Merry Christmas!

College Thought Police Ban WikiLeaks

Republican Heroes of yore not like the Tea Party Extremists & Corporate Puppets of today

Boehner weeps for his dad. Cantor mumbles. Palin communes with bears. One of the least diverse, least intellectually-equipped group of freshmen Congressmen invades Washington soon--to lead, create, fix? Nah, to attack and tear up. I was asking many of these folks' supporters what portraits of famous Republicans they felt these folks would hang on the walls of their new offices.

Some suggestions:

Ronald Reagan, of course. But do any one of these folks understand the man and his policies, his struggles, any more than the devil marxist kenyan muslim mythology with they find refuge regarding Obama (or climate change, or science/evolution for that matter?). Or...

Joseph McCarthy. Yikes. Ayn Rand--huh? She wasn't a Republican (or even a citizen?). Rush Limbaugh. Stands to reason. NASCAR pioneer Richard Petty. Ditto. John Wayne. Phyllis Schlafly. Strangely, no Dick Cheney, or either Bush. Thomas Jefferson. Um, no--he founded what is the Democratic Party now. Jefferson Davis. Of course. But yeah, he was a Democrat before he was a traitor. Hmmm....

Well, I decided to stop the madness, and the ignorance. A fool's errand, given this Congress. I compiled my list of Hero Republicans of Yore-- people who should be on the walls of the new Congress. Given the backgrounds of the victors, and the demographics of their supporters, I doubt they will agree. Thus they sow the seeds of their own failure, just like Newt in '97-98.

So...here it goes:

Abraham Lincoln. A no brainer; without him there is no GOP. Funny that he was even more unpopular than his illinois cohort with the darker skin, Mr. Obama. When he was elected many of the ancestors of the GOPs principal human power base decided to tear up the Constitution they crow about now (as hammered home by Roger Taney in Dred Scot), leave and declare war on the Stars and Stripes....all because some wanted to keep black folks as pets, most wanted the economic and political power slavery provided, and poorer ones, as now, needed someondy...anybody...lower than them on the totem pole. Indeed three years and thousands of dead, wounded, homeless and starving American later, Abe would have lost the election had William T. Sherman not brought great news of conquest in Georgia. What might have been? Well the nails in that coffin, so to speak, began to hammer tightly around 1948 when the Dixiecrats changed parties; by Nixon's election in 1968 the South was solidly Republican, but not the GOP Abe expressly envisioned post war.

Thomas Nast, political cartoonist. Invented the Republican Elephant (and Democratic Donkey); arch foe of urban Democratic machine politics (and sadly, by implication, ethnic white voters). Still he supported black folks rights and progressive/reform causes, including corruption within his own party, which was turning increasingly into the party of Wall Street and railroad interests.

James Garfield. 20th President of the US. Union war hero, so that takes him out of the running a lot of rednecks presently. But this man died...LITERALLY DIED...fighting the corruption of federal government workers and patronage, as well as a bloated federal budget. Half of these sots coming to Congress likely have no clue what happened to this man, and the debt, again literally, they owe him.

James G. Blaine. Senator from maine in the 1870s and 80s and US Secretary of State. He kept the GOP on a moderate, overtly pro-big business course, opposing Radical Reconstruction (was he the Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln of the 19th century?) and buffering liberal Republicans like Carl Schurz and Sen. Roscoe Conkling. But more so, he envisioned the US as a world power, and advocated military readiness to extend American influence not only in the rest of the Americas & the Caribbean, but also to make the Pacific an "American Lake." Blaine was also a hypocrite who tried to play both ends, and in that, he's a good role model for modern Republicans. Lost a close election to fellow Princetonian and Democrat Grover Cleveland--first Dem to win the White House since before the Civil War.

Mary Hay. Suffragette, Temperance and Prohibition leader, founding member of the League of Women Voters and one fo the first women to sit on the Republican National Committee. Getting the 19th Amendment passed for the 1920 election produced nowhere near the blood and tears spent in the quest for civil rights for African Americans, but it was still a feat no one thought possible during the time of the FOUNDING FATHERS--about whom the Tea Party bumpkins bleat. Yes, things sucked back then for women. Republican Mary Hay changed all of that. She transformed the GOP and transformed America. Of course her pushing Prohibition may have been a terrible idea, but it was the Volstead Act that helped push WOMAN POWER to the fore. She was also a Progressive, a la Republican Sen. Bob LaFollette, reformer-writer Upton Sinclair (who went from Republican to Socialist!) and fellow suffragette and Michael Moore prototype Ida Tarbell (who did to Standard Oil and the railroads what Moore wanted to do to GM, gun and tobaccomakers et al). And yep, Ida was a Republican. Imagine that. So was Margeret Sanger, who fought for reproductive rights--birth control, the right to receive and disseminate family planning information and...uh oh...abortion. She wasn't vindicated in Roe. Rather, she was vindicated in Griswold v. Connecticut. And guess who opposed his own state's position in that case? Sen. Prescott Bush--W's granddad, hater of McCarthy & friend of fellow liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller. Yikes.

Theodore Roosevelt. Again, a no brainer. For some reason, Teddy's on Glenn Beck's shit list, as if trust busting and creating the national parks/conservation is big government and social engineerign run amok? Teddy was a Progressive too, married to political reform. He tried, half-assedly but still tried, to quell racial terrorism in the South, and held Booker T Washington as one of his close advisors. Under TR, the US legitimately became a world power, and the navy and US Marine Corps truly came into their own as the fist of that power. Then there was the Panama Canal. But again, current Republicans don't seem to give a damn. He's too East Coast. Too...Yale. And that canal: Big Gov, alright. Stimulus money...too many black workers on the payroll. But hey, Jimmy Carter gave it away. The wimp!

Edward Brooke. Senator from Massachusetts, 1967-79. Howard University grad, DC native, like yours truly. And supposedly, Barbara Walters' chocolate lover. That miscue aside, one of the sharpest minds and cagey legislators in the Senate. Was he lead on Fair Housing Act, Equal Credit Act, banking Reform, foreign aid, less restrictive trade/tariff policies. Early supporter of Nixon but then turned on Tricky Dick when he nominated racists/unqualified pols Haynesworth and Carswell to the US Supreme Court. He was the first GOP Senator to openly call for Nixon's resignation as Watergate came to a climax in '74. A statesman. Remember them--folks like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Everett Dirksen (another prominent Republican who jousted with JFK and LBJ, and would likely laugh at McConnell, DeMint...and snicker at Boehner and Cantor). The next time these pathological Uncle Toms & self-promoters...from Clarence Thomas to Allen West to Mike Steele and MLK's niece...open their mouths, may Ed Brooke sting their tongues. Learn from this dude, brothers & sisters. Learn.

Dwight D. Eisenhower. 34th President of the US. A moderate. Yes, a moderate. Would look at these folks today and grin a bit and say, "darn fools." Despite the revisionist conservative view, he didn't regret appointing Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, or setting the 101 st Airborne Division loose on good patriotic white Christian folk in Little Rock, Arkansas, when these evil Commie agitators likely convinced dopey blacks to try to attend Central High School. Yes, we were locked in the Cold War, and yes, John Foster Dulles was his bulldog Secretary of State. But in 1956, Ike came about as close as any US President to putting a foot in the ass of three of our closest allies: Britain, France...and Israel. ISRAEL--no lie? No lie. Over the Suez Crisis. Nat wrote his Princeton thesis on that. Get it along with Kagan's, Sotomayor's and Michelle's at the Seely Mudd Library, fanboys. Indeed, Israel's actions allowed the Soviets' cover to invade Hungary to put down a democratic revolt against Communism...and the world was on the brink yet again. What did regret: bailing out France in Vietnam. Lord have mercy. And GOP stalwarts in 2010 might want to recall that it was he who warned of the military-industrial complex. see here. Note this preamble to a clip from the film "Good Night and Good Luck," here.

Ike don't sound like no Patriot Act fan in that second clip, do he? LOL. Well general, your party needs you, for even your twisted VP from Cali. was downright tame compared to what we have now. Abe, Teddy, James, can you help, too?

VOTE tomorrow...for me.

Fear, ignorance, selfishness, atavism will always triumph, so just write off the Democrats in Congress. Instead, write-in Christopher Chambers for Mayor of Washington DC.

Why?

Because you don't fight fire with fire. You blow out its oxygen...

WikiLeaks: Americans don't care about Iraq

Abdication of networks and New York Times. So much for "liberal bias!" (smile)

Bishop Eddie Long: Are we African Americans, or Niggers?

Chris Rock rang this bell years ago. What are we?

Forget the hatemongering of gays. Check this out:

“We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation. We’re
not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re
doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with
Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a
multimillion-dollar congregation. You’ve got to put me on a different
scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed
to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”

Nuff said. Read between the lines. Stop being niggers and start being African Americans...

Hold the phone...Fox's "Judge" Andy Naps Napolitano says Bush and Cheney should have been indicted for torture?

My favorite wingnut gumba with a Princeton degree (other than Justice Alito), Andrew Napolitano, said it loud and clear. Indict them for torture and lying about it. W. and Uncle Dick.

Of course maybe he can claim too much Chianti, as this was the same guy who wrote a book decrying Reconstruction, the NAACP, the 50s and 60s Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights and Voting Acts as evil...but hey.

Check it out here. He's on C-SPAN, by the way, not Fox. The real no spin zone?

Glenn Beck calles Reconstruction "evil"

Of course. And Avatar as well (why can't liberals make "Birth of a Nation" over again?). Now he's sending the love to Senator Joseph McCarthy as a hero.

Wake up, America. There's fascism out there, all right. But it ain't in the White House.

Marijuana Decriminalization & the NAACP: Weed Proposition & Racism

Nat on the iPad. The image embodies my opinion...

Why Democrats Fail: Obscure Movie Reference for the weekend

Democrats. Sappy bleeding hearts or cold-blood, naive technocrats? Nah! Too dependent on, on the words of Roland Martin, "getting Pookie off the couch" for votes? Hardly. Forget the usual moronic conventions. It all comes down to philosophy.

One of Robert Downey Jr's early star vehicles (which thus lead to his personal implosion) was an biopic of Charlie Chaplin called, well Chaplin. There's a scene where he's musing about politics and morality with fellow screen pioneer Douglas Fairbanks (with whom Chaplin and Lilian Gish found United Artists film company), played by Kevin Kline.

Chaplin says to Fairbanks: "America...this is a wonderful, country and full of so much potential, Doug...underneath such ugliness."

Fairbanks replies: "You're wrong, Charlie. America's a great country now, on the surface. It's just that there are truly ugly, evil things underneath that we can't expose."

If you approach this nation's body and soul like Chaplin in this scene you'll fail. Democrats tend to organize the world this way. Republicans--not the mass of clowns or demagogues but ones in control, think like Fairbanks--and such orientation makes manipulating people and issues easier to manipulate. This isn't mere abstract thought versus realism/pragmatism. Nothing that facile. There are legions of pragmatic Democrats. This is, rather, about bedrock views.

Your thoughts?

Obama Initiative & Black Fatherhood: yeah, it's about Values. De-valuation, that is

Check my comments on the Alyona Show on Russian TV and come back. Note her pressing me for the facile answer. Note my responses, and even the hint about the departure from Bush/Cheney era philosophy...or even what underlay the current Obama Initiative launched Monday, my reference to "Fences," or fellow Princetonian Rev. Joshua DuBois's pronouncements from the White House Office of Faith Based Programs...

...and here's your answer. It is about values. Not poor ones, ghetto ones, non-white middle class ones (though class enters into it). It's about being de-valued. That is (and watch my fingers in the segment) the intersection of structural oppression (racism, economics, education) and behavior that begets culture. When you are devalued--real or perceived--often the only way you can present yourself as worthy is by having a lot of women...girls, often. Getting them pregnant. bathing yourself in the silly, cartoonish superficiality of quasi-wealth (rims to skids to a 72 inch flatscreen with PS3 in a 500 sq. foot dingy apartment). Or getting pregnant if you're female. And if youYou aren't Michelle Obama--or even Elizabeth Hasselbeck on the View or the girl going to UVA on a field hockey scholarship--how you fill out jeans and blouse or how loud you can be even at age 12, might be all you got to show the world you matter.

Guess what? That's universal, spanning races, ethnicities, world-wide. What would the Palin family be without shady background sponsors pushing them all the way from Wasilla? Answer? Just watch Jerry Springer or Maury. In communities or sub-society's Where there's a history of poverty, isolation from the mainstream, parochial thought/ignorance, lack of opportunity or mind expanding education (for girls and boys) you have this issue. It's just that we have more history and structural buffeting as the basis than most in America. We have a bigger percentage of those living on the fringe, in almost an underground society. So the effects are more acute.

You can't say that on TV. No time.

Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra?! Hollywood...and White Audiences...don't change

Read Talia White's column in MSNBC's The Grio (and check my columns as well, fanboys & girls) then come back here.

Didn't the BBC do an investigation (in conjunction with Discovery) showing that through bone and DNA analysis (on her little sister Arsinoe--pronounced R-SIN-OH-WAY, and depicted in art with major plaited black braids of her own hair) this woman was more African than Ptolemy/Greek?

Note to you history-challenged jerks: Alexander the Great first severed Egypt from the Persian Empire (modern day Iran)...hence we have Alexandria. When he died, one of his best buds, the general Ptolemy, took Egypt as his little prize and made Alexandria his capital (and a repository of ancient art & technology while white folks were painting themselves with bull dung). Hence from that moment till the destruction of the dynasty by the Romans under Augustus, all Pharoahs were at least part Greek. That part diminished to a trickle. And far from being an exotic courtesan [which one would think would thus drive tools in Hollywood to pick someone who's maybe a Latina or with a "Middle Eastern/South Asian look" because that's the "type" cineplex suburban Americans expect] Cleo even as a teenager spoke 4 languages, was a mathmetician, poetess/comedienne and studied diplomacy from materials in the Great Library. She was a more a nerdy chick with a nice sex drive and a lot of ambition, not a scheming ho. But alas, most of that scheming involved killing a lot of folks, and it changed the course of Rome's, thus our, history...

Two years ago, archeologists found the body of Arsinoe (whom she had assassins kill once her old lover Julius Caesar died) and did the forensics. It works the same why as when they do a work up on your sibling, or parents' bodies to determine who/what the heck you are. And unless a Viking had an affair with Cleo's momma, the results and anecdotal/historical Roman (i.e. Plutarch) and Egyptian accounts should be conclusive.

But that don't bother Hollywood none. Somebody has to market to Red State morons...and go with brand names to ensure some semblence of a box office take. But that, interestingly, isn't the most cynical aspect to this. Like Liz Taylor et al...isn't Angelina...or Halle or any other black actress mentioned...too OLD? When Cleo met Caesar she was 16. She died at age 30, maybe? The closest to a decent and accurate rendering was HBO's Rome (more a precusor to Starz's Spartacus: Blood & Sand than 300). The chick still had a little too much Avril Lavigne in her, but also it was clear there was some sistah as well.

So let's stop the bullsh^t. I hear white people whining about Don Glover trying to be cast as Spider Man/Peter Parker, or huffing "Then let Spike Lee make the movie." That's not the point. The point is that Hollywood, as a weird carnie mirror to our society, has been doing the opposite to people of color for decades...indeed, since D.W. Griffith delighted audiences in 1915 by having white actors smeared on blackface to play the treacherous, rapacious, presumptuous, arrogant, not-knowing-their-place mulattoes of Birth of A Nation. Damn, those adjectives sound like Obama, don't it, Rand and Sarah? Guess we should get Fred Armisen in the film version?

Abby Sunderland: such is the world we've wrought

Reality show. Showbiz parent. Sponsor deadlines. Teen wanting fame in our "Twilight" generation. Cash money baby. Such is the media today. Such is the world we've made.

Now, on to Joran Van der Sloot...or Albert Haynesworth of the Redskins?

Alvin Greene: the Stealth Willie Horton or Racial Cypher?

Demint can win with out this nonsense. But then again, so thought Nixon in 72, and he still sat back whilst Liddy and a bunch of Cubans broke into the Watergate. What's the truth here?

Then again, there was Sgt. Watter's cautionary tale from A Soldier's Story...recall his reminescence about World War One and "Moonshine, King of the Monkeys?"

Check out the Washington Post's first efforts at investigating this circus...