Goldberg’s take on Republican strategy:

Black people have lost the desire to perform a day’s work. Black people rely on food stamps provided to them by white taxpayers. Black people, including Barack and Michelle Obama, believe that the U.S. owes them something because they are black. Black children should work as janitors in their high schools as a way to keep them from becoming pimps. And the pathologies afflicting black Americans are caused partly by the Democratic Party, which has created in them a dependency on government not dissimilar to the forced dependency of slaves on their owners.

An exhaustively odorous narrative to be sure– but it plays well in many parts of the electorate.  Aside from its obvious  vitriol, there is an air of patronization and shamelessness that borders on the obscene.

And they wonder why black folks vote Democrat en mass.

Related posts:

1. An American Black Conservative This is Herman Cain, as captured by The American Prospect’s...
2. Black Thought On Full Display Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about...
3. Living While Black In New York City I try not to riff off of another blogger’s work,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

(This was originally published January 17th, 2011)

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”  Martin Luther King Jr. ,Letter From Birmingham Jail

An uncommon man leads in a common world, stripped bare of his dignity– but never his character, never his faith, never his soul.  To see the struggle is mighty.  To battle it heartily is righteous.  To maintain your serenity and love is Godly.  That defines leadership.  That defined Martin Luther King Jr.,  a man who led a struggle no average man or woman dared take on.

As I look backward, I gaze forward.  I celebrate the 25th anniversary of Dr. King’s holiday proudly, respectfully, and humbly.  I celebrate a man who in today’s climate of poisonous rhetoric, and unintelligible debate– would have been called anything from a treasonous Marxist– to an unpatriotic socialist. Some in fact, would debase and demean his work, while claiming to carry the awesome mantle of Dr. King’s legacy.  He demands more respect than that.

If Dr. King taught us anything, it was that sacrifice is a necessary burden of leadership.  Leadership must be tethered to a righteous cause.  It cannot be vacant in times of strife, or as the winds of discomfort shift the debate.  Righteous causes exist to give our lives direction– to fill our souls with purpose.  Dr. King knew his, and he shared it with all of us.  Those able to walk in his graceful path were anointed with the spirit of compassion, the power of forgiveness, the strength of righteousness, and the glory of eternal love.  With these qualities, man and woman shall endure.  They shall prosper.  They shall triumph over injustice and intolerance.

On this day, we should praise the true meaning of leadership.  We all should aspire to the heights of a man who worried less about his own mortality–and more about the mortality of those four little girls– brutally murdered in Birmingham.  Those little girls, whose lives “were distressingly small in quantity, but glowingly large in quality.”  We should aspire to quality.  We should wind our paths through gardens filled with light– never seeking comfort– but alwaysgiving it in doses large and small.

We have the power to lift the shadow of disappointment, cast widely upon us in times of difficulty.  It is within us to seek the solution to our problems, and reject with great confidence any attempt to dissuade us from our cause.  This is what real leaders choose.  The path is never a clean one, but it is a necessary one.  I pray I have the strength demanded of me to fulfill my promise.  But in times of doubt, the words of a man who worried less about his own mortality, and more about the quality of life for others, assuage my fears:

…when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Dr. King taught us that continuous struggle is a necessity of change.  We can be the mechanism that fosters hope, as we continue to make that change a reality.  There is no greater heir to the King legacy than that.

Related posts:

1. Putting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Assassination In Focus 43 Years Later On April 4th, 1968, American history changed forever. At 6:01pm,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This speaks for itself:

Even needing to ask the question provides the answer. It matters not where he was born; this man is deeply and fiercely alien to the American tradition. He thinks ordinary Americans “cling” to Gods and guns because we are “bitter.” He believes we should “redistribute the wealth.” He thinks cops are “stupid” for politely asking a Harvard professor to show proof of residence when a neighbor reported a burglary in progress. He thinks that if Congress doesn’t immediately do his bidding, he can ignore the Constitution because he supposedly has a superceding need to”act.” He thinks government has a right to tell people when they have made “too much money.”

He is an alien menace.

This what the president is supposed to compromise with? This is what passes as substantive policy debate these days?  These people have no monopoly on understanding what “the core of America stands for.”  The sheer audacity, arrogance, and ignorance of this borders on the obscene.

Related posts:

1. Obama The African, Not The Negro The straw grasping begins: Taitz thinks that the birth certificate...
2. Thank You Rush Limbaugh… …For giving us a snapshot of the only possible direction...
3. Racism Fuels Newt Gingrich’s Campaign Newt Gingrich has always painted broadly outside the racial lines,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

photo credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

There may be a price to pay for intransigence.  Because of a deliberate attempt at self-sabotage by congressional republicans, an inability of Speaker Boehner to reign in tea party freshmen, and the likelihood of a substantial tax increase on more than 160 million Americans–something conservatives would normally consider anathema–they find themselves on the wrong end of poll numbers.

Given the need to bolster the economy, something only the President has seemed willing to do so far, Obama has made significant strides with the public on the country’s most pressing issues:

Obama’s gains have come at the expense of the Republicans in Congress and the GOP in general. By a 50% to 31% margin, people questioned say they have more confidence in the president than in congressional Republicans to handle the major issues facing the country. Obama held a much narrower 44% to 39% margin in March.

And the GOP’s overall favorable rating has dropped to six points, to 43%, since June, while the Democrats’ positive rating remained steady at 55%. “The Democrats do particularly well among middle income Americans, while the Republicans win support only from the top end of the income scale,” adds Holland.

Perhaps the strategy of congressional republicans is to continue its abject stonewalling, lest they risk making the economy better right before 2012 elections.  Politics before country doesn’t sound like a sound, winning strategy to me.  In a divided government, absolutism is the wrong play.   If their intended result was to achieve historically low congressional poll numbers, mission accomplished.

Related posts:

1. About That Revolution… Uh-oh: Exit polls showed independents supporting the GOP by a...
2. The War For Representation In D.C. While it may not seem important to some, there is...
3. Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan Continues To Raise Questions Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 economic plan continues to get panned (pizza...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A portend of things to come?  Jeffrey Toobin weighs in:

In 1964, Republican insurgents seized control of the party. They recognized that their views were not held by a majority of Americans—at least not yet. As Rick Perlstein wrote in “Before the Storm,” his fascinating history of the Barry Goldwater campaign, the Republican Party was taken over by “a little circle of political diehards whose every move was out of step with the times”—which did not bother them much at all. For their moment, they were political missionaries who came to introduce a nation raised on the New Deal to an alternative approach to governing. Goldwater embraced “extremism” in the fond hope that its time, if not his time, would come. Goldwater and his aides didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about “electability.” They didn’t expect to win, and, emphatically, they did not. Lyndon B. Johnson won sixty-one per cent of the popular vote, and carried forty-four states.

Republican zeal to recapture the White House may not be analogous to their attempts to re-brand their party.  It seems many don’t care.  This will be fun to watch.

Related posts:

1. Conservatives Play An Odd Game This has been shown before obviously, but I think it...
2. The Biggest Affirmative Action In History Part I Even if you’re in a Benz, you’re still a nigger...
3. The GOP Debate Begins To Flesh Out The Winners From The Losers Two observations about the first GOP Presidential Debate: Mitt Romney...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

With the hyper partisan climate choking the life out of Washington elected officials, Congress’ approval ratings have shrunk to unprecedented depths.  Their ability to conduct the people’s business as diminished significantly as their approval hovers around the nine percent range.  With many American citizens wary of the anemic efforts coming from the Capital No Labels, a bipartisan political organization dedicated to fighting political stagnation, seeks to remedy the problem.

No Labels has devised a simple yet significant 12 point plan to get Washington working again.  Make Congress Work seeks to rejuvenate congressional Washington politics and eliminate gridlock by initiating 12 tenets of governance.  Check out the video below:

The significance of this plan cannot be understated. The lack of cohesive leadership emanating from Washington has done more to dishearten and disenfranchise the average American–many of them already disillusioned with the process.  This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. Now is the time for bold leadership– leadership that coalesces around a sound set of principles democrats, republicans, and independents can rally around.

I’ll be featuring each idea espoused in the No Labels plan to get Congress working again.  An effective congress, governed through the will of the people is the key to charting a stronger future.

Related posts:

1. Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan Continues To Raise Questions Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 economic plan continues to get panned (pizza...
2. Paul Ryan Attempts To Continue A Reckless Fiscal Policy   Paul Ryan portrays his budget as an earnest attempt...
3. Straight, No Chaser Quote of the day: I  don’t want politicians who are...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It’s one thing to disagree on a particularly divisive issue–it’s entirely something different to engage in haughty, disreputable politics.  Mitt Romney’s shameful display not only reinforced his strained attempts at humanizing his candidacy–it showcased an utter lack of political savvy and genuine compassion.

At an event that was meant to highlight the endorsement of Romney by Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, veteran Bob Garon of Ebson, N.H., asked the presidential candidate, who stopped by his breakfast table, whether he supports the repeal of the New Hampshire same-sex marriage law. A Republican-controlled legislature has moved toward repealing the law, enacted in 2009 when Democrats controlled the legislature.

A vote could come next month. Romney told Garon, who was chowing down on his everyday staple of scrambled eggs and shaved ham at the restaurant Chez Vachon, that he supports a repeal of the same-sex marriage law, prompting an emotional exchange.

“I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman,” Romney said, joining Garon in the diner booth after shaking hands with several other patrons. Garon responded, clarifying that what that meant was that if Romney is elected he would not support any legislation that would change the law so that gay servicemen would get the same benefits as heterosexual couples.

“I believe marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman,” Romney said. “We apparently disagree on that.”

Romney’s problem here is two-fold:  How legitimate is it to ask people to fight and die for a country that tries to disenfranchise them?  Romney may think he shrouds himself in the cloak of the constitution, but he only weakens his hand by subscribing to a distorted reading of that document.  I wonder how the Constitution views polygamy, a practice often associated with his Mormon faith?

Second is the more concerning human element to this story.  While Romney and Mr. Garon disagree on this subject, a prospective candidate for the highest in the land should offer more than just rote babble about constitutional practices.  Why not salute this man for his service to the nation?  Why not ask him about his tour or how he met his partner?  It may seem trite but for a man like Romney, often portrayed as a generic automaton in a Brook Brothers suit, it may have gone a long way in re-tooling his image.

Related posts:

1. The GOP Debate Begins To Flesh Out The Winners From The Losers Two observations about the first GOP Presidential Debate: Mitt Romney...
2. The Conservative Brand On Display Conservatives continue to push narratives outside the mainstream–and in the...
3. American Unexceptionalism WTF: “In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A reader on the Dish writes:

I thought I’d write to you with our own experiences taking part in the Occupy LA protests. I’m in my early 40s, at a well-paying job as a web developer for a large hospital in Los Angeles. My wife and I have no children. We’re very fortunate – we actually have a steady income and good health insurance. Yet, we live in a house that we share with her cousin because we couldn’t afford our own place. The house is deep underwater, and we’re drowning in debt (and shame on us for not reading the fine print when some of the credit card issuers arbitrarily raised our interest rates to 30% on cards that had never had a late payment EVER). We’re barely making it check-to-check, but somehow we are still making all of our payments. It would be so much easier to walk away from it all, but we have a sense of responsibility to these debts that we voluntarily took on.

What we’re demanding – what people in the Occupy movement are demanding – is the same responsibility from these large institutions, and the so-called 1%. It’s really that simple.

There is nothing wrong with Americans questioning economic policies–especially given the catastrophic results of our economic collapse.  What is so radical about that?  If nothing else, shining a lens on the inequities of a system clearly geared toward enriching a certain element of society, is as democratic as it gets.  Since when is responsibility a one-way street?

Related posts:

1. The Disintegrating Middle Class It’s already on the verge of happening, but it’s magnitude...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 economic plan continues to get panned (pizza pun intended) by economists and even conservatives.  On the surface it seems like a blatant hosing of the poor, by shifting the tax burden more heavily upon their shoulders in order to create tax equity.  Cutting beneath the surface, Cain’s plan is simply a nod to campaign-speak– rallying his tea party troops with a dizzying amount of platitudes and talking points.  The idea of eliminating the tax code is a sound one, provided you have a substantive policy to use as its replacement.  Clearly, this is not it.  It’s more of a slogan.

Ezra Klein points out the plan’s potentially damaging effects on a key base of support for the GOP as well:

This plan wouldn’t work. Not as policy and, as I expect Cain will soon find out, not as politics. Moving to an 18 percent consumption tax is, among other things, very bad for older voters, who make up a substantial portion of the Tea Party base.

Jacking up taxes on the poor and the middle class even as you sharply reduce them on the rich and completely eliminate them on overseas income for corporations isn’t popular among anyone in the political system who isn’t specifically paid by the Club for Growth. The 9-9-9 plan is a great slogan. But the more seriously Cain gets taken, the more seriously the plan is going to get taken. And as that happens, it will soon become clear that it’s very poor policy.

Alas, more gimmickry from the only black man in America who hasn’t been brainwashed.  Perhaps a dunk in the tank is in order.

Related posts:

1. Herman Cain And The Federal Reserve You’re going to see more of this as Cain becomes...
2. Herman Cain’s Sharia Law Problem Herman Cain tries to blend his sycophantic style into the...
3. 999 Is Actually The Price Of A Pizza… And A Simple Plan Not only is it the price of a pizza, it’s...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

photo credit: Wikipedia

The dilemma surrounding discussions of race has less to do with conflict between black and white.  It has more to do with the intrinsic value systems inherited by many over generations.  Witness a white southern woman discussing race relations and integration in her small Texas county:

Jan Gannaway, a Haskell native who is white, said integration took time.

“We weren’t integrated nearly as rapidly as the North,” she said. “But we’ve always had a different relationship with our blacks than the North has, too. It’s often been said, and I think it’s true, we love them individually and kind of distrust them as a group, whereas in the North, they don’t want to get too close to them individually but they embrace them as a group.”

To argue the merits of civil rights legislation on the basis of government overreach, is consistent with the subjugation of humanity for a group of Americans.  That is unconscionable.  It’s un-American.  But it seems to be part of the foundation of collective American thought by some in the south.  Just ask Jan Gannaway.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.