freshwest
freshwest's JournalBetter check and see if she developed an opposable thumb. It's their master plan:
Now we'll know who's to blame!
From the interview, the direction the talk was talking is that it is a white problem.
Which is true, and she jumped straight to that solution. She is right as white people aredoing the violence to black people, and the BLM people agreed with that.
There is no need for a white person to tell black people how to manage their protests, and she didn't chide them as others have. White people need to be confronted to manage their knee jerk response to black protest. They need to listen, truly listen, take a bow and learn from black people how much their white responsibility and power is in this situation. As the man said AAs are helpless to stop white violence.
The last time I saw white people stopping white violence by meeeting it with force, was by JFK and RFK who were struck down in their prime to the grief of black and white Americans:
James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi,[1] an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement.
Motivated by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi.[2] His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans...
Meredith won in court, but the Governor still fought it, and RFK talked him into following the law and admitting him. Federal law, not state law.
Some white students and segregationists, many who had driven in for the event, protested his enrollment by rioting on the Oxford campus.
Robert Kennedy called in 500 U.S. Marshals to take control, who were supported by the 70th Army Engineer Combat Battalion from Ft Campbell, Kentucky. They created a tent camp and kitchen for the US Marshals.
To bolster law enforcement, President John F. Kennedy sent in U.S. Army troops from the 2nd Infantry Division from Ft. Benning, GA under the command of Maj. Gen Charles Billingslea and military police from the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and called in troops from the Mississippi Army National Guard.[13]
Gen. Bllingslea's staff car was mobbed and set on fire at the entrance to the university gate. General Billingslea, the Deputy Commanding General, John Corley, and aide, Capt Harold Lyon, were trapped inside the burning car but managed to force the car door open and had to crawl 200 yards into the gate to the University Lyceum Building while someone was shooting at them and continued to shoot the windows out, though the Army never returned fire.
Gen Billingslea had established a series of escalating secret code words for issuing ammunition down to the platoons with another one for issuing it to squads, and a third one for loading, none of which could take place without the General himself, confirming the secret codes.
In the violent clash, two people died, including the French journalist Paul Guihard,[7] on assignment for the London Daily Sketch. He was found dead behind the Lyceum building with a gunshot wound to the back.
One hundred-sixty US Marshals, one-third of the group, were injured in the melee, and 40 soldiers and National Guardsmen were wounded.[7][1[13]
US Army trucks loaded with steel-helmeted US Marshals roll across the University of Mississippi campus on October 3, 1962.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Meredith
During this time, he was advised by Medgar Evers, a civil rights leader.
Evers was also inspired by Kennedy and killed the same day he came home to tell his family the good news he had heard about his decision. Terrorists gunned him down in his front yard in view of his wife and children.
In the early morning of June 12, 1963, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that read "Jim Crow Must Go," Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Enfield 1917 rifle; the bullet ripped through his heart. He staggered 9 meters (30 feet) before collapsing.
He was taken to the local hospital in Jackson where he was initially refused entry because of his color, until it was explained who he was; he died in the hospital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgar_Evers#Assassination
All these leaders were attacked repeatedly and denied the most basic of human rights. Meredith was a very intelligent, successful man with his own strong views shown at the link. The terrorists have not stopped hating:
In 2014, vandals linked to the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity vandalized Meredith's honorary University of Mississippi campus statue by putting a noose around its neck and draping it with a controversial former Georgia state flag. In response, he said "that just clearly shows that we’re not training our children like the Bible says. They don’t know right and wrong, good and bad and how to apply it to life."[1]
Our current crop of Tenthers, Teaterrorists and Libertarians would have called what the Kennedys and the military did the action of a police state.
We have not seen that kind of response since then with white people taking action against violent white people. It is a white problem. The only common factor in all these cases are AAs just asking to be treated as the amended Constitution demands they be.
I doubt that being an accepted message from BS. After all, he is running on the same basis, that is,
hope to change the status quo developing in this country. The mocking of Obama's 'hope and change' meme began with Sarah Palin who employed racist dog whistles all through her campaign in 2008.It's been offensive to many for a long time, and only defines the mocker. I made a post about this kind of maliciousness:
Joy strengthens the heart of the weary, the ones whose purpose is loving.
Just remember that people out to hurt others can gain nothing of value from their actions, all they can do is create misery.
Misery is easy to create. It's the tool of the maliciously lazy.
Happiness takes work, it is the reward for a life being well lived.
Make the choice to not let others steal your hard earned joy.
Take the negative energy they try to fill you with and create something beautiful.
~ Anonymous
This is the fruit of love, to look at the eyes of this girl and others in a refugee camp that Obama visited. These people are the victims of war and exploitation of the most brutal kind ever known, yet media gives them scant attention, as the 1% are not affected by it
The amount of murderous violence in our land alone that this man has had to see and feel and comfort, is staggering. Confronting and healing evil in a world of hatred and violence, is part of Obama's complex task in a world in which many insist he fail. He is planting seeds of consciousness in all he does that is lauded or condemned. This is the reality of the world we live in.
It is not a job for the faint of heart, and the maliciously lazy who see their victory in tearing down the work and the workers are not going to do it. Look into those angel eyes meeting his, and weep for those whose lives deserve love:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110211344#post2
Vanity is unworthy and inappropriate in the face of so much suffering.
BS's always been this way. HILLPAC termed his Senate run a priority.
Which meant she gave him the maximum amount from the funds. The DNC has never run a strong challenger against BS in VT. Democratic Senate leaders have given him more power than he would have recieved on his own. They want what BS wants.
BS says he will NOT be a spoiler and run third party (despite hiring a Nader staffer) that would allow a hard rightwing Republican to take the office of presidency.
If HRC wins the primary, BS will come through and support her run, as will his REAL fans who care about his ideas. The hangers on that were more of anti-Clinton than pro-Sanders will ignore his pleas, most likely as they are more against her than for his ideas. Strange how that will work out, if it does happen that HRC wins in the nomination process.
The main problem we now have is -- we don't have another Obama. Neither HRC or BS are as young or at all charismatic.
HRC is close to Obama in pointing out values and is big on policy and getting things done, even if they are not what she wants to have done many times. BS is big on what is important, but hasn't been able to get others to go along with him in Congress. This is a peculiar position to be in when running for higher office, and there is none as high a POTUS.
He is not clear on practical matters of policy, but truly a great agitator. His rhetoric stirs people up, mundane talk of sausage making as HRC can turn people off. But getting stirred up and getting the important things done are two different gifts.
Obama has those qualities with a longer range vision than anyone running. He has been transformative in making structural change despite lack of support. His wife Michelle Obama says he never takes on a battle he cannot win, but that nothing will stop him once his mind is made up, to get it done.
The GOP is the enemy we must campaign against. They are more dangerous than a rattler, and want to inflict a fatal bite on the country. They want it to wither and die so they can sell it off to their sponsors.
They are doing a great job of it state by state and so many people have swallowed the Koch propaganda pills it's almost a done deal. They must be defeated, and that will require people to be encouraged and not be demoralized to make the changes we need. We all need to encourage and not demoralize each other. We're all we've got.
The picture at the link shows he lives in a perpetual state of whining:
He vacillates between looking like he's going to cry if he doesn't get his way, to 'Look at what I did, I'm such a naughty boy' arrogance. He's a malignant narcissist and a dangerous demagogue. He's loathesome.
Civility ends in the face of immenient death. When I was your age, you would either have to flee
the country to escape prison, or allow yourself to be shipped off to fight a war you didn't believe in, but still not vote on. 'You're old enough to kill, but not for voting.'There was 'nothing civil' about it from either side. The only thing was the name, 'civil disobediance.' That term is obviously misunderstood today. And there was a reason we went after Democratic politicians - they were supposed to be the party of the people. We weren't civil, although most were peaceful and our fight was against all oppression of every type at home and the end of the war itself.
Nixon freaked when we came with half a million to shut down the federal government. Well over ten thousand were arrested the weekend I was there. We organized, mobilized and traveled from one coast ot the other. We also prepared to be gassed, beaten, jailed and worse.
Because people were dying for the pride of the comfortable and wealthy. It was more violent than BLM interrupting a talk. This is mild stuff, and the cries of 'how dare they' sound like the arrogant ones who yelled at us, 'America love it or leave it.' Certainly not the words of the radical liberals of the generation that BS is cited for. If we hadn't loved the ideal of what America was believed to be, some could have stayed home and enjoyed good times.
But for a young male like yourself, your body was a step away from the meat grinder. Young men had to choose if going to fight an unpopular war was worth dying or being maimed for. They, especially veterans against the war like John Kerry, disrupted every place in the country they could, every meeting. No matter what it was about.
I don't see any difference between those days and this where as Thom Hartmann said, 'Black people are sick and tired of being shot!' Americans have surrendered the moral argument to commercial media, which has none.
Where is the love for one like Bravenak who sent out her MAYDAY and SOS to beg progressives to help POC?
It's past time to change the structural basis of America as we said then. We did do as Kerry said, vote those who would not do the will of the people out of office. We did make progress on civil rights that have since been eroded.
Because the battle never ends, it's never over. The aging and dying of each generation is the stark proof of how the rich outwait our struggles. Each new generation must be wary and take up the cause of equality and of survival.
You aren't doing anything new even if it is new to you. You are now part of a proud tradition of Americans joining with each other to change the nation and the world. So keep it up, look ahead to the end results, be willing to grow in understanding and just doing whatever works.
Great essay. The Democratic Party still means something to most of us:
Barbara Charline Jordan 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address
delivered 12 July 1976, New York, NY
...I could list the many problems which Americans have. I could list the problems which cause people to feel cynical, angry, frustrated: problems which include lack of integrity in government; the feeling that the individual no longer counts; the reality of material and spiritual poverty; the feeling that the grand American experiment is failing or has failed. I could recite these problems, and then I could sit down and offer no solutions. But I don't choose to do that either. The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.
We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community. We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present, unemployment, inflation, but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America. We are attempting to fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.
Throughout -- Throughout our history, when people have looked for new ways to solve their problems and to uphold the principles of this nation, many times they have turned to political parties. They have often turned to the Democratic Party. What is it? What is it about the Democratic Party that makes it the instrument the people use when they search for ways to shape their future?
Well I believe the answer to that question lies in our concept of governing. Our concept of governing is derived from our view of people. It is a concept deeply rooted in a set of beliefs firmly etched in the national conscience of all of us.
Now what are these beliefs?
First, we believe in equality for all and privileges for none. This is a belief -- This is a belief that each American, regardless of background, has equal standing in the public forum -- all of us. Because -- Because we believe this idea so firmly, we are an inclusive rather than an exclusive party. Let everybody come.
I think it no accident that most of those immigrating to America in the 19th century identified with the Democratic Party. We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds. We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.
This -- This can be accomplished only by providing each citizen with every opportunity to participate in the management of the government. They must have that, we believe. We believe that the government which represents the authority of all the people, not just one interest group, but all the people, has an obligation to actively -- underscore actively -- seek to remove those obstacles which would block individual achievement -- obstacles emanating from race, sex, economic condition. The government must remove them, seek to remove them. We.
We are a party -- We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future. We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.
This, my friends is the bedrock of our concept of governing. This is a part of the reason why Americans have turned to the Democratic Party. These are the foundations upon which a national community can be built. Let all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.
In other times -- In other times, I could stand here and give this kind of exposition on the beliefs of the Democratic Party and that would be enough. But today that is not enough. People want more. That is not sufficient reason for the majority of the people of this country to decide to vote Democratic. We have made mistakes. We realize that. We admit our mistakes. In our haste to do all things for all people, we did not foresee the full consequences of our actions. And when the people raised their voices, we didn't hear. But our deafness was only a temporary condition, and not an irreversible condition.
Even as I stand here and admit that we have made mistakes, I still believe that as the people of America sit in judgment on each party, they will recognize that our mistakes were mistakes of the heart. They'll recognize that.
And now -- now we must look to the future. Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense. If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans. Many fear the future. Many are distrustful of their leaders, and believe that their voices are never heard. Many seek only to satisfy their private work -- wants; to satisfy their private interests. But this is the great danger America faces -- that we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual; each seeking to satisfy private wants. If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?
This is the question which must be answered in 1976: Are we to be one people bound together by common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor; or will we become a divided nation?
For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future. We must not become the "New Puritans" and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.
There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals, and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.
As a first step -- As a first step, we must restore our belief in ourselves. We are a generous people, so why can't we be generous with each other? We need to take to heart the words spoken by Thomas Jefferson:
Let us restore the social intercourse -- "Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and that affection without which liberty and even life are but dreary things."
A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good. A government is invigorated when each one of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation. In this election year, we must define the "common good" and begin again to shape a common future. Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us...
We as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good if we are derelict in upholding the common good.
More is required -- More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.
If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If -- If we as public officials propose, we must produce. If we say to the American people, "It is time for you to be sacrificial" -- sacrifice. If the public official says that, we [public officials] must be the first to give. We must be. And again, if we make mistakes, we must be willing to admit them. We have to do that. What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.
Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It's tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny; if each of us remembers, when self-interest and bitterness seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.
I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.
I have confidence that the Democratic Party can lead the way.
I have that confidence.
We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.
Now I began this speech by commenting to you on the uniqueness of a Barbara Jordan making a keynote address. Well I am going to close my speech by quoting a Republican President and I ask you that as you listen to these words of Abraham Lincoln, relate them to the concept of a national community in which every last one of us participates:
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master." This -- This -- "This expresses my idea of Democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no Democracy."
Thank you.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barbarajordan1976dnc.html
Copyright Status: Via the Democratic National Committee, this speech appears to be in the public domain. Any use of this speech, however, should show proper attribution to its author.
The emboldening in the text is my addition.
Random killing of the general public is counterproductive. I was in D.C. just before MayDay 1971.
The crowd in the march I took part in was reported by CBS and the Park Service was between 100,000 and 500,000. Yes, we interrupted the daily lives of all the people there because of the daily body count from the war.
Nixon absolutely freaked out, he could see that we were there to shut the government down. Inconvenience be damned, the war was killing Americans and the people of Indochina daily.
John Kerry told the Congress, in effect, that they would either end the war, or those opposing the war would shut it down or take it over by voting them all out of office. And while we didn't get the presidency back until Carter, we took majorities elsewhere and worked to stop the oppression of black people, gays, women, immigrants, workers and to save the environment.
The next few days in 1971 involved many determined to shut the federal government to stop 'business as usual.' They went tried to block the Pentagon and roved about to do more. It resulted in over 12,000 arrests.
And he things that people said to the powerful were not polite. There was a lot more going on in those days than what did in Seattle. People who act like that was outrageous aren't aware of how desperate things negate the rules of civility in protest.
JMHO. YMMV.
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