DW&F: Hons and Murder

Hello everyone!

The new bed was definitely a Win! I really had a tough time getting out of bed this morning because it felt so nice curled up in new bedding on a new, comfy mattress. I woke up slightly sore, but still miles ahead of what I was used to feeling in the morning. And who knows, I may even wake up well-rested and without any soreness at all after a few nights. I love it, and so does Cathy! But instead of taking the easy route and using this for my daily Win!, I'm going to describe something amazing that happened a few days ago...

Daily Win and FAIL!

Win: A grocery store full of "hons"

The other day, Cathy and I went to the grocery store. We were in the produce section, which was very crowded, and we used teamwork to gather and forage for food. Our goal was simple: get in and out of the store as quickly as possible. I knew Cathy had the list, but I couldn't remember what was on it. She was maybe 20 or 30 feet ahead of me, so I called out:

"Hey, hon?"

And immediately, no less than eight other customers--at least two of them men--stopped what they were doing and turned toward at me, as if they thought I was talking to them and they were the "hon" I was referring to! Of course, I had a bit of a spring in my step afterward knowing that so many people wished they could be my "hon." Sorry, folks, I'm taken!

FAIL: Murder

Another unarmed person was killed by a cop. This time, the man was on his belly being restrained and possibly handcuffed, and he was shot in the back by the cop. Also, this time several people caught it on video. And once again, it was a young black man who was killed. What was his crime? He was on a subway in which a fight broke out, and he may or may not have been involved.

Predictably, people are now rioting in the Oakland, where the murder happened. And of course, just as predictably, people are now outraged by the riots. But I don't see how an entire group of people could be expected to have respect for the law when the law clearly has no respect for them.

Yes, rioting is bad and destructive, and I'm a peace-loving pacifist who's against violence in all forms, regardless of whether it's directed toward people, animals, or inanimate objects. But I also realize that groups of people who are oppressed tend to respond with violence eventually. If the message being sent to me is that people of my race (including my spouse/friends/family members/myself) can be shot and killed for no good reason, then you bet I'd be pissed. But beyond that, I don't know how I'd react or what I'd feel compelled to do, and neither does anyone else who's not in that situation.

Of course, that same rationalization can also be applied to cops. But cops are supposed to serve and protect, as well as keep the peace, and they failed miserably on both counts, first by killing another unarmed person, and second by establishing a level of distrust so high that people are out rioting.

And don't get me started on the bogus excuse that's already being thrown around about how the cop simply thought his gun was a Taser. If that gains any traction, look for the "I shot my wife because I thought my gun was the TV remote" defense coming soon to a courtroom near you. Besides, why would any cop need to Tase an unarmed, subdued man lying face down?

When your job requires you to carry a belt full of weapons that can hurt or kill others, "my bad" simply doesn't cut it when you accidentally kill someone (if this was an accident). Look, I realize that being a cop is tough. I couldn't do it, nor would I want to. It seems that some cops simply can't handle the stress from the job, but that's no excuse.

Anyone else who gets stressed out at work and commits murder goes to prison, and nobody makes excuses for them. But there seems to be a different attitude when it comes to cops. Why are people so quick to make excuses for them but not others? There's a sort of obedience to authority mindset here that I can't quite put my finger on at this point...

Regardless, far too often it seems that so many aspects of our entire system of justice is incapable of delivering justice. FAIL!

On that note, I'm going to head to my new, comfy, king-sized bed and try to dream of something happier. Good night everyone!

Rob

DW&F: Chris Rock and Racism

Hello everyone!

I don't feel like composing much of an intro today, so let's just get to it...

Daily Win and FAIL!

Win: Classic Chris Rock

(Warning: potty mouth language)

FAIL: Racism

I posted the above clip because I was reminded of it after reading this:

9 Muslim Passengers Removed From Jet
Others on Flight Say a Remark Was 'Suspicious'

Here's the gist of the story: A group of six adults and three children got onto an airplane. One of the adults mentioned that his seat was right near the jet engines. Someone paranoid eavesdropper overheard this and complained to the airline staff. The airline staff then kicked all nine of them off the plane, and the airport security detained them until the FBI showed up and questioned them.

Did I mention they were all Muslims of South Asian descent? The men had full beards and the women wore scarves on their heads. Scary, eh?

If that wasn't bad enough, after the FBI cleared them of any wrongdoing, the airline refused to book them a new flight, so they had to scramble at the last moment to find another airline to get where they were going. At least the original airline was "nice" enough to give them a refund.

Did I also mention that these people were American citizens taking a flight from Washington, DC to Orlando?

If any Muslims who thought they were off the hook just because a guy with the name "Barack Hussein Obama" was elected president of the US, or because most of the bigotry seems to be focused on gays and Mexicans these days, they can think again. As Chris Rock says, "That train is never late."

Here's what we can learn from this incident: If you look Muslim-ish, South Asian, or Middle Eastern (presumably), that's enough of a reason to throw you off an airplane, and have the FBI detain and question you. That's also enough reason to continue to ban you once your name has been cleared. But if you overreact to something you overheard while eavesdropping on someone else's conversation, or if you simply are racist and think all people who look Muslim-ish, South Asian, or Middle Eastern are terrorists, you get to stay on your flight.

I realize that one of the Muslim people mentioned something about the safety of one of the engines, but really, if a white person had said the same thing, would he or she have been kicked off? Hell, I've probably said "worse" on an airplane, and no one even batted an eye since I'm about as white-looking as it gets, not to mention cute and lovable.

No, the issue is that there is a different set of rules for people who look Muslim-ish, South Asian, or Middle Eastern. That, my friends, is racism in a nutshell. FAIL!





Well, that went way longer than I had originally planned. And of course the FAIL section is much longer than the Win section. What can I say? I guess I just like to complain.

Rob

Tragedy

Hello everyone!

Lately I've been busy keeping track of all the racism, bigotry, and xenophobia on the part of McCain/Palin supporters during the past few weeks now that Obama has been pulling ahead in the polls. I've theorized that all this could lead to violence, but I figured it would be against Obama himself, not his supporters. Boy was I naive.

Yesterday, someone slashed the tires of over 30 cars parked outside an Obama rally. Two people in Chicago (of all places) have reportedly received death threats the other day for having Obama signs in their yards. And a dead black bear cub was found this morning dumped at a college campus "draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs." Classy, eh?

In my mind the best type of comedy is tragedy. When things are the most uncomfortable, the most pathetic, the saddest, it's a sort of natural instinct for me to laugh. That's always how I got through stressful situations in my life. Even what should be really bad movies can turn into fantastic comedies when the main character is a tragic figure. American Pie is a classic example. Jason Biggs's character is so unlucky, ignorant, and pitiful that when his father catches him having sex with a pie or when he's humiliated in front of the whole school because he's doesn't have a clue how to act with the exchange student, I not only have to laugh at the situation, but also empathize.

Sometimes, however, the tragedy overpowers the humor. When that happens, it's no longer funny--it's just sad. Whenever I see a photo like the one below, my first instinct is to laugh. It's not out of a feeling of superiority or anything like that, but rather because the situation is so sad and so absurd, and laughing is the only way to cope with it.



But then when I read the stories above, I realize this isn't funny. This is a symptom of the pervasive ignorance throughout so much of our country, ignorance that doesn't have to be. Tragedy overpowers humor.

Rob

Just When You Thought Things Couldn't Get Even More Lowerer...

Hello everyone!

Here's an update to my post from yesterday about racism, xenophobia, and ignorance (three characteristics that go together like Snap, Crackle, and Pop). This is from Al Jazeera English, which is rapidly proving itself to be one of the best TV news agencies in the country, strangely enough, in terms of investigative journalism. Anyway, here's the clip:



I've tried to come up with a witty comment about this, but all I can bring myself to do is throw up a little bit in my mouth.

Rob

Just When You Thought Things Couldn't Get Any Lower...

Hello everyone!

It's gotten nasty. I'm talking downright, pathetically, disgustingly nasty. The bigots and racists are out in full force, and they're louder and more desperate than ever. Take a look:



In response to Obama's name being mentioned, people in the audience of McCain and Palin speeches have been yelling classy phrases such as "Terrorist!" "Treason!" and "Kill him!" One guy brought a stuffed monkey with an Obama sticker that he called "Little Hussein" to a McCain/Palin rally. He must be proud.

Well, now it appears that McCain/Palin are so desperate that they're going for the hate vote, or at least not doing much to reject it. The one time McCain tried, his own crowd booed him.

This kind of crap inevitably ends in violence. We certainly have a history of it, particularly against people who were in favor of minority rights or at least perceived to be (JFK, RFK, MLK, etc.) It's not difficult to imagine some nutcase being convinced that Obama is going to take away his gun and then turn this country into a jihadist, Muslim paradise where people of color enslave white people. It's also not difficult to imagine this same guy being convinced that he needs to do something about it. Maybe Mr. North Vietnamese Prison and Ms. Hunting Wolves from Helicopters think that's the only way they can win, which is why they keep saying Obama "pals around with terrorists."

I fucking hate people.

Rob

Ten Stupid Reasons to not Vote for Barack Obama

Hello everyone!

These days, it's really easy to compile a list of reasons to vote for someone. It's also easy to compile a list of reasons to not vote for someone. But I've discovered it's a bit challenging to compile a list of stupid reasons to not vote for someone! Yet that's what I did. So without any further ado, here is my list of 10 stupid reasons to not vote for Barack Obama:

Reason #1: He's a Muslim!

No he's not. But the bigger question is "So what if he was?" The assumption here is that Muslim=evil or Islam=terrorist.

I won't even get into whether or not Islam is evil because it's a stupid argument. If you think the whole religion is any more evil than any other religion, or that its followers are inherently evil, then you're blinded by your beliefs and are incapable of rational thought, and you might as well stop reading this. I'm sorry, but this whole "My God is better than yours argument" is idiotic, and it only leads to lots of dead people. You can believe all you want, but you don't know, and so it's stupid to argue about it. Even stupider is to make blanket statements about all the followers of a particular religion, especially when your religion has no shortage of skeletons in its closet. This is why I'm fanatically agnostic.

As far as equating Islam to terrorism, that's a fair comparison, but only if you ignore all the non-Muslim terrorists in recent history, such as the IRA, abortion clinic bombers, Timothy McVeigh, so-called eco-terrorists, Ted Kaczynski, the CIA, the Chinese government, the Soviets, etc.

But then there's the whole illogic of equating the actions of a few to an entire religion.

I know some people would say that there are more than a few. Well, think about this for a moment. There are about 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, give or take a few hundred million. That's 1,500,000,000 people. Compare that with the population of Phoenix, AZ, which is about 1.5 million, or 1,500,000 people. If there were 1.5 million Muslim terrorists worldwide (there is no way to come up with a number, but still, this is an insanely huge number, and I really doubt it's anywhere near this high under most definitions), that would still only be 1 of every 1,000 Muslims, or less than 0.1%. Put it this way: it's about 1,000 miles from Chicago to Denver. Only one mile would be the "terrorist mile". So it's hardly fair to assume every follower of Islam is a terrorist, unless you're an ignorant, reactionary idiot.

Now, that's not to say that 1.5 million terrorists couldn't cause a whole lot of damage (and they aren't, which is why I think this number is way too high). But if you had to fight them, wouldn't you rather have the other 1,498,500,000 on your side?

Moreover, the definition of terrorist is so vague that anyone can be called a terrorist. I'm sure I could be called one simply for writing this blog. But don't worry, you're reading it, so that makes you a terrorist, too.

Regardless, none of this has anything to do with Barack Obama, so let's move on.

Reason #2: He was raised in a Muslim terrorist madrassa!

Wrong again. I've already talked about the Muslim-terrorist claim. As for the bogus madrassa claim, my guess is that a vast majority of people who keep repeating this have no idea what a madrassa is. I didn't until I first heard this.

I suppose "madrassa" is a scary foreign-sounding word to some. But really, madrassa (madrasah) is simply the Arabic word for school. But I could see how people who are afraid of foreign-sounding words that they don't understand would also be afraid of school, or at least education.

But I guess if you're a complete moron, you can buy the line of reasoning that forty years ago, some grade school teachers somewhere in Indonesia concocted this great plan to select one of their students to be a sort of Manchurian Candidate who would one day become President of the United States so that he could singlehandedly destroy the whole country and convert us, as well as the whole Western World, into a bunch of freedom-hating Muslims. You'd also have to believe that they then thought, "You know, this plan is too easy. Instead of having a white guy with a name like John Smith, let's choose a black man named Barack Hussein Obama! They'll never suspect him!"

Of course, this also supposes that our country is so fragile that one guy can tear it all apart without any trouble. I guess if you have a low enough opinion of this country, you might think that. But that would mean you hate America.

Now I know some people might ask, "Hey, isn't one guy singlehandedly destroying this country right now?" No, he isn't. He has had lots of help.

Anyway, let's move on to reason #3.

Reason #3a: But he's Muslim! Look at his middle name: Hussein! What does that tell you?

...and...

Reason #3b: But he's Muslim! Look at his last name: Obama! You know, it sounds like Osama! What does that tell you?

Nothing. Neither tells me anything. And it shouldn't tell anyone else anything, either. Shall we play, "What's in a name?"

• Joseph Lieberman and Joseph Biden would be horrible choices for president because their name is Joseph, and we all know Joseph Stalin was one of the most brutal dictators in history. Therefore, Lieberman and Biden would become dictators if elected president.
  

• John McCain, John F. Kennedy, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, John Edwards, John Kerry, John Negroponte, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, John Lennon, Johnny Carson, Johnny Cash, Johnny Rotten, Johnny Walker, John Deere, Elton John, Johnson & Johnson, Trapper John, MD, Johns Hopkins, and Olivia Newton-John are all unqualified to be president because they all have "John" as part of their name. Who can forget another "John", John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. You wouldn't want to vote for someone with connections to a notorious assassin, would you?

• Hillary Clinton is out of the question, too. Look at her initials: H.C. You know who else had H.C. in his initials? H.C.M., aka Ho Chi Minh, that's who. And Rodham? That's like Rodman, as in Dennis Rodman, the cross-dressing basketball player. And if that weren't enough, "Hillary" starts with an "H", and so does "Hitler". That would make her a cross-dressing, VietCong, Nazi secret agent! Well, your secret is out, Hitlery Nguyen Rodman Clinton!

Reason #4: Obama associates with people who hate America! That means he hates America!

Oh, brother. I have friends who used to do a lot of meth. Does that mean I used to do a lot of meth? I have friends who are gay. Does that mean I'm gay? I have friends who have been in jail. Does that make me a criminal? I associate with many women. Does that make me a woman?

Note: I'm not equating being gay and/or being a woman to doing a lot of meth and/or being a criminal. They're just all things I can't say about myself.

Then there's the whole exaggeration or complete misrepresentation of what was said in the first place. Here's a good comparison of the sound bites and the context of what Jeremiah Wright said. I mean really, he never said anything that was untrue. But I guess a loud, angry black man is too scary to some people. We can also get into whether or not the guy truly hates America, but then we'd have to look at his military service history in Vietnam and how he attended to Lyndon B. Johnson after the president had surgery, and that wouldn't make for a good sound clip.

At the same time as all of this, John McCain was endorsed by John Hagee, a guy who essentially said that New Orleans got what it deserved in Hurricane Katrina because of gays. I guess "God damn New Orleans" is OK, but "God damn America" is not. Either way, hardly anyone is saying McCain is unfit to be president because he sought out Hagee's endorsement, though that could be because there are plenty of other reasons McCain is unfit to be president.

Or there's Pat Robertson, a guy who agreed with another nutcase, Jerry Falwell, when two days after 9/11 he said, "I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen." Robertson also called for Hugo Chavez's assassination. He endorsed Rudy Giuliani, but nobody blamed Giuliani for it.

These televangelist types are doing a great job at arguing for a separation of church and state, though I doubt that's what they have in mind.

Reason #5: But Rev. Wright is his "spiritual adviser"!

In order to believe this means anything, one must first have to be so ignorant to not know what the word "adviser" means. The word adviser means, "One who advises, or one who gives advice." It does not mean, "One who brainwashes." I can understand why there would be a mix up since it does involve religion, an institution whose leaders have been known from time to time to try to brainwash its followers.

Nevertheless, the idea that Obama naturally agrees with everything Jeremiah Wright says is bunk, especially given that Obama has clearly on a number of occasions come out and said he disagreed with many of the things Wright said.

None of this matters anymore, anyhow, since Obama left his church this weekend.

Reason #6: Obama doesn't put his hand on his heart during the National Anthem and refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance!

Sigh.

This is based on one photo that appeared in Time magazine. Here's video of the "offending" incident:



So instead of putting his hand on his heart, he sings along. What an America-hater! Too bad he didn't sing louder in order to drown out that awful-sounding woman with a microphone.

Was he "supposed to" put his hand over his heart? According to USflag.org (yes, there is such a site):

During rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Men not in uniform should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart.

Well, there you go. Since they didn't remove their "headdress", I say they're all guilty of hating America. Except Hillary and that other woman as the rule apparently only applies to men.

Oh, and here's some video that I copied and pasted from snopes.com of Obama leading the Pledge of Allegiance in the Senate. Notice the hand over heart:





Ah, but who cares about the truth when there are plenty of half-truths to go around?

Reason #7: Obama clearly hates America. This is why he refuses to wear a flag pin!

Good! The flag pin was most likely made in China!

Frankly, I think we've had way too much of this bogus, superficial patriotism and not enough real concern and care for this country. Anyone can wear a pin or put a magnetic ribbon on an SUV (one of the most unintentionally ironic statements a person can make), but instead of hollow gestures, maybe we should try doing something that actually helps the country, such as providing health care, working to pay off our national debt, or simply not fighting unnecessary wars.

Reason #8: Michelle Obama clearly hates America. She said she was proud of America "for the first time." I've always been proud of America!

Really? You've always been proud of America? Were you proud when we were committing genocide against native people? Were you proud when slavery was legal and blacks were considered 3/5 of a person for congressional representational purposes? Were you proud when we had segregation? How about when we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act? Or when we interned Japanese-Americans during World War II? What about when we dropped two nuclear bombs (the only country to ever do so) on Japan, or when we firebombed and leveled German cities? Were you proud of that? Or does that not count because it was a long time ago?

How about more recently? Are you proud that we started detaining prisoners Soviet-style: overseas, indefinitely, and without charging them with a crime? Are you proud when thousands of people were dying in New Orleans during Katrina while the president laughed and strummed a guitar? How about when the previous president was impeached because he lied about having receiving sex? Or how about when the two presidents before him authorized arming Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden?

Maybe you should be proud of the fact that our country has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher even than the Soviet Union in 1979.

Mentioning any of this does not mean a person hates the America. Nor does it mean that a person is not proud. But if we ever want this country to get better, we first have to come to terms with the fact that we're not perfect. If this country were a person, it would be a John Wayne-type character, strutting around completely oblivious to its faults, which everyone else can clearly see.

No, it's not hate if you believe the country can do better and expect it to do so.

Reason #9: He has no foreign policy experience!

Well, how well do people with foreign policy experience stack up?

Dick Cheney: Assistant to the President and then White House Chief of Staff under Ford, five terms as US Representative At-Large from Wyoming, House Minority Whip, Secretary of Defense under Bush I, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Halliburton, Vice President under Bush II, shot a guy in the face.

Donald Rumsfeld: Four terms as US Representative from Illinois's 13th district, Director of the United States Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon, White House Chief of Staff and then US Secretary of Defense under Ford, Special Envoy to the Middle East under Reagan, Secretary of Defense again under Bush II, Architect of the Iraq Quagmire, used a machine to sign letters of condolences to families of soldiers killed in said quagmire, resigned in disgrace in 2006.

John McCain: Two terms as US Representative from Arizona's 1st district, elected four times as US Senator from Arizona, doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia, thinks Iran is harboring and training al Qaeda (hint: they're not).

Hillary Clinton: Former First Lady, twice elected as US Senator from New York, imagined gunfire during visit to Bosnia. Oh wait, maybe she didn't imagine it:



Anyway, with these kinds of results from experienced people, I'll think I'll take my chances with the new guy.

Reason #10: We don't know anything about him!

Two words: Goo-gle!

Well, I hope you find this list of reasons not to vote for Obama useful in your voting decisions. Vote early and often!

Rob

The Grand Old Daily Bee

Hello everyone!

Sometimes I waste time. I meant to use my lunch break as an opportunity to get caught up on my readings for class, but that didn't happen. Instead, I got sucked into reading the online version of the Bonner County Daily Bee.

For those of you who don't know, this is the local newspaper for a town in Idaho called Sandpoint, which is where I lived for almost eight years before moving to Oregon. It's where I met Cathy and many of the close friends that I've had for years. It's also where my parents, grandma, and my sister and her family live, as well as where Cathy's parents live. So basically, although I wasn't born there and never went to school there as a kid, I pretty much consider it my hometown.

But there's a sort of strange ideology there, and I'm going to try to describe it as best as I can. It's a sort of "libertarian-isolationist" ideology. The area is overwhelmingly white and Christian, like most rural areas. But the people there are generally really big on privacy, (or at least used to be) which is how the Aryan Nation asshats ended up there for so long. As long as they stayed in their remote compound, kept to themselves, and didn't harass anyone, most of the locals didn't care.

Now that's fine if you just wanted to live in a cabin in the woods and grow pot (which a lot of people did, and I'm sure still do). But because the area is somewhat geographically isolated, and I'd add because there were no colleges there (the main reason I moved to Oregon in the first place), racism among the locals developed differently. In fact, I wouldn't even call it racism, but more like xenophobia. In places like California, white racists tend to look at poor people of color and think there is something inherently wrong with them, whereas there really are hardly any people of color in Idaho, and so the ones who aren't racists that moved up from California are simply xenophobes. They like North Idaho the way it is, and anyone different who shows up is trying to change their home. For this reason, many locals hate rich tourists or transplants, Californians in particular, or any other outsiders. A person of color is clearly an outsider since there are hardly any who live there. Apart from a few exceptions, the only time North Idahoans see people of color is when they watch TV. But they hear horror stories about them from the transplants.

The point to all this is that this attitude often shows up in the newspaper under the letters to the editor. In the online version, there's a space at the end of the letter to leave comments. Sometimes I comment, and sometimes I don't. Today's paper featured a letter that was so ridiculously racist, I had to comment. However, my comment included a pejorative term (only because it was part of an official US policy name), so who knows if they'll publish my comment. Anyway, here's the text of the letter followed by my comments:

Illegal immigration has tremendous cost
Posted: Thursday, Apr 24, 2008 - 09:17:05 am PDT


This is in response to March 18 letter on immigration.
Dear liberals (not the middle-of-the-road Democrats); the subject is illegal immigration:

What is it that you don’t understand about the word “illegal?” I agree with the person who said go to Los Angeles, Arizona, Texas and other states that are suffering from the burden of illegal immigrants.

Would someone tackle that single question with honesty. Don’t put a spin on it; our society is going to crumble under the huge negative impact of illegals.

These immigrants are certainly voting (illegally) Democratic so they can get all the free health, schools, jobs, bringing us down to their level — a third world country. Our history years ago would only let in immigrants that would bring something worthwhile; they were educated or trained to work in our society.

Long gone are the days when we can allow all of the worlds poor into the US. We are running out of resources for our own children.

Why don’t you read what you write, then actually think about what your saying! Rome fell and so can we. My guess is those who really think that it is a good idea to allow illegals into the U.S. also have an agenda of their own; me me me maybe?

I’m disappointed in some of my fellow Americans, you certainly have not traveled to the other countries that are trying so badly to get in the U.S. We can’t bring all those poor people into our country. What do you want for your own children; poverty? These are sad times and it is because of the very left liberals not the middle-of-the-road Democrats who are clueless and dangerous to the U.S. By the way, right wing conservatives are no better than you lefties! Do you really want America to be a third world country?

CAROL ALBANESE

Priest River

My response:

This country's immigration history has most certainly not been about "immigrants that would bring something worthwhile." On the contrary, it has been a series of some of the most blatantly racist policies in our country's history of blatantly racist policies. Look up the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, The Immigration Act of 1924 and the National Origins Formula, and Operation Wetback (yes, they actually called it that) just for starters.

Once you learn about our history of racist immigration policies, you can move on to our history of exploitation of people in poor countries, particularly in Latin America. You should study NAFTA and the effects of American subsidized corn and how it devastated Mexico's agriculture industry. Then you can read about the American-owned Maquiladora factories that opened in the border towns and how many of the millions of Mexican people who moved there for jobs and suddenly found themselves out of work when China was able to do it cheaper. You can research about the indigenous Mexican people who were kicked off their farm lands by American corporations because they didn't have "legal documentation" that they owned it, despite the fact that their ancestors lived there for thousands of years. I'm sure you could no doubt find hundreds of other examples of American officials and businesses exploiting Mexicans and other Latin Americans and/or meddling with Latin American governments, including the CIA overthrowing or trying to overthrow democratically-elected regimes simply because they won't do business with American corporations.

Or you could just ignore all this and continue to foolishly blame immigrants for all your problems. After all, victims are much easier to blame than the perpetrators, especially if blaming the perpetrators involves looking in the mirror.

It's easy to talk about how aghast you are that someone would break a law when that law benefits you and punishes them, when that law provides you rights and opportunities but not them, and the only difference between you and them is that you were lucky enough to be born on this side of the border and they were unlucky enough to be born on that side.

I'm sure that posting this comment won't change anyone's mind, but at least they can't keep falling back on ignorance as an excuse. Still, it really frustrates me when people measure others based on themselves while completely ignoring how much of an advantage they have.

Unfortunately, I just put myself at a disadvantage by doing all this because I'm still behind on my readings for school. I better get to it.

Rob

A Good Talker.

Hello everyone!

Stop whatever you're doing and watch this:



It's a bit long, but it's worth it. Here's the official transcript of the speech before it was given:

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their world view in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Wow. He's a good talker.

Rob