Monday, August 05, 2013

Tea Party Stokes the Flames of Poverty and Racism


In this era when the economy is doing so well - - real estate and employment is up- and so is the stock market- - and the deficit is down.  In such an era it’s only natural that if you’re FOX news you have to fill this great void with other stuff.  So you are hearing “Bengazi” repeated again and again, as if this one event could sink Hillary’s carrier.  And now these people are playing the race and poverty cards big time.  Bill O Riley and Glen Beck are saying it’s all a matter of poor Black teenagers having lots of out of wedlock babies and getting on welfare.  (They are very lacking in subtalty as to their aim)  As it happens the teenage pregnancy rate has gone down 25% and the abortion rate has been dropping since 1992.  In fact even the single teenage mother rate peaked in 1991.  We just told you violence in Chicago has dropped.  And the border crossing net level of immigration has dropped to zero.  And when you break down the races if these figures are right- - for White teenagers the pregnancy figure has dropped 20% and the Blacks have had a steeper drop at 25%, but it’s Latino girls who have had the steepest drop of all at 35%.  Of course when it comes to health care- - we here in America spend more for health care and get less coverage for it- - than any other developed country in the World.  It doesn’t seem to bother people like O Riley that our nation has become a laughing stock of the world, on a whole host of issues- - such as math and science education.  Randy points out the “a stitch in time saves nine” principle.  If you catch a disease in its early stages, it’s a whole lot more treatable, and for less money, then if you wait for that perverbial stage four lung cancer.  I’m wondering if just perhaps- - these O Riley types might not mind one bit if a lot of poor people were to suddenly die off a lot quicker.  But the thing is you have the “grandpa” problem, of no slaves to work on the Plantation.  These rich people don’t have all their luxury in a vacuum.  And someone made a joke about how one poor guy was mocked by a rich person saying “You poor people aren’t very smart.  You need to find a way to earn money the same way I did - - inheret it”.  There was also referenced this “rich guy related to the Koch Brothers by a different mother” where- one man completely turned around North Carolina politics from blue to red.  (Selah)

Randy Rhodes got this one caller who agrees with her “99.9% of the time” but takes issue with Randy on the subject of these town meetings.  The caller was afraid that he or any friends he organized to go with him, would all be killed if they went.  Randy then joked about “how she really loves this guy who writes her nice letters” but pegs him as one of these loners who still lives in the basement of his mother’s house and never gets out” almost like a psycho in some of these slayer movies.  But really he could be me- - when not on my meds.  Or more to the point, he could be me forty years ago in 1973 about the era where “For What It’s Worth” my little novel, takes place.  At this time many of us thought Kissinger was the antichrist, and that Nixon would not stay in office his full term, though we didn’t know when or specifically how that would happen.   About an hour later Bones came to the guy’s defense asking me “Just what was unreasonable about anything the guy said?”  I was puzzled.  Bones said “Well- in 2008 you would never have guessed what the political environment would be a year and a half ago when the tea party debates were going on.  And even in early 2012 you’d have never guessed the sort of gun toting racist hate environment we are in right now”.  I had to agree.  So challenging him I said “So, what will things be like in 2014?”  He said “What do you think?  Do you think it’s beyond the ability of the tea party to stage some outrage.  You know they are already threatening a violent revolution that will be “sparked” by an event.  Of course they are blaming it on the democrats.  You know, don’t you they have come out and Admitted- - just as the caller said- that all of these “Town Meetings’ will be completely choreographed just as they were in 2009 and that the Truth will never see the light of day”.   Randy Rhodes seemed to see it as one of those “Do or die’ moments.  That means you take action.  In that there is no real option.  The only unknown is- - “Do you feel lucky today”.   Dr. Levy read this sheet of quotations from the people at founders and one girl there had the quote of “Sometimes the thing you least want to do right now is the very first thing you Should do”.    Some of these Black civil rights workers may have been apprehensive, too, but they did what they had to do.  They knew they were traveling down South and putting possibly their lives on the line.  Just because one may have expressed a momentary bit of anxiety to his comrade doesn’t mean that they were somehow “yellow”.

 I had another of those long dreams last night.  This one involved some new government order to micro-manage the relations between Whites and Blacks in the schools.  There was something funny about- - like you'd see waves of students being ordered around by some loud speaker system.  The dream took place at what seemed to be Brookhurst Jr. High (but it could have been Western)  It looked the same but there was no open area in front where the ninth grade circle is.  The dining room didn’t have windows in it either.  There were a lot of students hanging around the girl’s locker enterence.  But also it’s as if “someone had moved the gym” - - like it was “further to the north than it used to be."  And I would stare at the whole west side of this building and muse “something about this building is different now from the way it was when I went here”.  Because there were a lot of like “administration” type office officials and perhaps some library archives there.  I guess students were being registered.  But there was a rule that said that White students and Black students could not be segregated even voluntary and no more than- - maybe two or three blacks in a row and then there had to be White students.  People blamed regulations from the Obama administration for this (constantly)  But they still managed ways of screwing over the Black students.  They would cheat them on their lunch money and short change them on their food or take pudding cups off their trays when they weren’t looking and had other ingenious ways to make sure that the Black students were subjugated.   Like the previous night’s dream – it’s so real when you’re in it- and it almost seems real a second or so after you have woken up.

Time-Warner is not refunding any of the customers’ money for not carrying CBS or Show Time.  But they promise they will add a “Kids Channel” at some future date.  Mario is inclined as am I to blame Time-Warner for this deboccle more than CBS.  Just to my pin head way of thinking- - if every other cable carrier was able to work out a deal with CBS then why couldn’t Time-Warner?  But Time-Warner is even denying their internet subscribers access to the CBS.COM site, which is probably against the law.  Mario is skeptical about the statements of Governor Jerry Brown claiming that there are not ten thousand inmates in the State Prison system that could be released.  Certainly there were a lot of “third strike” people- convicted for minor offenses since the mid nineties that could be released- - or your garden variety drug addict that needs to be rehabilitated in more of a medical environment.  Maybe it’s all politics.

On the soap opera- - Christian posing as Susan made her little “blunder” with the coffee much worse by actually taking extremely sensitive research and picking up the whole pad and dabbing it on the coffee spill.  The question is why any cop would have ultra sensetive original research documents right out there in a desk before the public.  And stranger to in this age of computer copies and photocopy machines- why this wouldn't have been done.  Of course she then made her escape through the bathroom window.  Which is funny because I didn’t think the bathroom was near a window.  And they all must have developed deafness because nobody heard a thing.  Father Eric stumbled on to the truth when he picked up on the idea that he too had encountered a “strange brunette”.   Stephano Di Mira has this almost God like ability to get information even when precautions are done to keep it a closed circle of knowledge.  Samantha Brady was verbally accosted in her cell by the grieving Widdow.  Just between you and me- - if she had had a gun in her purse- - she could have gotten away with it in this joke of police department, who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.  Elvis received all these promises about how secure Samantha would be and how her quarters would be guarded at all times and there were video cameras everywhere.  But lo and behold there are no guards and no cameras were rolling.  I’m not usually the one to advise Elvis to throw around his family name, but this would be a really good place to start.  Right now as far as I’m concerned, as an attorney for his client- - he is well within his grounds to file suit against the Salem PD.   Samantha may be a jerk- - but I believe that any prisoner, even her, has rights.


No comments: