There is a lot of Negative in the World — This surprisingly made me feel great

There is a lot of negative in the world.

Particularly now, when seemingly the proponents of hate and intolerance have wormed their way into places of trust and power. From the police force, to the president.

We have somehow, transitioned from a nation that fought Nazis, that gave the lives of Fathers, Brothers, Sons, Uncles, Wives, Daughters, toward this pursuit of Liberty, and the dream of America; to now where the grandchildren and great grand children of the greatest generation, have put on the yolks of ignorance, and stupidity, and bigotry and hatred — have become the Nazis that, at great spill of blood, we pushed into the sea.

That’s fine. Nazis fell before, they will fall again.

What is not fine– is that you can not resolve a problem; if you can not grasp, or define, the scope and depth of the problem.

So a racist media, selling only fear and outrage, but never really concerned with resolving the issues they bring up (to garner ratings); they are concerned with profiting from the criminal and the caustic and the egregious, but never punishment or closure.

A racist media, which in many ways is a membership campaign for more racism; makes the problem amorphous, and too big for us, makes it an unchangeable reality, rather than what it is, a problem— to be understood, and worked, and fought, and solved,

Organizations that start putting into perspective the problem, specific locations, specific organizations, specific patterns, that tangibility of the problem, that definition of it, makes it something you can work. Something you can fight.

Particularly when we begin highlighting the ties between movements of  stupidity and corporations. When we start tracing the money and the history, we can then start attacking the finances of these movements of hate, and that is when you start having results. There are a lot of companies no person of color should be giving money to, just for their historic, and in some cases present ties to movements of intolerance.

If you are a person of color, or just a person of conscience, patronizing companies like SHELL and KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN, you may want to do your homework and add them to your “sanctions/do not do business with” list. Otherwise the bullet that ends you, or the rope that lynches you– you may have paid for. Yes, I have no tact. 🙂

Now helping to clarify the problem, that is not an ending, it is not even a solution, but by helping to define the problem, that is the only way to begin to work a solution.

I went to SPLC’s website, and signed up to be a member immediately. I already donate to NAACP, and EFF, and Catholic Charities, but I really, after an incredibly stressful day at work, looking at the SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER’s webpage, looking at the work they put in, looking at their hate map, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I felt— empowered, I felt better.

I don’t love the name, HATE MAP, it is to the point, but I think it gives these organizations the ‘bad boy’, fear inducing glamour they are looking for, call it ANTI-AMERICAN MAP call it TERRORIST MAP, and now you are painting these enemies of liberty with the brush, they would paint others with. Now you truly are defining them.

I felt in an age of fake, racist news, and public servants murdering the public, that  finally these — repeated failings of our nation, someone is taking the time to map them, to define — however rudimentary—the scope of the problem.

And God Almighty, give me a foe I can see, and a problem that I can understand, and that understanding is both lever and weapon, give me a big enough lever and I will move the world, to borrow a quote; that is how it felt finding the SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER and becoming a member. 

I’m going to be reaching out to them, because I think a Think Tank approach, devoted to resolving the issues of intolerance and hate and malfeasance in our law enforcement and elected officials ( I would love to see a JUSTICE or LIBERTY map, showing off organizations doing good, as a counterpoint to their hate map), is a great idea and can use contributors.

Do your own homework before donating, but heck you can donate for as little as $25, and just the good feeling I received from their website existing, is worth that $25. Do your own homework, donate, get involved.

And for people who do not like using credit cards or paypal online (especially with one time or new purchases), I can not blame you, I do not either. Do what I did, print out their donation form, fill it out, get a money order from the post office, and mail it in.

View the site here!

And if you choose Donate Here!

WEDNESDAY’S WORDS was postponed to bring you this post. I think it is a worthy substitution.

Thanks and enjoy!

And when you sign up, tell them HT sent you!!!

 

And if you found this post useful, if it made you breathe a little easier, or stand a little straighter, or feel not alone in the night. then do me a favor. Like, subscribe, comment, and share this with others.

You do that and in little ways and in big ones, we win. We win the moment, if not the day. And win enough moments, well who can say.

I’m going to keep shouting out people and organizations that I think our winning the moment, Come shout with me.

The silence of good men and women, is all evil needs to triumph.

So reach out, and make a joyous noise. Join me here, as we speak in these— Heroic Times. 🙂

 

Thanks and enjoy!

 

Today’s Rant Brought to you by THE FEARMAKERS (1958)

“Millions of people being lied too. Taken for suckers.

You know it’s a funny thing. They have pure food and drug laws, to keep people from buying poison to put in their stomachs, and you’re pedaling poison to put in their minds!”

Dana Andrews in FEARMAKERS (1958)

A good film by the always impressive Jaques Tourneur. Currently available via Amazon Prime. But against the day when it becomes unavailable on streaming (which happens often), get your DVD (is not available in Bluray) here.

 

-Wow that quote could be directed at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FACEBOOK and FOX.

Okay I am about to rant here. So if you don’t want to hear one of my always outrageous and “witchhunt society incorrect” rants, then enjoy the above poster and quote, and come back next installment for more cuddly teddy bears. For those masochists and sadists among you who get off on my occasional tirades… enjoy the following.

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One thought on FOX… people tend to toss the ‘fake news’ appellation at FOX, when every other network is just as guilty of it. Do you think it is coincidence that when a major story breaks, NBC, CBS, and Disney owned ABC, are reporting the same news, at the same time, using nearly the same sound-bites?

Without a doubt FOX and Sinclair Broadcasting have agendas, and positions to pedal, but I appreciate the fact, that they are at least original when composing their coverage, rather than just a member of a ‘greek chorus’, that the other bought networks are a part of.

I hate slavery, and I hate programming, and I hate the stupidity of the mob, and network news relies on all three.

So yes FOX news, culpable and biassed, but do not fool yourself into thinking CBS or ABC or NBC or CNN is any less culpable and biased.

I wish Bill Cosby — back in the day, before he became the pariah for this witch-hunt generation, had bought CBS (he was always an excellent businessman), and this idea of a major network in the US, not part and parcel of the Industrial War Complex, would have at least given us some modicum of balance in our ‘news’; instead of what we have, which is… who we should deify and who we should demonize, being fed to us by multi-national corporate interests and the children of slavers.

 

The Truth is out there, to borrow an old slogan. But so are lies, and determining the one from the other, takes being informed as much about yourself, and your prejudices, and biases , and agendas, as it does being aware of other peoples.

We have to work harder at finding the news, and not trust that we will get it delivered to us. We have to some extent — be our own journalist, and for medical issues, don’t accept the regurgitation of middlemen be it newscasters or youtubers or personalities or bloggers. Go to the source for any rumor or ‘news’ you hear.

You want to know about the state of the Covid Virus, you don’t watch the effing news, you go to the World Health Organization and the Center For Disease Control. This is for everything, crime, movies, weather, employment, entertainment, you see a headline, you fact check it, and cross check it with multiple established and respected resources.

Yes it requires work.

And no, it is not as much fun, as joining the mob, and playing “who do we lynch today”, who do we pile on and castigate for their sins, so we do not have to look at our own.

Bill Cosby recently came up in the news, a letter from his representation, requesting release due to this Covid situation.

For those of you who do not know, America has one of the highest prison populations in the world, and one of the most corrupt and mismanaged. The endpoint of this being it is a hotbed for the current outbreak.

So Bill Cosby’s representation, naturally put in motions for release.

Any of you reading this blog for any length of time, know where I stand on Bill Cosby.

Namely a lot of people rushing to castigate Bill Cosby. And if none of them have done the accused evil of a Bill Cosby, I guarantee you, no ten of them have done the good.

But it is easier to pretend that a man’s falling down exists, and his standing up never did. His honors and accolades removable, his faults are all… they are to be weighed above and beyond all… they eradicate the good, so all we see is the bad.

Is that the measure by which we judge, and should be judged?

If guilty —  treatment is what he needed, not prison. But America continues to use the media for lynching, and the legal system for enslaving, and between the two… justice is a distant land, and the echoes of Jim Crow and slavery… alive.

Hopefully the new motions from his representation will get Mr. Cosby, who is not a violent criminal, released.

And to the rest of us, those who are quick to judge, and damn, and delight in a person’s fall.

Be hopeful you be not judged, as harshly as you judge.

Or none of us will escape crucifixion.

None of us will escape the fires.

 

Here endeth the Rant.

Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition calls for boycott of Burger King!!

I don’t like platitudes, I don’t like slogans, I don’t like lip-service in place of real change.

I don’t like the simple answers to complex questions that the nightly news would feed us all.

I do not like the parts they would have us play, the lines they would have us draw, the sides they would have us choose.

“Black Lives Matter” what an inane slogan to march under.

It is the thought process of aging decrepit hippies, and misguided youths who have not died enough to live. Black Lives Matter? To who? Why? For what reason?

This is not about Black lives, it is about all lives.

That is the only sane slogan.

It is about the quality of the republic.

It is about justice.

There are vile human beings of the Black persuasion I would not cross the street to spit on. There are vile human beings of the White and Brown and Yellow persuasion who are likewise cancers and abominations on the healthy body of society.

The job is to protect society from those vile humans, and a huge part of that is insuring these vile people aren’t issued badges. And most of them aren’t, unfortunately a few of them are. And it only takes a few, to bring us here.

Not everyone is cut out for the responsibility of making life and death decisions, and when the recruiting methods are questionable, and there are no checks and balances, no culpability, no reprisals for bad behavior, you are just priming a powder-keg… to explode.

Civilization, the orderly world you take for granted and hope to wake and sleep to, depends on those tasked with holding the line between anarchy and order. And bad cops and the bad administration that supports them, make that already heavy responsibility an untenable one.

Bad cops ruin the only thing a good cop has of value, the line, and the holding of it.

The law either binds us all, Black and Brown and Yellow and White, or it binds none of us. Preserves none of us, and we can all fall afoul of monsters with badges masquerading as men. Criminals posing as cops.

NYPD Brutality pattern

These bad cops, and bad DAs, and bad judges, make the line untenable to hold, make even the good cops smeared with the offal of the bad, until we are no longer protecting and serving, but suddenly we’re nothing more than an unruly mob, with enemies everywhere we look.

It is a bad road that we have seen before, and god defend us from seeing it again.

The answer is not with marches, at least not just with marching. That’s a 20th century response, that organizations like the NAACP in their stupidity do not realize is inadequate for a 21st century world. You want change that protects civilians from monsters with badges, you have to make it cost. That means NAACP you may have to actually get off your fat assess and boycott some of those rich sponsors that line your pockets to look the other way.

It means you may have to sacrifice.

That we may all have to sacrifice.

And the one thing more powerful than the vote, is financial reprisals. Putting someone’s money… at risk.

Do you think Black people in Jim Crow America, got to ride in the front of the bus because of Rosa Parks? No. Black people got to ride in the front of the bus because, for over 365 days, people outraged and enraged and fed-up; decided to be inspired by Rosa Parks, and decided they would not spend money with the mass transit system.

They would sacrifice.

And suddenly, that loss of revenue, that sacrifice, these people walking for miles for over a year, rather than sit in the back of a bus… that willingness to speak in volumes in the only language that America truly understands… dollars… that sacrifice made bigots willing to concede that their bigotry (in that situation) was of less value than your dollars.

It made them realize a lesson that you have to (from time to time) teach bullies… that the cost of disrespect can be far more expensive than the cost of respect. That respect is more affordable.

And the same must occur in any region where police brutality is an unpunished pattern such as in New york City and Ferguson, Missouri; you must make in those regions the cost of disrespect more expensive than the cost of respect.

You get businesses to sign petitions calling for the removal of this bad cop, and this bad police captain, and this bad DA, and this bad judge, and if necessary the Mayor, the Governor, the Senator. You find the businesses in that region who respect your dollars, and the ones who do not.

In the case of Ferguson they are starting by calling for the Boycott of BURGER KING, a company headquartered in the state where Trayvon Martin was killed. A humble start to be sure, but from such beginnings (this nation itself is proof)… great things do rise.

A regional and nationwide boycott, in Ferguson, in New York, in Baltimore, in Cincinnati, in your homes, in your hearts, a boycott of businesses that do not side with the populations that enrich them, over the abusive thugs posing as cops and lawyers, who jointly undo everything that can make our nation better.

It is a battle that not only can you win, with education and commitment and sacrifice, it is a battle others before you have paid dearly to win great portions of. Today is just your turn.

Your day in the sun.

To either meanly lose or nobly win… your freedom.

You don’t like bad cops.

Neither do good cops.

You want to do something of value, stand the eff up like men and help us.

Help us all.

What are you prepared to do?

I would say start here:

http://mikebrowncoalition.org/

Fox News Corporation (ie Liars R Us) and Shirley Sherrod

Today’s recommended link:

MILK AND COOKIES

Here’s the thing.

I don’t want to give a fuck about Fox News. I would like it to not be my concern.

But to echo the THIRD MAN, “we do not choose our concerns”. We are born into our times, and must either be shaper or shaped. Producer or product. Labeler or Labled.

I prefer striving toward the former.

Falling down going forward. Fighting all the idiocies and hatemongers and muckrackers of our age.

Fighting all those sneaky foxes. Fighting all the things that would betray us.

There has been a pattern going on too long now, of right wing interests attacking any person of color (be that color Black, or Brown, or Pink) who will not cowtow to their ever more bigoted and totalitarian line. From mayors and governors, elected by many people, being removed from office by the machinations of a klannish and goosestepping few, to mass-media, particularly the ‘news’, as ever more aggregious sounding board for voices of hate.

The Fox News Company indeed.

Here are some other voices, offering the news you won’t hear from Fox:

COLOR OF CHANGE

EFF

MOVE ON — I particularly like the coverage on a Senator Simpson and his ‘stance’ on Social Security recipients. Amazing. 🙂

BOYCOTT FOX NEWS site –site is a little wacky, but I quite like his list of Fox sponsors to boycott. Done and Done. 🙂

DEMOCRATS.COM? –I’ve lived long enough to see the culpability of both parties. Many democrats are acually conservatives in hiding. And a few republicans are actually a throwback to the progressive, abolitionist leanings of what their party was before being hijacked by racists post the reconstruction. But even if Democrats as a rule, don’t walk the talk, I at least like the fact that this site at least talks the talk.

Another BOYCOTT FOX site – Pretty packed site. Definitely worth taking for a spin!

INFOSHOP- Love that logo!

I’ll add to the list as we go.

“You have been sleeping. You have slept too long.”
—ROS