With this week's publication we intend
to make our best efforts to include this column in  on a weekly basis.
Avid reader, Leutisha Stills has been waiting in
Oakland, California for the return of this column.
I hope you will revive "No Fools Allowed" one day because
if you do, I want to comment on your piece regarding the "Biggest
Whore of All" Armstrong Williams (See the Cover story
of January
13, 2005).
As usual, it was a spot-on piece.
I noticed your reference to Ward "I don't like Affirmative
Action or other Black People" Connerly - I think Armstrong
could have taken lessons from him. Who in California can forget
that Ward Connerly got his start in California as a businessman
through feeding at the government trough of affirmative action by
being eligible to participate in the Minority/Women Business Enterprise
Programs? That's where he made his millions, courtesy of former
Governor "Sneaky" Pete
Wilson. Ironically, with his push for Proposition 209, which eliminated
Affirmative Action in contracting opportunities as well
as everything else connected to the state, he continued
to feed at the corporate trough of Wilson and his ilk and was encouraged
to take his act to the state of Michigan. That resulted in an anti-Affirmative
Action ballot initiative to be decided either this year or in 2006.
One positive
note - he is stepping down as a Board Member on the University of California
Board of Regents - the platform from which he has been launching his
initiatives, and using his position on the Board to fool many people
into thinking
that the University system was co-signing on anti-Affirmative Action.
The results have been devastating - minority enrollment has dropped
30% since Prop. 209 and it was a direct tie to Connerly's efforts
at prostitution;
both the system and California government.
I hope you will start a "hit list" of Black politicians,
regardless of party affiliation, 'who dare to ho around
in this manner. It is the only way
we can eradicate the disease of "sellout-itis" that has affected
our communities and planted them in a never-ending cycle of poverty, neglect,
and hopelessness. Since Armstrong hijacked your show and got exposed, I guess
the chickens do come home to roost.
Marsha Hammond, PhD is a Licensed Psychologist who sent us the following
open letter to Williams.
Dear Mr. Williams:
I greatly value the voices of black Americans
in the US. I have massive respect for Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson,
Jr.,
John Conyers, Mell Watt (D-NC), Tubbs (D-OH).
When African-Americans allow their voices to be used to keep a corrupt
power mongering, war-loving, lying regime in place e.g, the Bush regime,
their voices are discounted and entered into that so far short list
associated with J. Kenneth Blackwell.
Please return that money.
Freedom Rider Reaction
Margaret Kimberley was thinking north in her March
3, 2005 Freedom Rider column
entitled "Don't Bomb Canada". Margaret expressed
fear that oil greedy Americans are causing some alarm among our neighbors.
In the bad old days only brown skinned nations that ran afoul of U.S.
whims had to grovel in the dirt. Now a mostly white, capitalist country
that borders Montana, Minnesota and Maine is begging not to be mistreated.
From Tronto, reader Mohamad Khan sent a message of thanks.
I just finished reading your article on Missile Defence in the Black Commentator; there was a link to it at Rabble.ca. I wanted to thank you
for expressing your opinion so simply, so clearly, and so well.
Though I have the sense that my Prime Minister (Canadian Prime Minister
Paul Martin) was more or less forced by public opinion to reject a
Missile Defence initiative that he had earlier appeared to endorse,
I'm glad that things turned out as they did.
Thanks in particular for your analysis of how this move on Canada's
part appears to indicate a general trend in the attitudes of America's
friends, toward ignoring Bush more and more. I don't think that France
or Russia, for example, necessarily have governments that are motivated
by the right reasons, but your article makes me more optimistic that,
whatever the motives, the situation of which you speak will "contain" America
to some extent.
Keep up the good work!
Jack Shultz of Pointe Claire, Que. also thanks sister Kimberley.
Seems to us that living next to George W. Bush's America is the
next most dangerous thing to living in George W. Bush's America.
If you took a poll in Canada, or in fact, in any country outside the United
States, and asked the question "do you regard George W. Bush and the
principals of his regime to be war criminals?," a large majority on
every continent, would answer in the affirmative.
Personally, I don't believe that George W. Bush legitimately won the election
of 2004, or that of 2000. But it doesn't matter.
What little remains of American democracy is dissipating in an insipid narcissistic
media haze. A haze in which the number of innocent Iraqi civilians, men,
women and children, being killed in this unjustifiable war, is considered
to be so inconsequential that it is a question not worth asking and not worth
reporting.
The fact that Americans did not protest and oppose a second theft of the
presidency, and accepted the legitimacy of his election, implicates Americans
in George W. Bush's America's war crimes. Beyond America's borders, people
can only believe that by electing George W. Bush to a second term in office,
a majority of Americans had endorsed the criminal and the crime.
What can foreigners think of Americans, especially those that have never
experienced the American media?
And you can take my word for it, there are plenty of Canadians who would
be willing to send Canadian troops to Iraq, or support the Star Wars project,
if there's something in it for them, and they are some pretty powerful people
here.. Canada is a thin reed to hang our hopes on, but I have no choice.
The Freeedom Rider column of February
24, 2005 told the tale of Jeff Gannon.
He's the phony reporter with the phony news service whom the
corporate
media refused to uncover.
A reader using the monicor Paradox2004 believes the story proves
a desire the hard right has to turn back the clock.
Good incisive piece and let me add that even if the whole USA knew
about Gannon they would all shug - including the right wing morals
crowd. The reason is that they are hypocrites and "bad faith" racists.
What they really want - and this is deep in the reptilian brain
of most whites - they hanker for the Golden Age of pre-1965. Some
even hanker
for pre-1865. What else are those prisons bulging with blacks are
for?: "can't
keep on the plantation - so let's shove em into the concentration
camps".
And the whites are good social scientists because they know that
human behavior is a function of the environment - so create an environment
that would prompt people to behave in such a way that large numbers
of them would be shoveled into the camps.
There could be 10 Gannons uncovered now but whites won't care because
they are heading for "closing the deal" now-- back to the
glorious days of pre-1965.
So what else is new?
When a three star Marine General said it was a "hoot" and "fun"
to shoot people, Freedom Rider took notice. Ms. Kimberley's column
of February 10, 2005 brought this reaction from David Antoon who is
a retired Air Force Colonel, Vietnam Vet and Antiwar Activist.
Thank you for your article. America has no conscience anymore.
As I have become more wise with years, I am learning that we have
not for years.
I found the Marine General's comments repulsive as I did Gen Boykin's.
The obliteration of Falluja is a war crime. The estimated
100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq is a war crime. Where
is our national conscience? As a former military man,
I find it difficult to understand that the military leaders
did not "can" these people immediately. This leads me
to believe that fascism in America is complete. Keep writing!
Those Sellout Black Preachers
On Febryary 3, 2005 wrote a commentary entitled: Bribes + Vouchers
= Black Bush Supporters. Rev. Jeanette Pollard thinks the issue should be the subject of a
national broadcast forum.
I have an idea. Why not Black Commentator host a forum--it
could be on the radio or on C-SPAN. Get a debate going
between a few of these faith based black sell outs,
vs. some stand up preachers of the Gospel. That self
proclaimed "bishop" Harry Jackson, for the sell
outs (who I don't think even went to seminary), and
some other uncle toms, versus PREACHERS such as Rev.
Clarence L. James, Sr.(Philly), Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.(Chicago), Rev. Charles G. Adams(Detroit), and Rev. Rudolph
McKissick,
Jr., (Jacksonville,FL). The PREACHERS would surely expose the others
and help their congregants see that faith based is
no good for them. Its a crock!
Keep up the good work of keeping us informed!!
Co-Publisher, Glen Ford answered Rev. Pollard.
Good to hear from you. It is a flattering suggestion
and something we will think about.
I tend to think that there aren't too many Reverends like yourself,
who will tell it like it is in public, especially in a forum of
their "peers." There
are a number of preachers in my family, and I'm familiar with the
(counterproductive) etiquette.
This is a project for progressive clergy to handle, just as it
is the duty - so far unfulfilled - of progressive Black lawmakers
to
confront
politicians like Harold Ford, who purposely position themselves
as closely as possible to the enemy. We must reevaluate our historic
imperative to erect facades of unity, since the malfactors among
us constantly
violate the terms of the "understanding." False unity
holds progressives back, but allows the Uncle Toms free range.
We'll continue our mission of making good folks like you mad enough
that you'll kick the (faith-based) money changers out of the (Black)
temple.
The Decline of the USA and leaving Iraq has written extensively about what we have called "The Redlining
of America". The most recent commentary, "Rice Arrives Just In Time
To Oversee U.S. Decline", appeared on January
27, 2005. From Oakland, California Joe Osorio
agrees with the view through our crystal ball.
I recall reading a piece in a while back, essentially making the case that
political and economic leaders worldwide would begin working to undermine US
unilateral aggression, in fact they already had begun working together. Excluding
the US from agreements and deals and otherwise circumventing the Pirates. Strengthening
the Euro and other currencies in relation to the Dollar.
More and more evidence is now coming to the forefront of this happening. Reading
between the lines only enforces what we are seeing.
Great work. When may I expect to see Super Bowl
predictions and maybe some Lottery numbers?
replied to Brother Osorio.
Yes, we scare ourselves, sometimes. The defeat of U.S.
imperialism is the Mother of All Superbowls. Lots of folks
are already betting their lives on
it, and the elites of the world are making sure they don't lose their shirts.
A Think Piece entitled "The Global Descent of America" (January
27, 2005) caused reader J Hutton to exclaim that author, Aijaz
Ahmad is "trying too hard".
The American forces will be out of
Iraq
very soon, and then out of the Muslim world by the time Bush is
out of
office. It will happen just as it did in Viet Nam; when things
fall apart they do so acceleratedly. As soon as the Bush administration
grasps that they have been outflanked by the Chinese, and the
Muslims
are never going to stop killing the occupation troops and their
collaborators; that the US is going to be cut out of the global
economy
while pursuing their militaristic solutions, the whole effort is
going to fold.
The world does not need the US, period. Not the
economy, not
the debt, not the murders, not the tortures, not the aid, not
the meddling and posturing, not anything. Bush and his cohorts
have
gone
too
far. It is clear to view, that America has no power but weapons
and the
subhuman mentality to use them on any animate or inanimate life.
Make no
mistake about it, the world has seen how the US and Britain have
brought
out the animality in their citizens and how easily others have
followed.
Europeans have a closer view of the concentration
camps of W.W.II and
the Nazi guards; to them the whole US and British campaign is a
repeat
of Adolf Hitler. And all this at the time of the War Crimes trials.
Bush
et al, had better really be careful, because it is not beyond
imagination that many of them will be indicted for war crimes. What
is
more, they all know it.
Send your e-Mail to [email protected].
Thank you very much for your readership and keep writing.
gratefully
acknowledges the following Websites for sending visitors our way:
http://www.buzzflash.com
http:// www.informationclearinghouse.info
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/
http://www.bartcop.com/
http:// membersf.blackplanet.com
http:// www.democraticunderground.com
http://www.cursor.org |
