The Tribune Online, Page 7

More Suggestions, (continued).

Far be it for me to tell the President of the US as to how to do his job; therefore, I chime in as just one taxpaying voter in our democratic republic.

President Obama has established his legacy, if his office does nothing else with his remaining time, by doing something no other President has been able to accomplish, with so many overwhelming odds against his Health Care Reform. Nevertheless, I think there will be more great history making programs that will unfold in the future before the end of his "first term".

Being a small business entrepreneur in the health care profession, I see an abundance of opportunity for my business and those relative to improving health care throughout the land. Needless to say, I am a free enterprise, pro-active business supporter believing in smaller government in our lives...thus, relying on what I call greater individual personal responsibility when it comes to health, education, and income opportunities (opposed to people expecting and/or getting something for nothing...in other words, those who want heaven or utopia without having to lift a finger other than blind faith, that someone else is going to do it for them.)

Even though, I have my outlook of self-reliance and independence, I am critical of those 34 Democrats in Congress who voted against Health Care Reform and believe they should pay a price for their opposition, such as no support by the Democratic Party for those running for re-election in November. In other words, you jumped ship, now see if you can swim to shore. Also, being a Navy vet as I may have mentioned earlier, I am trying to secure greater and more information for all veterans and their relatives with my business. http://infobuck.com

I remarked earlier that the idea of making NASA a free market entity is a smart move which should produce a more cutting-edge, unbureaucratic business and thus keeping the US out front in exploring the great space frontiers...an interesting, long-term, all but infinite occupational pursuit. Those in the program will either meet the standards of competition for this new free enterprise market or fade from the business altogether...true market downsizing.

In conjunction with the NASA transition, I think other bureaucracies should be served up for private enterprise or free market development. I for one, would start downsizing or selling off the bureaucracies in the districts of Republican Congressional members as well as those of the rebellious Democratic Congressional members immediately, before the end of my "first term" being that they all have that same sob request of less government and more free markets.

You may even have some more ideas on reducing big government, cost-cutting, and deficit reduction...let's hear 'em.

"Conservatives" Tear Up Census Forms

For whatever reason, conspiracy, racism, hate for Obama, anti-government sentiment, backward Americans yearning for an outdated past (...taking back their country) bite off their noses to spite their faces. This was true of the South during the Civil War and the Civil Rights era. The difference is that the madness has spread to many parts of the US as the nation proceeds into the future.

America's march into the future is an unstoppable march dictated by time, justice, and circumstances...with no turning around in the progress of human evolution. Don't count yourselves and you will be left out of the resources necessary to help your communities to keep pace.

It's like many blacks who fail to get off of their trifling butts and vote in every election of which so many have sacrificed their lives in order to make it possible for both economic and social progress.

Don't vote and you don't count, period. Don't participate in the census and you have simply cost your offspring their inheritance in a free democratic republic. 

Leading Conservative Supports Obama's Will to Drill

I always thought that good politics was more about common sense than ideology. Common sense is the basis of goals and progress; whereas, ideology is simply nebulous ideas for the benefit of the posers. Governor McDonnell of Virginia(America's first and leading conservative to spring forth from the abyss of "conservatism", to get elected in the national spotlight) has praised the President's strategy in the effort to drill off the Atlantic Coast. Although, it could be years in the future before the first tap is struck, it offers promise to the people on the East Coast in terms of educational direction, income opportunities for the strategists mapping out the plan, and takes away the myth of the President as simply a "socialist ideologue". You want more free enterprise? Well, you got it, you rabid right wingers, so stop your incessant whining.

It may take his future programs to steer more to the right being it appears the weak-kneed Democratic Congressional Members may be in for an onslaught. As I stated before, luke-warm leaders or politicians never got anything done and never will. Therefore, to the President and leader of the last bastion of "free enterprise" in the West..."damn the torpedoes (critics and weak-link politicians), full speed ahead"!! 

A Door to Success

I have often heard the overused anecdote, "if I can, then anybody can"...a generally accepted statement far from reality. In my case not everyone is going to be able to join the US Navy and be benefited with a multi-million dollar high tech education that will serve in civilian life for the long haul.

Not everyone is going to be accepted at a leading Jesuit College and get a degree adding to that educational paradigm for that continued lifetime.

Not everyone can get employed by then the largest computer corporation, IBM, to get the benefit of additional insight in this rapidly unfolding world of competitive technology.

Lastly, not everyone can start a business from the ground up and carve out a niche, such as healthcare, and maintain that competitive edge for not only survival but future success.

Therefore, I won't mislead you by saying because I was able to do it, you can too. However, I will tell you how you can do it with the map I used at http://infobuck.com/photo6_1.html.

Consequently, if you are employed or underemployed, it's not the President's fault, or the state of the economy, or even the daily gossip from the talking heads of the news media, but the one looking back at you in the mirror. 

A Nation or State divided against itself?

Governor Bob McDonnell signs a proclamation declaring April as Confederate Month in Virginia. I guess there will be more displays of Confederate flags, the same symbol currently used by the KKK and white supremacists during the years of black lynchings (strange fruit on the poplar trees) which should dredge up some fond memories of the old South. I certainly will not forget knowing the last lynching of a black man to take place in America, took place in my former hometown of Mobile, AL. 

Now, many in defense of this declaration say this is part of history that should always be remembered by future generations in accordance with Mark Levin, a popular right wing radio talk show host. I guess his being a Jew we should consider celebrating the flying of the swastika currently used by Nazis and white supremacists...after all, his being a Jew, this would be in keeping with past history. The question would be...what month of the year would he like to see set aside for the memory of this history?

In conjunction, I saw an article about "black teabaggers" in support of the right wing agenda, a throw back to the past. This November election should see if their outlook will emerge. One thing for sure it should sound the death knell for many democrats in Congress...primarily those "blue dogs" which are the residue of the old "dixiecrats" who presented obstacles to anti-lynching laws. I, for one, say good riddance and these past histories should be in museums only and not subjecting those who may be offended by this past by public and/or govermental support.

A more important lesson may come out of this and that is...black people in America, when you sit on your butts and don't vote in every legal election that you are eligible, you can expect the past to come back and bite you on those same lethargic butts. 

When re-living the past brings controversy

I should qualify the previous article by saying that those who want to honor their ancestors should be able to do so. It's just when the controversy may have a profoundly negative impact on other segments of the American citizenry.

In a free society, as that of which we participate, there is nothing wrong with those descendants of Confederate soldiers remembering their ancestors. As a matter of fact, there is no law against those who want to join the KKK, White Supremacists, Black Panthers or any other what might be considered a radical or fringe extremist group. But, when those who have the expressed intention of causing harm mentally, physically, spiritually, or otherwise to citizens of this country; that's where the line is drawn.

So, if Virginia wants to celebrate Confederate Month in April, then the whole story of the insurrection, the effort to promote slavery beyond the southern region, accompanied by beatings, rape, torture, and lynchings of the ancestors of the African-Americans should likewise be explored. Then decide objectively if this is a controversy that you want your offspring to relive in the long-term future.

Celebratin' McDonnell's Confederate History Month

What did I do? I received the copy of the movie "Mandingo" from Netflix. It is the shocking relationship between slaves and slavemasters with some very good actors. However, we citizens of Virginia will be reminded of slavery's reality each April, of course until some governor with common sense opts to repeal and close "Pandora's Box".  You got to see the film to know the level of inhumanity that Virginia fought to preserve with the intentions of spreading the demonization of a race beyond its borders, if left to its southern volition...simply shocking! A sequel to this film might be "Original Sin Revisited"...see ya'll at the movies.

Jefferson... man of moral courage or simply a cowardly hypocrite?

I initiated this online publication based on quote by Thomas Jefferson, a native Virginian, to his good friend, John Adams of Massachusetts. They both saw slavery as eventually a dividing factor to the Union before their deaths. Jefferson actually thought slavery was a travesty and an unfilled promise to this nation's enslaved that was available to all men of European ancestry. I should include that my lifetime hero, if I can use such a mundane description, is Booker T. Washington, a native Virginian and former slave who rose beyond this abomination, to leave a legacy that might be comparable to "Jesus" coming out of hell and ascending into heaven.

Jefferson would never free his slaves as did George Washington, another Virginian, and eventually would die in poverty, despite other lofty achievements such as the University of Virginia. As to whether Jefferson saw himself as being able to walk the tightrope between the heaven and hell of morality has still yet to be justified, for he was simply a man with his devilish weakness for the flesh of his enslaved chattel.

Therefore, for those who try to whitewash the history of the Civil War in Virginia by saying it was really not about slavery but the righteous Confederate soldiers, as displayed in the movie, "Gods and Generals", whose portrayal was that of defending the moral imperative of their lifestyles, and their property of which included their black chattel, that they choose not to avow, is not only hypocritical but beyond stupidity to think this is to be honorably accepted...now or ever, no matter the month.

Debating America's Issues...Right, Left, and Center

While working as a publishing consultant to the local Inner City Community Newspaper in Mobile, AL during the 90's, there was this subject of religious outlook being discussed in the paper among various contributing writers. I decided to cut to the chase and came up with this idea to promote a public debate from the extremes of their beliefs, to be featured like a boxing match of which tickets would be sold to attend. Who should I contact?...I thought to myself.

At the time, there were two opposing religious ideologies floating around, one was that of Louis Farrakhan, a black Muslim leader and Jerry Falwell, a white Christian leader and their beliefs almost diametrically different. I sent a letter inviting their consideration for said debate in Mobile at a time convenient to both. Jerry Falwell courteously responded with gratitude but declined. Louis Farrakhan never responded. Consequently, it proved my point about religious advocates, for when it comes to their faith meeting the road, they are just so much hot air. 

In the current debate between Rush Limbaugh and former President Bill Clinton, at least Mr. Clinton ran for the office of the Presidency, of which "blubber butt" Limbaugh is too afraid of getting off of his and running. Nevertheless, I would like to see this coward and Mr. Clinton in a face-to-face match of which I am sure we could sell tickets for a charity in the Valley. We could call it the "Blubber/Bubba Smackdown". 

The Old "Statism"

Statism under the cloak of conservatism becomes the revival of states' rightism, and struck in Virginia with a foisted monthly celebration of the Confederacy, which was the largest and most deadly effort to destroy the US since the British effort against the American Colonies and the Founders of the Nation.  It's a celebration that desires to overlook the pain and suffering of as much as 25 to 40% of the descendants of the people it enslaved in these states during their sedition.

The latest states' rightism just took effect in Arizona with the passage of the "stop and drop" rule for supposedly illegals. C'mon, just who in the heck are you trying to kid? This is just the beginning. If the Feds had not interceded in the ole South, under states' rightism, Negroes would have never gotten out of run down dilapidated schools with worn out textbooks, never would have been able to go freely to any voting booth, and more than likely still swinging from trees in the swamps and backwoods.  It was only with the worldwide exposure of the illegitimate treatment of Blacks in America that the Feds were forced to intercede with standard federal laws. I have the feeling this will be the case in Arizona when the suits hit the fan, as will be from class actions' with this bogus celebration of a traitorous Confederacy in Virginia and Mississippi.

When Governors try to camouflage "BS" with Common Sense...

It still smells to high heaven whether it be in Virginia, Mississippi, or Arizona. I noted my concern about "statism" in the above article and now I quote from Bob McDonnell's answers to questions posed in the Roanoke Times dated 4-25-10 on his state sponsored Confederate Fiasco:

Q: "It's been about three weeks since you issued the Confederate History Month proclamation. Obviously, you apologized for omitting the reference to slavery. But when you consider how sensitive this issue has been in the past and how previous governors have treated it, why issue any proclamation at all? Or why not call it Civil War History Month rather than Confederate History Month?"

A: "Well, a couple of things. One, I issued a proclamation at a request of a constituency group, the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I indicated to them long ago that I would issue a proclamation. Secondly, as I mentioned, the primary intent was to incorporate the actions of the General Assembly in anticipation of the 150th commemoration of the start of the Civil War, to begin to focus on history education and tourism. This is going to be a big opportunity for Virginia.

"Now I made a mistake in omitting and not condemning the abomination of slavery as an evil and inhumane institution. I corrected it immediately. I take full responsibility for the omission. I intend to use the occasion of the 150th anniversary not only for tourism, but also to help promote a civil dialogue, to promote racial consideration in this state and this nation. I discussed that for quite some time during the campaign with various leaders in both the African-American community and leaders in some churches. And I think, especially now with my own heightened sensitivity on the issue, I think I can be a good leader next year as we begin that period of solemn remembrance, but also a tourism opportunity for our state." 

After reading the above quote in the Roanoke Times, I had to ask myself, is Governor Bob McDonnell naive or simply politically foolish? I would also like to know what African-Americans went along with this cockamamie acceptance of this celebration? The Sons of Confederate Veterans vis-a-vis the KKK have used the Confederate flag for intimidation of Blacks across the nation since the Civil War...and meant as a direct disavowal of the US standard. 

So, why don't we approach this celebratory month of the Confederacy with some reality, e.g., why does not this state acknowledge that the beginning of the Civil War was an effort by southern states in an act of violent sedition, to destroy the US with the ultimate assassination of one of the nation's greatest Presidents?

Maybe we can have some "black bucks" parade down the streets of the capital with their exposed flesh from whiplashes? On the side, possibly we can show "massa" having his way with some of his "black wenches" in the fields. Maybe we can even have some "memorial" lynchings of blacks hanging from trees or lampposts?

Governor,  if you publicly would name the black people who went along with your stubborn foolishness about this matter... I will expose their accountability or lack thereof for the historic mental anguish they are bringing on their descendants...for they make Judas look like a chump.