Meet Mitch Romney, a Solid Gold Cog & I want My 40 Acres and a Mule!

Mitch Romney, a more educated version of Archie Bunker, has yet again publicly expressed the scorn of a certain class of Americans, toward another class of Americans. 

But are democrats accurate in describing his remarks as coming from the One Percent of Americans who control most of the resources in America?  Or, perhaps Romney like a true midwesterner, more represents working class white America? And frankly, his remarks also represent a certain class of the American Black Bourgeoisie who angrily condemned Dr. Cornel West's public castigations of President Obama for not prioritizing the plight of the poor.

It’s not a stretch to say that Romney comments, about Americans who  feel that government "owes" them something as “victims”, and therefore possess a sense of entitlement, is code for Black people.

But Romney is right.

Many Progressive Black Folk, including myself do feel entitled to a modern day equivalent of the “40 acres and a Mule", that our ancestors were promised in 1865, in compensation for four hundred years of slavery, and another hundred-plus years of Jim Crow segregation, not including today’s continued climate of racism and discrimination.  And, what’s not part of the discussion, is that a lot of Black folk thought that when Senator Obama was sworn in as president, we would finally get some form of reparation for the years of civic and social death that we lived through, not just in slavery, but swinging from trees and railroad bridges as so much strange fruit, etc.  Many Black people do feel that we are owed something extra to correct the young Black bodies overflowing the jails and grave yards while being absent from institutions of higher learning and the work force. These conditions can all be traced back to the auction block.

Isn’t Occupy Wall Street about some form of “entitlement” for a class of people continuously ripped of by the financial and insurance industries (fully abetted by the U.S. Government) who looted and crashed our economy for their own profit?

So Romney called the teakettle black and instead of America thanking him for raising this important conversation, we say how dare he! Of course he didn’t raise this issue a progressive, but bully for him for bringing the argument any way because “entitlements” should be a huge part of the national debate, but it’s not.  Further, this is why the One Percent would never talk about any one being entitled.  Because they know that it's them who continue to manipulate and grow their abundant political and economic entitlements and would not want to draw attention to it from the mainstream populace.   In fact, I bet they  fare more disturbed over Romney’s remarks than the Democrats. 

It’s like that saying that “the best thing the devil ever did was to convince humans of his non existence” This is how the banking and financial industries are able to continue to rape, pillage, and plunder, every economic source in America.  Maybe the fact that Romney raised the issue means he’s a lot "closer" to the Democrats then the banking and financial Industries who greatly benefit no matter who is the President? He just  doesn't know that he's just another cog. A solid gold cog, but a cog none the less.

I Remain, Invisible,

Spook. 

Facebook/ On Liberalism, an Entropic Political State

I use Facebook to keep up to date on the public performances of my friends who are artists. But mostly its my medium to keep up to date with the material that my progressive friends are reading and share the articles that I’m reading as well. Because this sharing leads, often times, to intense written communications posted on facebook, I closely limit whom I accept as friends. There are some that I wish I had never befriended, but most are people that I benefit from this communications although some personal posts I wish they would keep to themselves.

I also learn a lot from my liberal white friends, mostly about how liberalism is a failed state of politics. For instance I’m always amazed and disappointed at the amount of time they spend ranting to each other about what the Republicans are doing, while never holding their own accountable for their lack of activism. They also never hold the Democratic Party accountable for failing to mobilize their base except for voting and fundraising. 

For instance, the big topic of vitriol this week is the increase of grass roots donations for the defense fund of George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin, after a judge sent him back to jail for lying about his finances.  Meanwhile the donations for the three Occupy Wall Street protestors locked up in Cook County jail continue to lag. In many ways I respect the those that are rallying around George Zimmerman more than I do my liberal friends who are not willing to put their beliefs to practice. This is the same with the Tea Party, while their views are odious as are those who support Zimmerman, if my liberal friends spent as much time organizing as the Tea Party does and less time complaining about the Tea Party, then Barack Obama and the Democratic Party would be a lot more progressive and dynamic as opposed to a raisin under the hot sun of American Right Wing Politics. 

* photo is of me standing with a Mardi Gras Indian on Super Sunday in New Orleans

Something Wicked This Way Comes, from The White House

For over forty years, Chicago has been the political plantation of the Daley Family where corruption, racism, and segregation has reigned unchecked.  Last year, Richard M. Daley retired after twenty plus years and Rahm Emmanuel is now Mayor.  It was far more of a selection than election because Emmanuel was an original fundraiser and close political advisor to Daley.  Daley also sent him Congress before he became Chief of Staff to President Obama.  President Obama, breaking precedent where sitting presidents avoid involvement in local elections, especially in their own parties primaries, actively promoted Emmanuel for Mayor in the Democratic Primary.  Finally Emmanuel's brother Ari Emmanuel, a wealthy CEO of a Hollywood entertainment, media, and talent agency, poured in an ocean of cash from Hollywood stars such as Steven Spielberg to match the millions from Chevron, Walgreens, Fox and Steve Jobs

As Mayor, Rahm Emmanuel has not only furthered Daley's policy of ethnic cleansing of poor and middle class Blacks and Hispanics out of Chicago, but intensified class stratification by continuing to reward his wealthy campaign contributors with contracts from the mass privatization schemes, such as the public schools, at the expense of poor children and teachers.

Two weeks ago, the plantation came under siege. Tens of thousands of protesters from Illinois and through out the United States, took to the streets in solidarity with The Occupy Wall Street Movement in protest of The North American Treaty Organization ( NATO), and the further enrichment of the plutocratic class at the expense of the rest of America. 

Beforehand, Chicagoans were warned that anarchist, who called themselves the "Black Bloc" would use peaceful protest as subterfuge to destroy property and wreck havoc similar to the violent actions in London and Seattle.  But any politically astute Chicagoan knew that Chicago Police, skilled in the art of brute violence and thuggery, wouldn’t allow some out-of-town white kids to make them look weak.  But the mayor did use the pretense of anarchist violence to purchase, from federal funds awarded from the White House, millions of dollars of military grade weapons and a few helicopters from some favorite military vendors. 

But the protests were a mass success, besides some bumbled framing of protesters by Chicago Police informants abetted by a local prosecutorial system already infamous for framing and protecting police torture.  The protesters over all handled themselves in the spirit of Martin Luther King.  More importantly, these protests connected with earlier protests earlier this spring, against the privatizing of public schools, mortgage foreclosures, and the closing of community clinics, seemed to signify a new awaking of a Chicago citizenry, who more than any other big city has grown complacent and comfortable under a political empire.  But the man marketed to bring us change, President Obama has just signed a bill, passed with over whelming support in both houses of Congress that undermines not just this movement in Chicago, but democracy itself.

House Bill 347, innocuously named, as if not to raise alarm, the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act", transforms the Secret Service into a modern version of the East German Stasi, that during the cold war was one of the most ruthlessly repressive security organizations. Actually this bill could have come from the Vladimir Putin play book of criminalizing political  protests.

Now, today in America, any citizen who stages a protests against a President in his/her vicinity, faces  

a mandatory ten year imprisonment under federal law for “disorderly” or “disruptive" conduct as defined by the secret service.  

Further The President  doesn't even have to be in the vicinity to trigger an arrest by the secret service. Public events with no connection to government business now fall under this act as “National Special Security Events".

Equally disturbing, President Obama can now assign the secret service to protect any elected official or citizen.  Can you picture President Obama assigning secrete service, paid for by us tax payers, to protect bank presidents like CitiBank’s Jamie Dimon, then arresting protesters who get near him?     

 The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act and its quick and overwhelming  bipartisan support reminds me of the line in Shakespear's Macbeth, “By the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" 

And it seems that more wickedness is to come.

Photo by Dawoud Bey