Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Sunday, December 20, 2009

KPFK's Hutchinson Report

I was interviewed by Sikivu Hutchinson yesterday. You can listen to yours truly here.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Guantanamo Illinois

"To all those who repeatedly claimed that, no matter what 'mistakes' he might make and regardless of the scope of the devastating effects of those errors, Obama had to represent a markedly better choice than McCain, take note: in certain respects, Obama is far more dangerous than McCain could have been. For the same reasons, Obama is also more dangerous than Bush was. " - Arthur Silber

Once again, Barack Obama has accomplished what George W. Bush never could. There was a method to the madness of establishing this secret police apparatus off shore. The Bush administration were opening up a whole new legal territory, and believed they needed to keep "enemy combatants" off of American soil in order to justify their actions.

But along comes Obama. He claimed he would close Guantanamo, which never impressed me, because he didn't address the legality of holding prisoners with this new and special designation. It didn't address the issue of whether or not a president could declare anyone an enemy and have them held indefinitely without charge or trial or perhaps worse yet, set up military tribunals instead of courts of law if they were ever tried. The state of Illinois will the first victim, with Guantanamo prisoners scheduled to be transferred there.

I argued with my friend Arthur Silber when he first stated that Obama would be more dangerous than McCain. "In large part, the danger represented by Obama arises from the fact that Obama's election gutted whatever effective opposition might have existed." Of course he hit the nail on the head. Obamaites will support whatever he says or does. He can accept a Nobel peace prize and do so in the name of continuing endless warfare and no one says a word. Yes, Arthur, you told me so.

I will have more to say about the Nobel disgrace in the latest issue of Black Agenda Report which will be posted later today.

Monday, December 07, 2009

"What I can't figure out," Tiger Woods asks Vincent, the limo driver, "is why so may good-looking women hang around baseball and basketball. Is it because, you know, people always say that, like, black guys have big dicks?" - Tiger Woods

Woods made this and other remarks in a GQ interview back in 1997. The then up and coming phenom may have known how to play golf, but he didn't know that if you don't want to see something in print, you shouldn't say it in front of a reporter. Tiger was on a roll that day.

"The Little Rascals are at school. The teacher wants them to use various words in sentences. The first word is love. Spanky answers, "I love dogs." The second word is respect. Alfalfa answers, "I respect how much Spanky loves dogs." The third word is dictate. There is a pause in the room. Finally, Buckwheat puts up his hand. "Hey, Darla," says Buckwheat. "How my dick ta'te?"

But wait, there was even more. "He puts the tips of his expensive shoes together, and he rubs them up and down against each other. 'What's this?' he asks the women, who do not know the answer. 'It's a black guy taking off his condom,' Tiger explains."

It is clear from these exchanges that Tiger doesn't see himself as a black man. He made it official when he told Oprah that he was "Cablinasian." OK, fine, up to him, but his self-proclaimed non-black identity gave him even less right to make jokes at the expense of the group he claimed no allegiance to.

Now Tiger is the butt of jokes and fodder for media over kill. The over kill part does bother me, if only because I'm not very interested in his life. But I don't feel sorry for Tiger the man. He is a self-hating asshole and assholes eventually do themselves in.

I doubt that the public relations problems will last. The sponsors will stick with him and he will be wealthy for the rest of his life. I should have such problems.