Saturday, September 28, 2013

A Question of Conscience. By Eric Smith

To be opposed to the Republican Party today is more than just a matter of principle; it is a question of conscience or more specifically whether or not one has a conscience.. This decision to oppose or support the Republican Party is therefore ultimately a moral issue. It is to quote President Kennedy a "moral issue as clear as the Scriptures and as clear as the Constitution. The heart of the matter is whether or not all Americans are entitled to equal right & equal opportunities. Whether or not we will treat others as we wish to be treated; as we wish our children to be treated."

"We therefore," to further quote the president. "Face a moral crisis in this country" and that my friends gets to the heart not only of who we are as a nation but who we are as an individual. So it is right to ask how, if a one is pained at the sight of a hungry child, how can they support a party that would deny that child food to eat? If one loves their mother, daughter, sister or niece, how can one support a party which believes in state sanctioned rape through mandatory ultrasounds & other invasive procedures for those women who become pregnant? If one loves their mother, daughter, sister, or niece, how can one support a party that believes that she is not entitled to earn the same pay for the same work that a man earns who does the same job because she happens to be a woman?

If one is pained by America's shameful legacy of slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch, how can one then support a party that denies the vote of the descendants of these atrocities because of the color of their skin and how can we deny the survivors of these terrible times their right to the ballot; a right that was earned through great personal sacrifice on their part and the wanton slaughter & brutality of their family members and friends? If one believes that love is transcendent then how can one support a party that believes in denying one the right to marry the person of their choice because it does not believe that their sexual orientation is valid, and if one is pained by the sight of the sick & the suffering then how can one support a party that would deny them healing & life sustaining health care?

Again this all ultimately comes down to a question of conscience. You cannot truthfully say that you are a kind person, a compassionate person, an empathetic person, and a loving person, if you support a political party and people who preach, practice, and support policies which do the exact opposite. It doesn't work that way. To feel compassionate, empathetic, kind, and loving, mean absolutely nothing if you support a political party that practices cruelty & selfishness for by supporting this party, the Republican Party, you are helping to make America into a nation that is those very things you claim to hate; an America that cares not for the plight of a hungry child, an America where it is okay for a woman to be subjected to the violation of her body that is state sanctioned rape, to the person of color who is denied their right to vote because their skin is dark, and the gay person who is denied their fundamental right to marry the person of their choice.

In short, if you have a conscience, if you believe in an America that is compassionate, kind, and just then you simply cannot support the Republican Party today because the Republican Party of today stands for, preaches, and practices, the exact opposite of all of these things all these things you say you are not and all these things you swear to be against.

No Sure Thing. By Eric Smith

Don't be surprised if the House amended CR goes nowhere and I don't mean the Senate. I mean I see this CR not getting out of the House itself. The reason I say this is the fact that Reid has said that what the House is proposing to send back to the Senate is DOA because of the delay Obamacare for one year provision that was added to it. Now this is a critical element because delay is not repeal and therefore those radicals of the Right who want repeal & nothing else are going to be less inclined to vote for it knowing that it's going nowhere because even with a one year delay it will still technically be a vote on their part to sustain Obamacare.

I personally don't see these radicals swallowing that for any rhyme or reason so don't be surprised if Boehner pulls this thing at the last minute so as to reinsert the repeal provision or it gets voted down outright because enough Republican radicals to join with Democrats in opposing it. Again, I could be wrong and the House CR as it is now written may indeed pass on a straight party line vote but if that happens you can be damn sure that this crazy Cruz crowd will crucify those Republicans who vote for it for having merely voted to delay, rather than repeal Obamacare. However, no matter what happens a shutdown is inevitable and the Republicans are going to take the full blame for it and rightfully so.

The Logic of Acceptance. By Eric Smith

When it comes to those who are different we have to move past tolerance to acceptance for tolerance implies our permission and people do not need our permission to be who & what they are any more than we need their permission to be who and what we are. Another person's race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. is simply none of our business and the fact that so many think these things are their business and seek to make them their business diminishes their humanity and that of no one else.

Racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance; these are ultimately the problem(S) of those who believe in this kind of nonsense; of those who waste irretrievable time thinking of reasons to dislike and/or look down upon someone rather than merely accepting people for who & what they are and quite possibly gaining a friend.

It makes zero sense and it is counterproductive. When it comes to referring to a friend the only thing you need to mention to someone else; the only thing you need to think about really, is that person's name. What their race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation are is nobody else's business and the extent to which one feels that they have to articulate these things to others is the extent to which they cheapen that friendship. The fact that that person is your friend is good enough and that means of course that it is more than good enough for everyone else.

Therefore acceptance & not tolerance is the way to go for in the and tolerance is conditional wheres acceptance is not and the best of friends are those who accept you for who and what you are with no strings attached.

A Fight to the Finish. By Eric Smith

You do not negotiate with terrorists.  You take them down.  You don't play nice with hostage takers.  You annihilate them.  In the form of the Republican Party we are up against people who seek to deny food to the hungry, healthcare for the sick, and the vote to those who in their opinion vote the "wrong" way.  We are up against a people & political party that though claiming to be for small government nonetheless believes in state sanctioned rape in the form of forced ultrasounds and other highly invasive medical procedures directed at pregnant women.  We are up against a party that wants to eradicate the social safety nets that are Social Security & Medicare; who seek to eliminate food inspectors who ensure that the food we consume is not contaminated & safe to eat.

They want to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency which seeks to ensure that the we drink clean water and breath unpolluted air.  We are up against a party that wants to eliminate the minimum wage & child labor laws, and we are up against a party that wants to eliminate the middle class and create in its place a two class society; a society of rich and poor where the haves grows fat on the unrequited toil of the have nots.

The Republican Party in short seeks to turn America into a pseudo slavery society firmly rooted in white supremacy and grounded by male domination.  This is who and what we are up against. This is the true face and nature of our foe.  If we cherish any of the above things mentioned then there can be no middle ground to be had with our adversaries for these people see compromise as conquest and therefore the only language they understand is the language of conquest; whether they are the ones who conquer or are conquered.  

Against such  a foe our option can be none other than to pursue a policy of total annihilation for anything short of that will be a victory for them in that they will be able to rise and wreak havoc again as they have done so repeatedly in the past.  We do not have the luxury of allowing them to do that again.   This time we must finish the job and by that I mean finish them off permanently.  Therefore let this be the final battle.  Make this current battlefield be their permanent graveyard.  Annihilate!  Annihilate!  Annihilate!  Let this be our battle cry against the Republican Party and the Far Right!

Take no prisoners, give no ground, and charge straight ahead and be not moved by their calls for accommodation & common ground  for make no mistake these calls on their part are insincere since they themselves are engaged in a war of annihilation of their own; a war that seeks to annihilate us, this country, and all its freedoms save only those freedoms they would reserve solely for themselves.   These are the stakes.  It is either them or non existence for everyone else.

The True Meaning of the American Flag-By Eric Smith


      On the night of April 3rd, 1968, in what would tragically be the final speech of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said the following:

     "All we say to America" said Dr. King is 'Be true to what you said on paper.' If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right."


      Today, forty five years after Dr. King uttered these words, far too many Americans do not understand the true meaning of our flag.  They do not grasp the uniqueness of what it is to be a real American patriot.  To them freedom applies only to themselves.  To them the benefits of our Democracy  is theirs to enjoy alone though they expect everyone else to gladly fight along with them to preserve their rights even though they would deny those same rights to others.

     They have the audacity to actually question the patriotism of those of different races, creeds, genders, and sexual orientation who to dare fight for those very freedoms and opportunities that they regard as their birthright.  They behave as though such rights are theirs to give and accuse those who are not satisfied with the pace of expanding the reach of Liberty with being ungrateful;  as if those who are denied those rights they are entitled to at birth, should show gratitude towards who those who had no right to deny them these rights they are now enjoying in the first place.

     These white people  in the Republican Party and of a Conservative mindset are always railing against us African Americans of  being lazy and greedy.  They use the term Affirmative Action as the rest of us use an expletive, forgetting of course that they themselves are the beneficiaries of the greatest, most generous Affirmative Action program in the history of this nation; that Affirmative Action being their white skins.

      If you are born white in general and a white male in particular in this country, no one ever questions whether or not you will have the chance to rise from poverty, to get a good education, to work at a well paying job, or even become President of the United States.  If you are born white and male in this country then you don't have to worry about your rights being denied at all.  You don't have to worry about your legitimacy and your qualifications being questioned for a certain university or a particular job because of the way you look.

     If you are white in America then you don't have to worry about being followed around by the proprietor of some store assuming you're a criminal who's about to rob the place.  If you're white in America you don't have to worry about being stopped by the police while walking through a good neighborhood who suspect by mere dint of your skin's pigmentation alone that you've committed or are about to commit, a crime.  If you're white in America you don't have to worry about being shot by a self appointed  neighborhood vigilante even if you are  wearing a hoodie and what's more you can be walking around carrying a gun, to say nothing of a bag of skittles, and still have little to be worried about.

     If you're white in America, no one automatically assumes just by looking at you that you're uneducated, illiterate, on Welfare, a drug addict, or an ex con regardless of what kind of clothes you're wearing. It has always been that way in this country but only now things are really beginning to change.  More and more people are waking up to the fact that this state of affairs runs counter to the true meaning of this flag; that it  just isn't right.

     Yet these folks  in the Republican Party and the Far Right  I've mentioned above are now raising hell because all of a sudden they have to share their freedoms, rights, and liberties with everybody; freedoms, rights, and liberties  that they never had any right to hoard for themselves in the first place.  They are screaming at the top of their lungs that their rights are being taken away.  That they're going to take "our country back!"  Excuse me  but this country doesn't belong just to them.   It never has.  It has always belonged to all of us have played a key role in sustaining it, protecting it, and making it great. These people don't get to claim exclusive ownership of that which they hijacked stole and wrongly denied to others.

     This discrepancy was pointed out in a speech President Abraham Lincoln gave at the Sanitary Fair in Baltimore MD on April 18, 1864 when he said the following:

     "The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name———liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names———liberty and tyranny.

    "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty."

    Needless to say, the wolfs of President Lincoln's time are the Republicans, Tea Party members, Libertarians, and Conservatives of today.  They are the ones raging because they are not being allowed to exercise what they believe is their right to deny rights to others because they happen to dislike the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, and their sexual orientation.  They assert their right to do to others as they please while at the same time claiming that others do not have the right to do to them as they please because it would be a violation of their rights.

     This is the root of their problem.  They are finally being forced to play by the same set of rules as everyone else and they are collectively  throwing a national temper tantrum as a result.  All it really proves is that these people never really cared about this country or its flag  in the first place.  I mean the heart of true Americanism is generosity and tolerance.  Without both of these things you can't say that you are really a patriot for these are the foundations of our freedom; these traits are what makes us unique among all the nations in the world.

     Our flag has meaning that is true but that meaning only counts for anything if it has the same meaning for everybody.  As Jackie Robinson himself once said "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free."  That is what these Republicans/Conservatives refuse to see and find impossible to accept and so therefore if anyone's patriotism is to be rightly questioned it is theirs because the rest of us, through  our embracing of diversity and fair play are living the true meaning of the American flag while they, through their hostility to diversity and opposition to fair play, are not.  It's as simple as that.

Assassinating the Dream: The Republican Party's War on the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By Eric Smith


      April 4, 2013 marked the 45th Anniversary of the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This tragic event is notable in many ways; not the least of which is that today the life of Dr. King's Dream hangs in the balance more precariously than it has since the dark day of the Dreamer's death. Today, all across the United States, attempts are being made at the state level to restrict minorities right to vote.

      Today, more so than at any time since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the rights of African Americans, women, and gays which were won with the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of those brave Civil Rights warriors who were of every race, creed, gender, color, and sexual orientation, are in danger of being taken away by current Republican members of the US House and Senate as well as Republican governors and state representatives.

      These racist reactionaries, who are the ideological descendants and political refugees of the old Dixiecrat Democrats, are calling for and fighting for, a return to those days before the enactment of these Acts when questions of equality and the right to vote were left to be determined by the States. The America they are seeking to is the America of State's Rights; the America of slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch. Their ideal America is the America of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit". It is for we African Americans the America of our nightmares; the America Dr. King gave his life to change:

"Strange Fruit"


"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."

      Now of course Republicans will vehemently deny that they are seeking to return America to the days of "Strange Fruit". Yet their rhetoric of denial does not match the reality of the consequences of their policies for the proof of the GOP's efforts to turn back the clock to these dark days is proven by the following: The Constitutionality of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended such disfranchising devices as the poll tax, the literacy test, and prevented state's from denying people the right to vote solely on the basis of race and creed, is being challenged in the US Supreme Court and the there is no guarantee, that with five reactionary Conservative Justices, one of whom, Justice Scalia who regards Federal protections of African Americans right to vote as being nothing more than a racial entitlement, that Section Five's Constitutionality will be affirmed and the right to vote remain secure.

      DOMA, which seeks to define marriage between a man and a woman, and therefore denying those who are gay the right to marry the person of their choice may also be allowed to stand and Roe versus Wade, which guaranteed a woman's right to choose is also in jeopardy.

      In short, everything that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for is under attack and it is under attack by a Republican Party which has been hijacked by racist reactionaries who's sole agenda is to return America to its segregated past; to the dark days of "Strange Fruit", where slavery, segregation, Judge Lynch, and White Supremacy was the rule of American life, culture, and law.

      Thus, as we remember the 45th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. let us be clear at what hangs in the balance. If the Republican Party is not stopped, it will assassinate Dr. King's Dream, just as its racist reactionary forebears of the not too distant past assassinated Dr. King himself.
If the Republican Party succeeds in rolling back voting rights, gay rights, women's rights; if it continues to murder the middle class and widen the gap between rich and poor, black and white, male and female, gay and straight, then Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will have died in vain.

      If the Republican Party is successful, then the Dreamer will have dreamed for nothing; his life, his vision, his legacy, and even his death, will have all been been for naught.

      If the Republican Party succeeds then it will prove that Dr. King's love of humanity, his belief in nonviolence, and his belief in America, was wrong.

      The Republican Party can put forth all the Herman Cains, Dr. Ben Carsons, Clarence Thomases, Condoleeza Rices, and Tim Scotts that it wants but their personal success does not change the fact that the success of the Republican Party and its racist, reactionary extreme Right Wing agenda they support will spell utter disaster for African Americans, women, gays, the middle class, and the poor as a whole.
No token people of color that the GOP parades before us, regardless of their personal distinction can change this reality for as Dr. King himself pointed out many times, the success of one does not equal the success of all. Equal rights and equal opportunity for all rather than great success for a token few will determine whether or not America has finally moved beyond the shackles of racism, sexism, and homophobia and it will not be for those on the Far Right who are doing the chaining, to determine that all are made free by their act of it saying that it has "liberated" a token few.

      Therefore ignore the GOP's false claims that it is diversified and that ii is for diversity for the blatant lies they are. Every Republican/Conservative event these days can easily be mistaken for a Ku Klux Klan rally and not just because of the hateful, racist rhetoric and the Confederate flags they proudly wave.

      How many people of color do we see at these things; one, two or three? Yes, they may be placed dead center or right behind the main speaker(s) but still you only count one, two or three.

      A professional hockey game is a whole lot more integrated than these events and that doesn't even include include those black people who are in the seating bowl cheering on the respective teams, cooking the hotdogs and serving the beer at the concession stands. I mean a professional hockey game has more black people on the ice playing hockey than these GOP/Conservative rallies have in attendance and that's sad. So it goes without saying that contrary to what these Conservatives/Republicans would have you believe, a few grains of pepper in a mountain of salt does not diversity make and no one understood this better than Dr. King himself.

      All this talk about Dr. King having been a Republican in his lifetime and would be a Republican today is nothing more than a self serving bald faced lie perpetrated by the current GOP in a vain attempt to conceal its racist agenda. Let us not forget that in 1964 Dr. King supported Democratic President Lyndon Johnson and convinced 96% of all African Americans to vote for the president and pro civil rights, Liberal Democrats across the board.

      Let us also remember that on April 26, 1967, during a visit to Cleveland Ohio, Dr. King publicly endorsed the then yet to be announced presidential candidacy of Liberal Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy, saying that he was the "best presidential candidate from the civil rights perspective."

      So again, when this current crop of Republicans say that Dr. King was one of their own and would stand with them today, dismiss it for the bald faced lie that is is and remember the words of the following poem written in memory of Dr. King by noted  African American poet Carl Wendell Hines in 1971 who even then foresaw the day when Dr. King's Life and Legacy would be hijacked by those very Conservative reactionaries of the Far Right who's racist hatred of the man and all he stood for led directly to his death:

"Now That He Is Safely Dead"


"Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient Heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
We would fashion from their Lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to make a better world.
So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences, will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died
Is still a dream."

      The time to sing the praises of a hero in that hero's lifetime when that hero is still alive to hear the cheers and be inspired to perform even more heroic deeds. Conservatives waited until after Dr. King was safely dead before they saw fit to praise him for in his lifetime they cursed and spat upon him just as they curse and spit upon President Barack Obama today.

      Yet even while the Republican Party sings the praises of Dr. King today, through its thoughts, words, and deeds, it is determined to assassinate his dream by systematically undoing his life's work and dismantling his legacy. This is the cold reality and the inescapable truth and therefore be not duped by its bought and paid token shills of color who would blind you to this reality.

      Remember that these tokens of color on the Far Right are the ones who remain on the plantation of the GOP. They are the Massa's Favorites who are in bed with their Masters of the Far Right and do their bidding. These Massa's Favorites know absolutely nothing and care even less about what it is to be an American in general and an African American in particular in 2013.

      Their reality is the reality of the Massa's Favorite of slavery times. Their reality is the warm reality of Massa's Big House, not the cold, brutal reality of the field hand's outhouse.

      Their reality is a life of comfort; of good food, good housing, excellent education, healthcare, and employment; things they put a down payment on by their own labors true, but things now maintained and sustained by their Master's of the Far Right in return for their souls they've sold.

      They speak not for the vast, vast majority of African Americans any more than those tokens of color who railed against Dr. King in his lifetime calling the Dreamer a troublemaker, a Communist, because he dared to fight against racial segregation, for the right to vote, and for people of color to think for themselves, and regard themselves as being people of value entitled to the same rights and freedoms as every other American.

      These bought tokens of color know not poverty, deprivation, desperation, or despair. They want for nothing and will continue to want for nothing so long as they continue to front for and sing the praises of their racist masters of the Republican Party and the Far Right.

      So it should not be surprising that they accuse Democrats in general and white Liberals in particular of being the "worst racists" for these Massa's Favorites of the GOP know what the Massa's Favorites of slavery times knew; and that is that with freedom comes responsibility and central to that responsibility is using one's back as a ladder for those less fortunate to climb to their full potential just as they used the backs of others to climb to theirs.

      Of course it is painful at times for others to use our backs as a ladder so that others less fortunate than us may climb upward and the last thing these Massa's Favorites of the Republican Party want is to be made uncomfortable for they know that if they do help others who are less fortunate and are of a Liberal/Democratic mindset that their Conservative Masters will no longer help and sustain them.

      Gone will be the material comforts that their souls have bought. Gone will be the luxury of having others do their thinking for them. So of course these Massa's Favorites of the Republican Party will pull up the ladder that is their backs and preach the glories of self reliance and self sufficiency; conveniently forgetting of course that but for the backs of others they would have had no way to climb to the heights they have.

      What makes this Liberal bashing by people like Dr. Ben Carson, Justice Clarence Thomas, Senator Tim Scott, and former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice so doubly damnable is that but for the progressive Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's that criminalized racial segregation and ended voter suppression based on race, is that none of them would have ever gotten anywhere because the doors through which the had to pass in order to become a brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, a US Senator, and a US Secretary of State would have remained closed to them because of the color of their skin. If it had been otherwise then none of them would have been pioneers since people of color just like them would have occupied these esteemed positions generations earlier.

      It was Liberals and Liberal thinking which opened these doors for them; not Conservatives. It is Conservatives of both parties, Democrat and Republican, who have always stood in the way of progress in matters of achieving equal rights. So it is right to question the judgement, if not the sanity, of people like Dr. Carson, Justice Thomas, Senator Scott, and Dr. Rice for supporting those, who if they'd had their way, none of them would have ever gotten anywhere, regardless of how hard they worked. I mean seriously, what type of black person supports a party, people, and policies which argues that it is okay to deny people the right to vote because they are black?

     What type of black person supports a Party and a political mindset that says, in Justice Scalia's words, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which guaranteed the right of people of color to vote by preventing them from being denied that right because of the color of their skin) a ""racial entitlement?"

      How come the right to vote is only an "entitlement" when it comes to black people and what type of black person supports such a racist, wrong headed, misinterpretation of the right to vote?

      It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all and so the only logical explanation for people of color being Conservative/Republicans these days is that they have been brainwashed, paid off, or both. There is no other even remotely credible explanation for such conduct which is idiotic, demeaning, and self defeating in every sense of the word.

      Therefore the bottom line is this. If you are for voter ID laws, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against Roe versus Wade, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against equal pay for equal work, then you are against Dr. King. If you are in favor of DOMA, you are against Dr. King. If you are against someone because they are Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, or Hispanic, then you are against Dr. King.

      If you are against someone because they are poor, hungry, homeless, and on Welfare, then you are against Dr. King. If you are against someone because they are Muslim, Christian, Jew, Gentile, Protestant or Catholic; if you are against anyone, period, because of their religion, then you are against Dr. King.

      If the first thing that comes to your mind and out of your mouth when you refer to a friend is that person's color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, then you are against Dr. King for true love and true friendship, is unconditional and without need of clarification. If you hate common sense gun laws, then you hate Dr. King and if you seek to exploit your fellow citizens for personal & financial gain then you are against Dr. King.

      Those who say they regard as a hero someone who stands for the exact opposite of what they stand for is lying through their teeth and only a fool believes that they are sincere in what they say. These Conservatives/Republicans don't sing the praises of Dr. King because they agree with what he stood because they stand for the exact opposite of what he stood for and are in favor of everything he was against.

      Thus they praise him not because they admire him but because it is the politically correct thing to do and for no other reason. I won't even mention that these very same people of the Far Right who are giving false praise to the life and legacy of Dr. King for the mere sake of being politically correct are the same exact ones who make a special point of accusing those of us on the Left of being too obsessed with being politically correct because it should be obvious that hypocrisy is in the Far Right's DNA. These people can no sooner stop lying and being hypocrites than any of us can voluntarily stop breathing. It's as simple as that.

      Now you Republicans, you Conservatives, you Tea Party members, and you Libertarians have the right to think and be exactly as you are but what you don't have the right to do is lie and demand that others take your lies to be the truth. You don't have the right to do that!

      So stop lying you Republicans! Stop lying you Libertarians! Stop lying you Tea Partiers and stop lying you Conservatives! Stop lying! Stop telling this lie that you love the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because the truth is you hate him! You hate his guts and you curse his memory and this is proven by your determination to roll back the tide of equality; to destroy the America that Dr. King lived and died to create!

      Tell the truth you Republicans! Tell the truth you Libertarians! Tell the truth you Tea Partiers and tell the truth you Conservatives! You people hate Dr. King, period! You hate everything he stood for and everything he represents! Admit it! You hate him and it is your right to hate him but at least have the guts to be honest with yourselves, with each other, and with your country and have the guts to admit that you hate him for the whole world see's right through your lies. Your actions and the people & policies you support shine the light of truth on your hatred of Dr. King and his Dream every single day.

      You are fooling no one but yourselves so own up to the truth and admit that if you're a Republican, a Tea Party member, a Libertarian, and a Conservative, that you hate Dr. King, period. I mean since you all stand against every single thing he stood for it is obvious that you don't love him and the flip side of love is hate.

     So with Dr. King's Dream now squarely in the crosshairs of the Republican Party, let us all ask ourselves is this the America we really want? Do we really want to tell our children and grandchildren that love, nonviolence, are irrelevant as the Republican Party is telling us now?

      Do we want to say to them that dreamers like Dr. King, while well meaning, were ultimately fools because that we as a people, as a nation, are simply incapable of living up to the standards of those ideals he and other Dreamers lived and died for; ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence and consecrated by the blood and sweat of all of all who have died and struggled for the cause of Liberty where our fellow citizens of color, women, gays, the poor, and the middle class are concerned?

      If you're a Republican/Conservative, take a moment to examine your conscience. Have the courage to turn your face to the nearest mirror and look yourselves right in the eyes and then have the guts to honestly ask yourselves what is so really wrong about wishing that others enjoy the same fruits of freedom that you enjoy for yourselves?

     What is so wrong with everyone having the right to vote, with everyone having the right to marry the person of their choice, and everyone living and playing by the same set of rules?  In short, what is so wrong with being what you say you are, an American? What is so wrong with an America that really is the Land of Liberty and the Home of the Brave for everyone and not just yourselves?

      Why do you Republicans/Conservatives insist on being so selfish and thinking only of yourselves; of caring only about your rights and not giving a damn about the rights of others?

      Dr. King wasn't like this. He believed in freedom for all; not just in freedom for the few, and he did a lot more than pay mere lip service to Liberty like you Republicans & Conservatives are doing; he lived for it, he suffered for it, and he died for it.   He was truly a great and wonderful man and the key to his greatness was not only that he was a loving man but that to him Freedom for All in fact and not just in words was the Gospel. He opposed anyone who hated, anyone who was insincere, and any person who opposed equal rights to any person because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation.

      He more than than anyone in our times believed in an America that was truly a Land of the Free, a Home of the Brave, a Land of Full Equality, a Land of Fairness, and where the strong did protect the weak.

      All of these things were the things for which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life forty five years ago this April 4th. This is what his Dream was all about; to live in an America where everyone treated everyone else as they wished to be treated; as they wished for their children and their grandchildren  to be treated.

So again we have a choice; we can choose between the Republican Party and its reactionary racist agenda which is determined to assassinatel the Dream of Dr. King and return America to its dark segregated past or we can choose the Dream itself; we can choose to continue to follow Dr. King's path; to pursue his vision; a vision which says that all of us are in this together, that all of us are equal, and that all of us have rights and value. Look ahead my fellow Americans. See forward and don't allow this nation to go backwards as the Republican Party would have us do for Dr. King deserved better and so too do all of us.

In Defense of Religion: The Freedom to Worship as Absolute. By Eric Smith


In response to the extremist/intolerant behavior of extremists on the Christian Right and  Islamic Fundamentalists, there is a natural reaction to regard organized religion in all its manifestations as being fundamentally flawed, cruel, intolerant, and completely out of place in the modern world.  Many have become very vocal in their claims that neither God nor any type of supernatural deity exists.  That is their right of course but that is a right that stops with them.

It is no more the right of a non believer to mock, denigrate, and pass judgment on  those who are believers any more than it is the right of believers to mock, denigrate, and pass judgment upon those who are non believers. The right to believe is as absolute a right as is the right not to believe for as Jackie Robinson once said, the "first freedom for all people is freedom of choice."

At the heart of every religion is the desire to give comfort, refuge, and inner peace to those in distress.  That is the underlying desire and theme of every prayer in every Faith and if by believing, men, women, and children find that comfort, refuge, and inner peace so lacking in the world then it is not for any non believer to ridicule and condemn them for doing so for they have just as much right to find solace in their belief in a Higher Power as those who take comfort in believing that no such Higher Power exists.

It is wrong for a non believer to tell a believer that God does not exist; that the Faith they practice is a sham for in doing this they are no better than those who would seek to proselytize non believers and through the force of shame seek to compel them to believe as they believe for in the final analysis no one can be forced to believe or not believe anything without their consent.  We and we alone determine whether or not we believe that God exists and we and we alone determine whether we believe that God does not exists.

Let us not forget that nations of atheists & non believers are guilty of their own fair share of human atrocities as well.  For recent proof we need only see the tens of millions of Soviet citizens slaughtered by Joseph Stalin between 1924 and 1953 in the Communist ruled Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.  We only need  look to China post 1949 or Cuba post 1959.  These are but a few examples of the many non believing Republics which have slaughtered millions of people for in the end a religion is only as good or as bad as the people who practice it.  The same is equally true of non believers as well.

No human being, whatever his/her beliefs, has a monopoly on truth and no one is a paragon of virtue.  We are all prisoners to our personal prejudices and  we are all burdened by human failings.  It is just a matter of degrees.  So if a person says that  they believe in God, Allah, Buddha, etc; then that's their business.  Unless they make a concerted effort to make you believe like they do then you have absolutely no right to denigrate them for having their beliefs; to tell them that there is no such thing as God and that their religion is a sham.  Doing so makes you no different and no better than those religious extremists you condemn.  Leave people to their beliefs and and allow them to worship as they choose for again the right to believe is just as valid as the right not to believe and therefore both rights should be equally protected and equally  respected for in the end they are nothing more than human rights.

POG (Party of Genocide): The Republican Party (GOP) and the Politics of Mass Murder. By Eric Smith


Let's cut to the chase and that is the Republican Party is not the GOP, the Grand Old Party, it is the POG, the Party of Genocide for its agenda is nothing less than the mass murder of millions upon millions of Americans who are poor, minority, & women by denying them health care, food, and taking away women's reproductive rights. For make no mistake, if the Republican Party is successful, millions upon millions of Americans will die; Americans they know would be least inclined to vote for them if they lived.

So its not enough for the Republican Party to prevent people from voting against it by denying certain people the right to vote. It has embarked on a Final Solution of its own by pursuing policies that will deny those opposed to it life itself. If people who are sick do not have access to health care, the will die. If people are denied the ability to eat and are malnourished, they will die, and if women are denied their reproductive rights and with it proper pre natal care, they will die, and if these people die, there will be fewer people to vote against the Republicans and the leadership of the Republican Party knows this.

The POG, the Party of Genocide is going all out to kill those within this nation it regards as it enemies and we must call it out for being the proponents of a would be American Holocaust that will befall this nation if it is allowed to succeed. For make no mistake, genocide does not require the use of gas chambers, concentration camps, and firing squads. It can involve the mass murder of people through the denial of adequate health care, nutrition, and pre natal care and the fact that this genocide is carried out under the guise of legality does not make it any less sinister or evil.

So it is time to call the GOP what it really is; the POG, the Party of Genocide for that is what its agenda amounts to. It is murder, plain and simple, and therefore we have a moral obligation to call out this evil for the evil that it is; to prevent this Holocaust from taking root in our land, and ensuring that every citizen has right to health care, that citizen has a right to eat, and that every woman is guaranteed her reproductive rights.

A Question of Equality-The Republican Party's War on Women-By Eric Smith


      Of all the things we should not be debating in the year 2013, the question of gender equality is at or near the top of the list.  Yet the Republican Party, fueled my its male dominated Conservative base, is now engaged in an all out war on women's rights.  It is attempting inch by inch, step by step, to return America to those days when women were second class citizens at best, and "property" of their male counterparts at worst the Republican Party is seeking to strip women of their fundamental humanity by denying them full human rights, chief among which is the right to be treated as we males wish to be treated, with dignity, respect, and the right to decide and to act in our personal best interests.

     At the Federal, state, municipal level and in our courts the rights of women to maintain control of their own bodies, to decide their own healthcare, and be equally compensated as their male counterparts for doing the same work for the same amount of time, is under attack and in danger of being rolled back.  It begs the question of what is wrong with the men who are leading these attacks and what is even more wrong with the women who actually support them in making these attacks  for at the heart of the issue we men are not qualified to determine what is best for a woman because by being men we do not know what it is to be a woman.

     Oh we can guess, and  imagine what it is like but do we have the right to impose the solutions drawn from our guesses on  the problems women themselves; problems that are unique to one being a woman?  I don't think that we men have that right.  On questions pertaining to pre natal care and whether or not a woman should choose an abortion, we men should not be deciding what is best for our female counterparts  because we men do not have any idea what it is like to be pregnant.

     We are not the ones Nature has charged with bringing a life to term within our person.  We cannot even begin to grasp the hormonal changes induced by pregnancy; the impact the carrying of a human life to full term has on a woman's physical, psychological, and physiological well being.  We as men are not burdened with the awesome responsibility of having to determine whether or not the life we carry within us will be better off aborted before it is born, or allowed to enter this world while knowing that if it is allowed to enter this world that it will be condemned to suffer through a lifetime of  disease, abuse, poverty, and deprivation.  We don't know and by not knowing, by not having any way to possibly know, we as men are not qualified to make that call one way or the other.

     Now on the question of whether or not women should earn equal pay for equal work, that should not be a question at all because of course they should. I mean if things were reversed and women got paid more for doing the same work for the same amount of time that we  men did, we men sure as hell would object.  I mean if women made the same decisions regarding the use of our reproductive organs, of our health care, of whether or not we should be given equal pay for equal work that we are now making for them,  you better believe we men would be up in arms and raising hell.

      If you doubt that just think of how we object when our wives, our girlfriends, our mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, daughters, and granddaughters tell us what to do.  We lose our damn minds, screaming that these women are making us feel like less than a man and less than fully human.  Hell, we do all this kicking and screaming even when we know that the things these women in our lives are telling us to do are  for our benefit.

      So let's look at the the larger context here where  we men are seeking to  impose our will and  telling women what to do in matters of health when the women know that what they are being forced to do is not in their best interests and a blatant violation of their basic rights.  We men don't have to be women to know that this is wrong, that it is unjust, for what is being violated here is not  so much women's rights but human rights.

     Only those men who are weak and insecure feel the need to place themselves over women because if you as a man are comfortable in who you are and  feel secure within yourself then you don't need to lord it over women or anyone else in order to prop yourself because you know and everyone else knows that you stand tall already.

 So if you're a man, then ditch this ass backwards idea that you are somehow superior only because you were born a man because the bottom line is you are not.  You are not her superior and you are not her inferior.  You are her equal and you are her equal because like her you are a human being and as such are entitled to full and equal human rights just like she is.  It is all as simple as that.

The Reality of War. By Eric Smith


There is an old saying and that is those who make the wars are not the ones who fight the wars.  To those of us  who have not served in our military and fought battles on our nation's behalf, war is a very abstract thing.  We instinctively marvel at the spectacle of ships being blown up, tanks being incinerated, planes being shot down, and buildings reduced to rubble by artillery fire.  We love the sight of men in arms and seeing images of all types of powerful weapons being fired.  The sound of the rat tat tat and the booms of ordnance going off gives us a rush.  It is pure spectacle for those of us  who see these things from the comfort & safety of our homes and movie theaters.

Yet for the actual participants of wars and their families the reality of war  is far different for with every ship we being blown up, with every tank we see being incinerated, with every plane shot down, and with every building reduced to rubble by artillery fire, we see men and women (and in many cases children) no different from ourselves in their agonizing, terrifying,final moments on this Earth.  When we witness these things what we are really seeing is human beings having their limbs blown off. We  really them being burned alive, and we see them crying out in sheer terror, and agony.

When we see these things all we see is a spectacle but the family members of those engaged in these battles see something else; a wife sees herself becoming a widow, a little boy sees a father, who if his Dad is still alive, will no longer have a pair of hands with which to play catch, a little girl sees a mother who will no longer be around to dress her for her wedding, and a mother and father will glance at what we see as spectacle and see instead an empty chair at the family dinner table at the next Thanksgiving or Christmas.

All of them will see images of flag draped coffins, and endless rows of white crosses and headstones at cemeteries, under which will probably lay for eternity that family member or friend they once knew and loved.  The reality of war is only abstract, it is only a spectacle, to those Blessed enough not to have to bear the burden of battle or have family members and friends who do.

A nation that dishonors our men and women in uniform is unworthy of the sacrifices they are called upon to make when wearing that uniform and one of the greatest dishonors we can give to these wonderful warriors is to rush to war and minimize the sacrifices of they who must fight that war.  Invariably those political leaders who are most eager to send our men and women into battle are the very same ones who did all within their power to avoid answering the  call to arms during the wars of their time.

They are the ultimate cowards for only a true coward cavalierly demands bravery of others when in their own time they lacked the courage to fight those battles that they  would urge others to fight today.  Let us not forget that those very same individuals who rushed this nation to war in Iraq without knowing all the facts are the very same  ones who are now beating loudest those drums of war in favor of armed intervention in Syria.

This nation may indeed have to go in there but let us give our full support to those who are urging us to go slow and get our facts straight first, rather than to those for whom war is abstract and nothing more than a pyrotechnic chess board.  For the battlefields of war are a chessboard true, but the pawns that move about are real people and once lost they can never be replaced for their lives represent a special uniqueness who's presence among the living enriches all of  our lives with the diversity of their life experiences.

Their lives are lives too important to be needlessly sacrificed and while we honor them for their willingness to make such a sacrifice, let us honor them further by only calling upon them to make such a sacrifice when it is absolutely necessary.

An Open Letter to Homophobic African American Ministers. By Eric Smith


As an African American man, I take a lot of pride in recognizing the role the African American Church played in offering refuge, safety, and inspiration to my African American forebears during the worst days of slavery and segregation.  The calls for justice and full equality have rung out from the pulpits of African American churches from the dawning days of the Republic; the overall theme being that since God loved all equally that all must be made equally free.  This was the spirit that moved legions of our forebears to willfully bear the rope of Judge Lynch, the bombing of their homes, the policeman's billy clubs, water hoses, and attack dogs.

The African American church was at the forefront of this struggle and helping to lead the fight for full equality not just for black people but for all people.  Yet tragically today, you  homophobic African American ministers who are the direct beneficiaries of the sacrifices made in behalf of this struggle are now desecrating your church  and dishonoring your Faith & your people, by invoking that very same God your forebears invoked to free you, to keep your gay brothers and sisters from becoming fully free.  You are calling upon your God of Liberation to become the God of Segregation when it comes to your fellow citizens who happen to be gay.

You are using the Word of God as justification for denying gay people their rights in the same spirit and in many cases even using the same words, that the slave owners and segregationists of yesterday invoked the Word of God to justify slavery, racial segregation, the banning of interracial marriages, the imposition of Judge Lynch, and the denial of African American's right to vote.

I ask what the hell is wrong with you for make no mistake you've got a problem; you've got a serious problem, not the least of which is you have forgotten  who & what you are and your own history and in so doing have  come to practice that very evil your forebears fought against.  You homophobic African American ministers love to invoke the sainted memory of the late, great, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  yet in speaking out against the right of gays to marry and arguing that homosexuality is a sin, you seem to have conveniently forgotten about a very key passage of Dr. King's April 16, 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" where he wrote:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

Dr. King  said something else in that letter regarding the acceptance & tolerance  of the White Church of racial segregation which is now wholly applicable to you homophobic African American ministers who are  attempting to stand at the church  door in order to  bar homosexuals from entering your churches  so as to exercise their right to marry the person of their  choice due to their sexual orientation just as then  Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama in 1963 so as to prevent two African Americans from entering that university so as to  exercise their right to acquire a higher education due to the color of their skin.

"But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before." wrote Dr. King.  "If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust."

So be wary you homophobic ministers of color; be wary for wrong, is wrong regardless of the color of the perpetrators of that wrong.  Dr. King and others did not use the church as a vehicle to help win freedom for you just so you could turn right around and use that very same church as a means by which to deny freedom to others.   To the extent that you ministers of color do seek to deny our gay brothers and sisters their rights is the extent to which you betray that very church and religious  Faith which helped to secure your rights and from where I sit there are few greater sins than that.

The Monsters Among Us. By Eric Smith


It is not the black male who has made the black male into a monster. It is those who have chosen to equate dark skin with evil, with beastliness, and depravity who have done so. It is a society which has placed a greater emphasis on color rather than on character in determining how to best judge a human being who has made the black male appear to be a monster.

As such the black male is not the monster. Rather the monsters are those who equate evil with the dark color of the black male's skin. The monsters are those who equate the black male's skin with limited mental capacity, with sexual promiscuity, with criminality, and with laziness.

It is the mindset of such monsters which caused the lynching of Trayvon Martin. It is the mindset of such monsters who demonize the President of the United States. It is the mindset of such monsters who turn a blind eye to the unremitting violence which claims so many black males in our inner cities, and it is the mindset of such monsters who tolerate a society where a disproportionate number of black males die young, suffer from poverty, disease & a lack of education, are incarcerated, and unemployed.

It is in short the monsters among us who are wrought with racism and allow others to pander & stoke their worst fears, prejudices, and racial stereotypes who have made the black male appear to be a monster. As such it is not the black male who is the monster. The monster is every single person who wrongly thinks the black male is a monster for no other reason than the color of the black male's skin.

The Founding Fathers as Frauds or the Great Libertarian Lie. By Eric Smith


There is a great lie being told to the America these days.  In fact, this lie is one of the whoppers of all time.  It is a lie being told by Ron Paul and his son Rand.  The lie they're telling us is that the Libertarian Party is for Liberty.  It is not  for  the "Liberty" that the Libertarian Party is speaking of is the "Liberty" of White Supremacy; it is the "freedom" of a Master Race to do with all other races & peoples as it see's fit; their individual freedoms be damned.

The Libertarians say they want to return America to the days  immediately following the  American Revolution; to have our national Constitution interpreted as our Founding Fathers interpreted it.  I've got news for you, when it comes to Liberty, our Founding Fathers were frauds.  They didn't believe in freedom so much as wanting to be  free of being oppressed by the British government.  They objected to being treated by King George III the same way they treated everyone else who was not white, Protestant, or male.

Our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, came about because the white males in the American colonies wanted freedom for themselves and only for themselves.  If it were otherwise then the words "All men are created equal" would have read "All people are created equal" instead.  If creating a Land of Liberty had been our Founding Fathers true intent, then the slaves would have been immediately emancipated and all the former slaves and women of voting age would have been given the right to vote.

If our Founding Fathers had not been frauds; if they had been what they said they were, then subsequent Amendments to our Constitution freeing the slaves and making the elective franchise universal for all people regardless of race or gender would not have been necessary for they would have been included in our original Bill of Rights.  If the Founding Fathers had not been frauds and been what they said they were then the United States would never have needed to fight a Civil War.  There would never have been a need for a Woman's Suffrage Movement or a Civil Rights Movement.

Why, because these issues would have been settled when this nation was originally founded.  They would have been settled if our Founding Fathers had not been frauds.  They would have been settled if, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the night of April 3rd, 1968 America had been what "it says it is on paper."  We can say we are for anything but our words  mean nothing if our rhetoric is not equal to our reality.

If you are for Liberty then you are going to do whatever is necessary to ensure that everyone is free; even if it means denying the freedom of some to deny freedom to others for the only ones who are unworthy to be free are those who feel that others are not as worthy of being as free as they are.

The Pauls and the Libertarians argue that they are for Liberty and that they believe that people should have the right to deny those very Liberties they say they are in favor of to others because of their race, their gender, their religion, and their sexual orientation.  How else can we take their argument that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an overreach of Federal authority and that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a "racial entitlement" other than proof positive that Ron & Rand Paul and the Libertarian Party are the very same thing those Founding Fathers of ours they so revere were; frauds?

Don't repeat this nonsense that our Founding Fathers were merely acting in the spirit of their times.  The full humanity of people of color and women was just as "self evident" in their time as it is in ours.  They, like the Libertarians of today, simply chose to ignore that reality because that reality did not jibe with their feelings of racial and gender superiority.  If these people really believed in Liberty; if they really felt that women and people of color were not their inferiors, would they have denied them their human rights?  No, because they would have rightly seen these denials as a direct contradiction of that Liberty  they said they were for.

Constructing our Constitution in such a manner so as to make it possible that these rights they were denying to people of color and women could be given to them at some future time through Constitutional Amendments was a tacit admission by our Founding Fathers that they were frauds; that they were wrong not to include  these  universal rights in our nation's founding documents.  What's more they were smart enough to realize that if they did not include in our founding documents mechanisms to give those rights they were then denying to people of color and women, that everyone around the world would see right through their lies and recognize the fraud they were perpetrating upon the globe.

The many freedoms our nation now enjoys came about not because of our Founding Fathers but in spite of them.  They came about because if they had not made it possible for future  generations of  America's  oppressed to be made free then they themselves would never have been freed from the yoke of British tyranny; the French would never have fought on our side and the American Revolution would have been crushed before it even really began.  The Founding Fathers proclaimed Liberty for All but they did so with the fingers of one hand crossed behind their backs because they knew that that was the only way they could secure Liberty for themselves.

The Founding Fathers were frauds, period.  They lied to the world and the world fell for it.  We just lucked out in that Dr. King was right when he said "truth crushed to Earth shall rise again for no lie can live forever", that lie of course being that Liberty can exist where some some people are more free than others.  It can't, no matter what Ron & Rand Paul and their Libertarian Liars would have us believe.  There is simply  no such thing as Freedom for the Few.  Freedom can only exist where there is Freedom for All.  It is as simple as that.

Beat the Ban: Minority Voter Suppression Survival Guide Post Voting Rights Act-By Eric Smith


     The decision of the part of the US Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional Section Four of the Voting Rights Act of 1965  effectively gutted the key enforcement mechanism of an Act which for nearly forty eight years has prevented voter disfranchisement  in various states and in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment on the basis of race.  With the effective neutralization of this Act, voter suppression efforts directed by the Republican Party at the national, state, and municipal levels, aimed at minority voters who vote Democratic in overwhelming numbers will resume in earnest and we cannot safely assume that such efforts at keeping people of color from exercising their constitutional right to vote will be limited to oppressive voter ID laws, a cutback in early voting, or further gerrymandering itself.

      To be on the safe side we must act as though the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was never passed at all; that the history of the past fifty years in regards to ending voter disfranchisement based on race never happened.  As of now, according to the US Supreme Court, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's signature achievement  has been erased from history.  It is pre August 6, 1965 all over again and as such we can rightly expect a return of some version of the infamous poll taxes & literacy tests and with the black vote now suppressed we must be prepared for a return to office of old time pro segregation public officials on the order of Eugene "Bull" O'Connor and George Wallace who will no doubt use this activist Supreme Court to eventually overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Brown versus Board of Education itself; returning America to the dark days of slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch.  Without the vote anything is possible for without the vote the people are ultimately powerless save a resort to armed insurrection.

     The die has been cast but our cause has not yet been lost.  We have time to reverse this if we act and act now and we can begin with the following basic steps:

1)  Register to vote.

This of course is the first and most important step.  If you're not registered to vote, register.  If you haven't voted in awhile try to register again and if you're already on the rolls, make sure that your information such as address and phone number is up to date.  For those of you with a access to a computer, either at home or public library, go to the following site to get information as to how to register and how to register properly.

http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting/Register.shtml

2)  Organize Voter Registration Parties

Work with your local chapters of the NAACP, National Organization for Women, Urban League and other such organizations to hold voter registration parties weeks, if not months, in advance of upcoming elections.  Give people a place to register other than the local DMV or online.  Promote voter registration not only as a civic duty but also  as a time of civic celebration. Invite candidates for local office to speak at these events,  therefore making them not only an occasion to register people to vote but to educate them as to who and what they are voting for.   Emphasize the power of the ballot and encourage young people not yet of voting age to hand out voter registration forms to the sick, the elderly, and the infirm in your local communities and teach them how to help their older fellow citizens how to properly fill out these forms.  Involve our youth, no matter how young, in the process of voter registration.  Make them feel a part of it, empowered by it, and educate them on the importance of every single vote while emphasizing that the ballot is far more powerful than the bullet; that it is the key to them having a bright and successful future.

3)  Acquire a valid form of photo identification.

Even if it is not required this is essential because voter ID laws are going to be the first thing put on the books and as such we can save ourselves a whole lot of trouble ahead of time by acquiring one months in advance of the upcoming elections.  If you know someone who is elderly, sick, or infirm, find a way to work with members of your local community to either transport this person to the place where such ID's are issued or try to find a way, if possible, to have the necessary photo taken and the paperwork filled out at home.

4)  Double, triple, and if necessary quadruple check to make sure that your current address matches up with your local polling place.

When people relocate for whatever reason, it is easy to overlook the location of their new polling place.  We tend to vote where we've long been voting out of force of habit and if we maintain a residence at our old address that has not been a particular problem.  Yet understand that if you're a person of color the Republicans are going to look for anything that can possibly keep you from casting a vote and one of the ways they will try to do this will be to prevent  you from casting a ballot because your current residence is not in the area where you are registered.  Understand also that the Republicans are going to start playing musical chairs with polling places in predominately minority areas; deliberately moving them around in the hope that you will not be paying attention and wind up attempting to cast a vote in the wrong location.  Don't let them get away with it.  Stay focused on these shifts and make a point of keeping your friends, family, and neighbors informed of these shift in polling locations as well.


5)  Make sure that everyone gets to the polls when the polls are open.

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, car pools were established in the African American community to transport people to and from work.  A similar arrangement must be made long in advance of any election to transport people to and from the polls  with local volunteers being prepared to use their private mode of transportation as a means to transport the elderly, the sick, and the infirm, to local polling places on election day.  Work with your local hospitals & nursing homes to, if possible,  have wheelchairs available for use that day so that those who weak will not have to stand too long in line.  Urge your local churches & youth groups to provide free refreshments to those standing in line on days which are hot and umbrellas & blankets n case election day is rainy and cold.

6)  Beating the Ban

To beat the ban and suppress these voter suppression efforts by the Republican Party will require a community wide effort all across this nation.  Everyone will have to do their part to preserve the ballot for those who now  stand to lose it because of the color of their skin. We must hold the fort until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is restored to its original strength.  We can do this but what's more we don't have a choice not to do it for the future of this nation literally hangs in the balance.  So spread this message far and wide.  Beat the Ban and and make America again Freedom Land.

What are they thinking?! The mindless madness of African American Conservatives/Republicans today. By Eric Smith

What are they thinking?! The mindless madness of African American Conservatives/Republicans today. By Eric Smith

August 14, 2013 at 5:45pm
If you are a black Conservative today who supports the Republican Party and its racist Right Wing agenda, I ask what say you? What say you to the dead? What say you to the ghosts of the millions brought to our shores enslaved and in chains? If you're a black Conservative/Republican today, what say you to the ghosts of the thousands lynched, whose spirits haunt the killing fields of the Old South and who's blood consecrated the soil and stained red the roots of trees? What say you to these dead black Conservative/Republican?

If you are  a black Conservative/Republican today, what say you to the ghosts of those who were beaten and many times killed so you could exercise your right to vote, and love and marry the person of your choice whatever their color or sexual orientation?

If you are a black Conservative/Republican today, what say you to the ghosts of Frederick Douglas, Ida Wells Barnett, Mary McCloud Bethune, Roy Wilkins, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer?

If you are  a black Conservative/Republican today, what say you to the ghosts of President Abraham Lincoln, Senator Charles Sumner, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Hank Greenberg, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Branch Rickey?

If you are a black Conservative/Republican today, what say you to the ghosts of Medgar Evers, President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Senators Robert & Edward Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Baines Johnson? What say you to these honored dead black Conservative/Republican but most importantly what do you say to yourself? How can you possibly justify to yourself, let alone to others, your support of that party, people, and policies now dedicated to denying you those equal rights & equal opportunities that these ghosts dedicated their lives to acquire on your behalf?

How can you support those who seek to deny you the right to vote, who sanction modern day lynchings in the form of stand your ground laws, who seek to re enslave you by tying you down with the shackles of poverty, and who demonizes the first President of the United States who not only looks like you but can also relate to you in a way no president ever has and no president ever could because no other president could possibly know what it was to walk in your shoes?

Have you no shame, no decency black Conservative/Republican? Have you no honor, no self respect for surely you can have none of these things if you allow yourselves to be used, exploited, and tokenized by those who use you as Eve used a fig leaf in a futile attempt to conceal their naked bigotry? Look in the mirror black Conservative/Republican and ask yourself if you consider yourself to be a person or a prop?

Ask yourself and only yourself if you have value; not a value that is assigned to you by others but a value that is yours to determine for yourself and only yourself; your inherent value as a living, breathing, human being who is entitled without question or justification to those same rights and freedoms to which all human beings are equally entitled, regardless of their race, their color, their gender, their religion, and their sexual orientation?

Your life has meaning; it has value, and you cheapen that meaning and you reduce the value of your life by casting your lot with those who's policies & practices deem you to be less than a full human being. So again black Conservative/Republican look in the mirror and ask yourself "Does my life have meaning? Does it have value and if so why do I minimize one and reduce the other by supporting those who think that I as an African American count for less than my fellow human beings not because of the content of my character but because of the color of my skin?"

If you are an African American Conservative/Republican today then just what the hell are you thinking or are you even thinking at all.

The Idiocy of Stereotypes. By Eric Smith




There are some things that are just not fit to be intellectualized because they have historically been used to promote such evil that they cannot possibly be justified, regardless of the intent or lack of malice on the part of those who would attempt to do so. I refer specifically to these "studies" that prove that we African Americans, by birth, breeding, or genetics are somehow in possession of superior reflexes & greater strengths; attributes that supposedly makes us "better" athletes than whites. 


For those of you who for whatever rhyme or reason feel that these so called "studies" are accurate and not necessarily racist I want you to pause and take a long hard look at how these "studies" have been used to justify in this nation racial oppression from the dawning days of the republic. In fact, I'll just name three; slavery, segregation, and Judge Lynch. These "studies" have historically been used by racists to "prove" that we African Americans are biologically closer to animals such as a horse, a gorilla, or some other beast than to human beings.

These "studies" argue that we are naturally endowed with superior strength, reflexes, and endurance than other races and that these attributes make us superior athletes. Yet implicit in these studies is that while we people of color are endowed with an animal's super human strength, we also share the limited intellectual capacity of those animals which in turn makes us less than fully human. It is this idea that we people of color are not really human beings that has historically been used to justify our less than equal treatment in a nation founded on the premise that all people are created equal.

So when you accept the validity of these so called "studies", you are, regardless of your beliefs or intentions, buying into and feeding the wrong headed notion that a person's color or race has some bearing on their physical & intellectual capacity and that is just wrong. It justifies in the mindset of the true racist that we people of color really are closer to a horse, a gorilla, or a donkey than we are to a human being and if you disagree with these concepts then you should never give cover to those who believe in them by buying into their "studies" and notions that somehow a person's race can determine what they are; be it an athlete, a scientist, or whatever you are no different than the racist you claim not to be and the racism you claim to despise.

Therefore these "studies", to we people of color, are considered profoundly repugnant, morally corrupt, racist to the core, and offensive as hell, and we don't give a damn that others may say that that these studies are not racist; to us they are, period, end of discussion, and history and our collective experiences as people of color in these United States & around the world backs us up.

An American Obscenity: The Republican Party and the New Nazism. By Eric Smith



History largely records that the rise of Nazism and the subsequent slaughter of over six million Jews in post World War One Germany was primarily the vision and the work of a single evil man, Adolf Hitler.  Yet in actuality that was not the case for Hitler, though indeed a dictator, did not act alone.  He had help, lots of help, in the form of first a movement, and then a political party, which rose to prominence  catering to peoples fears, paranoia, and insecurities.  It exploited human weakness so as to acquire political power and in so doing divided a nation's citizens among themselves and in the process created a horrific, murderous monster among the nation's of the world; triggering a global cataclysm that ended the lives of well over 200 million people across the globe .

We here in the United States smugly feel that we are immune to the rise of such an evil political force that was  Germany's Nazi Party of the late 1920's and early 1930's.  We assume that are too enlightened, our Constitution too secure, and our love of Liberty too great to allow something similar to happen here.  These assumptions are wrong for not only can it happen here, it has happened here.  It has been happening for the past fifty years and it is happening now.  It is happening through the Republican Party.

For in today's Republican Party we the rise of the New Nazism.  In its platforms, its polices, its appeals to racism, sexism, religious intolerance, its homophobia, its seeking to divide Americans along the lines of race, gender, rich, poor, Christian, non Christian, gay and straight, we are bearing living witness to Hitler's ghost arise anew.  We are seeing in its catering to the Far Right, the Tea & Libertarian Parties, the Roar of the Nazis of Germany's evil past.

People forget that post World War One Germany was a Democratic Republic and not a dictatorship.  Hitler did not first assume power by fiat.  He had to first be elected to something.  He had to get people to vote for him at first.  He had to win office and it was only after he and his party had won political office that he and his minions were able to assume absolute power. Well how did he do this?  Why he created scapegoats out of the Jews and proclaimed that everyone who was white, Christian and "pure" German was part of a Master Race and unfortunately for the world enough gullible and insecure people bought into this appeal to give the man & his political party  supreme power and set in motion a policy of global  conquest and human extermination that made the term Nazism the obscenity of the world.

So it is not lightly that I accuse today's Republican Party  and modern Right Wing extremism of being the embodiment of the New Nazism but if you listen to its rhetoric and grasp its policies then what other logical conclusion can possibly  be drawn?   If you listen carefully, you will not only hear echoes of the Nazis in the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannitty, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Speaker John Boehner, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,  Governor Scott Walker, Ron & Rand Paul, Michelle Bachman, etc., you will in many cases hear the same exact words the Nazis used  too and you will feel the heat of people's fears and insecurities bubbling to the surface.

Just the other day a national poll revealed that over 40% of Republicans in this country believe that an armed insurrection and a violent overthrowing of our current government will probably be necessary in order to  address their grievances and what are those grievances you may ask?  What are these "grievances" that make over 40% of Republicans feel that America is overdue for another armed  revolution?  Well you can start with the fact that America now has an African American president.  You can also point out that the face of America is  finally diversified; a true reflection of not only what America really is but what it has always said it is.

If you want to another reason for this call to arms by the Republican Party, think of the GOP's attacks on businessman & philanthropist  George Soros.  Aside from his contributing to Democratic causes what are  his chief crimes in the eyes of the Republican Party and the Far Right?  Why the fact that Mr. Soros happens to be Jewish and has lots of money.  Everywhere you turn you hear Republicans complaining about how Jews like George Soros are trying to hoard all the money in this ; that they are this and they are that.  You never hear them refer to the Koch Brothers religion in the same way they refer to Soros' religion do you and last time I checked the Koch Brothers have money and plenty of it?  By the  same token the Nazis didn't complain about the wealthy Christians who were Germans; on those those wealthy German's who happened to be Jewish.  See the similarity?  You better because it is right in front of us.  The Republican Party is catering to anti-semitism just like the Nazis did and with similar effect.

You see the Nazis were all about us versus them, just like the Republican Party is today.  The Nazis started off by stripping Jews of their right to vote, confiscating their property, and denying them their basic human rights so as relegate them to second class citizenship; just like the Republican Party is attempting to do to African Americans, women, and gays today.

In speaking out against racial segregation and warning against the Republican Party and it's Far  Right base attempts to return America to those dark days, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said "just remember that everything Hitler and the Nazis did in Germany was legal too."  Don't think for a minute that if the Republican Party and its Far Right minions regain control of this country that concentration camps won't spring up here!  Don't think that slavery and Judge Lynch won't return and that women will lose all rights in this country save for the "right" to be barefoot, pregnant, and confined to the kitchen!

Don't think this can't and won't happen here America because it can and it will if we foolishly assume that it cannot!  The New Nazism is here!  The New Nazism is embodied  the Republican Party itself for everything the Nazis did to first acquire power in Germany in the early 1930 the GOP is doing in an attempt to acquire permanent power in the United States of today!  The damning of those who are different, the constant scapegoating and lies, the questioning of the patriotism of those who do not follow their lead,; this is exactly what the Nazis did.

So wake up to this reality before it is too late and before a spell binding Hitler in the form of a Rand Paul, Glenn Beck, or Rick Scott, really does manage to grasp the reigns of national power and create an American Holocaust that will make Hitler's ghost dance with glee  for history who's lessons is ignored is history that is always bound to be repeated.