Welcome to the Confederate States of America #Election2016

Election 2016: Can We Find Hope In A Hopeless World?

Well, the red, republican, confederate, slave states finally won the Civil War last night. EYE said it once, and EYE will say it again, the red republican slave states have way too much power.  I'm not sure how this Make America White, EYE mean, Great again is supposed to work but EYE am sure we will find out.  Cue in Dixie

This is white-lash plain and simple enabled by the white male dominated media.  Exit polls show white evangelical capitalist neocolonial racist misogynist anti-Semitic bigoted Christian nationalists, men, and women showed up and showed out for Trump  on election day.  But here is the scary part, Trump received 61% of the military vote compared to Clinton's 34%. What color is the Terror Alert?

EYE have to give The Trumpster credit for giving his people what they want.  He knew he could rely on the segment of society who want to take our country back to before.  Nothing gets white people to the polls like good old race baiting. It's shame democrats were too busy infighting to do the same. 

Speaking of democrats, and I use that term lightly, they are going to have to take their fair share of blame for losing the war and dissolving the union.  " Their “rejection must be complete and blame must be laid squarely at their feet” for raising those chickens that have come home to roost."

You get who/what you vote for.

RedEye tiptoeing away from the computer to go weep for our country.

#WhiteTerror #BlackPain #SayTheirNames #CarolRoberston #DeniseMcNair #CynthiaWesely #AddieMaeCollins

Denise McNair, Carol Robinson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley Resting in Heavenly Peace

Again, the reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats. I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

Does this sound familiar?

Back in 1966, after an election in which, having won voting rights after the
1965 Selma to Montgomery March, in which I lost two dear friend, Rev Jim
Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, blacks rushed to register to vote and to run for office, most considered themselves to be Democrats . Gov Wallace (a democrat) refused to allow them to run for office as Democrats. To combat the continuing absolute racism of the Alabama Democratic Party, some of us created another Democratic Party, the National Democratic Party of Alabama (NDPA), went through a difficult struggle, and elected the first blacks to office in Alabama as Democrats! But the ADP fought as a fully segregated party for almost 10 years as the NDPA came to hold over 100 elected offices,more than any other state!!! Then and only then did the ADP want us, and we forgivingly moved into the ADP. But of course its leadership remained fully racist and we have been struggling to change that ever since. But racists continued to run for and hold office as Democrats. It never fully changed. That makes it clear why people are still very suspicious of attitudes in the ADP.

Prior to the the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Nixons' Southern Strategy, these people were loyal democrats, then the Democratic Party split along sectional lines in the aftermath and the republicans reached out to the disaffected Southern Democrats, encouraging them to join the GOP. The party did not change the Dixiecrats, the Dixiecrats changed the party.

When Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 voting Rights Act, he said “there goes the Democratic Party in the South.” How right he was."What ever political party draws it's strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat. " 

Are you with us, or are you with them?

That is the question.

Saturday Must Reads: On Racial Demonization and Political Demonization

#ICantBreathe In Black & White --> (Cartoon by @AnnTelnaes) #EricGarner #p2 pic.twitter.com/mn9n7Iu75r
— Eric Wolfson (@EricWolfson) December 6, 2014

No More Mister Nice Blog

 I've long felt that, since the days of Reagan, conservatives have
thrived by modifying the "Southern strategy" demonization of blacks --
the demons now include Democrats, liberals, college professors,
Hollywood stars, feminists, gay people, immigrants, and other groups.
The rhetoric frequently circles back to race, of course -- especially,
needless to say, while we have a black president -- but the same basic
anger is stoked when the top Democrat is Bill Clinton or Nancy Pelosi.

When White Supremacy is respectable again.

So, now we're at the point where beginning to see signs that openly
racist messaging is on the verge of becoming respectable again. When
right-wing politicians start justifying the murder of black citizens by
white police officers regardless of the specifics of the case, we're one
step below the level of just calling for a system that acknowledges
white supremacy as the natural and "correct" order of things. We're just
one step away from openly saying that equality before the law is not
the goal, and never should be. Recent remarks by Rep. Peter King and Rudy Giuliani, plus the openly-expressed sentiments of countless white citizens, indicates that
we're dangerously close to a situation where white supremacy is just one
side of the political argument...again. And we have the Conservative Movement to thank for that.

 The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media.

In 2003, I filmed an interview in Washington with
Charles Lewis, the distinguished American investigative journalist.  We
discussed the invasion of Iraq a few months earlier.  I asked him, “What
if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged George Bush
and Donald Rumsfeld and investigated their claims, instead of channeling
what turned out to be crude propaganda?”

He replied that if we journalists had done our job “there is a very, very good chance we would have not gone to war in Iraq.”

It's the Media.  They think we are stupid.

"Democrats" are waging a War on Whites? Who knew?

H/T Left in Alabama

Finally a war I can support!  Just kidding. Those who know me know I am anti-war/anti-violence of any kind. My weapons of choice are words and the ballot box, but I got to thinking....what if democrats did wage a war on white folks?  Maybe if Democrats had waged a war on white folks we wouldn't be in this mess.  By mess I am referring to sending our troops to war based on dead wrong intelligence, raiding the surplus to give the rich a tax cut, spying on the American people without a warrant, outing CIA  agents,  massive unemployment, record foreclosures, failing public schools and infrastructure, and the list goes on and on, like the Energizer Bunny.

Before we jump into Congressman Mo Brooks (r. AL 05) #WarOnWhites we must decode his code words.  First, democrats are code for black folks, African Americans, Negroes, coloreds, and whatever else you want to call people of color, not to be confused with them their illegals, which is code for Mexicans, Hispanics, anyone else from south of the border.  So when Congressman Brooks says democrats are waging war on white folks, he's really saying black folks are waging war on white folks, because everybody knows the democratic party panders to black voters at the expense of white voters.  Now, this is not true, but this is the perception held by some, not to be confused with all, white folks.

A generation ago, the Alabama Democratic Party’s black caucus had to fight for representation on the party’s executive committee, but today the party and that caucus, the Alabama Democratic Conference, overlap so much they are nearly synonymous.

Under a 25-year-old consent decree, ADC can select at-large executive committee members to make the committee racially proportionate to the party’s electorate. But it has exercised that power only in terms of black and white. Hispanics and other minority groups are not represented well, if at all, on the committee.

The ADC’s power has put its president, Joe Reed, squarely in the party driver’s seat and has made him a divisive figure. Last year, a spat with then-party chairman Mark Kennedy ended with Kennedy resigning his position and creating a new political group, the Alabama Democratic Majority, which some in the party hoped could reform or replace the state executive committee. At the time, Kennedy denied that was its purpose, but the message was clear: For at least part of the leadership, Alabama’s Democratic party had become too dysfunctional to be salvageable.

What Kennedy and his allies left behind was a smattering of white faces in a mostly black crowd.

I tried to tell them instead of creating their own separate and unequal party to get rid of Joe Reed and his bunch, they should have been joining Joe Reed and his bunch.  But did they listen to me?  Naaaaah. So here we are 3 months before the election and democrats in the fifth congressional district have a choice between Mo Brooks and Mo Brooks Lite.  My only hope is Mo Brooks Lite has the decency not to publicly disrespect the President of the United States of America, and if elected he will put his republican past behind him, and put people over party.  But I digress.

Before we return to the #WarOnWhites, there is one more word we have to define, and that word is psychological projection.

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others.^[1] For example, a person who is rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude.

So, when Congressman Mo Brooks accuses democrats (blacks) of waging war on whites, he really means republicans (whites) are waging war on democrats (blacks).

Alabama has an ugly racial past that has taken decades to overcome. Still, for many outside the state, Alabama is remembered for Bloody Sunday in Selma and Bull Connor's fire hoses turned on peaceful protesters in Birmingham. Those images belong in the past in the wake of the civil rights movement, but Brooks' comments will only reinforce those images.The irony in Brooks' comments is he accuses Democrats of "... launching this war (by) claiming that whites hate everybody else." Really? With our first African-American president in his second term, is it he and his party fomenting hate? No.Brooks embodies all that is wrong with the contemporary Republican Party. He's too far right to understand ordinary people's problems, and he won't engage with Democrats to craft legislation — such as immigration — that has long needed to be addressed. He is mired in political theory and ideology, refusing to accept that others, even in his own party, have something to bring to the table. That is arrogance.Sadly, Brooks will find a willing audience for his incendiary views in a state and a nation increasingly divided against themselves.

Whites are waging a war on blacks, and the opening salvo was the certification of the 2000 election. 

Addendum

The real reason that I oppose the Republican Party has nothing to do with my being a Democrat. I'm not. I'm an independent, with no political party. I don't oppose the Republicans in order to support the Democrats, I oppose the Republicans because the kind of people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing have joined the GOP. Prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Nixon's Southern Strategy, these people were loyal Democrats, partly because of the New Deal but mostly because of Reconstruction and the Civil War. When the Democratic Party split along sectional lines in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act, the Republicans reached out to the disaffected Southern Democrats, encouraged them to join the GOP. The party did not change the Dixiecrats, the Dixiecrats changed the party.

Whatever political party draws its strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat
Whatever political party draws its strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat.

The End.

No mooncat, Southern men aren't the problem with the gop

It's  the many, kind, generous, reasonable, responsible white men, and I might add, white women, who  enable and appease  the  self-centered, angry SOBS because they are afraid to confront them.

It's the culture of racism that is allowed to fester and grow that is the problem.

Martin Luther King, Jr said:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
But he also said:
When we view the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites…

On a personal note, I want to take this opportunity to wish you and everyone at Left in Alabama a Happy Holiday Season.  May peace fill your heart, love warm your homes and joy light up your life.  It is my sincere wish  I be allowed to participate in the informed, involved, Progressive dialogue at Left in Alabama again.

RedEye

Redeye's Tuesday Must Reads

There are two sides to every story and we finally get to hear Keith Olbermans side, not from MSM but via buzzflash.com

You should also know that I did not attempt to keep any of these political contributions secret; I knew they would be known to you and the rest of the public. I did not make them through a relative, friend, corporation, PAC, or any other intermediary, and I did not blame them on some kind of convenient 'mistake' by their recipients.

The South Shall Rise Again!

As the Democrats get clobbered time and again, I note how these successes remind me of he the Southern Strategy used to gain control of the Congress before the Civil War and how again they used it to almost win the Civil War.

Yep. Alabama's' own Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions fired the first shot when he made sure the Azalea Trail Maids were Alabama's only representative in the inaugural parade of the first African American President of the United States of America. When Alabama State NAACP VP Edward Vaughn, myself and others tried to sound the alarm, we were called racist and accused of attacking the "girls" and told to STFD and STFU.

Get over it. This is such a non-issue. No one see these girls as a representation of racism except those who get bent out of shape over trivial little matters.
Complete nonissue. It is pretty funny to see how much time and attention you have put into this.

Note, some of these same people complain media attention given to AL State Senator Hank Sanders' mad as hell robo call to DEMOCRATIC voters cost Lt. Governor Jim Folsom the election, and portrayed Alabama in a negative light. There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

CNN reaches a lot of people, even in Alabama. Folsom only lost to Kay Ivey by about 45,000 votes. There's no way to know how many people came out to vote for Folsom because they got the call vs. how many were motivated to vote against him because they heard about it, but I'd love to see what kind of movement Folsom and/or Ivey's internal polls showed between October 15th, when the calls hit Alabama answering machines, and Election Day.

The fix is in.

Hmmmm, sooooooo we just experienced a wave election fueled by anger in the electorate over the lack of jobs and feelings about the economy. YET it is now reported that the economy was showing these really positive signs of improvement for the last couple months - BUT news outlets like MSNBC sat on the numbers and only released them AFTER the elections, along with a glowing commentary encouraging people to be optimistic.
Don't sleep... The Hustler's are coming home to roost.

It’s funny but having the first black President has been a dual edged sword. On the one hand we have been given the boost to our pride of finally achieving the highest office in the land and that black folks have all the skills necessary to overcome centuries of racism and on the other hand we have a President who can barely use the word black in public for fear of agitating the racist who will be agitated no matter what he says.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
--Thomas Jefferson

Peace be with you.

The Shirley Sherroding of Hank Sanders

You know the drill by now.

Take a snippet of AL State Senator Hanks Sanders robo call to DEMOCRATIC voters out of context and spin it like a top. It's not what you say, it's what other people hear.

What AL State Senator Hank Sanders actually said;

Hello this is Hank Sanders, Alabama state Senator, and I’m still mad as hell. I say hell no! I ain’t going back to the cotton fields of Jim Crow days. I’m going forward with Ron Sparks, Jim Folsom and others who would do right by all of us. I hope you are mad as hell and will not go back, and you have the power to choose. I will stand until hell freezes over for Ron Sparks for Governor and Jim Folsom for Lt. Governor on November the 2nd.

Paid for by Alabama New South.

This is what the Reactionaries heard.
Here;

Sanders comments shouldn't shock any of you. The democrat power brokers like Hank have played low income blacks for fools for decades now. I probably mentioned this before but Ill never forget being in a democrat party headquarters on election day along the stateline when I was a little boy back in the 80’s and hearing a certain democrat elected county schools superintendent yell at volunteer drivers to be sure and take the [archaic, inappropriate term for a black person] to vote before you take them to get some fried chicken and beer at the Qmart store. But until the GOP starts recruiting credible young black gentlemen into the party in these areas. You might as well continue to get used to the Hank Sanders of the world….

This is what he should have said;

A message that might appeal to both Democratic groups is something like:

Republicans are taking care of the rich people; Democrats care about people like you.

And this;

I am upset that a politician by the name of Hank Sanders keeps calling my house campaigning for Ron Sparks and Jim Folsom using foul language. This is very unprofessional and I do not appreciate such language being brought into my home and left on my machine.

He goes into how he is mad as “h—-” and he hopes that we are mad as “h—-” and that he is not going back to Jim Crow days. The number he is calling from blocks all incoming calls or I would tell him this myself.

America, when did we become so immoral?

There's an old saying, if you throw a rock at a pen full of pigs the one that squeals is the one that was hit. Looks like there's a whole lot of squealing going on. We can all pretend the Tea Party movement of today is yesterday's Southern Strategy. We can pretend the gop is tolerant and inclusive of minorities. We can pretend KY republican Senatorial nominee Rand Paul doesn't want to repeal the 14th amendment. We can pretend AL 05 Congressional nominee Mo Brooks and AL Senate nominee Paul Sandford didn't snub the NAACP. We can pretend Alabama isn't the home of former Governor George C. Wallace and Bull Conner. We can pretend Alabama democrats aren't under attack. We can pretend we don't know what the gop infused, media enabled, Tea Party candidates mean when they say "they want to take their country BACK". We can pretend Alabama and America is post racial, but that's exactly what we would be doing. I'm sick and tired of pretending everything is lovey dovey.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel

Senator Sanders said he was supporting candidates like Ron Sparks and Jim Folsom who will take us forward, not backwards. Instead of focusing on going forward the Reactionaries focused on re-enslavement and the word hell. Project much?

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)

Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. ... the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them~George Santayana



Hell no I ain't fergittin!

Southern strategy today, Southern strategy tomorrow, Southern strategy forever

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to a Republican Party (GOP) method of winning Southern states in the years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by exploiting the racism of southern white voters.

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Ni**er, ni**er, ni**er,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘ni**er’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”



Don't let Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour fool you, The Southern Strategy is alive and well; The gop infused, media enabled, Tea Party Movement is the New Southern Strategy.

I’ve seen a few ostensible “liberals” get all upset when some of us suggest that the use of the Southern Strategy is as racist as it ever was, and the intensity of it now might have something to do with our black President. Which makes me wonder what their grasp on history must be. After all, mowing down civil rights protesters with hoses happened within the lifetime of the majority of Americans. Granted, as the years go by the people who openly supported segregation are becoming fewer in number. But still. Do people really think that Dr. King made a speech and suddenly all those mean racists just evaporated into thin air?

Despite being  bashed and smeared by the right wing/media for having the audacity to pass a resolution calling out the racist elements of the Tea Party, The NAACP has started a Tea Party Tracker to monitor and document right wing racism.

The tracker's launch comes a month and a half after NAACP members voted overwhelmingly to condemn "racist elements" within the tea party. Members of the conservative movement responded by saying that the civil rights group was "attempting to silence" the tea party with "inflammatory name-calling."

Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart said the NAACP's resolution was the instigation for his release of a selectively edited video that made it appear that federal agriculture official Shirley Sherrod had discriminated against a white farmer. Sherrod was fired and condemned by the NAACP before the full video was released, which showed that Sherrod had actually helped the farmer and was telling a story of racial redemption. President Obama and NAACP officials apologized to Sherrod, who said she was targeted because the NAACP had called out the tea party.

If republicans regain control of the government it will be proof of a blacklash as the result of the election of an African American President.

Over the last year and a half, many Americans have begun to see a deeper message in President Obama’s inauguration — the end of the white majority.

How many times have you heard the right wing republicans blame Minorities for the current Mortgage crisis because the government made the banks give them loans they couldn't afford? Actually the banks got away with gutting the black middle class.

Black and Latino minorities have been disproportionately targeted and affected by sub prime loans. In California, one-eighth of all residences, or 702,000 homes, are in foreclosure. Black and Latino families make up more than half that number. Latino and African-American borrowers in California, according to figures from the Center for Responsible Lending, have foreclosure rates 2.3 and 1.9 times that of non-Hispanic white families.

The Minority mortgage defaults are a new form of racial discrimination;

These days, Latinos and blacks get loans, but the loans typically are at a higher rate than what whites pay. Although the majority of families (an estimated 56%) who lost homes were non-Hispanic whites, Latino and African-American families disproportionately received the most expensive and risky types of loans during the sub prime lending boom, according to the study, making them more heavily affected.

When blacks and Latinos then turn to the banks for help refinancing or modifying the terms of their loans, the banks aren’t so willing to help unless a nonprofit counseling agency intervenes on their behalf, according to a study by the Urban Institute. Without outside intervention, the homeowner is more likely to lose their home.

New York 10th Congressional district candidate Kevin Powell is struggling to maintain his home due to the mortgage crisis.

I have been struggling to maintain my own home due to the sub prime mortgage crisis and the resulting recession. As an author and a community activist, I have made a living promoting change through various mediums, but this crisis has been very hard on those of us trying to positively impact our communities from outside of government.
Unlike Congressman Towns, I am attempting to right the disclosure issue. We are doing what we can to make things right with Washington. It will take time and remains out of our hands as they have the filing and we await their response. My opponent, on the other hand, has the power to hold up processes in Washington, just as he did as Chairman last summer when he stalled the investigation into Countrywide’s “Friends of Angelo” preferable mortgage treatment as he and other members of Congress had benefited from to obtain luxurious homes at reduced rates.

There is no center between right and wrong.

There is a constant attempt, usually in the establishment media, to frame our politics along a left-right-center spectrum. This is convenient code in some respects. Like shorthand, it prevents us from having to spell out every single position on every single issue every time we discuss someones politics. But unfortunately, that shorthand is inaccurate.

One of the consequences of this spectrum frame, however, is that it creates the impression that both sides have merit and by finding a happy medium, the magical center, one make stake out the most sensible position. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We progressives have been cowed by a constant barrage of messaging that tries to tell us that our views are extreme and outside the norm of mainstream America. Like our counter-part of the radical right, they say, we should not be taken seriously because, again, the center is where sensibility resides.

You are either with the Southern strategy/Tea Party or you are against the Southern strategy/Tea Party.

If you're a conservative, then you've heard about the "Tax Day Tea Parties" being held nationwide this Wednesday, April 15th and sponsored by TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter), DontGo Movement, and Smart Girl Politics. The rally is to send a message to Congress, to "Repeal the Pork; Cut Taxes" and protesting the massive spending that has been happening on the national level over the last several months, as well as the government's interference in the economy. The Huntsville Tea Party will be from 12 pm noon until 1 pm in the vacant lot across the street from the post office on Clinton Ave. There will be four speakers: Mo Brooks (Madison Country District 5 Commissioner), Paul Sanford (in the Republican primary run off for Senate Seat in District 7), Sam Givhan (also in the Republican primary run off for Senate Seat in District 7), and Chuck Bailey (with FairTax.org)

Do we really want the Southern strategy/Tea Party in control of our government again?

2010 is shaping up to be the Year of the Hate Crime in America, thanks in large part to right-bent Republicans and their Tea Party allies who have nothing to run on in the upcoming midterms. Think about it; would you want to run for office as a Republican these days? Their dearest economic ideas gave us the current recession, their foreign policies resulted in a war we lost in Iraq and a war we're losing in Afghanistan, their environmental designs have resulted in yet another oil rig detonation in the Gulf of Mexico, a great many of their supporters don't believe in dinosaurs because the Bible doesn't mention them, and their biggest national superstar is Sarah Palin, who by all appearances is so drastically stupid that she couldn't figure out how to pour piss out of a boot if there were directions on the heel.
So, yeah, not much to hang your hat on there. In the absence of anything substantive to give the American people, the right has gone home to their mothership: sowing discord, fear and hatred to distract people from the fact that, while Republicans are good at campaigning, they are walking cancer cells to the body politic if and when they actually win.

The only thing standing between us and having elected representative who who demonize minorities, deny reality, and use fear to mislead American voters is Y-O-U.

Do Alabamians want a Governor who believes every child regardless of race, gender or circumstance should have equal access to a quality education or a republican one that believes the privileged should have that right (pun intended).


VOTE like it's 1963 all over again. The progeny of Lee, Jackson, Forrest, and Davis, that bought us a Civil War are at it again under the guise of the Tea Party movement and troll concern for out of control spending , the size of government and taxes.

If you hired a contractor to paint your house and they totally f*cked it up, would you hire them to fix it? Why should the party who has been wrong on just about everything be listened to? Stupid is as stupid does.

What is troubling to me about the current trend of candidates especially the teabaggers is not that they are less than scholarly but the fact that their lack of knowledge is what makes them appealing to their constituents.

If the Dems are going to survive and keep the momentum now is not the time for timidity, instead it is the time for bold visions and actions. The Republicans have shown that they are devoid of any new ideas to address the major challenges we face as a nation. So rather than cowering in the corner waiting for the day of reckoning the Dems must provide the American people with a stark contrast of the future of America. If the Dems cannot defeat the rehashed ideas of the past then they are not worthy to lead into the future. ~The Disputed Truth

Are the majority of the American people FOR the Southern strategy, or AGAINST the Southern strategy.
Time will tell the truth.