Dizzying Dive to Red Ink Poses Stark Choices for Washington
By DAVID FIRESTONE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — When President Bush informed the nation last Sunday night that remaining in Iraq next year will cost another $87 billion, many of those who will actually pay that bill were unable to watch. They had already been put to bed by their parents.

Administration officials acknowledged the next day that every dollar of that cost will be borrowed, a loan that economists say will be repaid by the next generation of taxpayers and the generation after that. The $166 billion cost of the work so far in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has stunned many in Washington, will be added to what was already the largest budget deficit the nation has ever known.

With a force that has surprised even critics of the administration, the Iraqi occupation has pushed to the forefront a budget deficit that had previously existed mostly as an abstract red stain on Democratic bar charts. With no extra money available for the foreseeable future, real choices are being illuminated on Capitol Hill — choices between electronic bombs and electrical grids, between low taxes now and lower retirement payments later.

Should Washington reconstruct Iraq's schools and hospitals, lawmakers are asking, or America's? Should it pay for more than 100,000 American troops to stay in Iraq, or for 40 million seniors to be offered prescription drugs through Medicare? And if it tries to do it all, should it keep cutting taxes?

The Bush administration says it can do all of the above, once the tax cuts inaugurate a burst of economic growth. Democrats and virtually every mainstream economist say that something will have to give, very possibly the government's retirement promises to millions of aging baby boomers.[p6: emphasis added]

Y'all boy Colin back in the news again…

I get to take extended breaks from mainstream political topics because so many folks do it well, all I have to do is point and go, "Yeah, what he said."

Case in point one, from Brad DeLong:

Case in point two, from Digby, discussion David Brooks' editorials on Bush:

Let's see, there's Cecily at Formica:

And there's Lynne d Johnson

Plus we got Luis, who get's a whole post, just scroll down.

And of course, me and my comments--which includes a thought or two on Islamic bloggers by Al-Muhajabah.

Anyone else?

[LATER: Corrected Cecily's name in the title (damn spellchecker!)]

Colorado Luis (an instant addition to the blogroll, btw) has picked up on the "What does it mean" in his own Latino context:

Like S-Train (see the comments to "What Does It Mean To Be A Black Blogger?"), Luis decided right up front that the ethnicity gors right up front:

Defining race out of existance.

Don't. Get. Me. Started.

Buried in there are links to his previous stuff. Check 'em.

He also says:

I have a very serious reason for separating the idea of Black blogs and Black bloggers, which is there's still way too fucking much noise about who's authentically Black. I ain't having none of that discussion in here. General Powell is Black. Disappointing, but Black. Condoleeza Rice is Black. Her great intelligence perverted by her dedication to The Dark Side, but Black. Thomas Sowell is Black. A sellout, but Black. Fifty Cent is Black. A bad fucking example, but Black.

And Kos is Brown, but because his blog is totally oriented on mainstream issues I can't say his blog is. Again, he's not in denial; you can't say "I am MEChA" in the middle of all this noise and be in denial, but the noise is a mainstream issue and is the only reason you know.

And there nothing wrong with that; just as there's nothing wrong with Luis' blog or mine, or MB's or Baldilocks' or any of a great number of blogs or magazines or web sites or organizations.

In closing:

• I'm primarily about Black folks's stuff, but Latino politics get rhythm too. So in addition to Luis, I'm adding Grande Mesa Latino News (he's on pMachine rather than the Almighty Movable Type, but that's cool…) and Luz Paz.
• "The problem is the name of the blog and my own biases -- when I saw the name I assumed it was some geeky sci-fi blog that would not interest me." - Don't be riffin' on my name, dawg. Seriously, I been easy to miss. I haven't been blogging for a year, and after all, Atrios and Tapped never read my blog
• I'm hoping LatinoPundit hollas when he makes that move to MT. No point adding him to the blogroll just tt have to change it…
• Looks like TAPPED's hopes for the death of identity politics has a snowball's chance in hell of coming about. Let's get ALL them identities out there. If they're as clever as they think they are, they'll come up with another plan. I have faith in the, We all do.

If, instead of saying;

improvements in productivity means less workers are required to produce the same output

we said

improvements in productivity mean workers produce the required value with less effort

what would the impact on employment policy be?

Man, Yu-Gi-Oh! would rock without the damn commercials.

via Billmon

The suggestions are such that if they were followed even I would consider voting for the adminstration that did it.

Sharpton's Example

By David S. Broder
Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page B07

…But there was one thing I found revealing about their performance, and it had nothing to do with the way they dealt with Iraq, Israel, the economy, health care -- or each other.

I was riveted by their reactions when backers of Lyndon LaRouche, the leader of a fringe political faction and chronic candidate for the Democratic nomination, repeatedly interrupted proceedings at the Congressional Black Caucus debate with loud complaints about LaRouche's exclusion.

The only candidate who knew how to deal with this unprogrammed event -- the only one who figured out how to profit from it -- was, believe it or not, Al Sharpton.

That doesn't erase the many liabilities he brings into the contest, but it does show he has a quality people crave in a president -- the ability to take charge of a situation.

The first time the shouting broke out, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida was speaking. He froze. So did almost all his rivals. Sharpton was the first person to find his voice. He told the hecklers, "Now, you all don't get to the Black Caucus debate and start acting up now."

The second outburst -- shouts of "Where is LaRouche?" -- came when Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was answering a question. He just stood there looking pained. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean was quick-witted enough to comment, "I suspect he's in jail," where LaRouche had been on mail fraud charges. But again it was left to Sharpton to admonish the noisemakers.

Addressing the moderator, Fox News's Brit Hume, Sharpton said, "Brit, can we appeal to people? I mean, this is a historic night, the first time the Congressional Black Caucus had a debate. Would you all respect our right to be heard like we respected everybody else?"

A wave of applause signaled that most in the audience were glad somebody was taking charge.

Twice more, there were outbursts -- once interrupting Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and then Lieberman again.

All the victims turned to Sharpton for help. In stern tones, he told the offending members of the audience that the candidates would not "tolerate the continual breakup of what we are trying to say here tonight to the American people…You've not done it at any other debate. You're not going to do it now. You're playing this phony liberal game, and you wait until our night to start acting up. We don't appreciate it. I don't care who's not on this stage. You're going to respect us on this stage because we've got something to say."

A relieved Lieberman said, "Well, first, let me say to my dear friend, Reverend Sharpton, amen."

When Racial Discrimination Is Not Just Black and White
By BRENT STAPLES

The historian John Hope Franklin is black to the naked eye. A boulevard named in his honor runs through Greenwood, the black section of Tulsa, Okla., where he lived as a child. The Franklins are not just black, however, but also Native American. Milley Franklin, Mr. Franklin's grandmother, was one-quarter Choctaw and was raised as Choctaw, attending Indian schools. Her children — including John Hope Franklin's father, the lawyer B. C. Franklin — are clearly listed on the official tribal rolls that determined who was a member of the Choctaw Nation. The rolls were important, since tribal members got land when the reservations were dissolved.

Americans are often shocked to learn that black Indians exist at all — and that Native Americans actually held slaves. Like the white slave owners they emulated, Native Americans often fathered children by enslaved women and occasionally — as in Milley Franklin's case — treated those children as family. As a result, millions of black Americans are descended from black people who were either members of the tribes during slavery or adopted into them just after Emancipation.

White families have begun to acknowledge mixed-race connections after centuries of denial. But the attitudes of some Native Americans have not evolved in the same way. Both the Seminole and the Cherokee tribes have employed discriminatory policies to prevent black members from receiving tribal benefits — and to strip them of the right to vote in tribal elections.

The Interior Department, which oversees the tribal governments through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has historically regarded this kind of racial discrimination as a violation of 19th-century treaties that required the Indian nations to treat black members as full citizens. But the Bush administration could conceivably change course and actually validate these discriminatory policies.

I was going to something on that Malaysian/Muslim?Hip-hop convergence, but I realized tha Lynne said it all, including some stuff I didn't think of

What with shit like Fiddy using bullet scars as marketing tools, I totally understand why hip-hop is still seen as nefarious. My problem is that, as Lynne says, it is the only image of Black Americans much of the world has…including much of America.

Just ran past S-Train. Sometimes I think I need to make a special category for the brother. Check his 9/11 post:

Yes, m'am.

But before I do, I have to say I'd have posted this in your comments, except when the page refreshes to update your iTunes play list it wipes out whatever has been entered in the comments form. Grrr.

People just do thing, events just happen, and meaning is extracted from our memories of the events. If we do stuff in order to project a meaning, that will just be another element that goes into the memory bank, another part of the pattern from which meaning will actually be extracted.

I'm not sure Black folks who blog are doing anything different than any other bloggers. Some of us do politics, some have personal blogs, whatever whatever. But writing this makes me think about exactly what is a "Black blogger." Because it's not just a Black person who has a blog. A number of Black folks what blog don't have what you'd call "Black content" (which I'm using as shorthand for "content derived from and/or targeted to participants in African American culture and their activities"). It's hard to tell some folks are Black just from the content.

So do you include a Steve Gilliard or a Jesse Taylor as Black bloggers? I don't know…I include them as Black guys, but they don't focus on Black content like any number of us do. They're not in denial or anything either, it's more like it makes no sense to say, "I'm Black and Bush sucks." I've seen both of them be very clear that they are Black when it was appropriate to the subject they were writing on. But I don't know if I'd call them "Black bloggers."

I think I have to switch up a bit and refer to "Black blogs" instead of "Black bloggers" for clarity's sake. I can skip the extra quotes that way.

So. What does it mean to run a Black blog? I think it's either an attempt to make a statement or a connection. In my case, it's the statement (though to be honest, the connections I've made incidental to the statements I've made have been rather cool. Not deep, but that may be me).

You remember that old cartoon:

Of course, nowadays we know better. We know it's more like this:

The real response to the first cartoon, though, is "What's wrong with being a dog?"

Why should someone be satisfied by acceptance that comes at the price of anonymity? Is that acceptance anyway?

All Black people view themselves from the outside as well as from the inside to a degree that mainstream folks do not understand. This is what DuBois meant by his dual soul formulation, to this day the best description of the core problem of being Black in the USofA I've ever read. And while traveling in the mainstream, Black folks tend to give primacy to the external view for practical reasons.

The connections made online, through blogs, mailing lists, discussion boards and the like, provide opportunities to express and develop that internal view in ways that are socially unprecedented. That Black topics don't have the same weight in everyone's internal view is fine. In fact, it helps shatter the stereotypes and scatter the pieces.

And we're STILL not doing anything any other blogger isn't doing.

I just crept into Large Mammal status. And I'm really not sure how that happened.

Not sure how long it'll last either.

Totally unrelated to that, I haven't read the news or even the editorial cartoons today. I'll get to it, but I doubt posting anything about it. I've been scanning my normal political blogs but reading culture via following links from blogs by Black folks. I can't comment on all of them, of course, but I have to get to several on Lynne d Johnson's diary. In particular, I'm reminded to comment on an article on a Malaysian/Muslim/Hip hop intersection and what does it mean to be a black blogger.

I can't believe someone is searching for cartoons nude and fucking.

Relations Break Down Between U.S. and Them

WASHINGTON, DC—After decades of antagonism between the two global powers, the U.S. has officially severed relations with Them, Bush administration officials announced Tuesday.

"They have refused to comply with the U.S. time and time again," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, following failed 11th-hour negotiations Monday night. "It's always unfortunate when diplomacy fails, but we could not back down. We have to be ready to fight back, in the name of freedom, against all of Them at once, if necessary."

Rumsfeld added: "If They're not with us, They're against us."

U.S.-Them relations have been strained for nearly three years, but disagreements came to a head last week, when two of Their leaders opposed a U.S.-drafted U.N. proposal seeking cooperation from Them in important peacekeeping missions.

"We've tried reasoning, but Their agendas are in direct opposition to ours," Vice-President Dick Cheney said. "They stand in stark defiance of stated U.S. policy. We cannot and will not allow Them to dictate global policy."

Many current U.S. policies regarding Them are outlined in a recent State Department report titled "Long Term Organizational And Regulatory Governmental Procedures: U.S. vs. Them." According to the document, the standoff is a result of Their continued economic encroachment, Their ongoing reluctance to allow U.S. military bases on Their lands, and the refusal of many of Them to speak English.

"The U.S. is surrounded on all sides by Them," Rumsfeld said. "Over 90 percent of the planet's land mass is controlled by Them, and the territories immediately south, west, east, and north of the U.S. are all occupied by Them. Until we can correct this risky state of affairs, it is vital that we maintain our military readiness to intervene whenever and wherever They oppose us."

Another key factor in the standoff is U.S. dependence on Them-controlled resources.

"The world's petrochemical supplies are nearly exhausted," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said. "If we allow Them to control the only remaining fossil-fuel sources, how are we supposed to get our oil? By buying it from Them?"

"They only think about what's good for Them, but we're concerned with the needs of all Americans," Rice added.

Aaron at Uppity-Negro missed a dinner date declares himself the suckiest suckass in the history of sucking. Having known some suckers that truly excel in sucking, some whose suckage skill are an inspiration to the fine engineers at Hoover Vacuums and make high-class hookers green with envy, I can't say I agree.

Besides, he linked to an interesting email panel discussion on why "Black Books" (being comic books) don't sell.

I don't think I'll call myself an American for the next day or so.

I didn't watch any 9/11 thing. And I didn't read any 9/11 articles, including the blog entries that are sprouting mushrooms.

Okay, I caught a piece if the kids reading their relatives' names at "Ground Zero." And I heard the news anchor talking about how watching these children do this recalled the pain and anguish of 9/11 and I'm like, "Why the fuck would anyone want to recall the pain and anguish?"

Look, I'm not saying you should drop the whole issue. This ain't about forgiveness or forgetfulness.

I'm just saying I've had deaths in my life too, and I know that if you keep peeling that scab and pouring salt in that would you don't heal. I strongly suspect that's true on a national scale as well as a personal one.

Excess emotion blocks clear judgement. That's all I'm saying.

I read Atrios, and in fact all the A-list types, in waves. I go past their sites for some reason or other, read every day for a week or two, then read entirely other folks for a week or two. Lather, rinse, repeat.

When I do get to Atrios, though, he can be rather funny:

I guess you Blogger folks know this, but in case you don't:

Good news, folks! The feature wagon just arrived and dropped off a host of bloggity goodness at rock-bottom prices. And we're passing the savings on to you! That is, we're rolling in a bunch of features that will give you more powerful and flexible publishing power (for free).

These features include:

Spellchecking: Fewer typos. Look smarter.
Post-Dating: Adjust the date and time for a post, so it can show up under yesterday's heading, or save it for a later date (so you remember to post about your friend's birthday).
Drafts: Not done with that thought? Mark it a draft and complete it later. Or keep things in draft form for your own reference.
Daily Archiving: In addition to monthly and weekly options.
Post Titles: An optional field to add a title, or subject line, to each post. Handy if you format things that way in your template.
Post Template: If you routinely use the same formatting or HTML in your posts, load it in automatically.
BlogSend: Post to your blog, and it is sent via email.
Image/File Upload: Easily upload and link to photos and other files when making a post. Not available for non-Plus .blogspot.com sites!
We also released a couple other features recently, which you may have missed:

Better Internationalization: Time zones and date formatting is now supported for locales around the world. We also have better encoding for many different character sets.
Secure Publishing: If you're publishing to an outside host (instead of blogspot.com), you can now use SFTP instead of FTP. (It's more secure — ask your web host if they support it.)
For more information on how to use these features, check the (also new) Blogger Knowledge Base.

Though I need to tell you, they should have made sure the editor was correct before posting that notice.

They got stuff for ya if you're a Blogger Pro person too. A sweatshirt or partial refund, because the only things that distinguish a Pro account from a free account is stuff you may well not be using. It's good that they remembered, I give 'em props for that.

Now if their archives would only work…

via Hesiod

Man Buys Groceries With Fake $200 Bill
Bill Bears President Bush's Image On Front

ROANOKE RAPIDS, N.C. - Police are searching for a man who paid for $150 in groceries at a Food Lion grocery store with a $200 bill.

The man walked out of the store with his groceries and $50 in change before the fake bill was discovered Sept. 6.

The bogus bill - the U.S. Mint does not print a $200 bill - bore the image of President George W. Bush on the front and had the White House on the back. It also included signs on the front lawn of the front lawn of the White House with slogans such as "We like broccoli" and "USA deserves a tax cut," Roanoke Rapids police said.

Instead of being labeled a Federal Reserve note, the fake bill was marked as a "Moral Reserve Note." The bill bore the signatures of Ronald Reagan, political mentor, and George H.W. Bush, campaign adviser and mentor.

Officials at the local Food Lion had no comment.
                        

I was just think that if blogs had existed before I became old and bitter, this thing might have been more like Glenn's Hi. I'm Black!.

Then I realized I've ALWAYS been old and bitter.

Hi. I'm...Gray? Striped? Layered? Whatever, this could be amusing.

Though I'll always disagree with The Black Republican, I think I will be grateful for finding out about The Fourth Turning and may have to buy the book and its sequel, Millennials Rising.

via MaxSpeak

http://www.distributive-justice.com/mainpage_frame-e-n.htm

Very graphical, very interactive, very interesting sets of data and very, very cool.

Having found Julian Sanchez views the multi dimensionality of political thought much as I do was interesting, as it's likely he is unfamiliar with me as I am with him. Al-Muhajabah says he's a thoughtful libertarian and as I've found her judgment trustworthy I decided this morning to look around his site. I found his review of Thomas Sowell's "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" an interesting read.

People who've read more than two days worth of posts here will accurately assume I have little truck with Sowell's political positions, so I have not read the book myself. I will say Mr. Sowell would make an intellectually challenging adversary. He tends to make fairly sound, detailed analyses that are difficult to refute. One can, however, understand his analyses and turn them on the positions he himself holds, while insuring ones own positions are sound enough not to be vulnerable to the same tactics. Anyway, because I haven't read it I can't really say I'm taking issue with Sowell, and because I've commenting on Mr. Sanchez' review I have to assume his take on the book is correct. And though I believe Mr. Sanchez finds himself in accord with the meaning he finds in Mr. Sowell's book, because he is presenting his view of Sowell's ideas rather than his own, I can't take issue with Mr. Sanchez' views either. An interesting balancing act.

You can keep up with Ghod knows how many blogs with an RSS reader.

The thing is, I'm not sure I want to. The amount of ignorance, willful blindness or just toadying and toeing the party line—and yes, I'm talking about the conservatives out there—is unbelievable. Add to that the denial about racial realities and I become seriously concerned.

Take for instance the post immediately below this one. It's about Tapped's great moral concern over "identity politics." Given the reality of the situation, what's the alternative? None, Atrios was right and anyone with even a single eye can see that. But did you read the comments to my post? Brad DeLong (whose name I will capitalize correctly from now on) said:

If true, and Brad has shown himself to be perceptive so his opinion has weight with me, the folks at Tapped are more concerned that people they have influence with return to power than morality…and they seem willing to sell out minorities to make that happen. At minimum they are trying to convince minorities to set aside our interests for the benefit of others. Again. And if we do, what happens when "liberals" take control again? Do we get to be heard then?

No!

Because it will just have been proven that the way to gain and keep power is to ignore minorities!

There's a lot of people out there in the mainstream that, whether they understand my issues or not (many don't) do not accept this. I know that. But it feels to me like the DLC and its ilk are a fifth column in progressive ranks.

I also know there's a number of white folks that understand, if not feel, the issues. Frankly, this nation's only hope it that those white folks speak up and more…that the truth they speak is accepted. That people recognize that we can do more than one thing at a time, that white people, Black people, Mexican people Amerind people, European, Asian and African immigrant people have issue that can all be addressed if the greed and power hunger of a few are not permitted to run roughshod over the morals and ethics this nation professes.

I know the USofA did NOT become the power it is today through the neat power sharing methods it promotes for the use of other nations. But I know that as a nation we are wealthy and powerful enough to do what we demand of other.

I just hope the nation decides to do it, at least within our national territory.

The identity politics discussion between Tapped and Atrios has been interesting.

I have no issues with Atrios' position (while recognizing that he could conceivably have issues with mine). And I actually understand what Tapped is saying, but I have some questions for the crew at The American Prospect that will unfortunately never be asked of them. Not snarky questions like my last set…I was annoyed and that was my gut response. But I have thought through my position. I do have reasons for being so intently partisan.

If I say "Black people" each and every American knows exactly who I'm talking about…a socially defined, rather arbitrary group of such varied appearance it makes no sense to say we're grouped by skin color. My sister Natalie prefers "melanin challenged." A brother I know talks about "the New Afrikan Nation." I myself when being precise say "people whose African ancestry is the visually and/or culturally dominant feature to the perceiver." And all the alternatives somehow coincide. The same group of people are under discussion.

We generalize by talking about culture as the defining trait, or we discuss "people of color" to dilute the differences. We suggest EA (Economic Assistance) replace AA (Affirmative Action) and insist on race neutrality. All noble intellectual positions. And we know race is as much a social construct as the Oakland Raiders. But just as the Raiders have the same interests as the Tennessee Titans yet must approach them differently because of the specific composition of the team, the different "identity interest" groups, due to the specific composition and experiences of the individuals that compose them, have different needs and require different approaches to pursue those goals.

Does this make sense?

My question for Tapped is, how do they suggest we proceed? Do they suggest that we simply deny our specific needs?

I've referred to this in the past as The Procrustean Problem. It comes down to this: there are aspects of, say, the Latino experience that simply doesn't fit into the box defined by the mainstream, or by the Black experience, or the European immigrant experience. If, for instance, Black people choose their responses solely from the options provided by the mainstream experience, aspects of ourselves will be unserved and others will be amputated.

Is this truly what they suggest? I think not. I hope not. I'd like to think their concern is over not exceeding the point where a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, and the point where excessive rhetoric becomes a goad. But in truth, when we whose issues do not match the mainstream's precisely read suggestions that we abandon the pursuit of those issues from putative allies, it sounds a lot like that point has been reached by the mainstream.

via Move The Crowd
WHOSE GOT THE (PIMP) JUICE? Better not answer that unless you wanna get boycotted.

"Nelly is selling out because he only cares about making money, just like pimps and drug pushers. We intend to chase Nelly's Pimp Juice out the black community," stated Ali, National director of Project Islamic Hope.

Jes' funnin'…

In keeping with a promise I made myself I added dcthornton.com to the RSS reader. Today he pointed approvingly to a post by Dean Esmay, with whom I am unfamiliar, about why he's no longer a Democrat though he calls himself a Liberal. Fair enough…as I said when I first started blogging:

And why is he stealing my Political Metadimensions concept???

Seriously, I don't know who he is, but I like the way he thinks.

File trading will undeniably have some effect on CD purchasing. Some folks will just get their music for free, some will get the one or two tracks they like. But the RIAA has been making certifiably insane claims that cause the average person to discount every complaint the industry has. Less denial from the industry is long overdue.

Ghod, it's like looking into a parallel universe. Who tells these people these things, and why do they still believe it?

Look at the position SCO is in.

The rare totally quoted article. This is from TomPaine.com, and they have a newsletter if you'd rather have some stuff come to you. I know that's oh-so-passé, but I find it convenient at times.

This is the beginning of clarity, for the illusion of life is not that things aren't what they seem but that you must be the person to whom it seems that way.

Alim Ra

I'm thinking I should only do this on weekends. We'll see.

Why America Needs Us To Be Black
by Earl Dunovant
copyright © 1994

July 4th is celebrated as the birthday of the United States
of America. Though it is the anniversary of the signing of
the Declaration of Independence, it is not the day America
was born. America was born August 20, 1619. That's the day
British pirates landed a Dutch ship on the shores near
Jamestown, Virginia. That's the day pirates sold the first
20 Africans to British colonists, setting the North
American continent on a course that has since shaped the
world.

One hundred fifty seven years later, after considerable
wrangling to make slavery legally, religiously. . .
automatically. . . acceptable, after artisans, metal
workers, laborers, cooks, and servants built the landscape
and economy of this nation, after the well-being of the
majority was insured by labor of the last tribe of Africa,
a nation was declared to be born based on the words of
Thomas Jefferson - "We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are the right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness"

Noble words from a slaveowner, a man whose livelihood
depended on depriving the Children of Africa of those
rights.

America has never lived up to that statement. The nature of
America, of Americans, a mere generation ago was much the
same as it was in 1776 - a place and a people that allowed
you to go as far as your abilities would take you, as long
as you weren't an Amerind or African. And it's not very
different now. It can't be. Less than 40 years have passed
since Freedom Summer, when civil rights activists tried to
influence America. The summer that saw the Federal
government mobilize to find two missing white civil rights
workers (that a Black one was missing was, I'm convinced,
incidental. No ever one searched for the many, many Blacks
that vanished before that day. . .). They dragged a lake in
search of their bodies, and found instead nine Children of
Africa that had been lynched and disposed of. Ultimately,
two of the co-conspirators turned in the others.
Ultimately, 19 men were implicated, including the locals in
charge of law enforcement. Ultimately, the sovereign state
of Mississippi refused to press charges for murder.

Many of these men are still alive, as are many of those who
plotted with them. The college students and workers in
their mid- to late-twenties who rioted and were willing to
kill to maintain segregation, the government officials
assigned to track and report the location of civil rights
workers to local officials who were known Klan members, the
FBI agents who stood and watched as Blacks were mercilessly
brutalized. . . almost all these people are still alive.

Their children, who likely share the same values, will be
alive even longer.

America treats us as outcasts, seems to see us as unfit to
share in the wealth we helped create. Yet we were here as
long as you were, America. We worked as hard as . . . no,
harder than . . . any other to make this nation what it is.
We were abused and denied, but we were never destroyed.

America asked the world for its tired, its poor, its
wretched of spirit. . . and turned its back on its own. Yet
there has been some improvement because we would not
relent. We will never give up on our rightful claim. We
have been good for America, and not merely by giving our
labor to her. Every moral improvement America has made has
been in response to the efforts of the Children of Africa.
Every truly new cultural movement in America has its roots
in the activities of the Children of Africa. Every group
that seeks to end its unequal treatment under the present
system compares it's movement to, and models its movement
after, the Civil Rights movement of the Children of Africa.

I say to you America, if you wish to continue to grow wiser
and stronger, you need us. We are the measure of your
honor. If you are ever to live up to your credo, if America
is ever to be what it claims to be, white America must move
beyond its attitude toward the Children of Africa. All the
efforts to make us merely black white people reflect a fear
of advancement to morality. And without morality, your
power bids fair to destroy the world. Like it or not, you
need us proud, you need us strong. America must learn to
accept the diversity in its midst before it finds itself
unable to deal with the diverse world it lives in.
Immigrants seek to become a part of America - they can't
help it in this effort. No, the only people in America that
can goad her to greater openness are the Children of
Africa.

Black Residents Outraged Against Police Brutality

SAN FRANCISCO (NCM) - On Aug. 25, two White San Francisco police officers drove up Middlepoint and West Point Road in the neighborhood of Hunters Point between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Lee Collins, a 23-year-old resident of the area, who many may know as Baby Finsta, and was featured in Kevin Epps' award-winning independent film "Straight Outta Hunter's Point," was called out by the officers.

As they approached him, he put his hands up, and the officers commenced hitting him with their billy clubs, punching and kicking him until he was unconscious.

At the same time, they were uttering derogatory remarks to his relatives. The officers who made the initial stop called in for their backup to detain everybody in white t-shirts in the area.

When backup arrived, approximately 30 officers showed up, pointing guns at children, who were as young as 8 years old, as well as other residents who had witnessed the act of police brutality.

Fourteen-year-old Marcus Law, an honor roll student who has never been in trouble with the law, was approached and immediately hit with a police billy club, causing him to go to the hospital.

At least two other adults were brutalized in the incident, and a number of children and other spectators were traumatized by what they saw.

The police said that Collins started the trouble by fleeing and resisting arrest, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Atrios pretty much said what needed to be said about TAPPED's suggestion that minorities shouldn't pursue their own interests.

Wait a minute. That's not what they said!

Yes, it is.

I fully recognize that my interests overlap those of white folks, Mexican folks, Japanese folks, et al. But overlap isn't the same as coincide. If TAPPED can honestly say they have to deal with all the same issues that I do…if the neo-Confederates have the same reaction when looking at Robert Kuttner as when looking at me…if Harold Meyerson gets stopped for Driving-While-Black…if white folks start moving out of neighborhoods when too many people who look like Paul Starr move in…in short, when following up totally and exclusively on their concerned will leave no concern of mine unresolved, I'll consider letting them define what I should and shouldn't pursue.#

Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Electrolite reviewed a bunch of the new group blogs and Open Source Politics came up, in his opinion, as the worst design-wise though he says the content is pretty good.

Some of my co-authors responded in his comments. Being lazy (and frankly, more concerned for my readers than anyone else's) I figure the trackback will let him respond or not to my opinion here.

Black Americans gather for day of solidarity
Dubbed the Million Youth March, the theme of this year's rally was opposition to the war in Iraq and an appeal to young black Americans to stop gun violence and pursue education

NEW YORK - Several thousand black Americans came together in Brooklyn for a day of solidarity, expressing dissatisfaction with U.S. President George W. Bush's war in Iraq, an uncertain economy and police brutality.

Dubbed the Million Youth March, the theme of this year's rally was opposition to the war in Iraq and an appeal to young black Americans to stop gun violence and pursue education.

"I say to you, black youth, come out of Bush's military. There is nobody more violent than George Bush," said Malik Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black Panthers, a successor to the militant black power group of the 1960s.

"We have got a criminal in the White House. We have got a gangster in the White House," he said.

Speaking of police brutality, a rallying cry in recent rallies, Shabazz voiced frustration with going to funerals of young black men killed by police violence. "We're going to have to get to the day when we get some police funerals," he said. [p6: then again, maybe not]

The march, organized by the New Black Panthers, was peaceful. Marred by violence in recent years, police said they had made no arrests around the march as of early afternoon.

The crowd was a mix of young and old, men and women. The rally featured poetry readings and rap performances. Red, black and green flags -- the flag of black nationalism in the United States -- waved over the crowd as fists were raised with chants and cries of "black power."

"Everybody that is out here right now is here to support the black baby," said a New Black Panthers member from Philadelphia who called himself King Samir.

Within the audience, people voiced frustration with the economy, police brutality, U.S. foreign policy and the disenfranchisement of many black Americans.

"There are a number of things that we have to deal with. Young people are ... an energetic vehicle, that can help us deal with it -- such as crime, such as us injuring one another, such as business development, such as the empowerment of our community," said Job Mashariki, a Brooklyn resident.

"We have to have economic and political security for the youth," said one man who called himself Bible Souljah.

"When you have more black men and women on the unemployment list than you have working, then that's a problem," said another man from Philadelphia calling himself Divine Savior.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, the jobless rate for black Americans in August was 10.9 percent, while the rate for white Americans was 5.4 percent.

The President's Speech
While President Bush finally set a price tag on the cost of the Iraqi effort, he still has not done nearly enough to level with the American people.

The Failuremongers
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
How best to answer the merchants of dismay who are against our occupation in Iraq? By staying the course and reporting our accomplishments.
[p6: The upshot-"Neener-neener, I can't hear you…"

Corporate shell games

NOBODY LIKES paying taxes but it's an indispensable duty in a society that hopes to maintain firefighters, police and other emergency services, and to keep roads passable, children educated, hospitals open, streets lighted and more.

So it's unsettling and unacceptable that some corporations are dodging taxes by artificially relocating offshore.

These "inversions" occur when a company moves -- on paper only -- to a place like Bermuda to evade taxes. Having a mail drop beyond the "water's edge" makes a company tax-exempt -- though their plants, workforce and markets are still on U.S. soil.

Though legal, it's an accounting sham, a shell game that brings to mind Enron and other corporate scoundrels.

Difficult to Draw a Bead on Issue of Targeted Killings
By Michael Walzer

No one can be happy about the targeted killings that are now official policy in the war against terrorism. Israel has made the practice notorious, but the United States, after criticizing Israeli policy, has also adopted it. And I suspect that other countries have done so as well, or will, under terrorist threat.

Cartoons

Click the image, follow the link to the whole cartoon. Trust me.

Plus:
Tom Toles on the perils of identity theft.
Pat Oliphant sums up yesterday's Bushit.
Tony Auth sums up the REASON for yesterday's Bushit.

Since I've already shown myself to be tacky in the commentary to the piece about that report on NY's economic development plans, I thought I'd include the thumbnail of the columnist because she's kinda fine.

New teacher left corporate job for 'important work'
Dawn Turner Trice

Two weeks ago, my friend Paul Miller began his new job as an 8th-grade algebra teacher at a south suburban middle school.

Last year, Paul, 44, who has a wife and three children, left a corporate job making a six-figure salary and decided to pursue a teaching career. For several years he had been contemplating changing professions.

I thought about him when I read a recently released study from the National Education Association that said only 2 in 10 teachers in America's classrooms are men. That's the lowest ratio in 40 years. The study also said that just 1 in 10 teachers is from a minority group.

According to the Illinois State Board of Education's 2002 teachers service record data, 77 percent of Illinois teachers are women and 23 percent are men. In terms of diversity, only 15 percent are minorities, including African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and American Indians.

Paul, an African-American man, is a rarity in his field

I get cranky about the use of labels myself, sometimes.

Who should wear the 'terrorist' label?

By Christine Chinlund, 9/8/2003

WITH THIS WEEK'S 9/11 anniversary comes reflection on all that has changed these past two years. Even our language has shifted; the word terrorism itself casts a different shadow. It has always, of course, been a powerfully negative label. But post-9/11 the word's potency has multiplied. In the current climate, the terrorist tag effectively banishes its holder from the political arena. More than ever, it condemns rather than describes.

Indeed, newspapers must be doubly careful about how they apply the word. Sparing use is the norm. For example, the Palestinian organization Hamas, whose suicide bombers maim and kill Israeli citizens, is routinely described in the Globe and other papers as a "militant," not terrorist, group.

Such restraint infuriates some Middle East partisans (most often, but not exclusively, supporters of Israel) who say it sugarcoats reality and that any group targeting civilians is terrorist. I receive regular demands to, as a Chelmsford reader put it, "stop misleading readers with terminology that affords terrorists a false degree of legitimacy."

What possible reason is there for not unflinchingly applying the word terrorist to any organization or person who targets civilians? It may seem like hair-splitting, but there's a reason to reserve the terrorist label for specific acts of violence, and not apply it broadly to groups.

To tag Hamas, for example, as a terrorist organization is to ignore its far more complex role in the Middle East drama. The word reflects not only a simplification, but a bias that runs counter to good journalism. To label any group in the Middle East as terrorist is to take sides, or at least appear to, and that is not acceptable. The same holds true in covering other far-flung conflicts. One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter; it's not for journalists to judge.

That said, journalists can not, and should not, be blind to reality. When we see terrorism, we should say so. A suicide bombing on a crowded bus is clearly an act of terrorism and should be so labeled. And it should also be described in all its painful detail. Such reporting is more powerful in its specificity than any broad label.

This approach -- call the act terrorist, but not the organization -- is used in many newsrooms, including the Globe's. It allows for variations: The terrorist label can appear in a quote or when detailing Washington's official list of terrorist groups. But not in the reporter's own voice.

Reading this NY Times piece from the erspective of a ling-time New Yorker, I appreciate the conclusions made in this report. Improving the operating environment for research and educational institutions in particular is promising. New York City has the infrastructure they need…buildings that were banks wired for T1 connectivity were being converted to apartments pre-9/11. As a communications hub, a transportation hub and a cultural hub, this could be the ultimate college town. With all the plusses and minuses that entails, of course. (hint: I'm thinkin' hot college students. )

Anyway, New Yorks City's" plans have been entirely reflexive, which is why corporations regularly get tax breaks for providing public park space by having an area covered with concrete with a few scrawny trees and maybe a statue of some sort adjacent to their building. Not to mention the property tax breaks that tend to approach the amount of payroll taxes paid by the employees…the very definition of corporate welfare.

Alternate post title: Bush is a copycat, repeats warnings made by progressives long before the invasion of Iraq

Bush Warns America of a Heavy Burden
By DAVID E. SANGER

In a sobering speech on Sunday[p6: I knew he was high when he was making these decisions!], President Bush set out to convince the country that the terrible toll in Iraq is a necessary price to pay in a struggle against terrorism.

via Slashdot
DARPA intends to conduct a challenge of autonomous ground vehicles between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in March of 2004. A cash award of $1 million will be granted to the team that fields the first vehicle to complete the designated route within a specified time limit. The purpose of the challenge is to leverage American ingenuity to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle technologies that can be applied to military requirements. Many of the details of the event are being developed, and new information will be posted to this web site as soon as possible.

Also:
Politicized 9/11 or Trivialized 9/11 Not a damn thing is better
Jo Fish (of Democratic Veteran) gives us a military veteran's take on Bush's belief that invoking 9/11 justified a pre-emptive war - and warns us that it's "time to wake up and begin to put the lie to that belief."

It's September 2003. Do You Know Where Your BioTerrorism Preparedness Is? (Part I) (Part II) by P.G. Gandy of Half the Sins of Mankind and this comment thread (wherein an explanation of the presumption pointed to below is given)

A Variation on a Theme by Fred Henning of Rantavation gives up one of the "funny if it weren't so true" thangs.

There's a couple of comment threads that would have been very useful to me personally had the not ended with my last question(s). Maybe I'm premature in assuming they've died.