Issue 129 - March 10 2005

 

 

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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.

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Thank you very much for your readership and keep writing.

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