the ABA, Michael Greco, "this practice is harming the separation of powers"
HS: Oh get over it, you lawyers are always crying over something.
FN: Well how about REPUBLICAN Senator, Susan Collins, of Maine saying: "I was absolutely surprised, there was nothing in the 'Postal Reform Bill' that any way diminished or changed the privacy protections for domestic sealed mail"
HS: How about it? She is just one Senator, who doesn't get it. The President needs to protect the American people. She lives in Maine, it's not like terrorist are going to go there anyway. Of course she isn't afraid of a terrorist attack. Look the President said he needs to do this for "foreign intelligence collection" and I believe him.
FN: Do you really think a terrorist is going to mail instructions via the postal service to one of his cohorts hiding out in Dearborn Michigan some damn place? Give me a break!
HS: Are you a lawyer for those communist the ACLU field?
FN: I am not saying, besides, you should know, haven't you been going through all of my mail?
HS: Well you sure act like you hate America to me.
FN: Look, I love America as much as the next guy, but your President is out of control. The guy has had more than 750 of these signing statements for crying out loud! That's more than all the Presidents combined in history.
HS: Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.
FN: Look I gotta go I have wasted enough time talking to you homeland security people.
HS: Hey field, your sister seems really nice, you really should visit her more often.
FN: STAY OUT OF MY DAMN MAIL!

Later for those guys, I think I will watch some T.V. Hey, it's Tony Snowjob, and he is talking about King Georges latest little excursion into the Constitution to take away yet more of our rights. "What the signing statement indicates is what present law allows, in making it clear what the provisions are"????????????

I need a drink!

Oh, and one final thing. I want to acknowledge and say goodbye to fellow blogger Dell Gines, who is taking some time off from blogging to do some serious work in his community. Dell was one of the first brothers to acknowledge my site and put me down on his blog roll. I will never forget that, and not to mention the way he reached out to me when I was struggling to get this blogging thing off the ground. We need more people like Dell in on the WWW dropping knowledge to all of those who will read.

Still, there are some good people left. All the regulars to this site come to mind. Good people all who have some serious writing skills and who really care about the sh** they do.

So bye Dell, you will be missed, but thank God the torch won't go out just yet.

The field is out.