Miriam,
Yeah, I do believe he really had to compromise with those forces he
was being pressured by. I have no idea of how they convinced obama to
take the positions he has, and I do not feel sorry for a man who chose
to step into a hornets nest and believe he could avoid being stung.
So what do we do? Do we condemn Obama for being manipulated. In one
sense or another, all of us are manipulated. Of course we do not see
that as being manipulated. But anyway, even though Obama disappointed
me to the point that I voted for Jill Stein in 2012, I believe we are
missing the mark if we focus on Obama's Humanness. The danger to us,
and to the Planet, as we know it, and as we need it for our survival,
is the Evil Greed that is consuming those who step into leadership
positions.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/29/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, but as President, he had choices, choices in whom he appointed to his
cabinet, in the official and unofficial advisors with whom he surrounded
himself. He had choices in the words he chose in relation to certain
policies of tis nation. There was a qualitative difference in how he
sounded
when talking in the church and when repeating the empire's lies. I know
that more than any other President, his life is in danger, but he chose to
make compromises with the most right wing elements in our government that
will hurt real people. Did he really have to do that?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 1:40 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: speaking of Christianity
Barak Obama is all of the things you mentioned. This is why we are so
wrong
in attacking the person rather than the position or the concept being put
forth. I am opposed to the Corporate Government of America deciding who
shall die by drone or assassination. Beating up on Barak Obama will not
change this practice. It is the same position as George Bush adopted when
serving the Empire. Certain people are determined to be Evil, and are
destroyed. But Evil still prowls our streets and countryside.
While I also become involved in trashing some people, or at least
associating them with the policies they represent, it is not a winning road
to travel. In about a year and a half, Barak Obama will take his family
and
head into history. Then we will focus on the next pretender to the "Most
Powerful Leader" role. And if we had any hope for a better America, our
hopes will be dashed very early on.
Probably with the first drone murder or the first boots on the ground of
some country that we promised our boots would never touch again. I suspect
that were I to have the wealth to live next door to the Obamas, I would
find
them caring, friendly and interesting neighbors.
Despite what terrible acts which went on with Barak Obamas approval.
And despite things and actions in my past, which Barak Obama would find
offensive. So how do we get past the person and wrestle with what is
driving us all toward mass annihilation. What is it that is driving the
world leaders to put greed and personal control ahead of the future of our
species, and of our planet as we know it. If we keep batting down one so
called evil person after another, we will run out of time before we solve
the crisis.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/28/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This morning I found the video of the speech that Obama gave at thefaggot, so what.
church in South Carolina. It was quite an experience to hear it.
First, he clearly identified himself as an African American Christian
in the speech, actually as a member of an A M E Church. He spoke in
Christian metaphors. Second, the speech presented him as a gentle,
intelligent, perceptive, and religious person. That is absolutely the
image that was projected. He even quoted Marilyn Robinson,whom he says
is his friend, and who is the author of the three novels about two
Christian ministers that I've recently struggled through. He talked
about gun control and racism, but the main portion of the speech,
which was very religiousin tone, was the most impressive. At the end,
he began singing, "Precious Lord". He really has a good singing voice.
Through the whole thing, I kept asking myself how he could do it. How
could he sound so kind and perceptive and yet be the person who
presides over a weekly Tuesday meeting, the purpose of which is to
choose whom to assassinate that week? How can he be the person giving
that religious speech and push through a trade deal which will
dismantle protections for so many people and rob us of even more jobs?
How can this person, who clearly understands how things work, tell the
lies he tells about Russia? How can he press for more and more war
when clearly, he has the capacity to see the results? I suppose it's
the question that those of us who voted for him in
2008 have been haunted with ever since we voted. Were all of the
positives that we thought we saw in this man just a mirage? An image
cleverly contrived by advertising firms?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2015 11:57 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: "It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in
Public...."
Scratching my memory a bit, I do recall that my grandmother Jarvis did
not put an R on the word. In casual conversation, she said, "Niggah".
But when trying to be proper, she said, "Neeggrah". And she referred
to her Black Nanny as a Neegress. But all that is beside the point.
Grandma Jarvis absolutely knew that she, and her family, were superior
to "The Colored Folk", as she also referred to them. Grandma was not
unkind toward Black people, nor did she order them around like several
of the old ladies living near her. They would go shopping and seek
out the Black clerks just so they could prove how nasty they were.
Then they would all gather at one apartment or another and turn on the
radio to the Pentecostal Preacher, get down on their knees, place
their little miracle healing cloth, that they'd all sent away for, on
their upturned faces, and begin wailing out their love for Jesus. And
all the time they were living in low income, subsidized housing. And
to a person, they hated the meddling Democratic Governor, Albert
Rosellini, who had championed the state's old age pension that they
all existed on.
We are strange and complex animals.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/27/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The word used affectionately for each other by Black people is niggah.
The R sound is left off and those who use it are quite adamant about
that. However, it is clear that the word is derived from the same
word with the R pronounced and with or without the R sound if you are
white you had better avoid it. It is not uncommon that a group will
take a derogatory word for their group and use it acceptably among
themselves to take the sting out of it. A lot of gay people, for
example, will call each other faggot or queer. The point is that if a
bigot calls you something like a faggot you can answer, okay, I'm a
Dorey.There is some controversy within the gay community about whether thatexample.
should be done though. Other times the attempt to turn a derogatory
term into a neutral word is not completed and the word niggah is an
If a white person calls you by that word it is not acceptable. Some
other ethnic groups do the same thing. People of Hungarian descent
often jokingly call each other hunkies, but it is not so easily
accepted if someone else uses the word.
On 6/27/2015 8:19 AM, abdulah aga wrote:
HI
Carle and other folks on list
Now I have question what I couldn't understand sins I cam in USA!
why black people say mostly ich other in joke like what's up my
nigger, but if some body als told them who is not black then is
problem?
-----Original Message----- From: Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2015 12:10 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: "It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in
Public...."
First of all, I'd been thinking for some time now that Pat Boone was
dead. I had to quickly resurrect him. Born June 1, 1934, Boone is
about 11 and a half months older than me. But we are millions of
light years apart. The difference between his wealth and mine would
be enough. But that is not the million of light years I am
referring to. It is the difference in how each of us see our fellow
human beings.
But that's not what I set out to talk about. Pat Boone can talk for
himself.
I want to focus on our strange habit of creating a bunch of symbols,
declaring that they have a certain meaning and then keep changing
what that meaning really means.
Take the word Gay, for example. My mother loved her gay coat. It
was a multicolored cloth coat. Mother took good care of her things,
having been a young mother during the Great Depression. So that
coat lasted her for many years. But she was greatly disturbed when
she mentioned to some friends that she was wearing her Gay Coat.
They quietly advised her not to say that word. "Gay?" mother asked.
"What's wrong with Gay?"
Tinker Bell was a little Fairy. Enough said about that. A fagot
referred to a young boy who gathered fire sticks in the forests of
Europe. Later the word was shortened to Fag, meaning a cigarette.
Sort of a short fire stick.
But when I was teaching Braille, one of my students, a young
Lesbian, objected violently to the word Fag in her Braille lesson book.
Naturally, knowing her to be a bright and understanding person, I
believed I could explain the meaning of the word back when the
Braille lesson book was put together. 1960. But it would not do.
So I took my handy Braille eraser and she and I rubbed out one
Braille dot from the "F", turning it into a "B", and the word
became, Bag. I did not tell my student that in the storage room I
had an entire shelf of the identical Braille books.
For me, the hardest word to push out of my mouth was, "Fuck". Four
letters succinctly defining a very fundamental activity. But we
decided that Fuck was a dirty word, while copulate was much "nicer".
Both describe the same activity. But although I write the word
here, I would most likely never say it in a presentation before a
mixed audience.
Nigger is a word that was part of the language of the Old South.
That Old South still exists in many places, and not all of them
South of the Border. But I have to tell you, I am damned sick and
fucking tired of saying, "The N Word". As if that makes it just hunky
white neighbors.We used to say, Negroes. But we changed to Blacks as the word of
choice by Negroes. I have no idea if that's true or not. My
grandma Jarvis, born in Missouri back in 1874, said, "Niggrah". She
talked about her "Colored wet nurse". And the Black Mammy who
cooked for the family. And the little Pica ninnies, the little
children who lived on the plantation. Did I mention that my grandma
Jarvis was raised on a plantation? And her father had two or three
slaves prior to the Civil War. My own great grandfather Tom
Hickman. Judged to be a fair and kind man, by his family and the other
tradition.among.But no one ever wrote down what his slaves thought him to be. He
owned other human beings, for Gods Sake! And yet, my grandma adored
her dad. She followed him about the plantation, avoiding the Women's
work inside the house. Grandma ended up living on an old age
pension, but always believed she was better than the Niggrahs she
lived
The word Niggrah was not what made my grandma think the way she did.
Force her to say, "Black People", and she would continue to think of
them as she had been trained to think of them back in the 1880's as
a young girl.
I know blind folk who avoid the word, "blind". But you know what?
They are just as blind as if they used the word. And the entire
world sees them as blind.
While I do not believe we can easily change people's attitudes, that
is the place we must work. And if stopping our use of certain words
or tearing down old rags of Confederate dogma helps, let's do it.
But only as a starting place.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/26/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Boardman writes: "An unintendedly brilliant example of self-induced
moral blindness to racist behavior comes from Pat Boone, the
octogenarian multi-millionaire musician whose fortune was built on
racist exploitation of black music in a racist music industry
devoted to catering to America's white racism."
CNN discusses President Obama's use of the N-word. (photo: CNN)
"It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in Public...."
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
26 June 15
"Racism, we are not cured of it. And, and, and it's not just a
matter of, uh, it not being polite to say nigger in public. That's
not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not
just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight,
completely erase everything that happened two to three hundred
years prior."
- President Obama, June 22,
on Marc Maron podcast
This piece will end with a brief personal experience I had
recently, an experience that illuminates what the President is
saying and raises the question of whether it's polite to say
"nigger" in private. My experience underscores that what the
President is saying is obviously and profoundly true, and has been
since long before he was born. And my recent experience illustrates
the abiding armor of denial and determined ignorance that allows
people to enjoy the advantages of a racist society without having
to acknowledge that it exists.
An unintendedly brilliant example of self-induced moral blindness
to racist behavior comes from Pat Boone, the octogenarian
multi-millionaire musician whose fortune was built on racist
exploitation of black music in a racist music industry devoted to
catering to America's white racism. Boone's fundamentalist
Christian self-delusions about race appeared on WND (aka
WorldNetDaily), self-described as "an independent news company
dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice
and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty."
According to Boone, it's President Obama's fault for not preaching
that "racial divides and prejudice had greatly diminished and that
our society was truly becoming colorblind." Having said that, Boone
provided a white racist analysis of the killing of two black
children, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, unarmed and shot by
reckless white men. As for Charleston, where an avowed white racist
killed nine black people in church in hope of starting a race war,
Boone explains it away as having a "racist element,"
but being "inspired by Satan"! While blaming Obama for "erasing"
God from public life, Boone pleads for a return to America as a
Christian nation - but he does not mention that American
Christianity was a powerful defender of American slavery.
This mode of thinking, or rather this mode of avoiding real
thought, is endemic to a large section of the American population
and has been, in one form or another, since before there was a
United States. How else do you get a Constitution in which slaves
don't get to vote, but do get counted as three-fifths of a person
in order to inflate Congressional representation of slave owners?
Orwell called it Doublethink in "1984," but it's a much older American
reasons.One form of denial is feigned shock that "Obama said the N-word!"
Assorted television babble-heads on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Fox and
elsewhere got all a-twitter over the President's saying "nigger,"
which they sanitized to "the N-word" with such characterizations as
"extremely direct language"
and "shock value" and "jarring comment" and "electric" and "one of
the most charged racial slurs in the English language" - all of
which are projections of the commentators' subjectivity. They are
not at all accurate descriptions of what the President said, which
was detached, measured, analytical, and precisely accurate. But who
wants to hear that on TV? As Wolf Blitzer put it on CNN, "Many
people may find this offensive." CNN's black legal analyst said the
word should never be used. In sharp disagreement, CNN black anchor
Don Lemon articulately defended adult conversation about difficult
issues on television (for example, on Democracy NOW).
By paying attention only to the President's use of the word "nigger"
and not to his much broader context, television's purveyors of
conventional wisdom manage to deny the relevance of the President's
larger point: that racism has been endemic to American (and
pre-American) culture for some 300 years and that racist thinking
remains alive and well in many forms.
Focusing on
the President's use of "nigger" as an excuse not to talk about
racism in America is, arguably, just another form of racism in
America.
Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show reduced the TV babble to its
ultimate Fox-accusing absurdity, President Obama saying "nigger" in
a State of the Union speech. Wilmore also played clips of other
presidents saying "nigger,"
albeit in a less thoughtful way than Obama:
. Nixon: "Our niggers are better than their niggers"
. LBJ: "there's more niggers voting there than white folks"
Wilmore also indicated that, while there's apparently no record of
presidents like Washington or Jefferson saying "nigger," they did
own one or more.
Another effect of all the empty blather about the President saying
"nigger"
is to distract from the empty gestures about various Confederate
flags.
American devotion to the Confederate flag is, literally, insane or
dishonest or hypocritical, or all three, or pick your word. Why?
All Confederate flags are symbols of treason against the United
States of America, and somehow it's OK to celebrate them and
merchandise them and pretend they're something they never were. The
Confederacy committed treason as defined by the Constitution and
too many people would do it all over again, for the same racist
underbelly.What does one young South Carolinian tell us about America today?
So here's the personal experience I mentioned. Over the weekend of
June 20-21, I was at a family wedding in northern Maryland. The
Sunday before Obama's podcast became public, I was at a
post-wedding cookout with maybe 20 people of various ages, many in
their twenties. It was a definitely non-political social gathering.
One young man in his mid-twenties was there as the new beau of the
bride's sister. He was pleasant, attractive, well-spoken, polite,
and had grown up in South Carolina. During our first conversation
with several other people in the kitchen, David (not his real name)
spoke enthusiastically of his work with horses and Brahma cattle.
He described a roping gone wrong when he was forced to jump his
horse over a fallen Brahma cow, whose horn scored his horse's
tradition.He seemed comfortable and at ease as the conversation shifted from
person to person. He gave no hint of any socially disruptive
opinions or behavior. But he was drinking.
Some time later I wandered into a conversation David was having
with the bride's mother on the screen porch. This conversation was
already political.
David was complaining about Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for
calling out Charleston for having streets named after Civil War
generals and otherwise ridiculing South Carolina's history. Stewart
was about to start a race war, David argued, without mentioning
Dylann Roof killing nine people. David said he was concerned about
a race war because someone had already shot at the Confederate flag
at the Capitol. David said we should just let history be history,
and besides some people treated their slaves well.
By the time our hostess came into this conversation, David was
talking about Obama being Kenyan and like that. Our hostess told
him firmly not to talk like that in her house. When he didn't seem
to get the point, I leaned in and suggested that maybe we should
both be quiet. He admitted he'd been drinking, but throughout this
conversation he remained polite, friendly, quiet, apparently
sincere in beliefs he didn't seem to think anyone would find
unusual. He came across as a basically sweet kid.
The last thing he said to me, before others took him swimming, he
said with the same earnest pleasantness. He said, "I don't hate
niggers."
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life
magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to
Reader Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
CNN discusses President Obama's use of the N-word. (photo: CNN)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
"It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in Public...."
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
26 June 15
"Racism, we are not cured of it. And, and, and it's not just a
matter of, uh, it not being polite to say nigger in public. That's
not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not
just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight,
completely erase everything that happened two to three hundred
years prior."
- President Obama, June 22,
on Marc Maron podcast
his piece will end with a brief personal experience I had
recently, an experience that illuminates what the President is
saying and raises the question of whether it's polite to say
"nigger" in private. My experience underscores that what the
President is saying is obviously and profoundly true, and has been
since long before he was born. And my recent experience illustrates
the abiding armor of denial and determined ignorance that allows
people to enjoy the advantages of a racist society without having
to acknowledge that it exists.
An unintendedly brilliant example of self-induced moral blindness
to racist behavior comes from Pat Boone, the octogenarian
multi-millionaire musician whose fortune was built on racist
exploitation of black music in a racist music industry devoted to
catering to America's white racism. Boone's fundamentalist
Christian self-delusions about race appeared on WND (aka
WorldNetDaily), self-described as "an independent news company
dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice
and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty."
According to Boone, it's President Obama's fault for not preaching
that "racial divides and prejudice had greatly diminished and that
our society was truly becoming colorblind." Having said that, Boone
provided a white racist analysis of the killing of two black
children, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, unarmed and shot by
reckless white men. As for Charleston, where an avowed white racist
killed nine black people in church in hope of starting a race war,
Boone explains it away as having a "racist element,"
but being "inspired by Satan"! While blaming Obama for "erasing"
God from public life, Boone pleads for a return to America as a
Christian nation - but he does not mention that American
Christianity was a powerful defender of American slavery.
This mode of thinking, or rather this mode of avoiding real
thought, is endemic to a large section of the American population
and has been, in one form or another, since before there was a
United States. How else do you get a Constitution in which slaves
don't get to vote, but do get counted as three-fifths of a person
in order to inflate Congressional representation of slave owners?
Orwell called it Doublethink in "1984," but it's a much older American
reasons.One form of denial is feigned shock that "Obama said the N-word!"
Assorted television babble-heads on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Fox and
elsewhere got all a-twitter over the President's saying "nigger,"
which they sanitized to "the N-word" with such characterizations as
"extremely direct language"
and "shock value" and "jarring comment" and "electric" and "one of
the most charged racial slurs in the English language" - all of
which are projections of the commentators' subjectivity. They are
not at all accurate descriptions of what the President said, which
was detached, measured, analytical, and precisely accurate. But who
wants to hear that on TV? As Wolf Blitzer put it on CNN, "Many
people may find this offensive." CNN's black legal analyst said the
word should never be used. In sharp disagreement, CNN black anchor
Don Lemon articulately defended adult conversation about difficult
issues on television (for example, on Democracy NOW).
By paying attention only to the President's use of the word "nigger"
and not to his much broader context, television's purveyors of
conventional wisdom manage to deny the relevance of the President's
larger point: that racism has been endemic to American (and
pre-American) culture for some 300 years and that racist thinking
remains alive and well in many forms.
Focusing on
the President's use of "nigger" as an excuse not to talk about
racism in America is, arguably, just another form of racism in
America.
Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show reduced the TV babble to its
ultimate Fox-accusing absurdity, President Obama saying "nigger" in
a State of the Union speech. Wilmore also played clips of other
presidents saying "nigger,"
albeit in a less thoughtful way than Obama:
. Nixon: "Our niggers are better than their niggers"
. LBJ: "there's more niggers voting there than white folks"
Wilmore also indicated that, while there's apparently no record of
presidents like Washington or Jefferson saying "nigger," they did
own one or more.
Another effect of all the empty blather about the President saying
"nigger"
is to distract from the empty gestures about various Confederate
flags.
American devotion to the Confederate flag is, literally, insane or
dishonest or hypocritical, or all three, or pick your word. Why?
All Confederate flags are symbols of treason against the United
States of America, and somehow it's OK to celebrate them and
merchandise them and pretend they're something they never were. The
Confederacy committed treason as defined by the Constitution and
too many people would do it all over again, for the same racist
underbelly.What does one young South Carolinian tell us about America today?
So here's the personal experience I mentioned. Over the weekend of
June 20-21, I was at a family wedding in northern Maryland. The
Sunday before Obama's podcast became public, I was at a
post-wedding cookout with maybe 20 people of various ages, many in
their twenties. It was a definitely non-political social gathering.
One young man in his mid-twenties was there as the new beau of the
bride's sister. He was pleasant, attractive, well-spoken, polite,
and had grown up in South Carolina. During our first conversation
with several other people in the kitchen, David (not his real name)
spoke enthusiastically of his work with horses and Brahma cattle.
He described a roping gone wrong when he was forced to jump his
horse over a fallen Brahma cow, whose horn scored his horse's
He seemed comfortable and at ease as the conversation shifted from
person to person. He gave no hint of any socially disruptive
opinions or behavior. But he was drinking.
Some time later I wandered into a conversation David was having
with the bride's mother on the screen porch. This conversation was
already political.
David was complaining about Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for
calling out Charleston for having streets named after Civil War
generals and otherwise ridiculing South Carolina's history. Stewart
was about to start a race war, David argued, without mentioning
Dylann Roof killing nine people. David said he was concerned about
a race war because someone had already shot at the Confederate flag
at the Capitol. David said we should just let history be history,
and besides some people treated their slaves well.
By the time our hostess came into this conversation, David was
talking about Obama being Kenyan and like that. Our hostess told
him firmly not to talk like that in her house. When he didn't seem
to get the point, I leaned in and suggested that maybe we should
both be quiet. He admitted he'd been drinking, but throughout this
conversation he remained polite, friendly, quiet, apparently
sincere in beliefs he didn't seem to think anyone would find
unusual. He came across as a basically sweet kid.
The last thing he said to me, before others took him swimming, he
said with the same earnest pleasantness. He said, "I don't hate
niggers."
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life
magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to
Reader Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
