We’ll Get There One Day July 5, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in AIDS, Barack Obama, Big Mike, Conspiracy Theories, Jim Crow, Michael G. Glab, Race, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Separate but Equal, Slavery, Thomas Jefferson, Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Vietnam.1 comment so far
A man walked through the Speedway gas station lot yesterday, Independence Day. He wore a straw sun hat that had a couple of little American flags stuck into the hat band. He was shoving his change in his pocket as he was getting into his SUV. As he did this, something fell on the ground, unbeknown to him. I couldn’t tell if it was a receipt or a dollar bill so I got out of the car (the loved one, Karen, was filling the tank – we have an agreement: whoever’s driving pumps the gas) and trotted toward his vehicle.
As I neared it, I noticed he had Vietnam veteran’s plates. I pointed out the piece of paper, which turned out to be a receipt. He jumped out of his SUV and thanked me profusely as if I’d recovered the missing deed to his house.
One of the first things you learn about the near south is that people treat everyday encounters with strangers like reunions with long lost relatives. Had this occurred back in Chicago, I could have expected either to be ignored or a terse “thanks.” This fellow, though, clasped my hand and began telling me what a wonderful day it was, how lucky we all are to be alive, isn’t this the greatest country on Earth, and Jesus has made it all possible.
For a quick minute, I thought he might invite home to meet his wife and have dinner.
After trying to say goodbye to him three separate times, I finally was able to extricate myself from his neighborly grip. He got back into his SUV, began backing out of the parking spot, then rolled down his window to wave farewell to me once again. In the process, he almost slammed into another car that was just pulling in.
It was a typical encounter with a god-fearing, patriotic gentleman of the south.
What struck me, though, is that he was a black man. This chance meeting got me to thinking how odd it is that so many black men and women love this country so much.
A Rally Of Patriots, August 1963
When some angry sermons delivered by Barack Obama’s ex-pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made the rounds earlier this year, many white commentators were aghast. Their reaction couldn’t have been too different from that following a German Bundist rally in 1939 or a neo-Nazi hatefest in 1977. You’d have thought Wright (and, by extension, Obama) was advocating the mass enslavement of American citizens.
Barack Obama (L) and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Before All The Hysteria
I found nothing particularly alarming or upsetting about anything Wright said, save for the notion that AIDS might have been created by the US government to attack black people. Then again, when you recall the Tuskegee syphilis study scandal, you can’t blithely dismiss any such theory.
In fact, I found Wright’s comments on America and race to be right on target. He talked about how stupid US foreign policy decisions contributed to the atmosphere that led to the 9/11 attacks – I’m with him there. He called for blacks to pull together to foster cultural, spiritual and economic unity – natch. And when he said “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn American for as long as she acts like she is god and she is supreme,” my reaction was, Amen!
A few centuries of slavery, a hundred years of Jim Crow, and some sixty years of separate but equal ought to have radicalized any thinking black human being. Yet, yesterday I met a black man who was so enthralled with his country that he wore American flags attached to his hat. Not only that, he had fought in an undeclared war for that nation.
Not-So-Ancient History
Why?
The only explanation I can offer is that black people have been able to distinguish between the evils that exist in our society and its potential for eliminating them. Sure, some of the working concepts of slavery were written into the US Constitution, but many of the revolutionaries who created the US loathed the system of human “ownership.” Thomas Jefferson, for one, although a slaveholder himself, called slavery the “great political and moral evil” in his treatise, “Notes On Virginia.”
We humans are an inconsistent, contradictory lot. The so-called “Founding Fathers” were as mixed up as any other gang of guys. They were smart enough to embrace democracy but too obtuse to ensure the participation of blacks and women in that system.
It’s clear there was a notion running through the young country that although slavery existed, its continued existence wasn’t long for the US and this world. A nation firmly and unanimously committed to slavery for the indefinite future wouldn’t have have included the words “all men are created equal” in its Declaration of Independence.
Perhaps many black men and women have clung to the dream of the US despite its temporal realities. Can it be that they love what this nation can become despite hating what it often is? If so, they’ve displayed a sophistication of thought that’s far beyond that of the white commentators who had conniption fits when they heard the words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Happy Independence Day!
Big Mike
Millions For Offense July 3, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in Barack Obama, Big Mike, Bill Clinton, Charlton Heston, Che Guevara, Chelsea Clinton, Clear Channel, George C. Wallace, Rush Limbaugh.add a comment
Imagine taking home a $1.4 million-dollar paycheck every two weeks. That’s $2.8 million a month (and even more in those glorious months that contain three paydays.) I’d work one year and be done with it – no matter what it is. My biggest challenge would to to resist the urge to retire after working a single month. Sure as I’m sitting here typing nonsense into a blog for free, I could find a way to live the rest of my life comfortably on a nice $2.8 million nest egg.
Talk Is Cheap
What does one have to do to rake in such riches? Develop a cure for breast cancer? Convince Hezbollah and the Israeli Knesset to co-sponsor Woodstock III? Invent an automobile engine that runs on AAA batteries?
Apparently all one has to do is sit before a radio microphone and demonstrate to the nation what an asshole sounds like. Yup. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III has just signed a new eight year contract with Clear Channel Communications that will pay him a total of $400 million. The deal includes a $100 million up-front signing bonus. All this for a man who once referred to 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton as the White House dog.
I can be a mean prick too! Where are my millions?
Clear Channel probably made the deal figuring that Barack Obama will be elected president this fall. Can you imagine the orgy of bitterness, canard, prevarication, not-so-subtly coded racism, and hysteria his show will become? Oh, that’s right – it is already! Right now, Limbaugh attracts some 20 million listeners a week to his daily syndicated three-hour show. I feel confident in guessing there are many more than 20 million lunkheads in this great nation whose penises will shrink upon realization that Obama has become their leader.
Remember when conservatives put this bumper sticker on their cars?
That was when Bill Clinton occupied the White House. You know, Bill Clinton, the centrist, the most moderate of the eight or so aspirants for the 1992 Democratic nomination for president. After his victory that year, the Limbaugh-led right branded him a dirty rotten liberal and helped transform the word into a pejorative.
What will Limbaugh gang say and do if Obama, who, while not exactly Che Guevara but at least more lefty than Bill, becomes the Commander in Chief? I’ll bet the 20 million who listen to Rush every week now will grow to 30 or 40 million! What agit-prop will they display? This?
An October Tragedy? June 30, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in 9/11, Barack Obama, Big Mike, Conspiracy Theories, Cubs, Dr. Strangelove, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, John McCain, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Michael G. Glab, Neo-conservatives, New Yorker, Seymour Hersh, War Fever.2 comments
I’ve been moaning to everyone I know that my heart will be broken this fall when, after the Cubs reach the World Series for the first time in 63 years, they will be beaten by those no-good, dirty lousy schmucks from Tampa Bay, the Goddamned Rays.
Yeah, yeah. Funny and ironic, it’s a scenario that plays in nicely with any good Cubs fan’s dearly-held mystical narrative of catastrophe. But you know what? I’m even more afraid that this coming fall promises a far more real and serious heartbreak.
President Ahmadinejad inspects Iran’s bomb kitchen
Seymour Hersh in today’s New Yorker writes that US military special operations have already begun in Iran, laying the groundwork for the shoot-’em-up that’ll be Bushie Boy’s farewell gift to the world. The Bush administration came into office salivating for Iraq. After the events of September 11th, 2001, the gang decided to remake the entire Middle East. The neo-conservative wonk-bullies who made up Bush’s inner circle saw their mission as quite nearly divine – to conduct a modern Crusade to rein in rampant Moslem fundamentalism and make the world safe for oil billionaires.
Now, at the end of what is without a doubt the nation’s worst-ever presidency, Bush and his croaking toads seem to want to finish the job. The whole thing makes a lot of sense, if your moral position resembles that of Dr. Strangelove. Radical Moslem fundamentalists, we all agree, need to be, well, neutralized. The attacks of 9/11 were so fortuitous for the Bush gang’s long-range plans that conspiracy theorists couldn’t help but adding two and two and coming up with a gazillion. And with China and India suddenly becoming huge consumers of oil, it’s imperative that the Middle East’s black gunk be controlled by trusty fellows who pay more heed to the value of the American dollar than to the writings of the Koran. Finally, an impending war around election time favors the candidate who’s a decorated war veteran and not a martini-sipping wall-leaner.
Future candidates: McCain in uniform, Obama in the library.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope the worst thing that happens in October is a Tampa Bay rally from a three-games-to-one deficit to win the World Series over the Cubs. But this is George W. Bush we’re talking about. Expect the worst.
Big Mike
Coming This Fall: Red Alert! June 25, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in 9/11, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Big Mike, Charlie Black, Fox News, George W. Bush, John McCain, Michael G. Glab, Osama bin Laden, Terror Alerts, War Fever.3 comments
I haven’t thought about our country’s system of terrorism alerts in years.
See The Pretty Colors
Of course, I’m not the only one who has ignored the Bush administration’s attempt to keep us aware of all the madmen out there who want to destroy our good way of life and make it impossible for honest, hard-working oil speculators to ply their trade. But there’s little hard data indicating how high or low public awareness is of the color code system. I only know that Fox News, which at first gleefully displayed the current color level in it’s bottom-of-the-screen crawls 24 hours a day, no longer does so. If Fox isn’t publicizing a Bush initiative, it ain’t happening.
The system suddenly came back to mind today when I read Charlie Black’s recent comments about a possible terrorist attack in the US. Black, who’s a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, told reporters that such an attack would help the Republican candidate in the presidential race, you see, because scared voters in such circumstances would prefer the rough and tough McCain to that marshmallow, Barack Obama.
How do we know Obama is soft? Karl Rove says so. Bushie boy’s former political strategist and saboteur had this to say about the Democratic presidential candidate: “Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.” Sheesh! You want a guy like this protecting us against jihadists?
Even though McCain swore up and down that what Black said is a pack of lies, he has to know that his adviser was speaking the truth. If he weren’t why would Rove and other Republicans be spending so much time painting Obama as Neville Chamberlain, Vidkun Quisling, and Benedict Arnold all rolled into one?
Bush Loves His Country With All His Abdomen
The good citizens of the United States are a pack of scared rabbits despite the fact that this country is the sole remaining superpower on Earth. The rest of the world sees us as a strutting bully. No other nation can send its armed forces halfway around the planet to overthrow another nation’s government simply because, um, because, well, we did it – that’s the point I’m trying to make. On the other hand, we see ourselves as beset on all sides by swarthy lunatics and conniving foreigners. The radical Muslims, the hordes of undocumented Mexicans, the wiley Chinese, and even the Mobbed-up Russians are all poised to pounce on us. Regardless of our might, Americans insist on cowering under the covers because of the bogeymen under the bed.
Scaredy-cats are always on the lookout for a protector, a big daddy-o who’ll keep the night safe. Bush and the boys know this all too well – and so must McCain. Bush’s popularity zoomed after the 9/11 attacks. He spoke tough and rattled his saber, immediately issuing marching orders which included the map of Afghanistan. He did what any other American leader would have done under the circumstances yet too many people became slavish in their gratitude that Bush was president in those dark days rather than Al Gore. Ooh, they moaned, wringing their hands, what would Gore have done? Duh! He would have curled up in a ball and commenced weeping uncontrollably. Once he finally stopped sobbing, he’d have sent Osama bin Laden the keys to the White House via overnight courier.
For some reason, Republicans are viewed as decisive he-men while the Dems are clowns and pushovers. Then again, the Democrats did once nominate Michael Dukakis as their presidential candidate.
We turn to the trusty GOP when we’re most frightened of the brown- and yellow-skinned billions hidden out in the woods. During the election season of 2004, when Bush faced a reasonably stiff challenge from John Kerry, his gang raised the terror alert to orange on September 10th, the perfect time to scare the poo out of the electorate. Bush’s popularity rose accordingly. Just in case you were wondering, that’s the only time the threat level has been raised since the system was instituted. The fact that it occurred during election season is mere coincidence. Oh, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
How are we to react if the threat level is raised once again between now and November? I don’t know about you, but I won’t be surprised.
Bud Selig’s President June 23, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in 7872800, 9/11, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Big Mike, Bud Selig, Conspiracy Theories, Fay Vincent, George W. Bush, Golf, Major League Baseball, Michael G. Glab, Osama bin Laden, Texas Rangers, Tony Blair.2 comments
I don’t hate George W. Bush. Nor do I think he’s a bad man. I do believe he’ll go down as the worst president in the nation’s history.
Today, when we disagree with someone, it has become almost compulsory to demonize that person. Too many people who wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama in a hundred years are eager to portray him as a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. It’s not good enough to simply try to tear apart his positions; anti-Obama-ites must reduce him to a cartoon villain. Don’t think the left is any better. A significant portion of the citizenry fervently believes that President Bush knew in advance of the 9/11 attacks, or worse, had a hand in planning them!
Political discourse in 2008 has all the subtlety of an episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown.
All that said, it’s not political hate speech to brand Bush as the worst president ever. Somebody has to be that guy. You can have Warren G. Harding or Millard Fillmore or even Tricky Dick. I choose Babs and Poppy’s kid.
Babs, Poppy, and the Future Worst President Ever
Bushie Boy seems to be a likable lunkhead. He’s the kind of guy who’s a scream on a fishing trip. He’s probably great in a golf foursome. He has an ease of manner that seems to break down all pretenses. His dealings with foreign leaders are refreshingly casual, as illustrated by his badinage with Tony Blair and his attempt to relieve Angela Merkel of her stress. Heads of state view themselves as visitors from Mt. Olympus. Bush, perhaps because he’s all too pedestrian himself, often reminds his counterparts that they’re just folks.
That’s not enough qualification, though, for him to be the leader of the world’s sole superpower. Bush would be a better fit as commissioner of baseball. Former Commissioner Fay Vincent says Bush spoke to him about becoming commissioner back in the early 90s while he still owned the Texas Rangers and before he ran for governor of Texas. According to Vincent, Bud Selig, the acting commissioner at the time, put the kibosh on Bush’s ambitions because he (Selig) wanted the job – sans the “acting” qualifier – for himself.
Right Where He Belongs
Think of it. The most important man in 21st Century American history so far might be the car salesman from Milwaukee, Wisconsin! Despite encouraging Bush to go for the job in face to face conversations, Selig maneuvered behind-the-scenes to sabotage him, inadvertently setting Bush’s political career in motion.
Kingmaker
I may not hate George W. Bush but I sure can’t stomach Bud Selig.
Harrumph. June 12, 2008
Posted by glabwrites in Alfonso Soriano, Barack Obama, Boystown, Bravo, Britney Spears, Cubs, Earl Warren, Emmy Awards, George W. Bush, Jim Belushi, John McCain, Kathy Griffin, Loving Day, Loving v. Virginia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mildred & Richard Loving, Oak Park, Race, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Richard Roeper, Scrabble, US Supreme Court, Uncategorized.add a comment
Imagine my displeasure this morning when one of the first things I noticed in the New York Times was a photo of Oak Park’s own Kathy Griffin. Thankfully I had nothing in my mouth at the moment otherwise the fellow sitting at the Starbuck’s table next to me might have been wearing my breakfast. The reason for this nightmarish apparition was a review of this year’s first episode of Griffin’s reality series, “My Life on the D-List,” now beginning it’s fourth season.
That’s right – fourth season. Griffin, a gargoyle with red hair, pancake makeup and a grating voice, has made a career out of talking about herself and her brushes with celebrities, topics about as riveting as a game of Scrabble between George W. Bush and Britney Spears.
Here’s the kicker: Kathy Griffin has won an Emmy award for her show, seen (where else?) on Bravo Thursday nights. Bravo has remade itself into the channel of choice for the gay middle class. Griffin’s core market, if one is to judge by her choice of monologue topics and cutaway shots of her live audiences, is decidedly Boystown.
What in the living hell do they give Emmys out for anymore?
Griffin holds down an honored spot in one of my Excel lists entitled Life-Is-Not-Fair. Joining her on the list are such Chicago area luminaries as Jim Belushi and Richard Roeper. I read through the list whenever I begin to think that the world has some rhyme or reason. Invariably when I think such thoughts I become disappointed, discouraged and ultimately fall into a funk. If these three hyenas and others on the list can earn fabulous livings utilizing their scarcely identifiable talents, then there is no logic to be found on this hunk of rock. Life ain’t fair, baby.
Those of us who cling to the notion that the concept of fairness should hold sway are doomed to constant disappointment. So in a way, Kathy Griffin and the others do me a service.
Speaking of unfairness, the Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano suffered a cracked bone in his left hand after being hit by a pitch in last night’s game against the Braves. Dang. He’ll miss up to six weeks while his paw heals.
I should have expected at least a little bad news to come out of this dream season. Soriano’s loss probably will slow down The Century Express a bit.
This question has been on my mind the last few days as President Bush travels through Europe talking tough about Iran. Is he ramping up the rhetoric in order to help make Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a Vietnam vet and former POW, look better come November?
After all, the rap against Dem Barack Obama is that he’s inexperienced and far too conciliatory. And, of course, he’s a sleeper agent for the Islamic terrorist cabal that wants to destroy America. If we’re on the verge of war with Mahmoud Ahamadinejad this fall, the Republicans can crow that we’d be better off with McCain as Commander in Chief. It seems the GOP’s only hope.
Happy Loving Day! Didn’t know it was Loving Day, did you? Admit it, you don’t even know what Loving Day is. Today’s the 41st anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision overturning anti-miscegenation laws in 16 states. Yup, within my lifetime a significant swath of the Union held marriage and/or the sexual coupling of people from different races to be criminal acts. Yikes!
And people wonder why the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has such a chip on his shoulder.
In 1959, Mildred and Richard Loving pleaded guilty in the state of Virginia to the heinous crime of being husband and wife. She was black and he white. You’ve gotta love the statement issued by the deep-thinking Judge Leon Bazile who ordered the Lovings to leave Virginia after their guilty plea:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.
Wow! And where do the Malays get off, having their own race?
With the ACLU behind them, the Lovings pressed their case to the nation’s highest court. In a unanimous decision, Earl Warren’s court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were racially discriminatory and violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. For its part, Virginia argued that since both blacks and whites were equally penalized for violating the law, it couldn’t be discriminatory. Nice try.
So take a look at your friends and relatives who’ve married or live with someone outside their races and know that less than half a century ago they would have been felons.
Big Mike
