See music video:

We are now all familiar with the cadre of “strong” black women in our society. They usually proclaim themselves so, so that we can indentify them as they are rolling their neck, and waving the index finger to accentuate. Most often this proclamation either is being given as justification for a tirade where she’s explaining why she “don’t take no mess”, or is preceeding such a tirade that’s about to ensue.

StatuesqueOne theorizes that this sense of strength and independence has been misplaced and misused, much to the detriment of Black woman. Further, that the whole phrase and concept of the “Strong Independent Black Woman” has become a mockery; such as how white comedian Kathy Griffin will refer to herself as a “strong black woman” before regailing how she told someone off, or what have you.

She also seems to agree with a position I have long pointed out, and noted in this piece, where a swath of black women have confused strength with aggressiveness and beligerence.

Watch this video commentary, and tell me what you think.

Yesterday Haiti’s election council denied his bid to get on the ballot for November’s election. This well might be expected, as he lacked the requirement of having recently lived in the country for five consecutive years before election day.

Likewise not unexpected to me, but yet disappointing is the joy that his detractors take in the denial of he even having opportunity to stand before the Haitian people, and put forth himself to help better his country.

Much is the gnashing of teeth of how celebrities are disconnected from social issues, are often politically ambivalent and take no stand; and how the rich (which Wyclef is) neglect the interest of the poor.

Would Wyclef have made a good president, I don’t know, and didn’t particularly have an opinion on whether he should be elected; I felt it was up to the Haitian people to look at all alternatives and make that decision. Though, I out of hand reject the notion that you simply need an experienced politician, or expert technicians. Technicians don’t lead, leaders do; and all the professional politicians have done nothing for Haiti all these years, so what’s one more?

I don’t think anyone should have supported Wyclef if they didn’t think he was the best candidate; but likewise I find it disconcerting that he received such vitriol and personal animus for wanting to stand up for his country.

A couple of years I did a series called Determined Activism Verses Naysayers. The bottom line to the 3 commentaries was that you can always expect to be derided for any attempts to effect social change, or make a difference in anyway; no matter what you do. Both my study of history and every social movement or activist I’ve ever studied; plus my decade of personal experience in social activism lets me know this to be a certain truth.

I was listening to local sports talk radio a yesterday, and they were discussing parents who are apt these days to deride, insult, and even assault the coaches of children, and how these coaches get paid little or nothing; and this is the thanks thy get for their volunteer efforts. A former volunteer coach that called noted that you’ll get more criticism for volunteer work then you’d get for doing the same work for pay.

I found the saying relatively true that “no good deed goes unpunished.” So before you do the right thing, make sure it’s what you believe in, because you’ll pay for it.

I say that not to encourage you not to do good, but to let you know to be sound in your belief in doing the good that you attempt to do; because you won’t be congratulated, rewarded, or thanked for it. You better believe that doing right is it’s own reward, because it’ll likely be the only one you’ll get.

You’ll get more snickering, naysaying, criticism and disregard than anything else. But again, nothing ever got better listening to the naysers. They’re always there to naysay everything.

Thank you all who have called to demand justice for the Scott Sisters.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has assigned an individual to investigate the case of the Scott Sisters. His name is Charlie Rubisoff. If you have any information that will help in freeing the Scott Sisters, please send it to : chrub@ago.state.ms.us Thank you.

Sincerely, Kambiz Mostofi

____________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 1st, 2010

Contact: Kambiz Mostofi, 818-451-6472 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              818-451-6472      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 818-451-6472 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Life Imprisonment for $11 Robbery (Jackson, MS) – On Christmas Eve in 1993, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott left a mini-mart near their home in Scott County, Mississippi. Their car broke down. They hitched a ride from two young men, one of whom they knew. Later that evening the two men were robbed at gunpoint by three teenagers in another car. The robbers took an estimated $11 from the two young men. No one was hurt. Police accused the Scott sisters of setting the victims up.

Their father, James “Hawk” Rasco had experienced problems with law enforcement after he moved his family from Chicago back to Scott County, Mississippi. Rasco took over a nightclub previously owned by a nephew who had turned state’s evidence in a case against the “High White Sheriff” of Scott County, Glenn Warren. In the case of the Scott Sisters, the gun allegedly used in the robbery was never located, and the “stolen” wallet was recovered according to an affidavit by a trustee of the jail.

Jamie Scott is currently suffering from kidney failure and is gravely ill due to the care she is receiving at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) in Pearl, Mississippi. Jamie’s condition has grown more critical prompting many groups in Mississippi to start writing letters and making phone calls to elected officials.

Civil Rights Advocate Dr. Adam Reza said “The people of Mississippi demand an investigation into the case of the Scott Sisters and we call on Attorney General Jim Hood to personally look in to the health of Jaime Scott. This is the United States of America and the Scott Sisters are entitled to their civil rights. We shall pursue legal action against the state of Mississippi if matters are not rectified.”
—————-

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Friday, August 6, 2010

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — July 2010

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector
payroll employment edged up by 71,000.

Household Survey Data

Both the number of unemployed persons, at 14.6 million, and the unemployment
rate, at 9.5 percent, were unchanged in July. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.7 percent), adult women (7.9 percent), teenagers (26.1 percent), whites (8.6 percent), blacks (15.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.1 percent) showed little or no change in July. The jobless rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

In July, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 6.6 million. These individuals made up 44.9 percent of unemployed persons. (See table A-12.)

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.6 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.4 percent) were essentially unchanged in July; however, these measures have declined by 0.6 percentage point and 0.4 point, respec-
tively, since April. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged over the month at 8.5 million but has declined by 623,000 since April. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

About 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in July, an increase of 340,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They
were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in them 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged workers
in July, up by 389,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.4 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsi-
bilities. (See table A-16.)

Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 131,000 in July, reflecting thedeparture of 143,000 temporary Census 2010 workers from federal government payrolls. Total private employment edged up over the month (+71,000). Thus far this
year, private sector employment has increased by 630,000, with about two-thirds of the gain occurring in March and April. (See table B-1.)

Manufacturing employment increased by 36,000 over the month. Motor vehicles and
parts had fewer seasonal layoffs than normal for July, contributing to a season-
ally adjusted employment increase of 21,000. The industry had added 32,000 jobs
in the first 6 months of the year. In July, employment in fabricated metals rose
by 9,000. Manufacturing employment has expanded by 183,000 since December 2009.

Health care added 27,000 jobs in July. Over the past 12 months, health care em-
ployment has risen by 231,000.

For full report and tables, go here…

The mkcreativeblog characterized it as such:

President Barack Obama shifted emphasis from his predecessor on yet another issue, as he announced the administration’s launch of the “Natinal HIV/AIDS Community Discussions” to be hosted by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP). “HIV remains an serious challenge to the American people and I am committed to developing an effective National HIV/AIDS Strategy,” said President Obama.

Obama’s plan seeks to specify and focus in particular on groups that are most vulnerable, or that have experienced the most dramatic rises in new HIV cases, such as gay men and black women. This is also a departure from Bush, where in his neo-con ideology these gender, race and sexual preference differences either don’t exist, or don’t have an effect on addressing public health; or more likely, the practioners of this ideology just don’t care. It’s reverse racism or something to acknowledge scientific fact and place emphasis wehre it’s needed most, and hence impolitic for neo-cons.

See video of Obama’s announcemnt:

As people filed into a lunch session that would also contain a panel on civil rights, protestor dressed up as mock ICE Agents (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) stopped only white persons, asking for their id and papers to enter.

Here’s video of the fake check point by sumofchange.com

Carlos Quiroz was also there and conduct interviews with those who staged the mock ICE checkpoint

You can read more at Carlos post: http://carlosqc.blogspot.com/2010/07/fake-ice-checkpoint-at-netroots-nation.html

Rogers makes no real argument for impeach. She only cites that the Glass-Steagall Act wasn’t restored, and Obama’s continuation of the Bush administration’s corporate bailouts, along with a lack of a repeal of the Patriot Act and that “my campaign has been built on the necessity of impeaching Obama in order to save NASA.”

Of course these are not at all impeachable offense, but just political disagreements that Ms. Rogers has with the president. I don’t like your politics, does not an impeachment argument make.

Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Read some of here platform bullet points at the bottom of the post.

Her reference to, and over use of the phrase “the population” in place of what most people would call the public, is another oddity of her disposition. You can here repeated examples in this interview from her primary victory night. Again, what you won’t hear is an actual argument for impeachment, except that she doesn’t agree with Obama:

Her website’s biography introduction states:

I have fought long and hard on behalf of the ideals and principles of the true Democratic Party best represented by Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon LaRouche, even at the expense of happily putting myself at odds with the now discredited ‘mainstream’ leadership of my party.

Bottom-line Analysis

It’s one thing to quarrel with Obama’s politics; but for a fellow party member to taken on the banner of the extreme of the other side such as the Obama as Hitler picture below, brings things to farcical obsurdity:

Kesha Rogers seems to be driven mostly by an exibitionist desire for attention by using shock jock tactics, and she may also be a little on the mentally crazed side as well. Here are points to back up both of these assertions:

1. Backing up the first, she doesn’t simply have some points of disagreement or critique of Barack Obama, but she spends all of her time campaigning against the president of her own party, as opposed to campaigning against her actually opponent for the seat that she’s running for. What happened to all politics are local?

2. As to the the asscertion of mental deficiency: she wants to colonize Mars for human habitation. She’s literally said so. It’s actually one of her main capaign platform agenda points. We haven’t even gotten to mars, but she thinks we can live an Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall type of existence in the near future.

Ultimately, Rogers may just be playing power broking politics; plain and simple. Her views may not be real views, and her only motivation may simply be the aquisition of power. See Rogers is running on the Democratic ticket in the heavily Republican Texas 22nd district. The seat that until a few years ago was long held staunch conservative Tom Delay.

She may have made the calculation that she had no chance to unseat Pete Olson in a Republcian primary; but that if she could win the Democratic primary that she might then be able to put together a coalition of disaffected Democrats, moderate Dems, and right of center moderates to possibly beat Olson in a general election.

I mean, considering that she’s running in Houstion Texas, the home of NASA; her plans to go to Mars and running to ramp up the space mission seems to be clear pandering to local interest to spur voter support from the “populations”.

Roger’s says:

· He has continued to support the Bush-Cheney wars, which he said he would end, and their so-called Patriot Act, which threatens our freedoms;

· He has continued the Bush-Cheney bailouts of Wall Street swindlers and thieves, and is making it worse, by rejecting true regulatory reform, through his die-hard opposition to restoring the Glass-Steagall regulations of Franklin Roosevelt, and his efforts to kill Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s amendment to restrict derivative trading;

· He continues the Bush-Cheney embrace of financial and business cartels, as in his so-called health care legislation, which the insurance companies, HMOs and Big Pharma love, but which defines the sick, the poor, and the elderly as ‘useless eaters’; or his refusal to shut down BP (BRITISH Petroleum), and apply immediate, necessary emergency measures in the Gulf;

· And, of course, his repudiation of our manned space mission, including the colonization of Mars, which was ardently supported by past Democratic Party presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Texas’s own Lyndon Johnson.

blah blah blaha

This is the deflective approach of the Tea Party, and in specific Mark Williams.

Last Thursday, Tea Party Express spokesmen Mark Williams was apparently still feeling salty about the NAACP having passed a resolution the day before calling on Tea Party officials to denounce racism amongst their ranks. Williams wanted to show how not racist he and the rest of the Tea Party temper tantrum throwers “movement” are…by being racist.

Williams wrote a blog post on his website where the character writing the letter refers repeatedly to “us Coloreds”, and depicts Blacks as lazy lay-a-bouts who are not upset with the Tea Party for the blatant racism that this mock letter demonstrates; but because they’re upset that the Tea Party calls for reigning in government spending, which would end the government hands out and government cheese (do they still produce that stuff) that blacks love so much.

Here’s an example passage:

“The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds!”

You can read that tripe in full here if you want.

The letter ends by being singed

“Precious Ben Jealous, Tom’s Nephew
NAACP Head Colored Person”

Ben Jealous is actually the President of the NAACP.

Like a coward, Williams wasn’t man enough to stand behind his racist mocking; and took the post down as soon as he caught some flack; but of course this being internet 2.0 and it had already been copied, as people know to copy something while it is available.

Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express where, nonetheless, kicked out of Tea Party Federation; an umbrella organization that claims to represent 85 Tea Party groups. On CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Sunday, federation spokesman David Webb said “We have expelled Tea Party Express and Mark Williams from the National Tea Party Federation because of the letter that he wrote.”

Looks like the NAACP’s resolution actually did some good, because this is exactly what the resolution called for. Williams, in the previous year had labeled Manhattan Boro Pesident Scott Stringer a “Jewish Uncle Tom” and President Obama an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug.”

In his article, A Final Thought, Ta-Nehisi Coates captures the essence of issue surrounding the NAACP having put forth the resolution in the first place:

It’s been asked in comments, a few times, what good has come of the NAACP’s resolution…When engaging your adversaries, that approach has its place. But it’s worth saying that there are other approaches and other places. Among them–respectfully administering the occasional reminder as to the precise nature of the motherfuckers you are dealing with. It strikes me that this is a most appropriate role for the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

I also like what commentor Cynic posted; which is as follows:

We’re not used to seeing that sort of rhetoric. But it’s the same stuff that Michael Steele had posted on his website targeting minority voters. The notion that the Republican Party stands for modern day abolition, and the Democrats continue to wish to enslave voters, is common cant in extreme right-wing circles.

I wouldn’t impute these views to most of those sympathetic to the Tea Party. But the underlying issue here is that the Tea Party has no actual coherent platform. It’s a channel for the particular resentments its members and sympathizers harbor, and they project their views on to it. It’s not a movement so much as a mood - a tantrum, to be precise. And as the maelstrom whirls, it has sucked in the malcontents and misanthropes - the greater the resentment, the more intense the commitment to the cause.

The Republican Party chose to tie its fortunes to the Tea Party Movement, knowing all of this, but placing its bets on frustration and resentment. I hope it inherits the wind.

Tea partiers are flailing around claiming no such a thing exist with in their ranks, save a few fringe individuals, or those that are sent to infiltrate by the media. Yes, that second one is actually the claim of the head of the Tea Party Express. He made said claim on CNN yesterday while debating Roland Martin.

I had a short but engaging convo on twitter with a user about the nature of labeling the group with a broad brush. I would like to recap our exchange, then pick up with further commentary from there.

Mediaverse: Mid-South tea party criticizes NAACP resolution » Commercial Appeal http://ow.ly/1qHRzb :: No comment.

Yobachi: Of course. Racist always deny that they’re racist. The White Citizens Council never admitted to it either @Mediaverse

Mediaverse: @Yobachi One should be careful with broad brushes. With that said, The Tea Party will have a hard time getting beyond its start. about 1 hour ago via HootSuite in reply to Yobachi

Mediaverse: @Yobachi Then again, every movement has fitful beginnings. about 1 hour ago via HootSuite in reply to Yobachi

Mediaverse : @Yobachi Lastly, it’s wrong to equate them with White Citizen Councils. WCCs were never diverse. At least the Tea Party has specks. about 1 hour ago via HootSuite in reply to Yobachi

Yobachi: @Mediaverse Actually, the comparison to the White Citizens Council makes the point, because when an org who practiced stark racism…

Yobachi: …doesnt even admit it, then its no surprise and is meaningless that one who practices a more mild brand doesn’t admit it either @Mediaverse 40 minutes ago via web

Yobachi: And no, I don’t think everyone who participates in the Tea Party is racist, its that they tend in that direction as a whole @Mediaverse 38 minutes ago via web

One other broader point. I think the Tea Party hinges more strongly on Nativism than racism in specific (though many of its members are clearly very racist), with racist tinges bubbling beneath the surface. It’s a nativism that goes beyond mere county before humanity thinking; but even widdles it down further to either you’re like me (white Judeo-Christian American, with my political beliefs), or you’re my enemy. It parse itself further in that: we might accept you with a darker complexion but only if you’re a black (or whatever) ideological acolyte – one of the good ones - a credit to your race, who repudiates the majority of your own kind in an elevation of the superiority of white male thinking (As this ideology is clearly driven by white males, and by far the largest demo holding this ideology are white males).

It’s a stark tribalism. The whole movement is obviously, in large part, though not in total, racially motivated as witness by the fact that these masses of white people became upset only right after a black man took office; but had little anger when a white man was shredding the constitution to spy on American citizens even before 9/11, exploding the national deficit (which included a new unfunded socialist medicaid program), and bailing out banks with welfare packages that project mothers could never dream of.

Not to mention them claiming Obama’s not an American despite overwhelming fact proving that he is; and calling him a Kenyan lion and such, as making blacks out to be jungle animals is classic racist iconography.

It’s an ideology that if you’re not a white, Judeo-Christian American, evangelical politically aligned to the states rights, unregulated business market political line of thinking, then you’re not a “real American”, as Sara Palin has labeled these people. So even if on paper you’re an American, you’re not one of them, and hence are an outsider and enemy to their nativism.