Hoodwinking the American voter.

I saw an article today that got my undivided attention. Which, given my very short attention span, was actually guite an achievement.

It was written over at Huffington Post by Robert Kuttner ( I hope Arianna paid the author) and it is cut and paste worthy.

"When you consider what has been happening to the average working person since the era of Ronald Reagan, it's amazing that the Republicans have fought the Democrats about to a draw.


The recipe of Reagan and both Bushes has been to weaken government, undermine the regulation of market excesses, attack core social insurance programs, tilt the tax system away from the wealthy and towards the middle class, gut the safeguards that protect workers on the job, make college ever more unaffordable, and appoint judges who undermine democracy itself.


That stuff is not exactly popular. Yet Democrats seem largely unable to convert Republican elitism to their advantage. And despite some phony populist trappings, every conceivable Republican candidate for 2016 is even further to the right than Reagan and the Bushes.


If the Republican formula had improved the economy, voters might say that, well, maybe the rich got richer but other folks did okay too; and you could understand why Republicans gained ground among working people. But that's not what happened.


Between the Reagan presidency and 2008, average economic performance was only so-so and the rich got nearly all the gains, the exception being the middle and late 1990s under Bill Clinton. The economy, you'll recall, crashed on the watch of George W. Bush, as the result of conservative policies that liberated Wall Street to have its way with the rest of the economy.


So, why is there not a groundswell of support for Democrats? Why don't people grasp their own economic interests?


The usual answers include the fact that the recovery under Obama has been weak; that the Affordable Care Act backfired; that there is a backlash among socially conservative white voters who resent everything from Obama's race to the sense that he is too indulgent of immigrants; the usual litany of complaints against Democrats on such social issues as guns, God and gays; and the fact that the Tea Parties have devised a kind of rightwing populism.
But it seems to me that the Democrats' problems run deeper.


Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the core Democratic proposition has been that regular people need government to offset the power of business elites and the injustices and inefficiencies of a capitalist economy. But that premise has been tarnished -- perhaps fatally weakened -- in three mutually reinforcing respects.


First, Republicans have succeeded in blocking Democrats from pursuing the sort of policies and programs that make a positive difference in the lives of working Americans. New programs that have made it through Congress despite Republican stonewalling, such as the Affordable Care Act, are typically so burdened with fatal compromises -- diversion of funds from Medicare, excess subsidies to drug and insurance companies, cumbersome bureaucratic compliance requirements -- that they give government (and Democrats) a bad name. Other rare successes are mostly token measures that don't change very much.


By contrast, the Democrats' Greatest Hits -- Social Security, Medicare, the G. I. Bill, the Wagner Act (and a strong labor movement backed by federal enforcement); college aid in the era when a Pell Grant covered most of tuition costs -- made a genuine difference in people's lives.


Secondly, as economic conditions have worsened for most working people and government hasn't provided much help, voters begin internalizing the Republican idea that we're all on our own anyway. Though people support affirmative government and progressive policies in principle, today's voters are increasingly skeptical that government can make much of a constructive difference. What the hell, better just to vote for the party of lower taxes.


Third, the Democratic Party is less of a counterweight to economic royalists that it once was because many of those royalists are inside the Democratic Party. How can the Democrats offset the malevolent power of concentrated finance when Goldman Sachs provides their top economic policy officials? In addition to counseling against breaking up the big banks, the Obama economic team persuaded the president to support austerity at a time when the economy needed oxygen.


All of this reinforces the media mantra that both parties are equally culpable in the gridlock that passes for today's political democracy -- and that Democrats as well as Republicans care more about insiders than about ordinary Americans.
You have to get to the left edge of the Democratic Party before you find leade-
rs and policy ideas that challenge the dominance of finance and that would make a real difference in the lives of working people. As my colleague Harold Meyerson writes in the new issue of the American Prospect, it's time for Democrats once again to earn the hatred of the rich, FDR-style.


Could that happen? The most likely nominee in 2016 is of course Hillary Clinton. If elected, she would be the third basically centrist Democratic president in a row, four counting Jimmy Carter. And let's be more precise -- centrist as in center-left on social issues and center-right on Wall Street.


She is certainly preferable to any Republican on the horizon. And with several Republican senators who squeaked through in 2010 up for re-election, a landslide Hillary victory might even sweep in a Democratic Congress.


Even so, it would be a long road back to the sort of Democratic Party that contained the abuses of financial elites and used activist government to better the lives of ordinary Americans -- or that could reasonably expect voters to reciprocate." [Source]

I would love to have some critical discussion about some of the points that he raised, but I know that given our troll infested and hyper- partisan internet environment that will be difficult.

 

Still, it's worth a shot.

 

Thoughts?

Different Jokes for different folks.

Chelsea Handler was all over twitter on behalf of the Huffington Post making fun of black folks during the Oscars.


Of course I didn't find her tweets amusing, but I am sure that her fans did.


Now, the thing is, black folks are offended and rightfully so. (Mandela jokes?! You done lost your mind.)But let's not kid ourselves, Handler had every right to crack her jokes to her audience and she had a license to do so from the Huffington Post.


Now she says she is sorry, but we all know the deal, this is how she feels about certain subjects, and she let it be known by way of her acerbic and biting tweets. But she is now also playing the hottest new game in America: How to say I am sorry in a sound bite or in a quickly drafted letter from a publicist. 


To be perfectly honest, I might have seen her show maybe once when I just stumbled on it one late night, and until this incident I had forgotten that she even existed. Honestly, if I were to run into her out on the street I wouldn't know who she is. So, to me, it's not like some A-List star or television personality was on twitter blasting my people. We probably should just ignore Ms. Handler and she will go away. Hopefully.

"In a statement to theGrio, Perri Dorset, Huffington Post Senior Executive Director for Communications said, “the views [expressed by Handler] are not ours.”


“The Huffington Post occasionally has celebrities take over our Twitter handle including  Bill Maher during the State of the Union,” she added.


Handler ended her Huffington Post Twitter takeover with a simple “I’m sorry.” However today many are saying her apology was too little, too late."


I'm not. In fact, nd apology was not really needed. We understand where Ms. Handler was coming from. And, sadly, so does her fans.


Speaking of the Oscars, apparently Rush Limbaugh things that the only reason 12 Years A Slave won best picture is because of the word "Slave" in the title.


"Rush Limbaugh has not seen 12 Years a Slave, but he opined anyway on Monday that the only reason it won Best Picture at the Oscars was because it had the “magic word” of “slave” in the title. Limbaugh mocked the “self-satisfaction” of the awards ceremony and said that unlike at past Oscars, there wasn’t any “demonstrable political preaching” from anyone.


But what Limbaugh did pick up on was Ellen DeGeneres‘ joke that either 12 Years a Slave would win the big prize or everyone’s a racist. And Limbaugh believed that to be more true than anyone realized.

“If it was the only thing that movie won, it was gonna win best picture. There was no way. It didn’t matter if it was good or bad. I haven’t seen it. It was going to win. It had the magic word in the title. Slave.”

Notice he has never seen the movie, so he can't tell if it's actually a well made movie or not. But he does know that the movie won because of reverse racism and white guilt.


Funny how that works with conservatives. Like the fact that they are all fawning over Matthew McConaughey because he said the word God in his acceptance speech.


And why is this so special? Athletes (especially black ones)praise and thank God after damn near every game, and yes, even big ones with large Oscar size audiences. So why isn't that a big deal to conservatives? Oh that's right....

There is that word again, and Andrew gets dumped.

"In 2007, I used a word I should have never used,'' Murray wrote. " "Minutes after saying it, I apologized to my co-workers and subordinates. Eventually, I received a very strong reprimand from my supervisor. To this day, I have the deepest regret for the incident and the pain I may have caused others. I ask the African-American community and all communities who suffer with the ugliness of bigotry to accept my sincerest apology. I pray for healing and forgiveness from those I have offended as we move toward a new chapter and forever close the old.''

Oh Lawd! That was yet another white person in A-merry-ca having to apologize because they were caught saying the word Nigger..... publicly.

Here is the story of Broward County school board member, Ann Murray, and her little slip of the tongue which happened to be overheard by some of you Negroes a few years back. Relax Ms. Murray. I know that black folks are calling for your resignation, but I say keep on doing what you are doing. You just happened to slip up.... publicly; that's all.

Finally, I see that The Huffington Post has caved in to the pressure from you black folks and dumped Andrew Pop-Tart from their front page. Hmmm, wasn't it just a few days ago that they said this?:

"From the beginning, The Huffington Post has welcomed voices from all sides of the political spectrum, including conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, Frank Luntz, Tom Coburn, Laura Ingraham, Bob Barr, George Pataki, David Frum, Byron York, Mary Matalin, and Ken Blackwell. The idea being that dialogue -- from a wide range of perspectives -- is preferable to silence. The fact that Andrew Breitbart’s first post on our site drew over 1,635 comments, conducted in a civil manner, seems to validate the premise and the decision to publish his blog post. " [Source]

I swear that you just don't know who to trust these days.

Arianna goes black and Desmond's fear of an aging quarterback.

Nancy Grace and company won't do it, so I am going to start this post by making you all aware of little Octavius Powell, the 11 year old who has been missing from his Miami (Florida) home since last Friday. He was last seen wearing a red polo shirt and khaki pants. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this little guy will be found, and that he will return to his family as healthy as he was when he left. (h/t to Pamela for hipping me to this story)

Inside baseball time: I hear that HuffPo is planning to have a black section for us Negroes. (It's called "Global Black" but I am guessing it will be primarily for Negroes in A-merry-ca.) Nothing attracts more ad. revenue like your very own Negro section. Gotta have a place for those Chrysler 300 and McDonald's commercials. HuffPo will join NBC (The Grio), The Washington Post (The Root), AOL (BlackVoices) on the corporate black bandwagon. Good luck with that Arianna, but you should have checked with me before you picked your partner.

"But I really wanted to bring the real news, the story telling-to really bring back the voice of the black community on some relevant news and views."

You mean kind of like you did with BET?!

Anyway, some folks are already jumping ship. Maybe Arianna should have checked with a lot more folks.

Sticking with the media, I am going to have to rip my man Desmond Howard a little bit. Yo Desmond, what's up with you letting Phil Simms threaten you and then tweeting about it like a big baby to your fans? "Phil Simms just threatened 2 hit me b/c I said his son was 1 of the worst QB's in the SEC" . First of all, Phil, your son does suck! So you might want to get over it. And, as someone said recently, you are in the business of criticizing other people's sons every damn Sunday, so your kid is fair game. BTW, since we are on the subject: your other son sucks , too. Still, this doesn't excuse Desmond Howard's wimpy behavior. He should have told you what I just wrote and let the chips fall where they may.

Finally, I thought I had seen it all from you Negroes, but this one takes the cake. I swear, some of you Negroes need Jesus.

I'm out.

Heatwave!

Whoever said global warming was a hoax can kiss my black a%#! It must be 110 degrees all up and down the least-coast. Anyway, the blog must go on.

Right about now I am feeling Reggie. The little dude, who in true Philly fashion, went on stage and jammed with the Goo Goo Dolls. Definitely a YouTube moment. And, I am not feeling this church lady. Girlfriend sued her church for $250,000.00 large because they allowed Gay marriages. I don't agree with her, but that is not my issue. This is a free country, she can believe anything she wants.

My issue with "church lady" is that she dropped $250,000.00 in the offering plate over a 37 year period. Thirty Seven years ago $250,000.00 would have bought her a really nice house. And it would have been paid for by now. Instead, the good Reverend got it. Man I sure hope she worships in a very nice building.

Hey, did I read this right? They sentenced a woman to death by stoning in Iran? WTF?

"Human rights activists are rallying the international community to stop an Iranian woman being stoned to death. In 2006, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani was convicted of having extramarital relations with two men, who subsequently killed her husband according to Huliq.

While she initially received 99 lashes for adultery, during an appeal of her case, the court sentenced her to death by stoning. Her sentence has caused widespread outrage because there is no conclusive evidence that she actually committed a crime. Ashtiani's attorney, Mohammad Mostafaei, an acclaimed human rights lawyer, told the Guardian, "This is an absolutely illegal sentence. Two of five judges who investigated Sakineh's case in Tabriz prison concluded that there's no forensic evidence of adultery." For a case of adultery to be punishable by stoning, four witnesses must be able to confirm the act, according to Article 74 of the Iranian penal code. In Ashtiani's case, there are no witnesses .

Additionally, the trial was conducted in Farsi, while Ashtiani, from Northwestern Iran, speaks Turkish. Ashtiani's children, son,Sajad and daughter Farideh, are leading the campaign for her freedom. Sajad told the Guardian, "She's innocent, she's been there for five years for doing nothing...Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister for all these years." Women executed by stoning are buried up to their necks (men are buried up to the waist) and a crowd throws stones at their head, which slowly leads to death. Sentences are commuted if one is able to dig oneself out of the hole"...[Article]

Unfortunately for you, Sakineh, this did not happen in Israel, so there will be no real International outcry. Certain bloggers won't take up your cause. And there sure as hell won't be any denouncing of the evil Iranians.

Finally, speaking of evil; I know I touched on this in an earlier post, but I can't let it go just yet. Besides, I saw an excellent article in HuffPo by Stanley Kutler that brought my thoughts around to the subject all over again:

"Elena Kagan's confirmation is likely if no other reason than the emptiness of the Republican case against here. Her hearing had, in her own well-chosen words, "an air of vacuity and farce." Nevertheless, the Republicans scored electoral points and solidified their appeal to those whose hostility toward President Barack Obama is rooted in racial basis.

Kagan, as is well known by now, clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court's first African-American. Apparently, there is no statute of limitations on the kind of attacks Marshall endured in life, and which continue 17 years after his death.

At the first day of Kagan's hearing, the Republicans seemed bent on projecting Kagan as Marshall's clone, one who would follow his "activist" judicial philosophy. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) laid the cards clearly on the table when he charged that "too often, it sounds to me like Ms. Kagan shares the view of President Obama and Justice [Thurgood] Marshall that the Supreme Court exists to advance the agenda of certain classes of litigants." He insisted that Kagan had the burden to demonstrate she can be "a fair and impartial Justice, rather than one who would have an outcome-based approach."

Kyl and fellow Republicans Sens. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL), Charles Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) invoked Marshall's name nearly forty times in two days, nearly three times more than President Obama's. They repeatedly referenced Marshall's judicial philosophy as "evidence" of Kagan's intentions. Sessions, the ranking member of the Committee, made it perfectly clear, calling Marshall "a well-known activist." The Republicans offered no examples of how Marshall's rulings twisted the Constitution to achieve that sinister-sounding "outcome-based approach."

After the first day of hearings, a Utah newspaper asked Hatch if he would have voted for Marshall when his confirmation came up in 1967. "Well, it's hard to say," Hatch replied. Hatch projects himself as an ordinary fellow (listen to his YouTube rendition of his "Eight Days of Chanukah" song) with an upright Mormon world view, and the Senate's moral voice. Some moral voice.

Had Hatch opposed Marshall's confirmation in 1967, he would have had had interesting bedfellows for 10 steadfast segregationists rejected Marshall, joined by one newly-minted future of the Republican party - the never-repentant J. Strom Thurmond. There are two contexts here: the present moment of Kagan's hearing, and the historical one of Marshall's travail in his confirmation hearings.

Kagan appeared with impeccable credentials, and with smarts and savvy for running essentially a seminar with the senators. Robert Bork foolishly tried to take the lecture senators as if he were in a classroom, but only succeeded in alienating them. Kagan not only demonstrated a learned and supple mind, she showed herself to be a very human, warm individual, with a sense of humor that provided a few spontaneous moments.

So, why the Republican hostility? Their not-so-subtle uses of the Marshall analogy amounted to stump speeches for the electorate back home. The senators well know their constituents' hostility toward President Obama has powerful racial overtones that fuel the public anger so calculated for the evening television news. The Thurgood Marshall references amounted to a purposeful, well-orchestrated strategy to fire up the "base." [Article]

Can someone please convince me why I should become a conservative? I promise I will keep an open mind.

I refuse to go there.

Some people often call me messy, and they say that I like to start "stuff" on my blog from time to time. I have been called a "flame thrower", and an "irresponsible blow hard" among other things. But tonight I am fighting back. Tonight I am going to be responsible and take the high road and not give in to Internet rumors, lies, and innuendos.

Take this story of Cindy McCain's affair for instance. If I was as messy and as irresponsible as some folks say that I am, I would have been blogging about it. But I am here to tell you that there is not a single piece of evidence to confirm that this story is in fact true, so I am going to leave it alone. Just because those folks over the National Enquirer are reporting it, that doesn't make it true. I know they broke the John Edwards story, but they got lucky with that one. Those communist over at the "Huffington Post" should be ashamed of themselves for republishing it.

I have to agree with the responsible bloggers like these folks, and say that this was just an Internet blogger driven story, and that there is no truth to it whatsoever..... Ahhh field, you are such an asshole, if this was an Internet story about Michelle Obama would you have even mentioned it on your blog? Wow! What a tough question? That question is causing me to do some serious soul searching. You know what, I probably wouldn't have even mentioned this story if it was about Michelle Obama. I should be fair and honorable, and not give in to my depraved salacious instincts.

Okay, that's it, I am sorry I even mentioned this story on my blog, and I am not going to give this story any play and go there. I should know better, this is just wrong. In fact, I feel so bad about this that I won't mention it here ever again.

Unless....ahh never mind, I won't mention it again, period!

The A-merry-can lie.

This is a rare middle of the day post for me, but I have to do it, because the shit I want to write about is just too pressing to ignore. Over the past few days we have seen a concerted effort by the FUCK NEWS Channel (Although they have become unraveled lately. I love a good anchor vs. anchor fight don't you?), and other main stream media outlets to make an issue of the "O" man's pastor. Seems that the good Reverend said some things that scared quite a few folks in Wonder Bread A-merry-ca, and thus by association, the "O" man had all of a sudden become a racist.

Now thanks to Sam Stein, over at Huffington Post, there is another story about Mr. Morton's pastor. And I was just wondering if A-merry-ca will ignore or choose to give the same scrutiny and air play to this story as they gave to the one about the "O" man's pastor. Somehow I doubt that we will be seeing the hour to hour coverage on FUCK NEWS, and the nonstop talking heads devoted to talking about this story.

And what exactly is the good Reverends story? Seems he compared Planned Parenthood to the KKK and the Nazis and he accused them of committing genocide against black people. Pretty outrageous stuff, and pretty unAmery-can isn't it? But wait; it's not a black man talking about white oppression, it's a white man talking about white oppression, so I guess it's not that big of a deal. Right?

Come on now A-merry-ca, let's be honest with ourselves; shouldn't Mr. Morton now be forced to give a speech about bigotry, hate, and making reckless irresponsible comments in the public square? If we are going to tie Reverend Wright to the "O" man's hip, shouldn't we do the same with this guy? Hey, read the article, I couldn't make this shit up. I will give Mr. Morton a pass with John Hagee, but not Reverend Parsley, he declared to the world that this guy was one of his spiritual advisers.

So OK FUCK NEWS, I will be watching, and I hope the rest of A-merry-ca will be watching you too. I hope A-merry-cans (not you Black folks because you get it), especially independents, realize just what kind of "three card monty" you are trying to pull over their eyes. I hope they see you and the others in the media for the frauds that you really are. I hope they see past the big A-merry-can lie and start thinking for themselves.

"If I were call for the sterilization or the elimination of an entire segment of society, I'd be labeled a racists or a murderer, or at very best a Nazi,..." No you wouldn't Reverend, because unless you are a black preacher from the South Side of Chicago, they will totally ignore you.

No President's Day For Dante.

"For what its worth, Dante Jackson Freeman was the toughest kid in Philadelphia. Ever.
Four years ago, in a craps game in his North Philadelphia neighborhood up around 29th and Oxford Streets, he won what some apparently felt was too much. At least that's his mother's theory of how his trouble started. Stacey Jackson wasn't always sure what was going on with her teenage son in those streets. She was relaxing at a neighborhood club on a winter night when she was told her son was outside. She found Dante, furious, standing on the cold sidewalk in his socks.
"Can you believe this?" he asked her. He had been jumped by some boys he knew, and they had taken his jacket and his boots.
"He felt violated," Stacey said. "People he knew did it to him. After that, Dante just went off."
Another Dante conjured up one stunning vision of hell, but there is another real one burning in fierce pockets around this city. African Americans here are three times more likely to be murdered than the countrywide average. Most of the victims are young men. There were 317 gun-related homicides here last year, compared with 233 four years ago, despite world-class emergency medical care that every year pulls more and more back from the grave. The trend reflects an out-of-control urban underclass, an abandoned and shockingly vicious subculture that is one of the biggest ongoing stories in this city and country.
Yet these are rarely the kinds of killings that get much press. The carnage in the streets of American cities in any one year far exceeds the combined death tolls in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet it is not even on the agenda of national politics. More and more, the shootings are not about money or drugs, but about nothing at all, or what amounts to nothing in the larger world. Today's murders are often about being "dissed." The reckless pride of a teenage boy is not new, but what of a society without the constraints of family and community? That amplifies petty vendettas with easy access to deadly weapons? That encourages it in film and song? There is something new about that.
So Dante's story began with stolen boots. To his mother, he was not perfect, but was basically "a good boy," polite and caring, a dropout just a few credits shy of his high school diploma. To the system, he just fit a familiar mold - an angry young man with prior drug and handgun arrests in a willing swan dive toward death or prison.
Three weeks after his boots were stolen, Dante was shot for the first time. The round hit his lower left leg and foot. He was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital, where they stitched him up expertly and sent him home on crutches, his leg in a cast. That lasted for a few weeks. As soon as the leg would bear weight, he cut off the cast and went back out with his gun.
He was shot the second time just a few weeks later, in the other leg. This time he was repaired at Temple University Hospital, where Dante was to become a regular. He was sent home once more in a cast, and after a few weeks he cut that one off and went back out with his gun, where he was promptly shot a third time. That round went into his side in the front and exited in the rear. No organ damage. They stitched him up in the emergency room at Temple and sent him back home.
"Dante, he was a quick healer," Stacey said. He wasn't down for long.
The fourth time was more serious. On April 14, 2005, he was hit multiple times - "four or five," Stacey said - in the chest and stomach. He was with his friend Pierre "Scooter" Gatson, who died. At Temple's trauma center, where he was now on a first-name basis, 19-year-old Dante had a hole poked in his neck to attach a breathing machine, and surgeons sewed up his innards, which had been savagely rearranged. They cut out a damaged portion of his bowels. He spent 30 days in intensive care.
"He was a wiry, angry kid," said James Curtis, a trauma nurse who got to know him during that visit. "I could relate to him. I grew up in a neighborhood like that. I gave him the talk, the one about putting the guns down, finding a job. They are a captive audience for a while. You hope that the shock of the shooting will open their ears. I give them hard words. Some of them listen. I've had kids who have taken it upon themselves to change. But for some of them, that world is all they know."
Scott Charles, the trauma outreach coordinator at Temple, tells a scarred kid like Dante that getting shot is not like getting hit by lightning; that, hit once, he is more likely to be shot again; that unless he makes big changes, he will probably be back, or dead. He points out that the surgeons and nurses are all making a nice living patching him up repeatedly, that they drive cool cars back and forth to lovely homes on safe blocks. He speaks up for education, responsibility and hard work.
Dante was a polite listener, but unmoved. He knew, but would never say, who shot him. He was annoyed when the women in his family sniffled at his bedside over his terrible wounds.
"You stop all that cryin'," he scolded them. "But when I do die, I want you all to get tattoos."
Dante went home that summer with a colostomy bag. The surgeons left a hole in his abdomen so that the large intestine could drain feces into it. It wasn't permanent. When the healing progressed, they planned to reattach the severed portions and get rid of the bag, but Dante didn't last that long. He had lost a lot of weight, so under his oversized shirt you couldn't see the bag... or the gun. He was hit for the last time on Aug. 18, 2005, in a gangland-style shoot-out with a passing car, which sped away. Stacey found him still on the pavement, silent, his breath coming in heaves, wounded this time in the neck and back.
There are still many, many tough kids in Philadelphia, armed and angry and ready, but I think Dante gets the crown. The old ghetto joke is: If you want to look tough, have a broken arm. So it should come as no surprise that on his fifth delivery to a trauma center, the toughest kid in Philadelphia was dead.
He is buried in an unmarked grave in his old neighborhood. Stacey is planning to get a stone in time for the first anniversary of his death. The girls in the family have tattoos. "

I would like to thank Mark Bowden from my hometown paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, for that moving and all too familiar story.

Memo to my white liberal progressive friends at blogs like My DD,Huffington Post, and Daily Kos: Dante Jackson and many more like him, is the reason we can't go into this raging cultural and political war together. The truth is, there are no Dante Jackson's in your world or in your neighborhoods. And although there might not be any Dante Jackson's in my neighborhood either, Dante looks just like me, and we share something that none of you ever will; our race. The blood that ran through Dante's veins is the same blood that runs through mine, and more than likely, the person's that killed him. It's what separates me from all of my progressive friends who might share some of my politics, but know nothing about my struggle.

When I wake up every day and have to read about yet another young black man taking the life of another it hurts. And it pains me that a country that can spend billions of dollars to protect the life of people thousands and thousands of miles away can't protect the children right here in Philadelphia. It pains me to watch poli-tricksters posture with bulls**t issues (Troop surge no troop surge,non-binding resolutions,binding resolutions, and on and on) when kids are dying out here on these streets, and neighborhoods are being lost . Why? Because it's not their kids, and the kids that are dying do not look like them. " Field, why are you so angry all the time?" Because America and the ignorant ass selfish people running it made me this way.

Oh well, happy President's Day everybody. Hey, just one more day to be happy for. I bet there will be some great sales in the stores. They even say it's the best day to buy a car. Thank God our 43rd President, the frat boy, is fighting for us over in Iraq. How else could we afford to keep the price of oil down. After all, what good is a shiny new car if you can't afford to gas it.