Author: Blu

Social Blogger. Artist. Photographer. ShortFilmmaker. Small Business Entrepreneur. Closet Actress. Native New Yorker. Thanks for stopping by to read my post!

Categories
Barack Obama Politics Republican

Is Barack Obama And The Black Community At Odds?

Recently,  I wrote a article on this blog  titled ‘Why Blacks Left The Republican Party’ which sparked a discussion between a co-writer here at EzKool.com,  Son Of Man and I. I’ve posted it here:

Son Of Man: Yes, the vast major­ity of black peo­ple in the United States have been loyal to the Demo­c­ra­tic party since the days of Roo­sevelt. It has become quite clear that the demo­c­ra­tic party is tak­ing the black vote for granted. Black peo­ple in the U.S. have not shown the polit­i­cal savvy nec­es­sary to extract the pos­si­b­li­ties of what Amer­ica has to offer, polit­i­cally & eco­nom­i­cally speak­ing. In this 2 party sys­tem, the black pop­u­la­tion’s rela­tion­ship with the Repub­li­can party is so cold that its taken for granted that the black vote will be cast for the per­cieved ‘lesser of two evils’ in the Demo­c­ra­tic party. The black vote shouldnt be auto­mat­i­cally Demo­c­rat or Repub­li­can. The black vote if polit­i­cal savvy were in play would be cast for the party who’s can­di­dates addresses the “black agenda” as pre­sented to them by the black com­mu­nity. 

Amy: Well—I’d wager to think that the idea of cast­ing your vote for a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date that point­edly addresses the “black agenda”, especially if he or she is the first Af-Am pres­i­dent of the the US, or any other eth­nic­ity that cam­paigns on any par­tic­u­lar race’s issue is not very savvy. I think a big prob­lem with many Blacks–like Smi­ley and West for instance who openly dissed Obama cuz they felt he wasn’t cam­paign­ing enough on black issues–should have had the savvy to know that white Democ­rats were not going to pitch in and help elect him if he had done so. And he couldn’t win with the Black vote alone, obvi­ously. Yes, I know that white can­di­dates do it all the time, but our POTUS is not white. And with a coun­try that’s 15% Black, Obama had to be the adult in the room and show that he was going to be the Pres­i­dent for All The People–as corny as that sounds. I think he’s hop­ing that Blacks will under­stand this and also under­stand that he knows the his­tory lead­ing up to him, his beau­ti­ful Black wife and kids being in the White­house, and that he hasn’t for­got­ten who and what was respon­si­ble for that. Work­ing on a more “uni­ver­sal agenda” can’t help but include Blacks, right?

Please check out this video on Youtube: “Black Intel­lec­tu­als Pour Hate on Obama’s Speech!“

Son Of Man: Of course run­ning a cam­paign as a “black can­di­date” is not only not savvy, its not right. That type of think­ing is not fit for the office of the pres­i­dency. Uti­liz­ing broad, gen­eral tac­tics to resolve issues that are unique will not work. The eco­nomic woes for peo­ple of color are far worse than the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion and unem­ploy­ment num­bers for peo­ple of color are more than dou­ble that of the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. Would the pre­scrip­tion for a com­mon cold be the same as the pre­scrip­tion for walk­ing pnu­mo­nia? is there a dif­fer­ence between an eco­nomic reces­sion and an eco­nomic depres­sion? The unem­ploy­ment rate for blacks in the coun­try put the black pop­u­la­tion at depres­sion sta­tus. This needs to be addressed specif­i­cally while tend­ing the needs of the coun­tries eco­nomic woes in gen­eral. Your point seems to be that of an abused wife thats so used to being mis-used, mis­treated and over­looked that she her­self makes excuses for her abuser. The pres­i­dent must be held account­able to do the right thing, not just whats accept­able to whites. He him­self said that he wouldnt gov­ern to be re-elected, that he would gov­ern to effect change. Well the Mr.President act on behalf of whats right and let those who need to catch up, catch up. You don’t digress back­wards, you move for­wards. If hav­ing a black­man in office means we have to con­tinue being the dirty lit­tle secret, then put Bush back in office and lets get this thing over with.

Amy: If your expect­ing one Black­man to rec­tify an entire race’s indig­na­tion in this coun­try for over 400 yrs in just 4 short years–a man who’s Amer­i­can nation­al­ity is being chal­lenged everyday, adamantly, by his polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, a man who stepped into two wars and a major eco­nomic reces­sion his first day in office, a man who’s own party shows divi­sion against his poli­cies, a nuclear dis­as­ter in Japan, major earth­quakes in Haiti,the worst oil spill in the Nations his­tory and a per­va­sive racism that still beats strong in the heart of this country—than I think you might be a bit delu­sional. I imag­ine the changes Obama is set­ting into motion are of a more tumul­tuous nature. Like a peb­ble rolling down a hill and pick­ing up mass and size and speed as it rolls along. Jobs, healthcare reform, education…are these not our issues? What do you pro­pose he do differently? The ball is rolling. You wanna see it get bigger–get him into office for another 4 years.

Son Of Man: Your point is well taken. Pres­i­dent Obama’s mag­nif­i­cent steady hand in the face of all that he has inher­ited has been just that, mag­nif­i­cent. I am not delu­sional at all. I believe that our pres­i­dent has THE most dif­fi­cult job of all time. Only a fool would dis­count what another has accom­plished of good. Allow me to share some clar­ity from the smoke screen pro­vided for you by the cir­cus parad­ing as news. This is INsight from out­side the box; If Amer­ica is going to solve her cur­rent woes, she MUST con­sider the spe­cific issues that plague a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of her pop­u­la­tion. Issues that Amer­ica her­self had no small hand in cre­at­ing and per­pet­u­at­ing. A chain is only as strong as its weak­est link, have you for­got­ten that its within YOUR life­time that blacks faced lynch mobs for dar­ing to attend a decent school to be edu­cated? Have you for­got­ten the counter intel­li­gence pro­grams launched in YOUR life­time against any black indi­vid­ual or orga­ni­za­tion that dared to inspire the dis­in­fran­chised pop­u­la­tion? Have you for­got­ten that the hun­dreds of years of black chat­tel slav­ery made Amer­ica the rich­est most pow­er­ful coun­try in the world? In the game of pol­i­tics, its con­ve­nient to for­get. But in the world out­side of the one pro­vided by the ‘pow­ers that be’, know this.… uni­ver­sal law which we are ALL under, does not for­get. Guess what. We mat­ter. WE MATTER. We are here. What would I have him do dif­fer­ently you ask? for starters id ask our dear brother pres­i­dent to stop these ludi­cris wars which are cost­ing tens of bil­lions monthly. Can you imag­ine what can be done to rebuild and restruc­ture the cities of Amer­ica in gen­eral and the black pop­u­la­tion in par­tic­u­lar? Or dont we mat­ter? The banks cer­tainly mat­tered when it was time to bail their asses out. How about using the jus­tice dept to inves­ti­gate why over 50% of the prison pop­u­la­tion is black males of which the vast major­ity are incar­cer­ated for drug related offenses when theres not one sta­tis­tic avail­able that doesnt tell you that white men are the over­whelm­ing major­ity ille­gal drug users. How about using some of that mil­i­tary testos­terone to stop the atroc­i­ties in the Sudan and across Africa? Or dont we mat­ter? Hey, black pres­i­dent must be held account­able by his base, black or not. Busy or not. We mat­ter.
.
Amy: I will concede this SOM: That just as our Africans ances­tors have said, “It takes a vil­lage to raise a child”, so will it take “our vil­lage” to raise this Pres­i­dent to be OUR Pres­i­dent as well as the rest of the country’s. Hope­fully, with con­struc­tive crit­i­cism, skill­fully applied pres­sure tem­pered with solid sup­port and con­fi­dence, Black folks can strike the bal­ance. And what Amer­ica does, the world will fol­low.

As Ezra Grant, our publisher, says: “Obama said yes WE can, not yes I can!“
Peace.

Son Of Man: Just construc­tive criticism to our dear pres­i­dent and the Amer­i­can fam­ily… with love, peace and bless­ings. Son of Man

———————————————————

Don’t worry, SOM and I are still friends lol!

AND COINCIDENTALLY, one of my favorite writer’s of several genres from science fiction to political discourse, Walter Mosley, appeared on GritTv last night covering a similar topic of discussion with it’s host, Laura Flanders.

In his new book, ‘Twelve Steps Towards Political Revelation’, Mosley says that ordinary people must begin to use politicians as the tools that they are–just as corporations do–and demand what we need from them in an organized, conscientious and informed agenda. It will be the People who will make politicians into the heroes we expect them to be…and that includes our President.

Categories
Democratic

Why Blacks Left The Republican Party

 Simply put: Because the party that was once crucial in the emancipation of African Americans, has turned into one that promotes hate, lies, and intolerance.

During the 1860’s, when Lincoln was President, the Republican party was considered the liberal party that was against slavery. Blacks mostly voted Republican after the Civil War and through the early part of the 20th century, not surprisingly, since Lincoln was Republican and the white  segregationist politicians who governed Southern states in those days were Democrats who didn’t want anything to do with Blacks. From then on Blacks continued to stick with the party that promoted their causes in the United States.

The tide began to turn much later when Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt got 71 percent of the black vote for president in 1936 after meeting with black leaders to push for specific programs that helped regain the grounds lost, due to four centuries of servitude in the United State. Then Harry Truman grabbed 77 percent of the black vote in 1948, thanks to his issuing an order of desegregation to the armed services and an executive order setting up regulations against racial bias in federal employment.

John F. Kennedy used the civil rights movement to define the Democratic party as a liberal party for decades to come. Kennedy began pushing for the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and after he was killed,  Lyndon B. Johnson pushed it through.

Johnson then got 94 percent of the black vote that year, then, a record for any presidential election. The following year he signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Ever since, no Republican presidential candidate has gotten more than 15 percent of the black vote.

Members of the  Black GOP like to harp on the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. But on April 4, 1968 Reverend Dr. King, at 39, was shot and killed in Memphis Tennessee, while supporting striking sanitation workers. You could best believe that today, Dr. King would be considered–just as he was in the 60’s thru the changing attitude of the Republican Party–as a dangerous troublemaker by the GOP. Today, King would have joined the ranks of union protesters in Wisconsin and other states whose Republican governors look to dismantle union bargaining rights across the country.

Democrats have done a lot more for blacks in the last 50 years or so, while Republicans have been behind every kind of intolerance, not just racism but sexism, homophobia, nativism…you name it.

African-Americans have a unique history in America not shared by any other race. To say that we have no choice and no voice in how we draw our party lines and choose our political candidates just shows how much you don’t know of our history here. Surely those who have criticized the need for  government sponsored programs, assistance, and services–created in the 60’s –as “handouts” and “special favors” are now beginning to see just how much we all have benefited from a Democratic government in the face of a Republican party that seeks to take all from the ‘haves-nots’ to give to the ‘haves’.

The majority of Blacks in America have made the consensual choice to vote as Democrats. And that will continue to be the our choice as long as that party serves our causes.

Categories
Birthers Donald Trump Hawaii Mitt Romney Newt Gingrich Politics United States

Obviously, Trump’s A Bag Of Rocks

Obviously he’s meant to be a distraction. And obviously he has no intention of running for president and quitting his day job as one of the richest men in America to take a pay cut as president of the US.

Obviously, he’s not the only one involved in his rhetoric over Obama not being an American citizen. And obviously he’s got no proof on anything he says or does regarding his info on the President’s birth certificate or lack thereof. And obviously he has no agents in Hawaii searching for secret birth information either.

Obviously Donald Trump is a played out, media whore, diva looking to get the ratings up on his show – the one that pits pitiful Hollywood has-beens up against each other vying for the oppurtunity to kiss his pinky ring -“The Apprentice”.  And obviously there will be no one of great importance backing his run for the presidency in 2012 but him, the Teabaggers and his millions, cuz the only one whose actually “begged” him to run was his reflection in a mirror.

However,  and more important than Trump and his crap, is why it seems that there is no moral compass for the so -called ‘right winged’ political party? And I’m not just talking about lourding over others about how they’re right and everyone else … just isn’t. I’m talking about your everyday ‘basics’ of morality, particularly in the public eye. The basic tenets of the Ten Commandments of  the Bible if you will: don’t  cheat, don’t lie, don’t covet, don’t steal, don’t be a pig etc.,

Why do we have politicians -who I’ve always thought should exemplify civility and fair play, sound reasoning,  good judgement, common sense and intelligence – who get up in front of a captive audience or television camera just to show the world that they know absolutely nothing about anything yet still aspire to the presidency?

And why the void of  intelligence? Is it considered too liberal to be … smart? Instead of requests for a birth certificate, shouldn’t the Birthers be requesting  I.Q. test results (which also btw tests for information retention; comprehension; common sense; a fund of factual information … helpful stuff for a politician to have, no?!) from a reputable bi-partisan monitoring organization on anyone who’s even thinking of getting into the political arena. This way we don’t waste a perfectly good vote on someone who might need to rethink their career options.

How proud would you be to be an American knowing that the likes of a Michele Bachman, a Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney or  Donald Trump might represent the best we could come up with as leader of the country?

Really?

Categories
Barack Obama Featured Mike Huckabee Newt Gingrich Republican Sarah Palin United States

Barnum And Bailey Ain’t Got Nothin’ On The G.O.P.

 

While it’s true that just about everybody loves a clown, you sure wouldn’t want one running the country. Which leads me to the clowns over at the three ring circus better know as the Republican and Tea Parties. Never in the history of politics has there ever been such a motley crew so anxious to threw their hats in the ring to become the next president of the United States.

Now don’t get me wrong,  having a savory mixed bag of nuts running for the position wouldn’t be so bad — in fact it would add a little excitement to the sometimes mind numbing selection process — if the candidates weren’t so ridiculously unsuited for running a chicken-coop, let alone the highest office in what still is known as the most powerful country in the free world!

Now there are some who do have a fear of clowns, with their perpetual maniacal red smiles, those  crazy eyes with surprised expression, and of course, there’s that pasty white paint giving them a creepy ghostly appearance–another thing in common with Republicans! And like all clowns, the Republicans and Tea Party can’t ever be taken seriously beacuse of the constant silly things they’re always doing to get a laugh out of us:

  • Newt Gingrich flip-flopping on his views over whether the United States coulda, woulda, shoulda secured the air space over Qad­hafi’s Libya or even whether or not the US should have gotten involved at all in preventing the tyrant from slaughtering his own people protesting his regime.
  • Sarah Palin, throwing insults at the President and bad-mouthing him as he traveled overseas on a good will mission to Brazil, and her constant criticism of the First Lady’s efforts to help get American children to eat healthier.
  • Michele Bachmann, rewriting history by stating thet the “Founding Fathers” – who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and created framework for the Constitution – did all they could to stop slavery in the New World.
  • Mike Huckabee, insisting that  President Obama is not a United States citizen and is a secret member of the Mau Mau, whose sole interest is to kill all white folks in the country–in the name of Allah, no less.
  • And the latest bozo,  Donald ‘Bring Me The Money’ Trump, who claims he will win the presidency if put up against Obama because he’ll put into effect a strategy to send aid and armies to  help countries in need across the world—for a nominal fee! The Donald apparently is also an ardent Birther, who, as a guest recently on the television show “The View” also demanded that the President show his birth certificate.

And those  still aren’t the scariest things about these clowns, because even though a fifth grader has more intelligence than all these “candidates” combined, there are still so called  “true americans” who will cast their votes for them in the 2012’s presidential election because they “share the same views”. Really? That’s scary. Could you  imagine any of them holding up against what Obama has gone through in the last almost four years of his presidency?;

  • Getting America through the war in Afghanistan–a war made impossible to avoid thanks to the previous administration.
  • Taking over, and reducing our military operations in Iraq, essentially bringing that war to an end.
  • Dealing with what many consider the biggest recession since the last depression and pulling the United States economy back from the verge total of collapse.
  • Engineering bailouts to businesses and banks  in  hopes of creating new  jobs and new loan opportunities.
  • Creating the biggest tax cut for over 95% of Americans and small businesses in over 60 years.
  • Establishing healthcare for all Americans by passing a healthcare reform bill.
  • Reforming our financial system in an attempt to stop Wall Street from gouging the American citizens
  • Reforming the Student Loans process, making it easier for American students to get and repay their student loans.
  • Aiding the efforts of Middle Eastern citizens to free themselves from the tyranny of despots , installed sometimes by the regimes of past American presidents.
  • Thousands of deaths in the wake of Haiti’s massive earthquake and delivering aid to that country.
  • The most horrendous oil spill in history by BP Oil which will affect our waters and sea life  for decades  to come.
  • The triple disaster in Japan with earthquake, tsunami and the subsequent nuclear plant breakdowns.

Which of the Republican/Tea Party hopefuls will last one month in President’s Obama’s shoes? They’ll be crying fake clown tears, like their Speaker of the House John Boehner, in no time.

President Obama is showing that he has what it takes to be the calm, rational, thoughtful, humanistic leader this country needs. The GOP has a long way to go before they learn that throwing pies,  handing out exploding cigars  and shocking folks with joy buzzers does not a world leader make. Exit stage left fools!

And the good news is that if President Obama still cares enough to shoot for a second term after putting up with all the Republican antics from his first term, there will be no contest as to who will have center ring under the Big Top. He just better make sure he has his whip and chair to keep the loonies in check.

Categories
Democratic democrats Politics Republican United States White House Wisconsin

When Money Talks…

So is this really the example that Republican Party leaders want to leave for posterity–the New Politics 101?  The idea that future politicians can and will sell their souls to the highest Corporate bidders? And that once in office, they’ll no longer have to concern themselves with their constituents who had seemingly gone through a finely honed democratic process to elect an official who’ll represent them in Congress, only to find out that the entire process was a farce, a smoke screen, a diversion?

And yeah–I hear you, Democrats are no angels either. But there’s no comparing the fourteen Democrats who left the state in order to stonewall against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s threat to pass a bill that proposed to dismantle the collective bargaining of unions, with the eight Republicans and their governor who trampled on the very Constitution they consistently claimed to honor and protect, by voting on and passing the bill under the farce of cutting the state’s deficit. Comparing the causes behind both groups’ actions shows who the real representatives of the people were; big Corporate payoffs for Republican frontmen vs upholding the constitutional rights of Wisconsinites by Democrats.

No comparison.

Republicans have rallied together to continue the Bush tax cuts for the uber-rich, playing down the fact that an increase in their taxes will reduce the deficit by generating $678 billion, and will be a lot more effective, productive and expedient toward the goal of cutting the deficit, then nickel and dime-ing the working class.

There is an evil agenda at work here, and thats to bring the country down in hopes that Americans, out of frustration and fear, will vote for The GOP in 2012. The thinking is that Americans will forget why they voted the Obama Administration into the White House in the first place. Forget that this all started under a Republican–Bush, and will rush to vote into office the very party that has been covertly–and now out in plain sight–whittling away our rights as valued, productive, thriving citizens of this country.

The middle class and the poor (and don’t be arrogant enough to disassociate with the poor, who most folks in the middle class are just one paycheck away from) are under siege. And if we aren’t careful in 2012, we will vote ourselves right into slavery. And as some of us know, that ain’t a fun place to be.

The companies that have out-sourced all of those U.S. jobs in the service, telecommunications and manufacturing industries to various foreign countries, where their products are manufactured by low income workers, will not make their obscene profits by hiring workers they have to pay, at the very least, a minimum wage.  It’s just not gonna happen folks.

As the 2012 elections approach,  we must remember the lessons we are slowly learning  today.

And Never Forget.

Categories
BLM Politics United States

Change Does Happen!

You have to admit that even if you don’t believe all the hype about the coming year 2012–Armageddon, the apocalypse, global warming shifting earth’s  axis, a giant asteroid crashing into the planet, a massive spiritual awakening that transforms humankind, or my personal prediction, absolute proof of life from intelligent planets  visiting Earth–even if you don’t believe them, you have to admit that the last four years  leading up to the infamous date have been–to say the least– miraculous!

It all started, of course, with the monumentally pivotal election of the first African-American to the highest office in the country, in the world for that matter, the President of The United States. Before my Mother passed away that same year in 2008,  she, my sisters and brother and I watched the polls bringing in the news at her home. My Mom was transfixed by what was taking place and remarked with her eyes glistening, “I can’t believe this is happening in my lifetime! I got the chance to see the first Black man elected to be the President of the United States!”

My Mom was dying from cancer and was in a lot of pain that day but she sat up with her children to watch the electoral returns into the wee hours of the morning while we listened to Harlem revelers in the streets below blowing party horns, honking car horns and shouting out  windows,  “O-BA-MA!,  O-BA-MA!, O-BA-MA!”.  I cried at the thought that she was given the oppurtunity to be a witness to this and I cried for myself and the rest of the world on that phenomenal night.  And the one thing that I attributed greatly to the magic of that night was all wrapped up in a word… CHANGE.

On its own ‘change’ could be overlooked because of its subtle, constant running in the background of all our lives. But the idea of  ‘change’, imprinted on the minds of millions and millions of people day in and day out can and does produce a corporeal reality;  the frustration felt while pumping overpriced gas into our cars, the fear over whether our jobs are secure, the anger while shopping  in the supermarket when discovering that the price of milk has doubled in the past two months, the stress  felt over ballooning mortgage payments on our dream homes, the worry over whether there’ll be enough money for our kid’s college tuition, thinking every night while we watch the news, what will it take for there to be real peace in the world. All this has us asking  “Is there anyone out there who can change the way things are?”

“You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who’ve been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can.”

– President Barack Obama.

Is there anyone out there? Yes–you are. WE ARE THE CHANGE THAT WE SEEK!

Categories
Barack Obama Birther Birthers Hawaii United States

The Birthers Explanation of Obama’s Kenyan-American Presidency

If you’re a Birther or believe in the Birther Theory, then you’ll believe this video that shows how in 1960, the Kenyan government  formulated a plan to get Barack Obama elected as President of the United States in an attempt to turn America into a Muslim, socialist society. This is the story you’re running with?

Alright then–for all you non-believers who want to convince the rest of America that;

  • Hawaii is not part of the United States and is also part of the plot by producing that phony official “birth document” that the government claims is issued for all Hawaiians births,
  • Obama was not raised by his American white mother and later by her parents after she died but rather by a Muslim terrorist training camp in Kenya,
  • Obama’s father–and possibly his  grandfather –were members of the Mau Mau Rebellion looking to destroy English rule in Kenya,
  • The President is not a Christian but in fact a Muslim secret agent preparing to indoctrinate this country’s  government under Sharia Law, even though all the proof to the contrary has been available to you on record–

Then this video should provide you with all the counter-proof you’ll need to further dispute this asinine theory until at least 2012 elections roll around when you can oust the infidel now residing in the Oval Office, the 44th President of the United States and the first African-American to be elected in this otherwise ever-enlightening nation, President Barack Hussein Obama.


Please listen carefully…

Exit mobile version