If only he had lived a little longer.

If Donald trump's old history teachers were alive they would be begging to go into witness protection right about now.

When I first heard about Donald trump's take on his hero, Andrew Jackson, and how he (Jackson) could have prevented the Civil War, I must admit that I thought that it was a fake headline from The Onion. Silly me. I forgot just how clueless and intellectually lazy the man who 40% of you decided to go out and elect as your president can be.

Here is the president's take on Andrew Jackson and the civil war:

"President Trump mused in an interview that the Civil War could have been avoided if only Andrew Jackson had been around to stop it. Jackson had been dead 16 years and long out of office when the war started in 1861.

 

Mr. Trump’s comments, among several he made about Jackson in an interview broadcast Monday on satellite radio, quickly drew condemnation from his critics and from historians who said they appeared to show the president profoundly misunderstanding American history.

 

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” he told his interviewer, Salena Zito, a host on SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. channel, who spoke to Mr. Trump for an article that was published on Sunday in The Washington Examiner.

 

Mr. Trump has often professed admiration for the seventh president’s populism and visited his tomb in March. {Source} 

 

Trump went on to say that his hero had a "big heart".  Really?!

 

Anyway, the president wanted to know why there was a Civil War. Well Donald, there is this thing called slavery, and your hero, that guy with the "big heart", actually owned slaves himself.  In fact, he built his fortune on the backs of slaves, and he hated abolitionists.  Oh, and let's just throw in for good measure, the fact that he authorized the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans by signing the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830.

 

Still,  I see why Donald trump is such an admirer of Andrew Jackson; they have so much in common.  

 

 

 

 

 

  

The confederacy fights back.

The right wing is now in full revolt mode. They believe that they are losing the war for the heart and soul of their beloved country, and they are not going to go down without a fight. 

While some people in the country are busy celebrating the official removal of the confederate flag from state grounds in South Carolina (a move that was long overdue, and that only came about because nine innocent people were  slaughtered by a defender of said flag), the friends of the confederacy and their right wing friends were regrouping to fight back against the tide of Yankee love sweeping over the country.

Pat Buchanan has all but declared that another Civil War is looming , and  he is calling for "mass right-wing civil disobedience." (Now that's funny, because I thought that is what we have been getting in Washington  for the past eight years.) 

He claims that it's the latest rulings from the Supreme Court legalizing same sex marriages and allowing the ACA to stand that has set him off, but Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles can see that it's the attack on the symbol of the confederacy that really sent him over the top.

He has lots of company. Over the past few days we have seen rallies and protests in support of the flag. Poor Nikki Haley, bless her pandering heart, has been attacked relentlessly on facebook and twitter for being a n**#%r lover.

Rocker Kid Rock has told us all to kiss his ass  (dude, you're from Michigan) and the right- wing editorials and pundits have already started about the flag not being a problem and that it's just a piece of cloth. Blah. Blah. Blah.

My prediction: In a  year or two this phase that Americans are going through will pass. And Wal Mart, Sears and Amazon will be moving products with the "stars and bars" just like they were before.
Politicians will no longer be on television moralizing about the offensive nature of the symbol, and everything that happened in South Carolina will fade from our collective memories.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over the freedom of conscience.

In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant debt as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever spoken.

The idea that the Confederate flag (actually, there were five of them) stood for racism, bigotry, hatred, and slavery is just so much hogwash. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the racist was in 1861, just read the words of Mr. Lincoln." [Source]

That folks, was Megyn Kelly, the most popular voice on right wing television. In that same article she says that the confederate flag should be raised; not taken down.

Stay vigilant people, and know your history. I have a feeling that it will be repeating itself real soon. 

*Pic from forwardprogressives.com

What are we all celebrating if we can't all agree that the confederate flag is racist?

Tonight I will take the unusual step of using an editorial from my local paper as my entire blog post.

It's important because it is a bold denunciation of that awful symbol flown to represent the treasonous army of the confederacy during the Civil War, and it is coming from a major newspaper in this country--- albeit one from North of the Mason- Dixon Line.
 

"The just elapsed sesquicentennial of the Civil War encouraged a reconsideration of the national tragedy as distant history. And yet it was only in recent weeks, 150 years and two months after the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox Court House, that the flag of that force was lowered from many places of honor across the United States.

The blue saltire with 13 white stars on a field of red was never the official flag of the Confederacy, but the banner of that army led by Robert E. Lee, underscoring its connection to an insurrection waged to preserve slavery at a cost of more than 600,000 lives.

The nine lives taken in a Charleston church last month were an impossible price for a symbolic and belated retreat from a long-lost cause. But the killer who bore the standard, along with those of racist African regimes, left no room for reinterpretation. So the flag began falling from Southern statehouses and monuments, retail shelves and websites, and, strangely enough, a shrine to a Philadelphia sandwich monger.

The latter featured a motorcycle bearing the Confederate symbol designed for the late xenophobic owner of Geno's Steaks, whose only Southern connection was to South Philadelphia - solid Union ground by any historical reckoning. Of course, the battle flag's implications often have nothing to do with Southern history, as countless Northern and ahistorical displays confirm. The flag wasn't hoisted over the South Carolina statehouse until the civil rights era, a century postbellum. 

Lowering flags won't cure bigotry any more than raising them caused it. But official elevation of a symbol of treason and racism certainly promotes tolerance of both. Its removal from capitols in Alabama and possibly South Carolina should lead the way for other governments to relinquish antique attachments. The Washington Post recently noted that seven state flags still incorporate Confederate symbols, while the South abounds with dubious tributes in the form of streets, schools, and other public works. The address of Emanuel A.M.E Church, the scene of last month's murders, is on Calhoun Street, named for an avid defender of slavery and nullification, the theory that foreshadowed secession.

 

Governments should not attempt to cleanse museums or battlefields of Civil War history. Nor should they infringe on private expression, no matter how wrongheaded. But it's easy to distinguish both from state-sanctioned glorification of rebellion and racism.

 

As a few commentators have noted, it wasn't only the massacre in Charleston but also the magnanimous reaction of the victims' families that inspired a reciprocal retreat from a symbol that, whatever subjective sympathies remain for some, holds unmistakable menace for others. Such goodwill holds the greatest promise for true union." [More]

 

And yet most Americans do not believe that this awful flag represents a symbol of racism.

 

I wonder how many of those same Americans were eating hot dogs and waving flags yesterday.

 

*Pic from theroot.com

 

 

 

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Bringing back the Black Codes.

I have written about a sort of new post Reconstruction fever sweeping over the United States since the election of Barack Obama in the past. It is now republicans and not democrats, and it is 2014 and not 1877; but the similarities are clear.




I still tend to think of Southern elected republican politicians as Scalawags. The grand deal to elect Rutherford B. Hayes as president meant that Southern whites could go back to treating blacks the way that they did prior to the ending of the Civil War.




Here we are in 2014, but make no mistake; there are quite a few elected officials who would love nothing more than to bring back the Black Codes.




They do a great job of covering it up, but every now and then one of them slips and we are reminded of what we are dealing with.




"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Tuesday that Georgia state Senator Fran Millar (R) penned an angry response to DeKalb County’s announcement that early voting will be available on Sunday, October 26, and that an early-voting location will be opened at The Gallery at South DeKalb Mall. Millar represents part of the county and is Senior Deputy Whip for the Georgia Senate Republicans.

Millar wrote:

Now we are to have Sunday voting at South DeKalb Mall just prior to the election. Per Jim Galloway of the AJC, this location is dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches such as New Birth Missionary Baptist. Galloway also points out the Democratic Party thinks this is a wonderful idea – what a surprise. I’m sure Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter are delighted with this blatantly partisan move in DeKalb.Is it possible church buses will be used to transport people directly to the mall since the poll will open when the mall opens? If this happens, so much for the accepted principle of separation of church and state. 

Many predominantly Black churches around the country organize “Souls to the Polls” events that encourage churchgoers to vote after attending Sunday church services. This often relies on carpooling and is perfectly legal, according to the Freedom From Religion Foundation (which advocates for a strict separation of church and state). While Republicans in places like North Carolina and Ohio have pushed to eliminate Sunday voting hours, it is unusual for a legislator to so candidly admit that this strategy is about reducing African American turnout. 

Millar notes that he is “investigating if there is any way to stop this action” and that he and State Representative Mike Jacobs (R) “we will try to eliminate this election law loophole in January,” as it might boost Democratic voter turnout.

 On his Facebook page Tuesday, Millar stood by his comments, writing: “I would prefer more educated voters than a greater increase in the number of voters. If you don’t believe this is an efort [SIC] to maximize Democratic votes pure and simple, then you are not a realist. This is a partisan stunt and I hope it can be stopped.” [Source]



Mr. Millar, I don't mean to be picky, but I am guessing that "more educated" voters would know how to spell e-f-f-o-r-t.


But hey, that's just me.




Anyway, I hope that we don't have to bring back the Underground Railroad for you Negroes down in Georgia. 




Finally, the NFL is saying that they tried to get that Ray Rice video of him punching out his wife in an Atlantic City elevator, but they were not "granted that opportunity".




“We had not seen any video tape of what occurred in the elevator. We assumed that there was a video, we asked for the video, we asked for anything that was pertinent, but we were never granted that opportunity.”




Yeah right.




If you think, for a minute, that one of the most powerful organizations in America could not have gotten an elevator surveillance video from the casino that involved one of their players, I have a wonderful antique bell with a slight crack on the side from my hometown that I would just love to sell you.




Sorry Roger, I am siding with Harvey Levin on this one.













 

The Civil War spirit.

This is a bad time for race relations in America.


To be sure, it has been worse, but folks expected so much after the election of the second first black president.


Sadly, though, that has not been the case.


Here is a post from Andy Schmookler which explains one of the reasons why things are the way they are.


"It's like facial recognition technology: if the features match up, you conclude, "It's the same guy."


So it is with the match between the force that drove us to Civil War more than a century and a half ago, and the force that has taken over the Republican Party in our times.


In both cases, we see an elite insisting on their "liberty," by which they mean the freedom to dominate.


With Citizens United, in our times, the corporatists have declared that their "freedom of speech" gives them the right to buy our elections, unfettered by any concerns about the rights of the average citizen to have an equal say in their government.


Back in the 1850s, the slaveholders insisted that their "liberty" meant that they had the right to take their human "property" anywhere in American territory, an insistence that swept aside the previously respected concerns of millions of their countrymen that there be regions of the country free of slavery.


In both cases, the use of the structures of American democracy was combined with a contempt for the democratic values that inspired our founders.
Nowadays, the Republicans have made a national effort to pass voter ID laws to address a non-existent problem of voter fraud-- a campaign that is itself a fraud whose transparent intent is to disenfranchise the vulnerable whose champions are the Republicans' opponents.


Back in the years leading up to the Civil War, the slaveholders banned the distribution of anti-slavery writings, and sometimes suppressed anti-slavery talk by violence.


In both cases, the elites driving the polarization of the country justified their dominance by distorting, in belittling ways, the humanity of those they sought to exploit.


Today's Republicans talk about the 47 percent, the half of the country they characterize as "takers," even though many of those 47 percent work multiple jobs just to make ends meet; and these Republicans vote to strip them of unemployment benefits, at a time of massive joblessness, in the mistaken belief that only desperation will get these lazy people to work.


Back in the time of the Slave Power, the slaveholding class declared they were doing their black slaves a favor to discipline them into an ethic of work; freeing them would be cruel, the masters claimed, because those blacks were inherently too lazy and incompetent to survive on their own.


In both cases, the idea of compromise became a dirty word, as the inflamed insistence on getting everything one's own way took hold of the inflamed side.
Today's Republicans do not seek compromise, and the dynamics of the party are such that anyone who works toward compromise is demonized and run out of office by challenge from the more extreme, uncompromising wing of the party.
Back in the years leading up to the Civil War, the South's insistence on the unfettered expansion of their domain led to the overturning of the great Missouri Compromise, which had held the nation together for more than thirty yearsv--va fracturing of the peace that instigated the return to the political arena of Abraham Lincoln, and set the nation on course to a bloody civil war.


In both cases, the powerful elite in the grip of that destructive force refused to accept that in a democracy sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and sometimes you have to accept being governed by a duly-elected president you don't like.


Today's Republicans have done everything they could to nullify the presidency of Barack Obama, whom the American people duly elected twice. Like no other opposition party in American history, they have refused to accept the temporary minority status to which American voters have consigned them. Blocking the president from performing the function for which the people hired him has been their top priority.


Back on the eve of the Civil War, the Southerners -- who had disproportionately dominated the upper echelons of the national government from the time of its founding -- considered the election of Abraham Lincoln an intolerable insult, and promptly made a unilateral decision to break apart the Union; they then raised an army to defend that decision, rather than accept the outcome of the democratic process and regroup for the next election.


As with facial recognition, the configuration of the features tells us, "This is the same ugly thing, come back again." [Source]


One little quibble with the author's premise: It's not only republicans; there are democrats among those "corporatist" as well. And even though they are in his party, their wimpy weak- kneed posture towards the president while trying to protect their own political necks has been glaring.

Birther jokes, civil wars, and angry people.

  

I see that Flipper is making birther jokes these days. My man has been hanging around with "the Donald" way too much. "No one asked to see my birth certificate."

Of course, as is always the case with Mitt, this latest claim isn’t exactly true. Reporters in Boston previously asked to see his birth certificate as well because they couldn't believe that he had such a f****d up name. 

Anyway Mitt, we don’t care about your birth certificate, we know that- unlike your Daddy- you were actually born here. It’s your tax returns we want to see.

Mitt won’t release them, and I have to wonder what he is hiding. I suppose that whatever it is would make winning the November election that much harder.

And speaking of the election, for the sake of our survival a lot of people are hoping that Obama does not win the next election. According to a Judge in Texas (Where else?) if O wins there will be a "civil war". (Where did he get that idea in his head?) It looks like wingnuts believe the latest polls, because they are storing canned foods and ammunition as I write this post. Still, if they fired the first shot here in Philly, we wouldn't even notice. We are kind of used to that kind of sound around here.

A civil war seems to be a logical conclusion to all that has been going on. People are just so angry these days. Maybe it will be best if Obama does lose. If having the beige dude in the White House will continue to cause so much angst, you people might as well just take it.

Just today some guy shot up Midtown, *Manhatten because some dude he worked with pissed him off over a year ago. The scary thing is that this dude seemed normal to most people. One neighbor, as is always the case when we have these shootings; described him as a "nice normal guy." Yeah right!
I guess the good judge in Texas is hoping that a lot of other "nice normal" people will arm themselves with their legally purchased guns and go out and lower Obama's pool of voters by any means necessary. Will only republican Negroes like Thomas Sowell, and Herman Cain be spared? And how will some hillbilly straight out of "Deliverance" be able to tell the difference between a s**t talking lawyer on a blog from one of their own Negroes? Maybe when the "civil war" starts they will give them -good house Negroes-  uniforms.

Finally, I see that the ME in Jonesboro, Arkansas has declared the death of Chavis Carter a suicide.
If this doesn't give you Negroes in America a reason to pause and take a look at your surroundings I don't know what will.

This man was arrested, searched, and handcuffed with his hands behind his back; and yet he allegedly shot himself in the back of that patrol car. Okaaaay.

That joke of a medical report was bad, but then the authorities in Jonesboro, Arkansas took it a step further and spat on the grave of the young man by releasing the following:

"In addition to determining that Carter's death was a suicide, the medical examiner -- in a report released Monday -- also disclosed toxicology findings which showed that the dead suspect tested positive for methamphetamine and other drugs." [Source]

Well there you have it; he was on drugs, so it was alright to take his life and try to convince sane people in America that he killed himself. 

At least we know which side those police officers in Jonesboro, Arkansas will be on when the "civil war" starts.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's a little civil rights between friends?

Today is the 150th Anniversary of the first secession from our great Union. South Carolina holds the honors. And, to commemorate that great day, they are holding a "Secession Gala" in Charleston. I wish I could be there.

"Organizers say the "Secession Gala" in Charleston tonight will commemorate the event as a show of courage in the face of encroachment by the federal government on state's rights. But some historians and civil rights groups are protesting the event as the glorification of a defense of slavery.

Dozens of Civil War buffs and Confederate reenactors are expected to attend the $100-a-head event, where they will sip mint juleps, nibble on Carolina crab dip and mingle to the tune of "Dixie" in the presence of the state's original Ordinance of Secession, signed in 1860." [Story]

Ahh come on. You "historians" and "civil rights groups" need to chill out. You are just jealous because you didn't get an invite.

I bet Haley Barbour was invited. My man Haley is considering a run for 2012, and he is already reaching out to minorities. He fondly remembers the days he kicked back and listened to MLK as a youngster in Yazoo City, (that doesn't even sound right) Mississippi.

"In an interview with the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson, the GOP governor offers up some provocative comments about growing up in the racially charged deep South in the 1960s. By Barbour's account, things weren't "that bad" in his hometown of Yazoo City, Mississippi, which escaped some of the violence other nearby towns suffered during the civil rights movement.

"I just don't remember it as being that bad," Barbour, who was in high school at the time, tells Ferguson. "I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in '62. He spoke out at the old fairgrounds and it was full of people, black and white."

Barbour, who was 15 at the time, says he attended the rally because he wanted to hear what King had to say but ended up spending most of the time talking to his friends. "The truth is, we couldn't hear very well. We were sort of out there on the periphery. We just sat on our cars, watching the girls, talking, doing what boys do," Barbour tells Ferguson. "We paid more attention to the girls than to King."

Asked why Yazoo City was more peaceful than other parts of the South, Barbour offers credit to the Citizens Council, a controversial group that has been likened by its critics to the Ku Klux Klan. But Barbour says this critique is unfair and that the group actually cracked down on the KKK.

"In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town," Barbour says. "If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."' [Article]

You tell em, Haley. Those kids getting their bones broken as their bodies were thrown against the concrete with fire hoses were all just thrill seeking. ----It's no worse than bungee jumping. Right Haley? And those civil rights workers who were hung not far from your hometown committed suicide. Right Haley? And those little girls that were blown to bits when bombs went off while they were worshiping with their families was not real. It was a PR stunt by a few trouble makers to garner sympathy for their [so called] civil rights movement.

"But Think Progress's Matthew Yglesias suggests Barbour is presenting a revisionist history on race, noting that historians have described the Citizens Council as a racist organization that also worked to intimidate people who signed on to NAACP petitions at the time. A Barbour spokesman defended Barbour's comments, telling TPMDC's Eric Kleefeld that Barbour was addressing "the business community in Yazoo City" and was not talking about the group's history as a movement."

Here we go again with those "historians" and other groups starting trouble.

Why does everything have to be about race with you people?

The other war.

I have held off talking about this subject long enough. But now that the elections in these divided states are finally over, I just can't anymore.

Way over on the other side of the world, in a country on a continent many of us don't like to think about, there is a serious civil war going on. No, I am not talking about Iraq, this war is much worse than that. I am talking about the civil war taking place in The Democratic Republic of Congo, or the DRC. As a result of this sad and tragic war, 45,000 people lose their lives every month. That was not a misprint. I wrote 45,000. And, to date, close to 4.5 million people have lost their lives in the largest war in modern African history. Sadly, half of the people dying are children, in a place where only 20% of the children live to reach the ripe old age of five.

But I will excuse you if you have never heard of it. I will excuse you if you think that Laurent Desire-Kabila is a fashion designer, or Kinshasa is just a girl from around the way; because here in A-merry-ca we are programed to ignore such things. Unless, of course, it is taking place in the Middle East, or if we feel that our own interests are threatened.

Back in the early nineteen nineties when the Hutu's were slaughtering the Tutsi minorities in Rwanda, our first black president chose to ignore the planned genocide taking place on the continent that no one cares about (Sorry Sarah, it's a continent not a country). Now I am just hoping that the first real black president doesn't do the same thing. Oh come on field what can poor Obama do, this conflict is complicated, it involves at least four other countries, --including Rwanda--, it involves different ethnic groups(over 200 by last count) and fractured interests and coalitions. Not to mention years and years of tribalism and ethnic strife. The shit has been going on in The Congo ever since Belgium left those savages on their own, and ever since they murdered one of the greatest leaders they ever had, Patrice Lumumba. Yes kind of sounds like the Middle East doesn't it? But we are at least trying to broker the peace there, why not in Central Africa?

I wonder if Obama, a son of that continent, will order his secretary of state to take a serious look at the conflict and try to set up some sort of multi nation peace accord? If anyone can do it, I think he can. I think the leaders in countries like Rwanda, Uganda, and the DRC would listen to him, don't you? He has political capital here at home, why not spend some of it on Africa?

The irony is that it is a region with as much, if not more valuable natural resources than the Middle East. There is oil, uranium, gold, water, and incredible wildlife; yet we choose to ignore all of that, because it's on that dark continent, and we literally refuse to go there.

Maybe we can start blogging and talking about all the atrocities taking place over there a little more. I know that there are blogs dedicated to speaking out about women of color and their causes, I sure hope that they are speaking out about the rapes and mutilations taking place in the DRC, because that shit is seriously fucked up. If a sister is raped in Detroit by some thug, or in a village in Central Africa by some animal masquerading as a soldier, what's the difference? There isn't any.

Let's hope that we can try to put this issue on the front burner and start focusing our energy towards trying to help these poor people. I know it won't be easy, lord knows we have some issues of our own right here to deal with. But we have to start somewhere, and our keypads and our pocket books seems like a good place to start.

Here are a couple of great organizations doing their thing for the people of the DRC. Check them out to learn more about the crisis , and to see how you can get involved.