A theory: President afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome?

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

In my opinion, all to many Blacks have been forced into the Stockholm Syndrome and no one knows it better than old Black teachers who were forced by law to stop exclusively teaching our Black children going into an integrated teaching environment. The integrated classroom is different in that there are certain teaching tools you can not use. I posit American integrated schools and curriculum have confused our Black youths.

I note our President who, in the opinion of many, pandering what appears to be a pathological need to satisfy Republicans at all cost. I am glad I know about the Stockholm Syndrome. It is easier to understand my President. Hopefully, he is playing 21 century politics. I hope so but it is confusing and personally distasteful.
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-Span and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB

More Fighting Words Needed From Obama On Healthcare Reform
by alaprst
Excerpt:
The other key problem is the lack of passion Obama and his White House seem to bring to fighting for what matters to progressives. The tap dance they've been doing on whether Obama not just supports, but will fight for, a public option has been going on since the transition, and it's only one of many policies they are determined not to commit too much to. The unwillingness to pick fights and go toe-to-toe with insurers, drug companies, Wall Street, and other special interests is making the progressive community a lot less willing to pick fights for them.
You see the warning signs everywhere, from Paul Krugman's columns to Bill Maher monologues to the dropping numbers from Democrats in the latest DailyKos poll. But what worries me the most is the hard-core Obama people I know, the ones who were most excited about him during the campaign who are growing so disillusioned.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/22/770842/-More-Fighting-Words-Needed-From-Obama-On-Healthcare-Reform
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-Span and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB
P.S. ActBlue $20 + $5. Waiting for Red Lobster to reject and denounce Glenn Beck so I can take my lady friend to lunch. I live in the neighborhood wherein the Blacks threw Oreo cookies at Michael Steele. I am surprised they have not gotten on Red Lobster’s case.

Connecting dots or expressing obtuse conspiracy theories?

This article on Huffington post “C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones” knocked me over with a feather and my Hiney Shiney starting screaming “9/11! 9/11! That‘s how they did it! The planes were drones! It was supposed to have been a simple kidnapping! The highjackers were tricked! Bamboozled!”

On TV earlier yesterday there was this gem from a soon to be released book, “Tom Ridge: I was pressured to raise terror alert to help Bush win”. My Hiney Shiney is acting as if it is going to have a nervous break-down! Between very deep breathes it manages to ask questions. Questions like, “Why was the Bush administration stroking fears of another attack?” and “If they thought the 911 attack was an anomaly, why were they countering with such harsh realities?” and “Why were harsh realities so thoroughly coordinated with other elements i.e., poll numbers, op-ed pieces and ‘Breaking News’ segments from the Pentagon?” “Why did the administration have to lie if they truly felt in their hearts the 911 attacks were genuine?” This does not make sense to me, and the final expression of wonder is how Blackwater got so efficient in using drones in Afghanistan since we have only been there a few months. There is indeed a fly in the milk somewhere and I need some rest! (Mumble, mumble…) “Is this the sort of stuff Pres. Obama has to confront and deal with? WOW!” (Mumble…mumble..) “If it is, he has my prayers.”
As always,
BB
C.I.A. Said To Use Outsiders….
Excerpt:
“The actual pulling of a trigger in some ways is the easiest part, and the part that requires the least expertise,” said one government official familiar with the canceled C.I.A. program. “It’s everything that leads up to it that’s the meat of the issue.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimes

Tom Ridge: I Was Pressured To Raise Terror Alert To Help Bush Win
Excerpt:
In a new book, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reveals new details on politicization under President Bush, reports US News & World Report's Paul Bedard. Among other things, Ridge admits that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004.

And
Ridge's book, "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again," comes out September 1.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/tom-ridge-i-was-pressured_n_264127.html

Man Carrying Simi-Automatic Assault Rifle…..

The news media varied from its standard practice in recording this event of a demonstrator openly carrying an assault weapon in public as they did the last time when we saw a gun-toting demonstrator hanging around as Pres. Obama was having a Town Hall Meeting.

The media would usually show you the two opposing groups on either side of the street carrying their pro and con signs for the Healthcare Reform Bill and there would be interviews. I was anticipating interviews not only of the gun-toter but also people’s reactions to gun-toters bringing their guns to the demonstration. Nothing! I wanted to hear what other demonstrators had to say. Nothing! I wanted to know if they felt intimidated or, as I read in a diary, I wanted to hear the person saying on camera they were not going to participate in another demonstration wherein there were guns present. Saying they would not bring their children to such an event and “Yes", they felt intimidated. Nothing. Just the media implying the gun-toters were potential assassins gunning for Pres. Obama.

If the media had interviewed other demonstrators it seems to me it would have been appropriately reporting the incident of not only efforts to intimidate the President. In my opinion, this is true intimidation: I am mindful on Pres. Obama’s birthday the media releasing and touting the author of a book detailing the huge amount of assignation threats the President has gotten; they did this on his birthday, mind you! The sleazy media strikes again!
As always,
BB
Man Carrying Simi-Automatic Assault Rifle…..
Excerpt:
A man was spotted Monday afternoon carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle and a pistol at a pro-health care reform rally next to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Arizona where President Obama was speaking.

And
UPDATE: The Associated Press is now reporting that there were actually about a dozen armed people among the protesters in Phoenix:

Comment:
landthatilove
I am staying out of Arizona. Between killer bees, scorpions, snakes and gun toting maniacs who the hell need it? Let them give themselves back to Mexico. Who needs a dried up pile of sand and rocks anyway? Arizona, you don't count.
Man Carrying Semi-Automatic Assault Rifle And Pistol Outside Obama Event (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/man-carrying-semi-automat_n_261279.html#comments

Dona Edwards (D-Md4) secretary un-informed?

I called Ms. Edwards' office several times yesterday to ask where she stands on the Public Option portion of the Healthcare Reform Bill and got no answer. I called again this morning:

-Good-afternoon, Dona Edwards’s office.
-Hello? It’s 9:30 and you said “Good-afternoon.”
-May I help you?
-Yes, I would like to know where Ms. Edwards stand on the Public Option issue of the Healthcare Reform Bill?
-You can go to her web-site at blah, blah, blah.
-Don’t you know her position?
-I have not talked to her in weeks.
Geez!
As always,
BB
P.S. (She is for it) Donna Edwards Home Page
http://donnaedwards.house.gov/index.html

Logic in three acts.

Have You Ever Thought What You Would Do If You Were Terminally Ill, Because Your Insurance Company
by nickm11

(Scene: No “Public Option” in the Healthcare Reform Bill. You are terminally ill and your insurance company denies you treatment. Author put them into acts.)

Excerpt:
(Act 1:) Lets assume you have cancer or something else that gives you a good chance, with the proper medical care, of saving your life. Now, let’s assume that for whatever reason, your insurance company refuses to allow or follow though with what you and your doctor believe, is the proper course of action to save your life?

And
(Act 11:) Another interesting point about government, if you’re incarcerated, government would be required to give you the needed medical care to save your life.

And
(Act 111:) So, if you’re terminally ill, you might want to consider robbing a bank. Heck, I’d take life in prison over being dead anytime. Wouldn’t you?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/18/768697/-Have-You-Ever-Thought-What-You-Would-Do-If-You-Were-Terminally-Ill,-Because-Your-Insurance-Company

I’m gonna talk to close friends about this scenario like a dog! I’m gonna talk about me hypothetically being in court on my knees pleading to the judge to please, please send me to jail and that he could send me to Alcatraz or Abu Grab if he wants to and the judge he keep'a yellin’ and screamin’ fer me to get up off my knees and den I starts kissin’ his hand and praisin’ the Lord'n beggin’ him for the maximum sentence plus five years and…..
As always,
BB

Tim Wise: Nice try. Dog won’t hunt this time!

Re: *Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia
by tim wise
The dog is having a difficult time. This diary by tim wise has angered me due to the fact I think it is one more attempt to make us Blacks the scapegoat of the financial woes of this country. He knows damn well it was the neocons on Wall Street that caused this country to go into the economic free-fall it is presently experiencing.

From Truman to Clinton, it is my understanding healthcare reforms has been on the agenda and failed. It did not fail all those times because people thought it was reparations for Blacks or it would benefit Blacks more than it would whites with a few more inconsistencies as Mr. Wise writes in his diary. At this time, I am seeing only whites on TV talking about how things are bad for them with no health insurance. In no way have I seen a massive lineup of Blacks articulating these issues.

In my opinion, Mr. Wise has taken the course so many have taken in the past, “Never mind what we whites are doing. Never mind what we have done. Look at the niggers!”

Paul “After America” Starokin recently wrote regarding how American empires were built, “The prevailing practice in the most dynamic industries of this was not the rule of law, but the rule of cliques of ‘robber barons’ along with smaller-time operators who manipulated the law to their own selfish ends with impunity.” In my interpretation, Wall Street steals the money from our treasury, crippling our country and small time corner hoodlums and thugs like Mr. Wise direct the police to the Black communities telling them, “They went that-a-way!” As Mr. Wise is learning, there are a lot of whites who do not like that either.

I will admit everything in America is race related due to people like Mr. Wise but it is downright impolite to always frame it in the parcel of Black victimhood to save ones own hind-parts! Mr. Wise knows that if true anger were expressed regarding our financial condition, Abraham Foxman would not have enough time to send out decrees pronouncing people to be anti-Semitic. “Turn the conversation away from the neo-cons at all cost,” they scream hiding in closets and under their beds, “Blame the niggers!”
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-Span and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB
P.S. when people say they want to take this country back, they mean take it back from the neocons. Mr. Wise knows that. Who does he think he is fooling?

*Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia
by tim wise
Excerpt:
Although I had been careful to point out that not everyone who opposes the President's agenda is a racist, but rather had made the more nuanced argument that racial resentment and white racial anxiety was the background noise of that opposition--often being stoked quite clearly by the radio talk show hosts on whom the mobs have been relying--my electronic interlocutor was having none of it. He had no more listened to me than he had actually read the health care proposals about which he was frothing so at the mouth.
And
"But that's not what we're talking about when we say we want our country back," another writer intoned, also angered by my televised comments: "We aren't talking about the racism part. We mean the rest of it." How fascinating. That it is factually impossible to separate out the "racism part" from the rest of it is something many white folks seem not to understand. They seem to think there was once a time of innocence when oppression wasn't happening, or that we can easily extract from our accounting of those crimes the great and noble things about our forefathers and view them in some patriotic vacuum. But we can't. Anymore so than we can say that the man who beats his wife might still be a loving father. Or that the company that poisons the air and water with toxic chemicals is still okay because they have a good record on labor or because they give a percentage of their annual profits to charity.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/17/768048/-Racism,-Right-Wing-Rage-and-the-Politics-of-White-Nostalgia

Healthcare Reform and Private Contractors

My biggest jolt was when the Pentagon began giving no-bid contracts before and during the Iraq War. Jobs were given to people outside of the military to do that only people in the military would previously do.

Shame to say but there were many a soldier from WW2 telling us of the chores they had to perform. Many of us Blacks were cooks, as I remember or worked in some form of food preparation. I am mindful seeing a documentary of Blacks having to build a road in Alaska under perilous conditions and hearing of long latrine duties. I do not know what the whites were doing but these were stories coming from the Black communities. The whites may have been doing what contractors like Blackwater were hired to do in our recent “war” in Iraq and presently in Afghanistan. A sad commentary but true.

To my knowledge, the US Postal Service privatized one of its branches and the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) privatized its debt collection branch. Hence….

In U.S., Government Privatization Is Going Forward by Seth Sandronsky
Excerpt: Opening paragraphs
Government has many functions. One is to legitimize the class system, the heart of which is the job market. Against this backdrop, the Bush administration recently announced that it is planning to privatize up to 850,000 federal jobs.
Supporters of the plan claim that government privatization is a good deal for the U.S. public. "This is inherent to getting the taxpayers the best deal for their dollars and the best service from the government," said Trent Duffy, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget in a Nov. 14 AP article.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1116-04.htm

I have been forced to look at these issues and by doing so I have raised serious questions regarding the pending Healthcare Reform Bill. My issues is Congress taking large sums of money from the insurance industries and its propensity to bind to their will. Specifically, when and if the Healthcare Reform Bill passes in whatever form, the insurance and banking industries will lobby Congress to privatized some of its duties away from the government and therein we very well may have the plug pulled on Grandma due to the fact that particular area of the government had been privatized i.e., profit driven. Or take an example of a privatized organ transplant unit and that privatized unit wants to save money to give more to its stockholders and CEO’s. In my opinion, the insurance companies are in a win-win situation with the Healthcare Reform Bill. The Town Hall Suffragettes have gotten my attention. I love ya' America but trusting you with this Healthcare Reform Bill is another issue and I continue to wonder as I wander.
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-span and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB

On reading a book, “After America” (Update)

During the years, I have come across the name Alexis de Tocqueville and was never curious enough to look up the name and find out anything about him. I would simply glaze over the name understanding what it meant in the context of the reading which was almost always, “Alexis de Tocqueville said..” or “On his visit to America,” Tocqueville said this or that.

It was this morning did I read in “After America” by Paul Starobin the imperceptible Alexis de Tocqueville was from France. He came to America in 1831 “..in order to make a survey of the country’s prisons….” And ironies of ironies, Tocqueville published volumes of his trip titled “Democracy for America” which is also the name of the political group for Healthcare Reform producing the classic ad regarding Sen. Ben Nelson and a restaurant owner in Nebraska. Funny I never read anything as to what Tocqueville had to say about our prisons in the 1800’s during his nine month visit.

Mr. Starobin writes on Pg. 7 in his book that Hollywood, one of the pillars of America “by which American-style values were communicated to the world…” is no longer in control of that influential vehicle. With that fact and many others at his disposal, Mr. Starobin ponders the essence of his book, “…. how can Americans adjust to a world in which their civilization is no longer dominant?”

One final note catching my attention was on Pg. 9 wherein Mr. Starobin quotes James Schlesinger, “..a steward of the American Century..” as saying “..America is living an illusion”. Oh, how the oligarchy and its minions do wish our first Black President were such an illusion, aka, a bad dream!

-Really now, Mr. BB. Do you really want us to take you seriously when you say you want us to bestow upon you a PhD, a doctor of letters, because you are reading and believe everything you have read in this….this…this book?
-You got that right! I wants to be known as a historian!
-But by your own admission, you have only read thirty pages or so of, let me see, out of three hundred and thirty two pages in three days of this thing, the book, I mean. Why don’t you just wait until you have at least finished reading it and maybe we could talk. How about that? Good?
-(Faculty members) Hear! Hear!
-Can’t. I am a slow reader. I contemplates alot. And besides, most of you would probably be dead by then. You did it for Alan Greenspan. You gave him one for economics. Why can’t you do the same thing for me? And don’t tell me he wrote no thesis neither ’cause I ain’t seen it!
-Oh, dear!
Fighting for the dignity of my Ancestors,
God bless Bill Gates, WPFW, C-Span and the spirits of the unborn for the help,
BB
Reading inspiration
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/2/760206/-Book-review:-Paul-Starobins-After-America

(Update)
US Economic Myths Bite the Dust
by Mark Weisbrot
Comment:
Weisbrot overlooks the one
Sun, 08/16/2009 - 00:33 — Anonymous (not verified)
Weisbrot overlooks the one area where the US is clearly superior - that of starting and supporting wars and terrorism. Since Reagan - Grenada,Iraq I and II, Afghanistan, and Panama are direct wars the US started - each an invasion of another county. We also supported terrorists in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Sudan, Nigeria. We instigated then supported both sides to some degree in Iraq/Iran. Our defense/weapons/security budget is a whopping $1.2 trillion per year, and we export well over one half all the weapons exported worldwide each year, and have been doing so since dear old Ron tool office. Have the Europeans top that!
http://www.truthout.org/081409K