Refreshing the tree of liberty.

I have to talk about this shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, because I am quite sure that outside of social media and blogs such as this one you will not hear any serious commentary about it.


It comes on the heels of a shooting in Atlanta where another one of these nut- jobs wanted to show us that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."  Anyway, once again these domestic terrorists are showing us why we should be just as afraid of them as we are of those evil Mooslims.


These two individuals hated their government and authority. (Sound familiar?) And according to their neighbors ---and their Facebook page--- they were supporters of tax cheat, Cliven Bundy, as well.


We should get used to it, because I suspect that there is going to be a lot more of this type of deranged behavior coming from certain types of people in American society.


You can only foam at the mouth for so long over your computer keys, and shoot beer cans in your backyard before you want to act out on the hate that has been building up for years from listening to white right wing hate radio, and conspiracy nuts like Glen Beck and Alex Jones. (BTW, Alex believes that this shooting was set up as a "false flag" operation by the evil government. Ok then,  Alex.)


But Field, what about all the killings in Chicago over the weekend? Why aren't you blogging about that?


Well, for starters, I don't believe that any of those gang- bangers shot two police officers to death. Or, for that matter, that they ran into a huge box- store and shot an innocent person to death just for the heck of it.


Killings in urban America are horrible, and something must be done about them. But these killings are fueled by gang alliances and conflicts, as well as the urban drug trade which thrives due to lack of employment and a stable family environment for these knuckle heads.


But I am not afraid of these urban street gangs rising up and trying to overthrow our government anytime soon. The white supremacy and sovereign movement on the other hand give me cause for pause.  


"The newspaper's report also said the shooters covered the officers' bodies with something featuring the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag. The yellow flag, which contains an image of a coiled snake and the words "Don't tread on me," is associated with the conservative Tea Party political movement."


A flag like this one ? Oh yes, I have definitely seen that before.














 

Would you like to be my neighbor?

I live on the East Coast of the United States, but I am not one of those people who happens to believe that racism is exclusive to the South or Southwest.




This is why the story about a group of white supremacists setting up shop right next door does not surprise me.



A white supremacist group who call themselves "Advanced White Society" now make their national headquarters in Birmingham, New Jersey. (As if New Jersey doesn't have a bad enough national reputation.) Birmingham is a very small town, I think that there are 33 people living there. (One of them- poor person- happens to be black.)




This creates an interesting dilemma for the political types of Burlington County where the township of Birmingham is located. They want the group out, but if they (AWS) have broken no laws, and are not being a nuisance to their neighbors, they, like everyone else, have every right to be there.




New Jersey, like so many other Northern states, attracts a lot of these hate groups, because racism and ignorance does not have any specific geographical boundary or a preference for a particular region.




The good news is that these groups are declining nationally in numbers. The bad news is why they happen to be declining according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.




"The highest number of hate groups were found in California (77), Texas (57) and Florida (58).


Although the SPLC has documented a decline in the number of groups in existence throughout the country this year, it has also measured a “disturbing dynamic at play,” according to Potok.


“At the same time that the number of extremist groups is dropping, there is more mainstream acceptance of radical-right ideas,”




It makes sense; the more mainstream these groups become the less there is a need for them to organize under a more radical and extreme umbrella.




Why join groups like the Klan and the aforementioned Advanced White Society when you can find like minded people who are better organized and have more funding in groups like the Tea Party?

A white segregationist group that calls itself the Advanced White Society lists its national headquarters as Birmingham, N.J., a woodsy, little-known hamlet on the edge of Pemberton Township.
The Burlington County community had 33 residents, including one African American and one Latino, in 2010, according to a U.S. Census report. It has its own post office and is also home to a chemical plant and a cabinetmaking business. The Fort Dix military base is several miles down the road.
The Advanced White Society is one of five active hate groups in Burlington County, according to the Southern Poverty

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20140518_Hate_groups_prompt_push_for_Burlco_commission.html#q2YDRkwO9e8ygBCl.99

Who will swerve first?

I love the scenes in action movies when cars go hurtling towards each other from opposite directions and none of the drivers seem like they are going to back down. Of course at the last minute someone always decides that it's better to live than to die in a fiery ball of smashed metal, and then they swerve their vehicle out of the way to avoid sure death.

So this is where we are in America. In one car we have tea party right wing extremists, and in the other car we have the President of these divided states. Both are determined to keep driving, and they are boldly telling anyone who will listen that they are not turning their car off the road. Bring on the fiery crash.

Laughably, to the right wingnuts, this fight is akin to the civil rights struggle back in the day. (Yeah, I know. I am still laughing at that one.) To republicans, this Affordable Care Act is like Bull Conner's dogs and Jim Crow. The thing is, though, ninety percent of them have never read the act and don't really understand it. When you live in an age of sound bites and 24 hour cable news echo chambers, your thirst for real knowledge tends to become limited. (We see you Ted Cruz. Just telling a shameless lie on the Senate floor is not a good look.) Of course, most of us know that their unwillingness to accept what has already become the law of the land is motivated by something else.

In the other car is President Obama. He has vowed that he will not back down, because, to him, nothing in his signature piece of legislation known as Obamacare is negotiable. Right wingnuts believe that he will, because they see the polls and his latest foreign policy blunders and think that they are looking at a wounded president who is ready for the taking. This is how it works in Washington. Forget the fact that our government is on the verge of a shut down and that bad things will happen. (Soldiers not getting paid come to mind.) As long as they cripple the Kenyan Socialist and his presidency nothing else matters.

"At least 43 conservatives want the GOP leadership to go for broke, asserting that Obama has been damaged by stumbles over Syria and by several delays in implementing the Affordable Care Act.

The GOP’s internal battle pits lawmakers who want the party to take a calculated risk against leaders who fear it would be a big losing bet.
Democrats say there is no chance that they or the president will agree to hollow-out their signature domestic achievement.

The White House did not comment for this story, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week said the Senate would reject any attempt to defund the law.

Still, the GOP’s roll-the-dice faction is undaunted.
“I think the president’s too weak to shut the government down … I think we will win,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) said.

“Syria has hurt him significantly … it is a factor in the CR going forward, it is a factor in the debt ceiling,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said.

Conservatives cite recent polling to buttress their case. Following Obama’s aborted attempt to get congressional backing for an attack on Syria, Fox News found public disapproval of Obama’s job performance at an all-time high of 54 percent and his approval rating at 40 percent, equal to his all-time low." [Source]

Easy there wingnuts, remember what happened the last time you watched those FOX News polls? (Mitt by a landslide).

Anyway, I hope that Obama holds on to the wheel. It's time he grew a pair. He has been playing nice to his political enemies too long. The ACA didn't go far enough, but it's a start. The fact that elected officials would try to overturn what has already been declared law in this country is frightening. Could a revolution where citizens take up arms be far behind? The Koch Brothers might be funding their own army somewhere in North Dakota as I write this.

The cars are getting closer. Mr. President, you better not turn that wheel. In fact, you might want to press harder on the accelerator.

*Pic with this post from pensitorereview.com
 

"Dumb America".

Let me preface this cut and paste post I am about to drop on you by saying that I love the South and most of the people living in it. (Well, maybe not most.) My lovely wife is a Southerner, (I see you Opelousas) so that ought to tell you how much love I have for the region.

There is a lot about the Southern culture to love, and yet, unfortunately, there is a lot not to love as well.

The wonderful essay below was sent to me by Greg Fuller, and I had to share it with my fellow -enlightened- field hands.

 "George Packer’s recent New Yorker comments on the South made me sort out my own complicated feelings about the region. Both sides of my family are from the South: my mother’s from Georgia, my father’s from Virginia. Though my parents left Atlanta soon after I was born there, we often visited southern relatives in Atlanta, Louisville, and Birmingham. I preferred those who had stayed in the South to those who moved north. My Irish grandmother in Atlanta was a warm-hearted Catholic, while my English grandmother in Chicago was a pinched Christian Scientist always correcting her family. But even apart from the contrast in grandmothers, I always liked the South, though my northern accent made me an outsider there as a child (the family “Yankee”).

One reason I like the South is that I am conservative by temperament—multa tenens antiqua, as Ennius put it, “tenacious of antiquity.” A sense of the past helps explain why America’s southern writers were to the rest of America, in the twentieth century, what Irish writers were to England. The English had Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, Sean O’Casey, Bernard Shaw, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. We (whose relevant region is larger) had Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Ralph Ellison, Robert Penn Warren, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, John Crowe Ransom, Erskine Caldwell, Andrew Lytle, and Carson McCullers.  

The South escaped one of the worst character traits of America, its sappy optimism, its weakness of positive thinking. The North puffed confidently into the future, Panglossian about progress, always bound to win. But the South had lost. It knew there was an America that could be defeated. That made it capable of facing tragedy, as many in America were not. This improved its literature, but impoverished other things. Yet poverty did not make the South helpless. In fact, straitened circumstances made it readier to grab what it could get. In its long bargain with the Democratic party, for instance, it not only fended off attacks on its Jim Crow remnant of the Old Confederacy, but gamed the big government system through canny old codgers in Washington—the chairmen of the major congressional committees, who sluiced needed assistance to the South during the Great Depression.

Under the tattered robes of Miss Havisham were hidden the preying hands of the Artful Dodger. Southerners were not really trapped in the past, since they were always scheming to get out of the trap. They were defeated but not dumb. With dreams of an agrarian society, they might denounce the industrial north, but they got the funds to bring electricity to large parts of the South from the government’s Tennessee Valley Authority. They wanted and got government-funded port facilities, oil subsidies in Louisiana, highways and airports and military bases.

But the current South is willing to cut off its own nose to show contempt for the government. Governor Rick Scott of Florida turned down more than $2 billion in federal funds for a high-speed rail system in Florida that would have created jobs and millions of dollars in revenues, just to show he was independent of the hated federal government. In this mood, his forebears would have turned down TVA. People across the South are going even farther than Scott, begging to secede again from the Union. Packer notes that the tea is cooling in parties across the rest of the nation, but seems to be fermenting to a more toxic brew in the South. No one needs better health care more than the South, but it fights it off so long as Obama is offering it, its governors turning down funds for Medicaid. This is a region that rejects sex education, though its rate of teenage pregnancies is double and in places triple that of New England. It fights federal help with education, preferring to inoculate its children against science by denying evolution.

No part of the country will suffer the effects of global warming earlier or with more devastation than the South, yet its politicians resist measures to curb carbon emissions and deny the very existence of climate change—sending it to the dungeon with evolution and biblical errancy. One doesn’t need much imagination to see the South with lowered or swollen waters in its rivers and ports, raging kudzu, swarming mosquitos, and record-breaking high temperatures, still telling itself that global-warming talk is just a liberal conspiracy. But it just digs deeper in denial. The South has decided to be defeated and dumb.

Humans should always cling to what is good about their heritage, but that depends on being able to separate what is good from what is bad. It is noble to oppose mindless change, so long as that does not commit you to rejecting change itself. The South defeats its own cause when it cannot discriminate between the good and the evil in its past, or pretends that the latter does not linger on into the present: Some in the South deny that the legacy of slavery exists at all in our time. The best South, exemplified by the writers listed above, never lost sight of that fact. Where are the writers of that stature today in the Tea Party South? I was made aware of the odd mix of gain and loss when I went back to Atlanta to see my beloved grandmother. She told me not to hold change between my lips while groping for a pocket to put it in—“That might have been in a nigger’s mouth.” Once, when she took me to Mass, she walked out of the church when a black priest came out to celebrate. I wondered why, since she would sit and eat with a black woman who helped her with housework. “It is the dignity—I would not let him take the Lord in his hands.”

Tradition dies hard, hardest among those who cannot admit to the toll it has taken on them. That is why the worst aspects of the South are resurfacing under Obama’s presidency. It is the dignity. That a black should have not merely rights but prominence, authority, and even awe—that is what many Southerners cannot stomach. They would let him ride on the bus, or get into Ivy League schools. But he must be kept from the altar; he cannot perform the secular equivalent of taking the Lord in his hands. It is the dignity.

This is the thing that makes the South the distillation point for all the fugitive extremisms of our time, the heart of Say-No Republicanism, the home of lost causes and nostalgic lunacy. It is as if the whole continent were tipped upward, so that the scattered crazinesses might slide down to the bottom. The South has often been defeated. Now it is defeating itself." [Source]

Unlike the author I do not have a "conservative temperament" so this is why the worst aspects of the South are even more galling. The fact that I happen to be black makes the scope of their ignorance even more (if I may use a Yiddish word) mishegaas to me. 

But I get it. What the author said makes sense. It is why the Tea Party, no matter what they say, will never be able to convince the rest of us that their movement wasn't just about rejecting the "prominence" and "authority" of this black man who dares to call himself their leader. It is why no matter what he says or does they will reject it, even if they happen to lose their nose in the process. 

Mitt's new friend had to show his taxes.

I hate to keep "beating a dead horse", but, once again, I have to ask Mitt about those tax returns. This questions becomes even more important because of what Mitt demanded of his potential running mate for vice president.

"CHARLOTTE - Mitt Romney requested "several" years of tax returns from his potential running mates, a senior adviser to the candidate said Saturday, suggesting that those considered for the ticket may have been required to reveal more financial documents that the candidate himself.

In a briefing with reporters in Virginia Saturday, senior adviser Beth Myers, who was charged with headed the vice president selection process, declined to specify exactly how many years of tax returns were required, saying only that "several" were requested.

Several, by definition, implies more than two years." [Source] 

I can't say that I blame Mitt for wanting to know how his potential running mate has handled his taxes over the past few years, and Mitt should understand why we, the American people, want the same from him. To say that seeing how an individual has handled this important aspect of his life over the past few years is not important for the person running for president is ludicrous. Of course it's important. And I suspect that Mitt and his supporters know that it is. However, for the sake of political one- upmanship they pretend not to.

Speaking of running mates, Mitt had his on the stump with him today in North Carolina. They had bigger crowds and more enthusiasm coming from those crowds. Ryan, right on cue, lashed into Obama for attacking Mitt instead of offering real hope and change. Yes, he attacked Obama for attacking. This is politics in America.

Anyway, it seems that Obama and his peeps have some attacks of their own. Apparently they have been expecting Mr. Ryan.

 "..Team Obama's response to the House Budget Committee Chairman's elevation to potential VP made clear that the Democrat's campaign won't overhaul so much as go into overdrive. Aides argue that Ryan amplifies rather than challenges their core message with just 88 days until the election.

The early attacks are telling: Obama's website repeatedly refers to Ryan's "extreme budget plan" as favoring the rich over the middle class (the president's core argument against Romney). The first line of its biographical sketch reads "Paul Ryan is a career Washington D.C. insider." (Obama has been running in large part against inside-the-Beltway political stalemate, casting the blame on Republicans.)

In an attack everyone in politics saw coming, the site warns Ryan's budget "would turn Medicare into a voucher program, increasing seniors' costs by up to $6,350 per year"—an unusually precise figure seemingly tailored to shock elderly voters in pivotal battlegrounds like Florida, even though his proposal would not affect people currently over 55. [Source]

Ryan is 42 years old and has spent 20 years in Washington. So yes, he qualifies as an inside the beltway guy. (Isn't that the antithesis of what the new republican party is supposed to represent? Tea Party types who want to throw the bums out and give government back to the people?)

Another thing, is Paul Ryan really a blue collar guy? I know that he represents a blue collar district, (even though he seemed to shun them for a more well to do County when he appeared today with his wealthy new friend) but blue collar? Hardly.

He is a fourth generation Wisconsin native, his dad is a lawyer, his great- grand father owned a hugely successful construction business, his grandfather was appointed US Attorney for Western Wisconsin by Calvin Coolidge, and his family liked to go on ski trips when he was a kid. Yep, a real everyman background. I can just see him and his dad pounding back Pabst Blue Ribbon beers and swapping jokes about the mill in their overalls. Not.

Still, the imagery is there, and right wingers -from the republican wonks in Washington to the Tea Party faithful down at the local Wal Mart- are all on board.

Now if they can just keep those minorities, old people, and single women home come November, they will be in business.    

*Pic from the Paul Ryan Watch





  

Where is Yao when you need him?

I swear they can't take you Negroes anywhere. So now you done went and started a fight with the Chinese. This is not a good look for John Thompson III and the boys. I don't care how many bows those Chinese were throwing at you, you boys should have just sucked it up and walked away. Instead, we have an ugly international incident on our hands.

 "BEIJING — What began as a goodwill trip to China for the Georgetown men’s basketball team turned violent Thursday night, when its exhibition game against a Chinese professional club deteriorated into a benches-clearing melee in which players exchanged blows, chairs were thrown and spectators tossed full water bottles at the Hoyas players and coaches as they headed to the locker room.

Georgetown Coach John Thompson III pulled his players off the Olympic Sports Center Stadium court with 9 minutes, 32 seconds left in the game and the scored tied at 64 after a chaotic scene in which members of both the Georgetown and Bayi Military Rockets teams began swinging wildly and tackling one another.

There were an estimated half-dozen individual altercations on the court , and eventually some Chinese onlookers joined the fracas, including one wielding a stanchion. As the brawl spilled beyond the baseline, an unidentified Bayi player pushed Georgetown’s Aaron Bowen through a partition to the ground before repeatedly punching the sophomore guard while sitting on his chest.
Georgetown senior center Henry Sims had a chair tossed at him by an unidentified person, and Georgetown freshman forward Moses Ayegba, who was wearing a brace on his right leg, limped onto the court with a chair in his right hand..."

Oh Lawd! Maybe you boys couldn't have just walked away after all. What's wrong with the Chinese? They don't have love for GT? Have they ever heard of Patrick Ewing, Sleepy Floyd, AI, and Alonzo Mourning?

"The brawl occured one night after Vice President Biden, who is in Beijing on a four-day visit to discuss U.S.-Chinese economic relations, attended a Georgetown game against another Chinese club at the Olympic Sports Center. That game, which was won by Georgetown, passed without incident.

The turbulent ending to Thursday night’s contest marred what had been billed as the second game of a two-day “China-U.S. Basketball Friendship Match” in Beijing. Georgetown intended for the team’s 10-day trip to China to be an athletic, cultural and educational exchange designed to promote the school internationally."

Maybe next time we will send Duke.

I really don't want to blog about Michele Bachmann as much as I do, but girlfriend just wont let me walk away.

Here is the latest from the Queen of the tea party:

"This could be the least serious campaign promise of the year. While on the trail in South Carolina this week, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann vowed that if elected president, gasoline prices would fall to less than $2 per gallon.

"Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 per gallon again," Bachmann said during a town hall meeting in Greenville, S.C., according to The Hill newspaper. "That will happen."
To accomplish this, Bachmann said, she would encourage more oil drilling by opening up spaces currently under federal protection and reduce restrictions and regulation on oil companies. The national average for the price of gas is currently $3.60 per gallon." [Source]

Michele, I have a news flash for you: if gas is selling at less than $2 a gallon during your presidency that will not be good for the economy. Just a thought. Still,if you can get the field to pay less than $2 a gallon at the pump, you just might have my vote.

Finally, speaking of the tea party, I see that a new study by a couple of academics is confirming what I believed all along about my wingnut friends. Remember how they tried to say that they were independent of either political party? Well, it turns out that was a lie. And, as it turns out, they don't like us black folks too much, either. Nooooooo.

"Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.
More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics.

And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government." [Source] 

A desire "to see religion play a prominent role in politics". That sounds like another group I know.

These men would like to thank the Tea Party folks for their support.

"We've got to do everything in our power to grow this economy and put America back to work," ..."We can't balance the budget on the backs of the people who've borne the brunt of this recession,"Growing the economy isn’t just about cutting spending, it is not about rolling back regulations that protect our air and water and keep people safe. That is not how we are going to get past this recession. We are going to have to do more than that,"... ."There already is a quiet crisis going on in the lives of a lot of families and a lot communities all across the country. They are looking for work and they have been for a while ... that ought to compel Washington to cooperate, that ought to compel Washington to compromise and that ought to compel Washington to act."

"[W]hen Congress gets back from recess, I will urge them to immediately take some steps -- bipartisan, common-sense steps -- that will make a difference; that will create a climate where businesses can hire, where folks have more money in their pockets to spend, where people who are out of work can find good jobs," said Obama. "Both parties share power in Washington, and both parties need to take responsibility for improving this economy. It's not a Democratic responsibility or a Republican responsibility; it is our collective responsibility as Americans."

That was part of O's speech today while he put his pen to the tea party powered debt ceiling bill that will have A-merry-ca on her knees within a few years.--- If she isn't there already. The Dow dropped over 200 points today, and we are under that 12,000.00 mark again. It's time to check your 401k's people. If you are working in hopes of collecting a pension one day keep your fingers crossed. It just might not be there. 

Yes O, people need jobs, but big business is not hiring because they are not confident that their companies will be able to prosper in this environment. (Or so they say.) Who is going to spend money with these businesses if people don't have jobs? Oh my, what a Catch 22 situation we have here in A-merry-ca.
No wonder we A-merry-cans feel so bad about our future. "It's those evil Chinese." No it's not. It's  those evil A-merry-can corporations shipping jobs oversees and paying slave labor wages to foreign workers. A-merry-can factories are shutting down in record numbers because the fat cats who run these corporations can afford to do that.

Meanwhile, the really rich folks here in A-merry-ca just keep getting richer. The top 1% of  folks with loot here in A-merry-ca control about 40% of the wealth. They used to control about 10%, but thanks to their new found influence and power in Washington that has changed. They would also like to thank you dopes who will never have anything even close to the amount of wealth that they have for fighting so hard on their behalf and against your own best interest. (Please watch this wonderful little video and you will learn what I have been trying to tell you in about 2 minutes. It's side- bar worthy.) It always helps to have a lot of stupid people in your corner. 

"Simply put, it will take a balanced approach, shared sacrifice, and a willingness to make unpopular choices on all our parts,"... "That means spending less on domestic programs," the president explained. "It means spending less on defense programs. ... And it means taking on the tax code, and cutting out certain tax breaks and deductions for the wealthiest Americans."

Yeah right! O, I think there is a Mr. Koch on line one for you. He says that you don't have to take his call. Your black ass will be gone soon and he will put someone on Pennsylvania Avenue who will.

Just your garden variety "Tea Party" candidate.

I swear my man racism is slowing down in his old age. It's getting too damn easy to chase him these days:

"Republican Party leaders in central Illinois are calling on their own candidate for state senate to step down following racist remarks he made at a candidate’s forum last week.

Al Reynolds, who is considered the Tea Party candidate in Illinois’ 52nd District, has been unavailable to the media since saying that African American men preferred dealing drugs to going to college, because it is “easier.”

'I’ve been in the city and the dichotomy of the women and the men in the minorities, there is a difference in the fact that most minority women, either the single parent or coming from a poor neighborhood, are motivated more so than the minority men,' Reynolds said, when asked what he would do to increase diversity at state colleges. 'And it’s a pretty good reason. Most of the women who are single parents have to find work to support their family. The minority men find it more lucrative to be able to do drugs or other avenues rather than do education. It’s easier.”' [More]

Oh my! Mr. Reynolds, it looks like some of those drug dealing black men have been allowing you to sample their products.

Don't you just love when certain people show their true colors? [h/t NewsOne]

The faux revolutionaries: The rise of the "Noisy Negroes".

I sit on the board of a very good organization here in Philly. It's an up and coming 501(c) whose founder (Shout out to Malika) does great work with helping at risk young ladies get themselves together. I remember during the early stages of getting her organization off the ground, the group's founder would have various meetings and head sessions with so called leaders from different areas in the city. Some of these so called leaders talked a great game,-we could barely get trough meetings because of all the talking- and they were always down for whatever. As long, of course, as they were just talking about it. I suspect that they would be much like some people who comment on this board with very strong feelings about certain groups in various parts of the world. The thing is, when this young lady needed funding to help get her organization off the ground, these down ass leaders were nowhere to be found. When she needed actual volunteers to help out with various projects, these down ass leaders were nowhere to be found. This is typical of an individual I like to call the faux revolutionary, or the "Noisy Negro". They talk a lot, but that's about all they do: Talk.

I have issues with the tea party folks and the wingnuts who organize around right wing causes, but I will never accuse them of just talking a lot. They actually organize and put their boots on the ground, and they usually aren't afraid to write a check. They will walk to the voting booth, to Washington, and to the office of their local elected representatives. The farthest the "Noisy Negro" will walk is to his or her television to watch whatever, or to his or her computer to comment on a blog in order to cement his or her "Noisy Negro" status. Oh, and they will walk to meetings to talk if they can have the floor. That's just what "Noisy Negroes" do.

I suspect that's why many of our communities are in the shape they are in. We have "Noisy Negroes" in the pulpit, "Noisy Negroes" in city hall, and "Noisy Negroes" masquerading as community leaders.

"Noisy Negroes" are cool sometimes because they keep us entertained. They represent a kind of minstrel show, a comic relief from life. But sometimes we need a little more than just comic relief. Sometimes we need to get serious. These are serious times that call for serious actions. But I know that we won't get anything -even faintly resembling serious action- from the "Noisy Negro". Nope, that would actually require doing more than just talking or typing. That would require being quiet and listening for a minute.