Let's talk about Ray Rice so we won't have to talk about #Ferguson anymore

Tweet of the Week

Remember when Cops Fired all that #TearGas into THESE Unlawfully Assembled Groups? Ya Me Neither!! pic.twitter.com/5OHHphL5nH ~~#Ferguson
— Rossssc (@rossssc) September 6, 2014

To Serve and Protect or Occupy and Oppress?

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been a steady militarization of police forces in many of America’s cities. This has become increasingly obvious when the subject of dealing with public protests has arisen. Whether in dealings with Occupy protesters a few years ago, or with the unrest caused recently by the killing of Michael Brown (an unarmed teenager) by police in Ferguson, Missouri, many question the use of some of the brutal tactics and military style weapons used by police across the nation. There often seems to be a difference in opinion between police and protesters (particularly when they are dealing with mainly unarmed, peaceful demonstrators who feel they are simply exercising their civil rights to peaceably assemble and speak their minds freely as is written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights), as to what is the appropriate way in which each should act.

#TearGas
#DarrenWilson

Free Your Mind Friday

This is what democracy looks like? “Bloomberg pays his hypocritical respects to democracy and reason, when in fact his authority is nothing but an extension of the rule of capital.”H/T Black Agenda Report

The Rude Pundit says (edited)This is not your Effing Movement; This Is Our Effing Movement: Long Live the Occupation (With or Without Occupying) Updated:

The b#@%ards may have taken down Oakland, Portland, New York City, and other occupations in what is increasingly clear was a coordinated attack on the movement by city halls and, perhaps, really, the Department of Homeland Security. But f#@k them. There's still many, many OWS protests around the nation, sea to shining motherf#@kin' sea.

Showdown in Philly, PA Trade Unions give Occupy Philly An Offer It Can't Refuse

With a $55 million construction contract “imminent” for Dilworth Plaza -- home since early October for Occupy Philadelphia – the city trade unions and those in Occupy Philly determined to hold-out in the Plaza have arrived at a showdown.

White, Mormon, male, gop, Presidential candidates~Good. African American, Muslim, I mean Christian, democratic candidate~Bad.

Unintended Consequences My Donkey! This is what happens when the High (sic) Court Strikes down the gun ban in the District of Colombia.

Even firing into an president-less White House is intended to send a message. It doesn't matter whether the president was around to bear witness to it or not. I'll count this as an attempted assassination.

I'm telling y'all....protest is the NEW BLACK! 13 in Alabama Jail Over Immigration Law Battle.

In Alabama, people are speaking out against the state’s controversial immigration law, H.B. 56. The legislation is considered the toughest in the nation in targeting illegal immigrants. It requires that law enforcement check the immigration status of persons thought to be in the country illegally. Basically, it’s your standard racially profiling law targeting brown people, migrants, and those that are probably a little too fluent in the Spanish language. ::sigh::

Get your Satire On!
How's that Grope and Change working out for you? In three short years this country has gone from Hope and Change to Grope and Change. Ain't life odd?

Will the real republican candidate please stand up? The search for a legitimate Republican presidential candidate has turned into a mockery; instead of talking about working together to fix legitimate issues, the election process is being used as a marketing technique for those to get their name out there to sell books and increase their speaking fees.

Meanwhile Politico investigates why Obama Hates America.
We must laugh to keep from crying.

Ask the Republicans in Congress, "Where are the jobs?" Ask the ADP, "Where are the candidates?" h/t piggieheart for the best comment of the day, week, month, year, decade, and the century.

What I'm reading today with commentary

A Black Man's View is back!. I have not updated my blog in a minute now. I really have no excuse as to why I have not been sharing my thoughts with you, my faithful readers, other than the fact that I have had writers block. I have had several ideas for posts, I just have not been able to form those ideas into writable sentences.


Was there a co ordinated effort to evict Occupy Wall Street Movements from sea to shining sea? Is an elephant heavy?

The occupation is dead. Long live the occupation.
Amidst the massive media coverage of the military-style eviction Tuesday morning of the original Occupy Wall Street encampment at New York's Zuccotti Park, an interesting factoid surfaced thousands of miles away.

In an interview with the BBC, Oakland mayor Jean Quan, whose police force forcibly evicted that city's embattled Occupy encampment early Monday, casually mentioned that she "was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation. . . .”

Sure enough, since the weekend there have been a string of such evictions - not just the highest-profile encampments in New York and Oakland, but also Detroit, Portland OR, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, and several other major US cities.

All I'm going to say is there was never a co ordinated effort to shut down Tea Party Rally's. There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley says Alabama's immigration law is not racist and it looks like the red, republican, controlled Alabama State Legislature quietly replaced Scott Beason with Scott Beason as chair of the rules committee. Read it and weep.

The lasting effects of slavery and Kin Solidarity

For the most part, we often stay separate from our extended family unless family reunions, funerals and other such events bring the family back together. It's a very individualistic streak that black Americans have taken to heart, as though that's how things are supposed to be.

I hate to pin the blame on slavery, but it's where blame is going. The lack of family cohesion thanks to the omnipresent threat of being separated and sold to persons unknown and shipped to parts unknown promoted a subconscious streak of kin independence out of sheer necessity, because you never knew when those family bonds would be severed for good. Other cultures never had to deal with that particular generational trauma, and it's something that has to be slowly but surely deprogrammed from our subconscious being if we want to practice any form of kin solidarity. It's a big step along the road of consolidating our own economic independence from the rest of America.

Who are the Super Debt Committee members who will decide our fate? 10 white men, 1 white woman and 1 black man. Will The SuperCommittee Offer Barack Obama His Neville Chamberlain Moment?

There are conservatives on both sides of the aisle still eager for a "grand bargain" that will trade away the hard-fought, meager lifeline for millions of Americans in return for some table scraps-- temporary table scraps at that-- from the 1%. The SuperCommittee, could well turn out to be Obama's Neville Chamberlain moment and could cement his place in history as firmly as the Munich Agreements cemented Chamberlain's.

Privilege of the powerful

Those in power, those at the top due to their privilege use discourse such as "poverty is not destiny" and "reclaim America" to keep all eyes on those trapped in poverty, thus away from the exact people with the power, money, and opportunity to create a path toward equity within our society and our schools.

Power of the Privileged

At the last board meeting on Thursday, November 3rd, Dr. Robinson defended her support of the superintendent’s recommendation to sign what was at the time a $1.7 million dollar contract with Teach for America by claiming that she had spent the week reviewing studies on TFA and the effectiveness of the teachers placed in a system by TFA.
She claimed that there were both “good” and “poor” studies concerning the effectiveness of the teachers that TFA hires. In short, she was convinced that TFA’ers were more effective than traditionally certified teachers. In an email from Dr. Wardynski that Dr. Robinson shared with me, he claimed, “We are making this investment because evidence has shown that the achievement gains provided by TFA exceed the gains afforded by a similar investment in alternative strategies” (November 9, 2011).

Translation-Huntsville City School board of education’s reduction in force plan laid off 154 certified teachers to pay TFA'er to learn to teach on other people's kids. What is wrong with that picture?

What's on your reading list today?

The Attack of The Attack Machine

H/T jobsanger: Advice to remember yesterday, today, and forever.

I can't say I was not surprised by the latest round of vile name-calling, vicious personal attacks and personal insults hurled at me by the Attack Machine. I will confess to being hurt by them. Just because I'm black doesn't mean I am not a human being with human feelings and emotions.

When the Attack Machine refers to me as (pick one) moron/ignorant/lazy/idiot/stupid/dense/racist they really want to call me an Uppity N-word, so they might as well get it off their chest and just do it.

Winning is everything to the Attack Machine. They think the only way they can "win" is to attack the messenger because they damn sure can't defend the message.

The Attack Machine uses intimidation as a tactic to shout down and drown out the opposition.

This is who they are. This is what they do. This is why they win and we lose. And therein lies the difference between them and us.

Winning.

While Democrats worry about appearances.

Wisconsin taught us the same lesson that should have been learned over and over again the last decade or so. From the Clinton impeachment, to the Florida 2000 debacle, to the Iraq war, to mid-decade restricting, to judicial nominations, to the health care fight, to repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Republicans will do whatever it takes, by any means necessary, to win. When faced with the same situation, Democrats will agonize, wring their hands, rack themselves with guilt, and seek "fairness" and "compromise." Maybe, just maybe, that's why Republicans seem to win most of the battles, while Democrats lose them.

The Attack Machine is begging for a banning Why? So they can play the victim card. They will wear their banning like a badge of honor to inflate their sense of self-importance.

I broke down and cried when I read the following comment by Yellowdog. It is the poignant reality of what I'm up against, what I stand for, and who I am. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Yellowdog, for being my friend and supporter. You will never know what it means to me. You get it.

I am pretty sure Redeye has experienced the other side of many things, including being censored, edited, bullied, banned from blogs, not to mention what to write about, how to make entries, and even how to spell.

As much as our visiting trolls would like to pass on their white supremacist fear mongering, I think Redeye is a perfect example of the historic tolerance of the Black American experience in the face of slavery, discrimination, legal injustice, and ongoing defacto racism to this day.

The fact that Redeye is reluctant to do to others what has been done to Redeye speaks of depth of character.

Most of us recognize there are real battles out there in the world. This blog and this media forum is not reality and the voices that pop in probably would not behave as badly if they were sitting in your living room.

But they do inform us as to what they really think, which confirms what we really think.

Once the trolls understand irrelevant disrespectful ugly behavior is not acceptable, maybe they will get back to the real issues or go away. And comment on the topic. Allow a dialogue and discourse on the real world. Seek understanding and unity, not incivility and division.

And know liberal/progressive/Democrats don't roll over!

I invite readers to read Why I carp and whine and why I wish I didn't have to, a very personal diary for more insight into why I am not afraid of The Attack Machine, and why I keep HOPE alive, thanks to the encouragement of GrannyStandingforTruth.

Redeye, you ever watched a stone cutter at work before? If so, have you ever noticed how he chips away some of the stone a little bit at a time. When he begins, with the stone it does not look like much and from the looks of it, he has a long ways to go. Yet, when he finishes it, it is a beautiful work of art.

Racism is like that in some ways. We might not see the end results in our lifetime, but if we keep on chipping away at it, the future generation will see it. Moses led the people of Israel on a journey to the promise land, but he didn't get to see it. However, his work was mighty because he led them out of captivity, bondage, and helped free them.

We have to occupy just to make it today.

We have to Occupy Just to Make It Today

H/T DownWithTyranny

Misplaced Allegiance-- Why Teabaggers Are Republicans... And Why The Rest Of Us Aren't

Earlier today, in researching a post about corporate shill Artur Davis, I recalled how, when growing up, I first grappled with the idea that poor and middle class people-- and it was Southerners I was thinking about at the time-- could make common cause with conservative politicians and right-wing parties. Conservative parties are-- over and above everything else-- reactions against any semblance of equality for poor and middle class people. That's the raison d'etre for conservatism to begin with. In the case of Southerners-- who were at the time massively abandoning the Democratic party and moving to a the "new" GOP of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, the tendency was to chalk it up to naked racism. But naked racism was just part of it. Just like naked racism is just part of the misplaced allegiance of the teabaggers to the Republican Party today.

Ten things that are plucking my last nerve.

1. The assertion, generally by Republicans, that a requirement to bring photo ID to the polls has something to do with curbing “voter fraud.” One candidate even said in debate the other night that voter fraud was on the rise in Virginia. When asked to provide an example he, of course, could not. Look, you don’t steal an election where the votes are cast, you steal it where the votes are counted. Anybody who gave this issue about ten seconds of thought would realize you can’t fix an election by voting fake voters. It’s too cumbersome, requires too many people to be in on the scheme. It’s a silly idea. We’ve had three presidential elections in this country that might have been stolen — 1880, 1960 and 2000. If they were, they were all stolen after the polls closed. So, when Republicans get serious about voting machines with computer software that can’t be easily hacked and paper trails to allow an accurate recount, I’ll believe they care about “voter fraud.” Until then, they’re just trying to suppress the vote.

4. The way some people who cheered on the Tea Party rallies last year, mock the Occupy Wall Street rallies this year. And, I suppose, vice versa. Before the Tea Party got co-opted by the Republican Party, it expressed a lot of the same populist outrage that Occupy Wall Street does. In my view, this is a country long in need of a little healthy populist outrage. The nightmare of the powers-that-be is that the Occupy Wall Street folks and the Tea Partiers might realize that they’re mad at some of the same people. That graphic going around the Internet isn’t a total joke; there is an intersection of interest between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street around the too chummy relationship between government and business.

This is what democracy looks like.

Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around
Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around
Turn us around, turn us around
Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around
Keep on a walking, keep on a talking
Gonna build a brand new world


YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE ARE!
YES, WE WILL!

Po Mo vs an Average Joe

Congress Critter Mo Brooks (r.hypocrite) and his media enabler(The Huntsville Times) didn't count on an Average Joe attending his Town Hall Meeting asking some pesky questions. No Siree, he thought he was going to have his usual South Huntsville Civic (sic) Association gang of adoring fans. Note the tone of The Times reporting.

Brooks had a mostly friendly audience among the 300-plus people who attended the event sponsored by the South Huntsville Civic Association. However, not everyone agreed with the representative's conservative view points.
About a dozen people in the newly formed and loosely organized Occupy Huntsville group hammered Brooks on issues ranging from tax loopholes for corporations to the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows companies to donate to political campaigns just as citizens can.

It turns out Average Joe is not a member of Occupy Huntsville, so all the whining about negative press and co-opting the movement in an unsigned email from occupyhuntsville@gmail.com is moot.

We have gotten negative press from the media concerning the Mo Brooks meeting that took place yesterday. Some of the media statements that were made are: Some of the audience members booed the "Occupy" sympathizers, with one protester having his microphone yanked by security after he repeatedly interrupted Brooks and refused to let him speak." and "The small but vocal minority dominated most of the time devoted for questions." It is unfortunate that the media associated this disruptive occurrence with "Occupy" in any way, but we have no control over that.

Those of us who come together have varying political views and we do not try to influence one political view over another. We must be careful to prevent those who have political agendas from co-opting the movement. Many will attempt to use the name of OccupyHuntsville as a platform for promoting their own political agenda. Let's continue to stand in solidarity with OccupyWallst and its cause.

Memo to the Huntsville Media,I repeat, Average Joe is not a member of Occupy Huntsville, although I wish he would join.

A confrontation believed to be one of the first in the nation between a member of Congress and Occupy Wall Street affiliates continues to garner headlines and attention.

U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R) spoke to WHNT News 19 on Tuesday about the heated exchange that broke out at a town hall meeting the previous night. An Occupy Wall Street sympathizer ended up having his microphone removed by event coordinators after repeatedly ignoring requests to not interrupt Congressman Brooks during an exchange on campaign finance reporting.

Yep, Mo will do anything including having a citizens microphone removed by event coordinators to keep from answering questions from the Average Joe and Jane. I wonder if he would have yanked Joe the Plumbers" microphone? Naaaah.

Mostly I just you to know that I'm an independent moderate voter, not an official member of Occupy Huntsville. I'm an average lower middle class person, like most voters in my district. But I will say that I'm part of the "99%" as I'm not wealthy. And like the Occupy Wall Street people I'm sick of the political BS and do nothing Congress. Most Americans think there is way too much money in politics. Too many lobbyist. Too many ties between our elected officials and big corporations. I'm glad people are finally standing up. I've had enough so I decided attend that town hall. I didn't mean for my question to turn into "Average Joe" vs Mo, but I'm fed up with untrustworthy politicians like Mo Brooks

.

I wonder what part of 99% of the American people are FED UP with untrustworthy politicians like Mo Brooks don't they understand?

When will the media stop trying to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement? And yes, it is a movement. A movement of Average Joe's and Average Jane's of all races, religion and sexual orientation. Occupy Wall Street is a Profoundly Moral-not Political Movement.

Genuine Democracy is a time-consuming process. But that's exactly what the participants want it to be, so everyone can genuinely participate on an equal basis.

It's not wise for our elected officials to remove the microphone when taxpayers are trying to question them. That sounds like something an evil dictator would do in a dictatorship.

I'm just saying....

Only in America can the rich get richer and the rest get the shaft

Photo H/T Ghetto America~PICTURES OF "GHETTO AMERICA" I HAVE FOUND ON THE WEB THAT DRAWS UP DEEP FEELING AND/OR EMOTION OF URBAN LIFE IN AMERICA. Check them out, they are a must see revelation of the very real the human condition of our fellow human beings in The United States of America, the land of the free and home of the brave. with liberty and justice for all.

In a previous post I questioned if it were true poor, black people in Dothan, Alabama were being charged a 10% for...well being black and poor. At this point I haven't been able to determine if it's true or not in Dothan, but I have discovered America's poor are asked to pay more yet sacrifice the most, at the same time they are being told it's their own damn fault they are poor.

Poor people pay more for food. H/T ED

The unfortunate result is that Boston's poorest citizens must pay higher prices for lower-quality food to the few local grocers, or travel great distances outside their community, often without access to a car, to find a decent supermarket. It also means that local employment, retail jobs that are often a stepping stone to more meaningful careers, are few and far between, which contributes to high unemployment in the black community.

Poor folks don't need no stinking legal services in America!

Two years after the North Mississippi Rural Legal Services laid off workers, slashed wages up to 19 percent, and eliminated needed programs for the poor, the agency is now shutting down its office in the region's largest city and eliminating a unit that handles public benefits issues.

The rich deserve access to quality, affordable health care, the rest...not so much.

Let's look at The Inequality of "Trickle Down" economics the republicans promote and their base are stoopid enough to vote for, because they care more about keeping poor women from getting an abortion, keeping gays from getting married, sending them there illegals, back to Mexico and keeping black folks in their place than they do their self interest.

In before tax income, the richest 1% have seen their income rise by an average of nearly $2 million since 1980 while the income of the bottom 80% has not risen at all. And in after tax income, the top 1% has seen an income rise of about 130%, while the income of the bottom 80% has actually fallen. It's quite obvious that nothing is "trickling down". The worst part is that the Republicans don't seem to care about anyone but the richest 1%, because they continue to push the same failed "trickle-down" economic policy.

You won't see it on TeeVee, but THIS is what the Occupation is about.

I think, myself, uh, as well as many other people, would like to see a little but more economic justice or social justice—Jesus stuff—as far as feeding the poor, health care for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for-profit health care system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this, if we want the President to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra. Jesse LaGreca aka Ministry of Truth

What I'm reading today

Pippa Abston Blog

I don’t want to occupy Wall Street. I want to evict it from places it has no business being, namely our government. We need to Occupy Government—not by marching on it but by restoring it to what it was intended to be, a representative republic of the People. No matter what Mitt Romney says, corporations are not and never will be people.

BobNBama: They wonder why we don't like them?

We all have a choice. Don’t let yourself be treated like a sheep to be sheared. Don’t do business with companies that don’t value you as a customer.

Why poor, white voters vote against their self interest

It boggles the mind. But then again, people, especially poor people, have a long history of voting against their own self-interest because they believe that if they work hard enough, they too can be rich.

The Bribery Brothers

Exactly, how many palms have the Koch Brothers greased with moolah and how much money is it? Think about how lately progressive blogs have been flooded with trolls left and right cheer leading for the GOP trying to intimidate and harass folks to vote for a Republican candidate.

Occupy Fox News

The real protesting, however, will be going on outside the meeting as the Occupy Los Angeles crowd migrates over from their base in Downtown L.A. to give Fox a taste of what it’s like to be occupied. They will be joined by FreePress, Change to Win, Common Cause LA, Brave New Films, and others.

In Reality the Fake Center Cannot Hold

As the nation stumbles toward what could become an epic replay of the 1968 presidential election, many in the Washington political media are hunting for cover. At least that's a charitable explanation for the fad of sentimental bipartisanship among the nation's deepest-thinking pundits.

Libyan Government warns NYPD to Exercise Restraint

TRIPOLI (The Borowitz Report) – As arrests mounted in the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City, Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) issued a stern statement today warning the NYPD to exercise restraint.

“The Libyan transitional government regards any attempt to infringe upon the American protesters’ right to express themselves as a violation of international standards of free speech and liberty,” the Libyan statement read. “We will not sit idly by and watch this happen.”

What you are reading today

Update; The sad, sorry state of public education in Huntsville, Alabama

What Obama doesn't understand about the Professional Left

RedEye's Week in Review

Craven is as Craven does

Always the help never an equal

Read On. Read often.