Brethren in Suffering. By Eric Smith

Every African American has a moral duty to speak out loudly in condemnation against the likes of Louis Farrakahn & other individuals of whatever race or creed who are either Holocaust Deniers or seek to mitigate its horrors. We people of color of all the people in the world should be among those in the forefront of keeping the horrible memories of the Nazi's evil persecution of Jews forever fresh for future generations for we have lived through such a history ourselves in this country. Don't tell me that because the skin of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust was white that neither the survivors of those camps or their heirs cannot possibly relate to the horrors visited upon we people of color here because they can and the vast majority of them do.

Genocide by any other name is still genocide whether or not it is committed by the hangman's noose or the gas chamber. To be burned alive is to be burned alive; whether one is set afire after being tarred & feathered while tied to a tree or roasted in an oven. Burning human flesh smells the same. The screams of the dying sound the same. We people of color are united with our Jewish brothers & sisters through the crucible of shared suffering; of mutual persecution, and common injustice. Again it matters not the color of the person on the outside; what matters is the person on the inside for it is human beings who perished in these maelstroms of evil, not a color.

The black man hanging from the tree was the Jewish man in the gas chamber. That is what forever ties the American and Nazi Holocausts together. That shared historical horror is what binds us and why we as people of color must mourn equally for those who perished in Nazi occupied Europe as we mourn for those lost to the same kind of evil within our American borders.

So as we remember the Kunta Kintes of America, let us also remember the Ann Franks of Europe. Let our shared history of suffering through unspeakable injustice forever bind us in the cause of justice so that at some future time, our combined strength will one day be strong enough to forever break the chains of a still shackled nation and world.

Why We Must Never Forget! By Eric Smith

If anyone in this country wants to understand the African American experience and take "race" out of the equation then all they need to do is talk to the survivors or read the first hand accounts of what life and death was like inside the Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps in the years immediately preceding and during World War II. The only real difference between the horrors visited upon people of color in this country (and by people of color I am referring to both African Americans and Native Americans) is that the American Holocaust has stretched out over the course of centuries whereas the Nazi Holocaust was compressed to the tune of roughly a dozen years.

These points were driven home to me as a child growing up on the South Shore of Long Island in the 1970's by survivors of those very concentration camps themselves. The one thing I remember most of those horrors was being told in closing "We (Jews) will never forget what happened to us and we will never allow anyone else to forget what happened to us. Nor should you (black people) forget what has happened to you and nor should you allow anyone else to forget what has happened to you."

Unfortunately, far too many of us people of color have allowed others to convince us to forget or at least diminish what has happened to us and as a result what we see happening now in these racsit attacks on President Obama, voter suppression, and the continued lynchings of our young black males like Trayvon Martin, is the very thing those survivors of the Nazi Holocaust warned me about some thirty five and forty years ago and by that I mean history, horrid history, has begun repeating itself.

The adult survivors of those Nazi horrors who's vivid accounts of seeing their family & friends perish in the gas chambers, who heard the dying cries of their fellow human beings being roasted alive in the ovens, and of seeing scores upon scores of men, women, and children, literally being blasted into huge open pits by machine gun fire from SS guards; continues to be the stuff of nightmares for me personally and I am truly sorry that it is no longer the stuff of nightmares for so many today for if you understand what happened in those camps you will better understand what has happened to people to people of color in this country from before the dawning days of the Republic itself.

Just because the horrors that happened here were American made and spread out over the course of centuries rather than compressed in the relatively short span of twelve years does not in any way shape or form mitigate their evil. Torture is torture. Genocide is genocide. Slavery is slavery, and evil is evil; it matters not the nationalities of the perpetrators of these crimes. Any person of color who does not regard the Confederate flag the same way as the Jews regard the Nazi swastika is crazy as hell because such a person is willfully ignorant of our history to the point of being certifiably insane.

Just imagine a Jew parading around carrying a flag with the Nazi swastika on it claiming that that flag is part of his her/heritage too because their forebears were born in Nazi Germany. Think of how utterly loony you would regard such a person and then you can imagine why so many of us African Americans & Native Americans feel such contemptuous contempt for those people of color who so proudly align themselves with the Confederate flag waving GOP and Tea & Libertarian Parties; justifying their madness by saying that because they are Americans and children of the South, that the Confederate flag is a part of their heritage too.

So again take "race" out of the equation if you wish and read the accounts of Ann Frank, and others who experienced first hand the horrors of such hell holes as Dachau and Auschwitz. See the images of the bodies piled high, of the mass graves, and the cremated remains of those burned alive in those ovens. Do that, absorb it, and then you will acquire some understanding of how the vast, vast, majority of African and Native Americans view these United States, and why so many of us will never, ever, allow ourselves to forget, or allow others to forget that holocaust which has dishonored our country and forever stained its soil with innocent blood.

Why I am not a Republican. By Eric Smith

If the Republican Party was against voter suppression, I'd be a Republican. If the Republican Party was for equal pay for equal work for women, I'd be a Republican. If the Republican Party was for gay rights and by that I mean of course the right of gay people to marry the person of their choice, I'd be a Republican,. If the Republican Party was Pro Choice when it comes to women's reproductive rights I'd be a Republican and of course if the Republican Party was in favor of the social safety net which says that we are all in this together rather its current position which is every person for themselves and community be damned, I'd be a Republican.

Since the Republican Party is for none of these things, to be a Republican would be to act against my own best interests because I firmly believe that we are a much better, stronger, more free, and compassionate country if we are against voter suppression, if we are for equal pay for equal work for women, if we are for gay rights & Pro Choice when it comes to women's reproductive rights, and if we believe in a social safety net where no one who is need of help is denied a helping hand.

I am not a Republican not because I think that the Democratic Party is perfect (it is far from that of course) or because I believe that Liberalism as defined by those on the extreme Left is the instant cure all for all of society's problems (it most certainly is not), but rather because I don't see the Republican Party as it is currently constituted, as being emblematic of anything patriotic according to what I define as being a patriot in these United States. Therefore I am not a Republican but because of principle. I stand opposed to it because it stands in direct opposition to those key principles that I personally hold dear.

Knowing all of this and feeling as I do, I know that if I were to choose to be a Republican today I would be answering to profit for make no mistake being a Republican these days; especially an African American Republican, is a very profitable proposition indeed. I am not and have never been one to answer to profit; I am answerable to my conscience & nothing else. In the end it is my conscience that says that to be a Republican these days is wrong. That in a nutshell is why I am not a Republican.

What if? By Eric Smith

One of life's most bitter truths is its unpredictability; an unpredictability that is grounded in permanence. Every ill word spoken and every ill feeling felt can be the last of either we hear, we speak, or hear on this Earth. Death in this world at least is final; it is permanent. It therefore behooves us to measure what we say and how we feel because sometimes it really is too late to take something back, to reverse course and embark on a different path.

The silence of eternal sleep will eventually envelop us all and as such we are all destined to become mere memories to others as those who have gone before have become mere memories to us. Nothing ever adequately replaces the presence of the physical person of those we have lost and while memories, dreams, and the sense that we may meet again in some distant place may serve to assuage our grief, they never really eliminate our feelings of loss entirely because again we are forever denied the physical presence of those we once knew.

Grief is deadly and sorrow is fatal; not so much in the sense that we will physically perish ourselves as a result of feeling either but rather in the sense that when an important person in our life dies, a part of us dies with them for they are no longer a living part of our present. That is why we must always endeavor to never part with those we love & care about will ill feeling or ill will for sometimes death will cruelly intervene and render any future reconciliation impossible and we will be haunted to our own dying day with the terrible question of "what if?"

The True Nature of Politics. By Eric Smith

Politics is by its very nature, corrupting. I don't care who you are, how high your ideals, or how noble your intentions; you will never leave this profession either as a candidate, an operative, or an activist as clean as you entered it. Survival in this profession demands the making of painful compromises, the telling of half truths, and unfortunately in some cases even outright lies. That's just the way it is. It's the way it always has been and always will be for nothing short of a fundamental change in human nature itself will alter it; a nature forged through hundreds of centuries of human behavior.

In politics there are times when you have to be out and out cold blooded and cruel and each individual must ultimately decide for him or herself which is more important; imperfect victories where we at least get something of what we're after or moral defeats where we get nothing at all.

Again, this is a personal call that only you can make as an individual. Nothing of any real value is ever free and so if progress be your goal, you must at times be willing to swallow your pride, suppress your personal disappointments, and look to your ultimate objectives. This of course does not mean that the ends always justifies the means but it does mean that pure purity of tactics ensures that those goals we have set for ourselves will never be reached for politics is the antithesis of purity since it is ultimately grounded on the imperfections of human nature itself.

Playing it smart. By Eric Smith

This is just my personal opinion and I very well could be wrong but my personal opinion is that President Obama knew all along either that certain people would lose their existing health care plans under Obamacare or stood a chance of doing so yet made a purely political decision to state unequivocally that they wouldn't. If that is the case I perfectly understand why he did it because make no mistake, if he had given any indication whatsoever that some people would have lost their existing healthcare plans due to Obamacare he would have gone down in flames like Walter Mondale did in 1984 when in his speech accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president said "President Reagan will have to raise your taxes and so will I."

Don't fool yourself. Mondale lost the election the moment he spoke those words and President Obama would have lost and lost big too if the Republicans were able to make their argument that Obamacare would cause some people to lose their existing health care plans. If that had happened and Mitt Romney or some other Republican had won in 2012, not only would Obamacare have been repealed, Social Security & Medicare would have soon been wiped out as well and then America really would have been screwed.

I'll take it even further. Suppose President Franklin D. Roosevelt had not said in the Fall of 1940 "I'm not sending your boys to fight in any foreign wars!". The isolationists at the time had stalled our military preparedness to the point of borderline national suicide and were convinced that FDR was hankering to get America involved in World War II because by that time Nazi Germany had already conquered most of Europe and only Britain's Royal Air Force had prevented Hitler from conquering England as well.

Roosevelt knew damn well that going to war against the Axis powers was necessary in order to ensure the survival of the free world but if he hadn't said what he said in the heat of the 1940 presidential election where many in the country were already accusing him of being a would be dictator by seeking an unprecedented third term; Republican presidential nominee Wendal Willkie would probably have won the presidency.

If that had happened there is every reason to believe that American entry into World War II would have been delayed well beyond December 1941; by which time of course the Nazi's would have conquered both Britain & the Soviet Union and had more than enough time to fully develop the long range New York bomber (which would have laid waste to cities on our East Coast), the Atomic Bomb, and some advanced version of the V-2 rocket which would have dropped nuclear weapons all across this country. In other words we would be living under the Nazi Swastika & not the Stars and Stripes right now.

So again, keep it all in its proper perspective. If President Obama had been up front about the possibility of some people losing their health plans due to Obamacare there is a good chance he would not be president right now. So ask yourself; would we have been better off if he wasn't and if so would you all now be lamenting not only the loss of Obamacare but the inevitable destruction of Social Security and Medicare as well.

Keeping things in their proper perspective. By Eric Smith

No presidential lie is ever a good thing; intentional or not. However if a president is going to lie I would much rather it be over an effort to make the sick healthy rather than to make the healthy die. No one will die or be maimed for life because of what President Obama failed to disclose in regards to whether or not people would be able to keep their existing health care plan. Those who originally lost their health care in spite of his earlier assurances that they wouldn't, lost it for one reason and one reason alone; because the policies that were dropped did not meet the new Federal standards which ensured wider coverage and greater guarantees that people would not go bankrupt trying to pay for treatment that their original policies would not cover.

Now some will say a lie is a lie is a lie but understand that not all lies are created equal; not all lies have the same catastrophic consequences. So to those who want to compare President Barack Obama to former President George W. Bush just remember that the so called lie President Obama told led to the shock of having one's coverage unexpectedly dropped. It did not kill or maim anybody whereas the lies President Bush told in order to justify going to war with Iraq, killed & maimed thousands of our men & women in uniform, and caused millions more to lose their homes, jobs, and life savings because of the resulting tanked economy.

Those who lost their health care will get it back; they will be covered, and they would have been covered even if the president did not allow them to keep their existing substandard plans for a year. Yet those who died because of that war in Iraq are never coming back. Those who were needlessly maimed in that war will never be restored to physical & mental health, and those who lost their homes, their jobs, and life savings are unlikely to ever recover their sense of security & peace of mind; all of which were lost because a previous president lied about the reasons for taking this great country into war.

Again, Presidential lies; while terrible, are not created equal and if you doubt this merely pay visit to a military cemetery where these dead warriors from the Iraq War are buried. Visit a military hospital or any psychiatric ward were many survivors of that needless war remain forever maimed in body and soul. Pay a visit to the grieving family members and the shattered family members forever burdened with these wounded warriors care. Speak to those who've lost their homes, their jobs, and their life savings,and then if you dare ask them which presidential lie was worse; one made to make a people whole or one told to tear two nations apart.

The Politics of Neglect & Starvation: The Republican Party's War on American Veterans. By Eric Smith

Nearly every day our eyes fall upon them even if they are not seen by us; these tired, dispirited men & women among us who are  bent down and twisted by broken bodies and shattered spirits.  Nearly each and every day we hear of the scores  of them who end their own lives for their inability to further bear the pressures of peaceful living  when once they endured the deadly horrors of war.  Aged, infirm, homeless, mentally unbalanced, tired, poor, and hungry these wounded warriors; these veterans of our armed forces have more than earned each and every citizen's unconditional love & support but from their fellow citizens who make up the Republican Party, they have received nothing but empty platitudes, the back of a hand, and disdainful looks of contemptuous contempt.  

Now they stand, to the tune of 900,000, on the precipice of starvation itself for that is how many veterans stand to go hungry if the GOP's draconian cuts to the SNAP program are allowed to go into effect; a crime against basic decency compounded by the fact that many of these same Republican politicians who now endeavor to take food from their mouths, in the past decade sent many of them into battle in Iraq & Afghanistan with substandard equipment that led to greater industry & death; equipment that was made cheaper & substandard so as to increase the profit margins  of the manufacturers of this equipment; many of whom no doubt contributed heavily to the political campaigns of these very same Republican politicians now seeking to starve these very same veterans.

First the Republicans send these men & women into battle with substandard equipment to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq.  These veterans in turn suffer injuries that would not be so grievous if these Republican politicians had not equipped them on the cheap.  They return to our shores forever broken in mind, body, and spirit; only to discover that they are receiving substandard care for injuries to their minds & their bodies; injuries who's severity was made greater because again these Republican lawmakers sent them  to fight on the cheap so the manufacturers of this substandard equipment could make greater profits on the making of this equipment, and in turn give some of these profits to the political campaigns of these very Republicans who turned a blind eye to their neglect & short changing of our men & women in uniform.

Now again these same Republican politicians  seek to starve many of these same veterans by denying them life sustaining food stamps.  I ask you, what type of monsters are these Republican politicians who are doing this.  Ask not whether or not they have any shame or decency for a person must have both a heart and a soul to have either and it is clear by their heinous conduct that these Republican politicians have neither.  

So on behalf of the nation, let us each in our own way resolve to not only apologize for the hideous behavior of these elected officials; let us truly honor them and their sacrifice by driving each & every last one of them from office and rendering the morally bankrupt party they represent politically extinct.  As they stormed the beaches & hostile territories of those who waged war on us, let us storm the polls to eradicate from our national life these Republican politicians who have waged war on them.  Let us now fight to restore our veterans dignity & their future,  Let us truly show our gratitude by making their lives better by putting in office those truly  dedicated to making their lives better rather than exploiting their sacrifices for partisan purposes and neglecting & starving them for their own political needs.  Considering all that they have done for this nation, our American veterans deserve no less from us.

Looking forward, not back. By Eric Smith

We are now barely ten days away from the 50th anniversary of the tragic events in Dallas and no doubt like many of you I have spent some time reflecting on the life and legacy of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Having been born just a couple of weeks over eighteen months after the president's assassination to parents who were his contemporaries and to siblings who were either teenagers or who were about to enter their teen years at the time of his death, the immediate aftershocks of that event and the subsequent assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the president's younger brother Robert in 1968 has done much to shape my world view and my take on national and global events.

Yet as the nation's fever begins to break over its obsession with JFK and he and the New Frontier finally begins to fade into the fog of history the question for all of us now becomes whether or not it is finally time to let go of "what might have been?" Roughly 75% of those who were alive on November 22, 1963 are no longer with us and roughly 75% of those alive today were either unborn or too young to remember the events of that day. I will leave it to others far more qualified than I to pass final judgment on JFK.

However for myself I will say that this anniversary of his death, has for whatever rhyme or reason, finally compelled me to stop looking back; to stop dwelling on what might have been and mourning what was lost. The New Frontier is as ancient to us as the New Frontier of America's Old West was to President Kennedy's youth. We cannot undo the tragic events of November 22, 1963, April 4, 1968, and June 5th, 1968. All we can do by dwelling on them is to keep the wounds of these triple tragedies fresh, and pass on their attendant pain and sense of loss down from one generation to the next.

This is increasingly seeming to me like a needless burden to carry; an unnecessary agony to carry forth in our hearts and our souls. It seems to me that it is far more healthy & productive to now focus on the joy of promise rather than dwell on the sorrow of loss; especially considering that we have the ability to bring that promise to fruition and no power whatsoever to erase from history those tragic events that through the years have continued to bring us so much pain.

Therefore let us resolve not to further wallow in "what might have been" and embrace the promise of what may be for by consigning the past to the past, we will better enable ourselves to face the future; unburdened by that which we can neither change nor control, and emboldened to mold a future who's history will truly be our own.