Bill Maher is that monkey.

See, Bill Maher’s a smart guy. None of us can deny that. A nuisance at worst, a more than worthy adversary at best, Bill Maher is the kind of intellectual whose worst enemy is his own pride. Smart people generally don’t make intellectual miscalculations; they make careless errors.  Sometimes, a mistruth is so often repeated in society that even smart folk like Maher accept it as fact. A good example would be Bill Maher’s constant claim that the Bible encourages slavery and the founding fathers were anti-Christian.

Firstly, Bill would be right to say that the founding fathers were anti-religion.  One could say the same thing about most pastors heading churches throughout the United States today. A disdain for man-made religion does not equal a hate for personal faith in God. 

As a matter of fact, oftentimes as one grows in their relationship with God, they find themselves saddened by the state of the modern church. People like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin (the same people whom Maher loves to quote) would be perfect, powdered-wig crystallizations of religion-hating, God-fearing Christians. A simple glance through the founding documents or personal journals of the founding fathers confirms it.

As for the Bible being a rampantly pro-slavery piece of literature… false.  It’s true that there are passages in the Bible dealing with slavery, which when read in modern America without the proper context, seem cringeworthy at best. Nowhere in the bible, however, is there an open-ended encouragement of the practice and in multiple places, being what we would consider slavery today is thoroughly condemned.

See, we have to understand that the slavery referred to in the Bible is most often not slavery as we know it today. In both Old and specifically New Testament times, people would go into slavery themselves if they were unable to pay their debts, or unable to pay their own cost of living (which would then be covered by their master). They would have more in common with a lower class worker or a college student still mooching off of their parents than the race-based slavery we’ve known in the Western world.

A prime example of where one does see race-based slavery in the Bible, is when a little group of people were enslaved by the Egyptians solely because they were Hebrew (Exodus 13:14). Anyone know what happened next?

Anyone? Anyone?

…God was pretty ticked. Angry enough to bring the freaking plagues. [Note: They were kind of a big deal.]

The Bible also does address the act of “man stealing,” (exactly the kind of thing that Africans did to their own people) and had this to say about it: “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death” (Exodus 21:16).

God then went on to put such folks in the same category as murderers and rapists. I guess you could say he had a thing about that.

In the end, don’t blame Bill Maher.  He’s just accepting common mistruths because he doesn’t know any better… and nobody will tell him. Maybe he needs an uneducated, God-loving, gun toting, tea-partying, redneck in his Hollywood entourage.  You know… just to keep him in the know.

The story of the first such “colored” regiment to be formed, the 54^th Massachusetts, is beautifully retold in director Edward Zwick’s 1989 film Glory.  That this film didn’t even garner an Oscar nomination for best picture – in a year where Driving Miss Daisy took the prize – is puzzling to me.  Glory features a first-rate script, wonderful imagery, and a stellar cast led by Matthew Broderick who plays Col. Robert Gould Shaw, the real-life idealistic white officer chosen to lead the regiment. The film is also a feast for the ears as the majestic chorus of the Harlem Boys’ Choir permeates the score.

Glory tells a piece of American history  that had been mostly neglected up to then by presenting the tale of the unit’s formation through bringing together various characters as part of the 1860s landscape.  The dilemma faced by the white officers  – who learn that they will be executed for inciting slave revolt if captured on the battlefield – is personified in Shaw’s best friend, the emotionally torn Maj. Cabot Forbes (Cary Ewles).  In contrast are the tales of the rank and file black soldiers themselves.  There is Slias Trip, the rebellious and angry runaway (played by Denzel Washington who won the Oscar for best supporting actor); Sgt.-Maj. John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman), the former grave-digger who becomes the modicum of soldierly poise; Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher), the erudite free black man who is a bit of a dandy, having never felt the lash himself; and Jupiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy), the stuttering, loveable, everyman ex-slave whose smile is as infectious as his dedication to the cause.

Glory’s appeal to me is that it is told through the perspective of Col. Shaw himself.  We are given snippets of the actual letters he wrote home about his experiences as a decidedly insulated white boy of privilege suddenly putting his own idealism to the test by taking on what was hardly a popular endeavor in the North at the time: arming and training blacks to fight in the US Army.

The film treats us to the usual battery of discrimination they faced, from being paid less than comparable white soldiers to having much-needed shoes deliberately withheld from them by racist elements within the supply department.  Through it all, young Shaw transforms from first feeling alienated from the men whose life experiences he cannot even remotely fathom, to bonding with them and eventually leading them as their trusted and beloved commander on the firing line.

But what is most moving about this film is the tragic ending, which portrays (albeit with some historical license) the 54^th leading the ill-fated charge against the impregnable ramparts of the rebel’s Fort Wagner in which over half of the regiment (and succeeding all-white commands) were casualties.   As the magnificent troops march over the dunes to the point of the assault in between two files of white units who just a few scenes before were mocking them, the cheers of “Give ‘em hell 54^th!” and “Huzzah!” with hats raised are the only comments they hear now.  No whites.  No blacks.  Just fellow soldiers in a common cause.  After a heart-shredding image of Shaw staring out to the sea, taking it all in for the last time before sending his horse galloping to the safety of the rear (darn it!  I’m crying again!), his men start their grim advance with shellfire and bullets ripping into their ranks.  And the rest is sad history.  Fort Wagner was never taken.

Col. Shaw was killed in this battle and was buried in a common grave along with the black troops he had the honor of commanding.  The Southerners thought they were treating him to the worst of ignominy.  Shaw’s father, however, was  proud to have his son laid to rest so.  What Glory demonstrates is an honest liberalism that has been lost by today’s vindictive far left.  It shows a young man (he was twenty-six) of means who literally gave his life to advance a narrative he believed in: that a black person was the equal of his own race.

As the movie Shaw says to a Harper’s Weekly reporter before the attack he knows is suicidal but will pave the way for black soldiers getting the respect they deserve from a skeptical white populace, “If I should fall, remember what you see here.”  We remember.  And one wonders how many of those who are so quick to point the finger of “racism” at anyone who doesn’t agree with their politics today would charge into the teeth of Fort Wagner’s guns to prove just how “post-racial” they really are.

[Post note: The mass burial is no longer there due to erosion which washed the bodies of Col. Shaw and his men out into the Atlantic.  I don't know why but there is something hauntingly sublime in that.]

The question and answer period quickly descended into the kind of self-flagellation that white liberals and modern academia have come to demand whenever we discuss the issue of race in America. It’s important to fact check these types of speakers because they allow so much misinformation and disharmony into our culture.

Ask yourself: Why is an author of a book designed to empower black people so wrong about their accomplishments and history? Could it be that she is profiting off of showing a slanted view? I took a detailed recording of Sapphire’s talk, so that it could appropriately discusses and ultimately rebutted, if necessary. Among several of the ridiculous things that Sapphire blamed on the white man was the disintegration of the black family from slavery, but in reality, slaves actually had stronger marriages than Sapphire would have us believe:

Sapphire: In any article in the New York Times, Ishmael Reed who is criticizing Precious mentions that incest is not confined to one group of people.

I agree, but I argue that it does have a different place in the African-American culture than it does in white American culture where it is equally as prevalent. During slavery, many black women were impregnated by their masters who were often their fathers. The white male was literally the master of the plantation. He had sex with who he wanted to – black women, children, and men. This was the family structure most slaves were exposed to. Black men were not allowed to act out the role of the father. They themselves were raped like women in addition to being turned into stud-like breeders. Black people I would argue as a race have yet to accept the fact that our men were treated like “bitches” during slavery. Nor have we dealt with the impact that has had on the generations of us that have come out of slavery.

Fact check: The black family was disintegration long afterward, thanks to the Great Society programs.

From Pages 188 to 189 of Thomas Sowell’s Ethnic America: A History (Paperback) [Internal citations omitted] [Emphasis mine]:

The black world was ultimately the only world in which slaves could find emotional fulfillment and close attachments, and to become a pariah there meant personal devastation . . . Incest taboos, for example, were more widely observed among slaves than among contemporary whites. Marriages between first cousins were common among white slave owners, but very rare among black slaves, in keeping with differences in incest taboos between Europe and Africa. . . . Even slave owners found it expedient to accommodate the wider incest taboos of black by allowing marriages between their slaves and slaves who lived on other farms and plantations, even when there were eligible mates (by white standards) in the slave plantation community. In one rare case of nuclear family incest, the slave owner was forced to sell a father who made his daughter pregnant, for other slaves had threatened to kill him.”. . .

Slave marriages and slave family relations had no legal standing, but usually lasted for decades, if not a lifetime. . . . Sometimes slave marriages were forcibly terminated, usually by the sale of one of the partners. Most of these forcibly terminated marriages had also lasted many years. . . .

Later on to a question of how to fix public education in the inner city, Sapphire said that the problems of the inner city could be solved with reduced class-size.

Fact check: There’s little evidence that class size has anything to do with educational attainment.

University of Rochester economist Eric Hanushek examined 277 separate published studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement. Only 15 percent suggested that there is a “statistically significant” improvement in achievement, 72 percent found no effect at all, and 13 percent found that reducing class size had a negative effect on achievement.

. . . Although American students lag behind other students in international testing, American classrooms have an average class size of 23 students, incredibly few compared with the averages of 49 in South Korea, 44 in Taiwan, and 36 in Japan. Washington has an average class size below the national average, yet ranks near the bottom in academic achievement. We shouldn’t forget that average class size in American schools dropped from 30 in 1961 to 23 in 1998, without any improvement in standardized-test scores. (Source: Casey Lartigue, Education Week, September 29, 1999).

Sapphire said that she was taking some notes and planning to write a new novel featuring the real lives of black women. Maybe she should take some notes from Zora Neale Hurston, who she lionized after responding to a question about the similarities between Push and Their Eyes Were Watching God: “I’m so into Zora Neale Hurston that for a little while I was telling people to call me Zora,” she said.

The real Zora Neal Hurston would be disgusted at the kind of poverty novelty that Sapphire exploits.

She wrote, in her famous essay, How It Feels to Be Colored Me:

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. . . . I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature has somehow given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.

It’s the old idea, trite but true, of helping people to help themselves that will be the only salvation of the Negro in this country. No one from the outside can do it for him.

Now wouldn’t it be cool if they made a movie about that?

If, however, one is looking back and telling history, it might then be said that one is right or wrong about history. One might say as much about Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who was wrong about history in his remarks accusing Republicans opposed to Democratic healthcare reform of using the same stalling tactics as the defenders of slavery and Jim Crow.

In remarks intended to further paint the political right as immoral, racist and evil, Reid offered that, “Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ’slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right.  When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ’slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’”

Reid is obviously confused. Republicans have no power to block passage of the senate healthcare reform bill. Nor are Republicans delaying passage of Obamacare. If Healthcare reform is being delayed and/or eventually dies it will be because one or more of Reid’s fellow Democrats decided to do the right thing and kill this Frankenbill where it lays.

Ironically, had Reid been speaking to Democrats he would not only have been currently correct, but historically accurate as well.

It was of course the Democrat Party that was late recognizing the wrongs of slavery; it was Democrats that wrote the Jim Crow laws and enforced them with fire hoses and attack dogs; it was the progressive hero Woodrow Wilson who segregated the federal government and locked Blacks out of jobs; it was the Democrat party that filibustered passage of the civil rights acts of 1964 and ‘65 and in fact has opposed every piece of civil rights legislation written since the end of the civil war.

Reid’s remarks might also be more properly directed at Democrats given that the reasoning used by new liberals of the 21st century and Democrats of the 19th century bear a striking similarity.

What is slavery except the usurping of one mans liberty and private property in service of another man? The defenders of slavery argued that the founding was a lie, that all men were in fact not created equal, that, in fact – to borrow from Thomas Jefferson – some were “born with saddles and others with boots and spurs to ride them.” They pointed to advances in science and philosophy that proved Black people were sub-species of human and thus justified their defense of slavery as a moral good. They further argued that the right to self-determination meant slave owners could transport their chattel into non-slave states thus making slavery the law of the land through the back door. The defenders of slavery declared that it was they who were on the “right side” of history and the fact of slavery was proof.

The argument is almost indistinguishable from the case the left makes in defense of abortion, which they demand be a part of what they call healthcare reform. The right to self-determination is sacred yet does not apply to children in utero as they are not human; the Rights articulated in the Declaration do not apply to them. We are an advanced society and history demands that we recognize that abortion is a moral good.

Similar arguments run through most of the new lefts social agenda.

They will argue that the founders of this great nation never intended that the rights they spoke of applied to all people in all times. For Reid and the rest of his Democratic cohorts some men were in fact born with saddles and others meant to ride them. To the new left a just government – a moral and compassionate government – is one that secures the newly discovered right to healthcare (or housing; or a job; or food) by confiscating the property of some in service to others. The fact that socialist Europe has already moved in that direction is proof enough that they are on the “right side” of history.

Reid invokes the image of America’s original sin in order to preserve the left’s inflated sense of its own virtue. In 2010 who but the most backward of all thinkers would side with the defenders of slavery? Who indeed?

Harry Reid is free to demonize Republicans and turn the past into fiction; it won’t make a bit of difference. It won’t make the healthcare reform bill any less terrible and it won’t make history anymore than an indifferent and no doubt amused observer.

The most unsettling news story of the last week came out of Philadelphia, where a group of black and Hispanic children of elementary-school age paid for the right to swim at a private suburban club and were denied the experience without cause and publicly humiliated in the process.

While the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton cry racism too often and make a mockery of their cause by exploiting events for their personal gain, sometimes old-fashioned bigotry does rear its ugly head in America.

In this instance, the Valley Club’s president confirmed our worst fears when he offered something far from an exculpatory explanation. “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler said in his initial statement.

Some campers claim to have overheard at least one parent fretting about the sudden influx of 65 minority children at the mostly white club.

True or not, these children were clearly wronged and it’s hard to believe that race didn’t play a significant part in their being tossed from the suburban club on their very first field trip.

Bigotry is not a partisan issue, and to be sickened by this story is the proper human response. America’s original sin of slavery and the stain of Jim Crow make a bad situation almost viscerally unbearable – and warrant a conclusive remedy. This, unfortunately, is our country’s long-term burden.

Many members of the private swim club, removed from its director’s idiotic move, now find themselves in the unenviable position of working round-the-clock to defend themselves and their previously unblemished club. Even neighbors of the institution have taken to the media to distance themselves from the awful act.

“I think they’re knuckleheads up there,” said John Fenton, a local. “I don’t know how you can do that to little kids.”

Whenever legitimate acts of bigotry occur, they should be exposed to the light of day. The media and the legal system – fueled by public outrage – can do the rest. In this case, substantial national and even international news coverage of the Valley Club incident is beginning the process of making the campers whole.

You can read the column in full here.

Gloria Steinem

In any case, in the spirit of compromise, let us pretend that each of the following paragraphs begins “It’s only my opinion, but…” 

When Gloria Steinem, who had been lionized by the ladies of NOW for her rather dumb remark about women needing men like fish needed bicycles, finally got married at the age of 66, I thought people should have sent her greeting cards complimenting her on having belatedly grown gills. 

In recent weeks, Canadians caught Somali pirates who had attacked a Norwegian tanker, but released them because they were unable to prosecute them under Canadian law.  In another case, Dutch commandos captured and then released Somali pirates who had attacked a Portuguese ship.  It seems to me that until the day comes that these Somali punks command battleships or destroyers, the most logical way to deal with them is to blow them and their little speedboats to Kingdom Come. 

About a month ago, I looked up George Soros at Wikipedia and read about his helping the Nazis confiscate the property of his fellow Hungarian Jews when he was a teenager.  At the same time and place, I read that in response to a Steve Croft question on “60 Minutes,” Soros claimed that he had never regretted doing it or felt any shame or remorse afterwards because, as he explained, if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have.  The other day, I re-visited the site and the entire episode had vanished.  There still remained the mention of his having been convicted by a French court of insider trading.  I am now wondering if billionaire Soros will make certain that it, too, disappears. 

As much as I disapprove of Obama’s policies, what I truly find distasteful is the way he travels around the world apologizing for America, even to the likes of Hugo Chavez and the Castros.  He bows to King Abdullah, cozies up to Ahmadinejad and tells the French — the French! — that America is arrogant. 

When, by the way, do we stop apologizing for slavery? For one thing, most of our ancestors didn’t even arrive in this country until 40 or 50 years after 600,000 Americans died in a war that put an end to it.  For another, most of the African slaves didn’t come to the United States; many more were delivered to the Caribbean and South America, courtesy of France, Germany, Spain, England, Sweden, Holland and Portugal.  And lest we forget, it was the Arabs and their fellow blacks who rounded them up for the slave traders in the first place.  Which makes it sadly ironic that so many American blacks, including Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, assumed Arabic names.  Finally, one of the only places, aside from Communist nations, the Middle East and Thailand, where slavery still endures is in Africa! 

Finally, it occurs to me that perhaps I’ve been wrong in opposing same-sex marriages. I regard it as a dumb idea, sort of like one of those silly sketches they  perform on “Saturday Night Live.” Still, although no one who has chewed me out for my position has ever bothered to explain why if homosexuals are allowed to get married, on what possible moral or legal basis anyone could then object to incestuous or polygamous marriages, I am considering changing my mind.  After all, why should we straights discriminate against those in the gay community?  Why should we deny them the boundless delight that so many of us have experienced over the years dealing with divorce lawyers, engaging in custody battles and paying alimony to able-bodied adults? 

But, heck, that’s only my opinion. 

BurtPrelutsky@aol.com

Given my love of true reporting and Woodward and Bernstein-like investigative journalism, which is really nowhere to be found in this Messianic Media Age of Obama, it was a very depressing piece to write. But after the recent flyover of New York City by Air Force One and F-16 fighter jets, which sent half of the Big Apple fleeing for their lives, it occurred to me.

How would the Left report the news if Obama were a Republican, i.e. an Uncle Tom, as many on the Left call now-GOP Chairman Michael Steele? Eureka! That’s it! See, it’s one thing for me to point out the obvious, as I did in my media slam yesterday. But what if we walked GOP President Obama’s media coverage through the mirror darkly, as was SOP for President Bush?

NOW we’re gonna have some fun!

Let’s start with MSNBC’s ‘Countdown’ with Keith Olbermann, on Republican President Obama’s electoral landslide victory in November, and his 96% sweeping of the black vote.

KO: “It would seem the sinister and morally bankrupt Republican ploy of taking the White House with a totally inexperienced and faux minority candidate has been the most resounding political success for the GOP since the Reichstag Fire. Could African-Americans not act more self-destructively than in their rush to the polls to elect this Republican wolf in Martin Luther King clothing?

“Do they want to go back to slavery? For this abomination and slap in the face of freedom-loving Americans everywhere, and which has condemned this nation to yet another four endless years of war and jingoistic right wing fascism, I hereby declare every African-American voter who pulled the lever for this Republican Omar Bashir as the Worst Person in the World.”

Next up? Susan Roesgen of CNN, wandering through the crowd at a Democratic Chicago Tea Party.

SR, pointing to a protester wearing an Obama as Hitler/Satan mask: “Over here, we have a President Obama look-alike.” SR turns to a man in top hat holding a child. “What is your issue with the President, sir?” MAN: “It’s bad enough President Bush put us on the verge of bankruptcy. It appears the ObamaHitler is intent on finishing the job.”

SR: “Do you really believe President Obama when he tells us the City of Chicago will be getting fifty billion in new aid?” A protester wearing a KILL OBAMA tee shirt interjects: “No way! This is all for his and Darth Biden’s warmongering lobbyist friends in Halliburton and Blackwater! We’ll never see a dime of that money! KILL OBAMA! KILL BIDEN!”

Death chants rise in unison from the crowd. SR turns to the camera, smiling. “There you have it.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, on Iranian hostage Roxana Saberi.

WB: “It has now been nearly three months since Roxana Saberi was arrested in Iran, allegedly for buying a bottle of wine, and with no concrete action to free her by this administration. Even worse, since Ms. Saberi’s kangaroo court conviction on trumped-up charges of espionage, which is as common for reporters in Iran as citations for jaywalking are here, she has gone on a hunger strike, and her condition is worsening by the day.

“I cannot help but be reminded of murdered Iranian-Canadian journalist Ziba Kazemi, who was beaten, flogged, raped, her fingernails pulled and her skull fractured in Evin prison, ironically for the crime of taking pictures of protesters outside Evin. How many more journalists have to come out of Iran in body bags before this President will act?”

Markos Moulitsas of Daily KOS, on Air Force One’s low flyover of New York City with F-16 escort.

KOS: “The scariest thing for me out of this whole episode is how easily the ObamaHitler managed to arrange a Boeing 747 to fly low over New York City with nobody knowing, and I mean nobody! Is it really much of stretch to believe now that the BusHitler couldn’t have arranged the same thing on 9/11 with remotely-controlled commercial airliners?

“I can’t help but wonder. Was this a test run? And why this time? To accelerate the rush to war with Iran? The only questions that remain for me are these: When? And which American city does the ObamaHitler and his Halliburton buddies plan to turn into a bombed-out crater next, in order to get another round of war profiteering off to a Grand Old Start? Call me a tinfoil hat paranoid NOW! I dare you! I double-dare you!

“The ObamaHitler. Brand new color. Same old warmongering right wing fascism. Screw ‘em!”

Al Franken, America’s most popular radio talk show host, on President Obama’s political targeting of him from the White House itself.

AF: “It would seem President Obama and his fawning Reichminister, Rahm Emmanuel, don’t like my rousing nationwide success in calling them out for who they really are. This attempt to target me personally, a private citizen, from the White House, with all its authority and power, puts on display for all to see that the BusHitler’s self-groomed replacement’s ambitions exceeds even that of Darth Rove and his fascist leash-holder.

“Not only did that Hitler-like persecution of me personally not work, it has backfired badly. My nationwide listener numbers on Air America are skyrocketing. I suppose it’s time now to implement the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which President Obama’s Reichstag-like stooges in Congress are pushing at this very moment.

“I find it particularly disturbing that Republican House Speaker John Boner, spearheading this shredding of the Constitution, finds no fault with FIX News, Goon Beck, Shill O’Reilly or Bum Rush Limbaugh, all of whom ragged us as ballsuckers during our Tea Parties and implied we would become violent, but finds plenty wrong with NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and especially my Air America. Talk about Brownshirts calling the kettle black!

“See you in the Gulag, Keith! The Countdown is on!”

Michael Moore, on the controversial DHS Left Wing Extremism Report and DHS Fusion Centers.

MM: “After reading this incredibly vague and exceptionally broad DHS report on Left Wing Extremism, can anyone really say this isn’t an attempt by the Obama Administration and the Republicans to silence dissent in this country once and for all? Individuals who protest the war, support abortion, favor tougher gun laws, the rights of undocumented immigrants, even those who oppose the federal government itself, are called out as potential terrorists!

“My next anti-war film could land me in jail! I’m sorry, who are the extremists here again?

“Even the DHS Civil Liberties Division objected to the broad language of the report, which Obama’s Himmler-like DHS Secretary Janet Nazipolitano seemed to be in a hurry to rush out the door, and just in time for our nationwide protests. Coincidence? I think not. It is quite clear to me what this report says: “You are either with us, or you’re a terrorist.”

“No surprise there. And how ironic, considering the right wing extremists in the Hitlerite Obama regime are the real terrorists. Today’s Grand Old Party is not the party of Lincoln. It is the party of Hitler and Mussolini. Given the present occupier of the Oval Office, perhaps Idi Amin would be a better analogy.”

“By the way, you may want to look into DHS Oberfuhrer Nazipolitano’s so-called fusion centers. There are seventy of them around the country now. One fusion center in Virginia declared all of the state’s universities ‘nodes for radicalization.’ Another in Texas warned about the terrorist threat from the ‘International Far Left.’ And Nazipolitano calls them ‘the wave of the future.’ This nationwide politically-motivated DHS network is called ‘The National Fusion Center Coordination Group.’

“Anyone else thinking Einsatzgruppen besides me? That’s what Hitler called his Special Action Groups. Who’s going to head those up? Obama’s radical right wing extremist preacher Jeremiah Wright? Or his Timothy McVeigh-like pal Bill Ayers, who knows a few things about throwing bombs and killing innocents? You DO see where all this is going, don’t you, people? Should be as plain as the Swastika flag flying over the ObamaHitler White House!”

OBAMA ASSASSINATION CHIC

The Guardian/UK’s Charlie Brooker, just prior to President Obama’s GOP landslide.

“On November 4, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Obama loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. James Earl Ray – where are you now that we need you?”

Protest sign: “Obama. The only dope worth shooting.”

Air America’s Randy Rhodes on the air, likening President Obama to Freddie Corleone.

“Do they let black people into the Mafia? No? Well, I think they ought to make an exception for President Obama. At least long enough to take him out on a boat like Freddie Corleone and phuw!” (GUNSHOT)

Democratic Underground, on the current Swine Flu pandemic.

“Like Bush intentionally withholding aid from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in order to foment misery and violence, the ObamaHitler seems content to sit back and let this flu pandemic rage unabated. DHS Secretary Nazipolitano, who is such an idiot she doesn’t even know border law, has yet to close that same border in order to stem the flow of possibly infected Mexican nationals, even though clusters have now appeared as far north of the border as Queens, NY.

“Is this criminal negligence and malfeasance also intentional? Like Obama’s Republican lackeys in Congress rejecting nine hundred million in new flu pandemic funding? Who stands to suffer the most? I have no doubt the rich, and all of the ObamaHitler’s good buddies in Washington, will get the best treatment they possibly can. Just as they did lining up for Cipro during the BusHitler’s black bag job anthrax attack on the mail system, which Der Fuhrer staged in order to invade Iraq.

“But what of inner city minorities, who stand to suffer and die the most should this pandemic explode beyond control? Makes me wonder if they knew ahead of their flu pandemic funding vote that this would happen. Or worse, even started the epidemic themselves by injecting illegal aliens being deported to Mexico. Why else would Army samples go missing?

“If true, not only does this make our new Republican ‘multicultural’ Fuhrer in Washington a mass murderer, it makes him the greatest race traitor of all time. He would be guilty of nothing less than genocide. Just like his mentor, idol and BFF Omar Bashir in Sudan. Welcome to the American Darfur, courtesy of the ObamaHitler. Feeling better now?”

The moral of the story? Despite how rough of a ride it has been at times for President Obama, Democrat, he can thank God and his lucky stars he is not a Republican.

Now ask youself. Why is that?

Well, if he isn’t going to say anything, I am. By the way, this is an old song. Never liked it.

The issue of reparations for slavery, once a hot topic of political speculation and conjecture among pundits everywhere, not to mention political agitation and racial tension, is fast becoming a possible source of yet even more crushing financial drain on an already shaky American economy.

It is called H.R. 40, submitted by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) with three co-sponsors, and its exact title is  “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.” It was introduced on January 6th of this year, and has since been referred to committee.

A report by the committee is pending. Here is the bill’s foreword:

“To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”

I really don’t like that “and for other purposes” clause. It’s a blank check. In any bill. Like the one Massachusetts throws into all their ballot referendums. Five pages of fine print on how proposed tobacco taxes will be going straight to children’s health insurance programs, finished off with “or as the Legislature so designates.”

Ironically, this type of bill, if passed, could actually wind up hurting black Americans.

Example. If a longstanding company’s business can be traced back to pre-Reconstruction profiteering off of slavery by the Committee, and the company is ordered to pay millions in compensation as a result, who pays the price when that company lays off whole work forces for financial reasons? Or closes its doors for good, because the tab for a crime against humanity no living human being in America has suffered for generations is just too goddamn high?

And the American people are already wrung dry enough as it is. Yet given the makeup and track record of our current government, I would hardly expect common sense and reason to prevail here. Just the opposite, in fact. Ergo, I feel compelled to do the math on this subject myself, and H.R 40 just does not add up. My solution to the equation of reparations may be considered blasphemous by some. Fortunately, blasphemy is not a stoning crime in America. Yet.

Though I do expect legislative action soon. On top of this dangerous backdoor tax, that is.

My Fellow Americans, Reparations for Slavery by the United States Government, and the People of the United States of America, have been paid in full. With interest. But before we go back to the Dark Age of Slavery, let us look at America today. Or, more specifically, Americans. You can call them African-Americans if you like. I prefer the short form.

We’re all just a bunch of mutts anyway. Hardworking, hard-drinking, hard-dancing, music-loving, movie-going, sports-playing, pot-smoking, TV-watching, video-gaming, karaoke-singing, flame-blogging, barbecue-throwing, book-reading, church-going, internet porn-watching, tail-chasing mutts! And proud of it.

On that note, My Fine Fellow Americans, let us look at some of our other Fine Fellow Americans, both past and present. George Washington Carver. Scott Joplin. Hattie McDaniel. Billie Holiday. Louis Armstrong.  Muddy Waters. Bo Diddley. Little Richard. Skip James. Robert Johnson. Buddy Guy. Martin Luther King. Sidney Poitier. Muhammed Ali. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Diana Ross and the Supremes. James Brown. Marvin Gaye.  Jimi Hendrix. Sly Stone.  Billy Preston (one Beatles, one Stones). George Benson. Ben Vereen. Billy Dee Williams.  Clarence Williams III.

Two links for Clarence. I really like him. Have my whole life. From Mod Squad to Tales From The Hood to American Gangster, Clarence Williams III is the Bomb. My Man!

Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, who play better blind than most anyone of any color that can see. Curtis Mayfield. Isaac Hayes. The Brothers Chambers. The Brothers Johnson. No, the Dark Brothers are white. Spike Lee. Chris Rock. Denzel Washington. Bill Cosby. Eddie Murphy. Beyonce. Michael Jordan. Shaq. Halle Berry. Good sport, Halle. Wil Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith. Samuel L. Jackson.

Tina Turner and Donna Summer, who I REALLY had the hots for back in the day! Who didn’t? The list is really endless. Other than knowing I’m a total Blues and Funk freak now, you get the point.

And if you don’t? President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle.

I didn’t mention Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte because they’re palling around with Hugo Chavez, who kicked Human Rights Watch out of the country. For starters. But it’s not a Black Thing. I strongly disapprove of Sean Penn for the same reason.

But even for Harry and Danny life has been grand here in America, despite their bitching. They’ve both spent more money on clothes than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. Hell, the combined wealth of all the above rivals entire nations! And that’s my major point.

America has paid whatever debt it owed to Americans who were once slaves. In fact, America has done more that just pay back that debt with money. It has paid it back with the realization of dreams no price can be put on, even fulfilling some of my wildest dreams in the process.

And nowhere else on Planet Earth could those same dreams have been realized with the same phenomenal magnitude and impact for all involved. In fact, that is why I linked the hell out of all the above. To show just how far and wide that impact and magnitude really extends.

Despite lingering racial problems, which are hardly America’s province alone, and are most likely a tragic part of the human condition, nowhere on Earth can Americans of ANY color enjoy anywhere near the degree of happiness, success, fame, fortune and yes, even safety, as they do here in the Good Ole USA. I know James Brown felt good about Living in America.

Let us imagine for a moment that slavery never happened. That there was never any slave trade between Americans and African tribes, and no mass emigration of native Africans to America. With the notable exception of such outstandingly great nations as Ghana and Morocco, Africa today is a very troubled continent, and has been for some time. Sudan. Somalia. Algeria. Libya. Liberia. Zimbabwe. Uganda. Rwanda. Ethiopia. Nigeria. The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Tens of millions have died from war, disease, famine, massacre, even genocide in my lifetime. They die even today. Even Egypt, the Cradle of Civilization, has its modern-day troubles.

In America, the sick, racially motivated murder of James Byrd, Jr. in Texas was considered a national outrage, and rightfully so. No human being deserves to be brutalized like that! Two of the three Klan-like perps have been sentenced to death, and I would like nothing better than to plunger the needles myself. Though I would much rather drag them from chains behind my truck.

Yet on any average day in troubled Africa, hundreds of innocent James Byrds die violently, and in the worst possible ways. Even entire families. Even entire populations.

Some Americans may misinterpret those words as spiteful and racist: “well if you don’t like it here, go back to Africa!” That could not be further from the truth. My words mean exactly the opposite: where would most Americans of African origin really have been better off the past 140 years, given all the facts on the ground on both continents?

You could ask the same of Americans of Armenian descent. Or Jews who fled Europe for America. Yes, there have been many racial wrongs in America since the Civil War. The Klan’s cross-burning and lynching horrorshows. Rosewood. Tuskegee. Racial segregation. America has a very dark and tattered past. What nation doesn’t?

But that is not the America we live in today. We live in an America today that is so egalitarian, our exceedingly white-majority population just elected Barack Obama president in an electoral landslide. And he was elected to that highest of offices based on Americans’ perceptions of the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

Despite our flaws, we live in an America today that is the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream. Can anyone doubt rivers of tears would have streamed from Dr. King’s eyes at Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States? He would probably still be weeping tears of joy even now. And for a while to come.

But that is not enough for some Americans. And never will be.

For many, the past will always cloud the present, and our future as well. To some, it is their mission in life to keep those dark clouds hovering. Some Americans are constantly looking for racial trouble where none exists. Some of those troublemakers may even interpret my words to mean that slavery was a good thing. Doesn’t mean that at all.

But it may mean that a very good thing came out of a very great evil. It happens. Think of how much poorer our treasured American culture would be without all the above. And they’re all just scratching the surface. I for one believe that if Dr. King were alive today at the age of 80, he would be standing in an America which, despite its many flaws, he could not be prouder of.

And Dr. King knew the right way to go.

That main point seems to escape Rep. Conyers, Spike Lee and Al Sharpton, among many others. Or worse, they choose not to see, in order to maintain their own racial and political grudges despite how they have succeeded in, and profited immensely from, majority-white America.

I for one am sick of being beat over the head with the Slavery Club, or being called racist by birth. Am I to be judged by the color of my skin or the content of my character? Besides, not only did the Civil War end nearly 100 years before I was born, I’m a Northerner! I grew up poor in a mean housing project outside Boston! My Scottish-Irish great-grandfather came over from Edinboro in 1899!

I got nothin’ to do with it! And neither do tens of millions of immigrants since. Why should our tax dollars go to pay for some idiotic reparations bill that has already been paid in full, and more? We’ve already got minority scholarships, minority job fairs, minority business grants, minority hiring preferences, the Congressional Black Caucus, all of which my tax dollars support.

And all to which I am ineligible for admittance. And why? Because of my race.

My Fellow Americans, this constant racial fracturing, and digging up of the moldy corpse of slavery by grievance-mongering gold-diggers, in order to squeeze, browbeat and punish relentlessly their Fellow Americans on the issue of race, is Balkanizing us. E Pluribus Unum is out the window. Hell, I feel like an Irishman from Boston! Wait a minute…

Anyway. Enough said. I hope. Oh, and one last thing. Mostly white Americans shed an ocean of blood and treasure to rid this country of the scourge of slavery. Cost President Lincoln his life. You want I should put a price on all that? And what price should I demand for being terrorized in my youth by three black racist teenage thugs, who thought it would be funny to see how far I could suck in my white stomach as they pressed a knife blade into it?

Should I charge all black Americans for that egregious racially motivated offense, and two others? What price do I put on it? What does my nephew get for his broken jaw, and being beaten, stabbed, and nearly killed by four black Michigan Wolverine gang members in Cambridge, because of the color of HIS skin? What does Reginald Denny have coming to him?

Pursuing long-past racial grievances only nullifies any chance of racial harmony in the present and, more important, the future. The racial hatred and violence I and my nephew experienced personally was a hell of a lot more recent than the Civil War, yet I have let it go long ago. Even my nephew has let it go. It’s a shite-happening world. I only bring up my own racial brutalizing here, after thirty years, to show how dredging up the past on the matter of race gets us nowhere.

Time to put a lid on it, people. We must either bury the moldy corpse of slavery once and for all, or it will bury us. And our future as well. Not to mention our wallets. There are far more forums and mechanisms in place to address racial grievances in modern-day America than for any minority in any nation on earth.

In fact, the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction, is it now I, and millions of other Americans, coincidentally born in white meat suits, that are now being unjustly shut out of many societal benefits and opportunities because of the color of our skin, even as we pay for those same benefits out-of-pocket!

I am now a shut-out Irishman in Boston once again. How is that progress, I ask you?

Call all this White Rage if you will. But if the circumstances were reversed, I would be slamming white Americans just as hard. Probably harder, since I’m white myself. It is the idiocy, gold-digging and racial grievance-mongering I despise. It ain’t helping the matter of racial harmony in America any. Not one bit. Just the opposite, in fact. Resentment breeds resentment.

And I would say the same thing to them as I have said to today’s Nirthers, and now say to today’s reparations-seekers: Get Over It!

The Bar is Open for comments. So is Congress.