Three DW Writers –Dr. Leonard Carrier, DW Foreign-

Policy Editor, Dusty Schoch and H.P. City Councilman, Al Campbell

Offer  insights on the Imus affair and its political  and cultural

Implications ranging from. . .

Was It Just about Money? (Len)

Was It Much Ado About Nothing? “N” is for

“Nappy” and for . . . ??? (Dusty)

Why Ask Me ?(Al)

AND FINALLY…(as conclusion by Dusty)…

WHAT MIGHT JESUS HAVE DONE WITH IMUS?

(A  PARABLE…you only get to read

at the end of the article)

“All About Money and Power”

By DW In-House Historian and Philosopher, Dr. Leonard Carrier

Don Imus stepped over the line, but he was just offering a riposte to a comment one of his cohorts made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. They thought it was funny, just like some of the other crude comments they make about celebrities every day–except these women weren’t fair game, because they were just college kids playing the game of basketball. If Imus had used the phrase, “nappy-headed ho” to describe the rapster Snoop Dogg, then there wouldn’t have been any cause for apology. He would not only have been accurate, his remark might even have been considered funny. Snoop thinks that he has the right to demean black women with his raptster videos whereas Imus doesn’t have that right. Snoop is wrong; nobody has that right–yet the people who make money on Snoop’s recordings don’t seem to care. Where is the outrage  from women’s organizations ? They should be leading a boycott against Snoop’s albums, including his latest CD, The Big Squeeze.

Some people don’t like “shock jock” radio or television. That’s fine. Just turn the channel. What happened to Imus after his unfortunate remark shows how hypocritical Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Snoop really are. Remember, it was Sharpton and Jackson, that dynamic duo, who jumped on Joe Biden for calling Barack Obama “clean” and “articulate.” Who are they to be the gatekeepers of political correctness? Where were Sharpton’s apologies to the Duke lacrosse team for slandering them after all charges were dropped? We all remember Jackson’s “hymietown” slurs against Jews, as well. Why aren’t Sharpton and Jackson deploring Snoop’s recordings? Could it be that it’s because Snoop is black, and it’s all right for black men to make money defaming women? Even worse are the sanctimonious statements of people such William F.Buckley, who described Imus’s firing as a “return to decency.”  If the Buckleys in our country were really concerned about decency, they would use Imus’s mistake as a platform for launching a serious discussion about race in the United States, instead of merely pointing their fingers and saying “shame.”

The worst offenders in this mess are the heads of CBS and NBC. First they demanded apologies, which Imus contritely issued. Then they gave him a suspension. Finally, when the PC crowd really got loud, and sponsors threatened to pull ads, they fired him. What a cowardly, gutless thing to do! The irreverent Imus, despite his iconoclasm, was actually one of the few commentators who made sharply critical comments about the political scene. Many politicians were on the receiving end of his well-deserved zingers–including George H.W. Bush for his meager charitable contributions. Even if you didn’t agree with him, you knew he wasn’t going to pull any punches. With Imus gone–and before him Howard Stern on radio–we aren’t going to get anything on our corporate stations except pabulum. One wishes that CBS and NBC had been so protective of viewers’ sensibilities when they helped to cheerlead for the invasion of Iraq. Their response to Imus did not reflect a concern for decency.  Rather, it reflected a concern for money. Although we would still object, we could better cope with Imus’s dismissal if those who fired him had been honest and admitted that their decision was based on a concern for money and power.
What should have happened in Imus’s case was simply his public apology to the Rutgers women’s basketball team. He issued that apology early on, and it was graciously accepted. That should have been it. But that wasn’t it, and we’ll all be the poorer for it by not having access to Imus’s dissenting opinions. If you’re like me and are really ticked off about their false piety and money-grubbing behavior, I suggest that you keep watching CBS and NBC just so you can boycott the products of every single advertiser that pressed those stations to fire Imus.

Imus’s firing has deprived us of an honest dialogue about racial bias. We have lost an opportunity to witness public contrition and insight from someone who is now forced to endure his shame in silence.  Without his voice this issue becomes another embarrassing page in history, except for the Sharptons and Jacksons who will squeeze as much dishonest propaganda from it as they can.  All of us need to understand what motivated Don Imus’s behavior so that we can better understand our own.  The brave young women of Rutgers knew that instinctively when they asked to meet with him.  That they chose to forgive him should have set an example for the rest of us.

Leonard S. Carrier

I FEEL … I MUS

By: DW Foreign Policy Editor, Dusty Schoch

Who are the bigger fools, after all—the fools who issue racist remarks or the fools who make a bigger deal out of it?  I’m neither a fan of Imus nor do I approve of his careless and rude references to Rutger’s Basketball squad as being “nappy-headed ho’s”. Having said that, and at the risk of appearing the bigger fool, I’m tossing my two bits in this current racial brouhaha for two reasons of principle concern: (1) I believe Imus’ firing by CBS was patently unjust and motivated more by dollars than principle,  and (2) I believe current media commentators are missing the most salient point in the controversy which is that Imus, and our white majority are the victims of reverse discrimination in matters of racial  “taboos” and blacks alone can—and should—fix this situation.

What should you do when the KKK threatens to exercise  their Constitutionally-guaranteed right to  parade (with proper permit) through your peaceful hometown?  Options:  Stage a media-filmed counter-culture display of contempt for the KKK? Secretly invite the old-guard Panther Party or Black Muslims to come and throw stones or worse? Seed the clouds on parade day to make it rain on the hooded ones?

The answer is simple and none of the above. The answer is — don’t go.

The KKK is beneath any enlightened contempt and any call for  concerted opposition to their long-collapsed clan effort to keep the black race “in their  place” has long ended.  The hooded ones are a joke, and responding to their dying displays of Albino-Alamo bravado with anything but indifference is aiding and abetting their still hideous cause, defunct or otherwise.

The same with racial minutia such as Imus’ verbal ejaculation. His firing  and career termination is just as lop-sided silly and over-reactionary as was the firing of Jimmy the Greek for simply stating the truth about black athletes in the prior decade. Jimmy (the legit gambling syndicate’s odd’s setter) stated simply and truly that black athletes are physically superior in America at least partly due to their selective breeding during times of slavery. If any of that assertion was subject to anthropological or genetic debate, it was still far short of being a hate-filled or hate-mongering remark in any way demeaning the black race.

But that didn’t stop the black community and it’s quick-draw demagogic spokesmen from doing to Jimmy what was just done to poor shock-jock, Imus. When someone white slips and uses the “N-word” in public, he’s as good as dead if he’s either a politician or a public figure, because all politicians and public figures serve at the will of the corporations, and the corporations serve at the will of the media, because the media serves the will of the dollar, and anything that might DEVALUE or DIMINISH  a broadcasting company’s (or their dollar-supplying advertising clients) IMAGE will cause that company to immediately canibalize any human in their midst, in order to nip the flow of lost dollars in the bud. They’ve gotta kill him before Neilson’s dollar dogma kills them.

In poor Imus’ case, he was fired before he had time to apologize for his words.

Please don’t get me wrong-  I don’t care a fig about Jimmy the Greek, Imus or that Seinfeld Show comic who all caught the quick  ax for  racially-slurring slips of tongue.  But the principle of the trend is odious and…as far as America’s image as a culture (if Bush has in fact left us with any) is concerned, it makes us all look like a bunch of robotic, neurotic, shame-ridden idiots.  Not to mention, in our over-kill, inverse-discriminating behavior, just plain un-just. Not to mention hypocritical.

Black people, especially comics, are regularly granted carte-blanch in referring to white folks as “honkey”, “cracker”, “whitie” and if you’re artistically poverty-stricken enough to audit their “Def Comedy Jams” on TV, or rap “music”, you’ll find hundreds of demeaning if not openly-explicative names for Caucasian Americans pouring out like a spring of artesian insult. And where is the backlash from the insulted white race?  They (blacks)  regularly use, and claim exclusive dominion in regard to the term, “nigger”, whereas they invariably  insist “whitie” use the euphemized “N-word”.

In direct regard to Imus’ career-terminating transgression, I submit there was nothing “racist” (i.e., racially insulting or hateful)  about what he did or said. He referred to the black Rutger’s basketball team as “nappy-headed ho’s”. He compared their looks to the (predominantly black) members of another team and said the latter were better looking.  “Nappy” in Webster’s has absolutely no negative definition, denotation or connotation. “Nappy” is defined as “covered with nap, or ‘downy’ “.   The root word, “nap” is defined as “having a downy coating”, or “referring to the short and fuzzy ends of certain cloth.”  African Americans are normally darker in color than Caucasian Americans.  This is no “stereotypical slander”; this is genetic and anthropological reality. The hair (covering the head) of African Americans in general, and specifically the hair covering the heads of one or more of the Rutger’s team can be, without insult or any negative intent be characterized as “nappy”.  Accordingly, the term, “nappy headed” is in no way a racial or reputational slur, unless you’re brain-challenged enough to buy into the implication that, as with “nigger”, only black males have the right to refer to black women with such “racially-exclusive” terms of ironic endearment (which they appear to be when black  rappers refer to their own significant others as  “nappy headed” , “ho’s” and “bitches”, which many of them do, incessantly).

Bottom line to Imus’ tar and feathering was, had the statement been issued publicly by a black person, no one would have noticed. I repeat: No one would have faulted (or fired) a black man for referring to these lady ball players as “nappy-headed ho’s”. That, ladies and gents, ho’s, pimps and bitches everywhere, is hypocrisy and  reverse discrimination at their most ridiculous.

IT’S JUST LIKE THE “N-Word” PROBLEM….

The Imus case centered around a white man’s use of racially “taboo” words. It’s a twisted and one-sided bias, perhaps best epitomized by the arch-evil…. “N-word” – You know- the word so “bad” we can’t even say it hypothetically. What a silly and sad set of  affairs—this aberrant cultural Mexican standoff over a two-syllable word. Compared to the “N-word”, “nappy” “ho” are minor-league race cards. So, from this point on, I’m using Imus’ “nappy ho” heave-ho as a stepping stone to a consideration of the unspeakable word that dwarfs all the other racially taboo words – “nigger”. Saying “nappy ho” over American airwaves got Imus summarily fired.  Saying the word I just wrote, I submit, might have gotten him killed.  Maybe even “legally”.  Stay with me a while. This is important stuff.

The solution to this insanity?  None immediately  possible because the blacks don’t want a solution. The blacks could easily take the power of the “n-word” away by simply and officially  and collectively agreeing—and proclaiming– not to take offense at it. By continuing to maintain that they have been “wounded” by the utterance of the word “nigger”, they continually, willfully and purposefully assign and invest destructive power in the word. If they regularly walked up to white people (intelligent and red-neck alike) and said, “call me ‘nigger’ if you like—After all, it’s just a diminutive of an archaic adjective derived from the country of origin for many African Americans, that being Nigeria. The word “nigger” simply denotes that we are members of that descended and evolved race.”

Racial game over. If blacks simply “allowed” bigoted and non-bigoted people of any race to use the word, the word would have no power. It has power only because the blacks continue to insist it is “taboo”.  It is taboo and powerful and damaging only because they continue to take offense.  There are no words that Caucasians can  claim (or choose)  that have a similar effect or offensive impact.  Why do you suppose that is?  It’s simply because Caucasians feel and have resolved to continue to feel that there is no word that can be used to demean them that does no more than denominate or refer to them as Caucasian.  The word, “Nigger” in fact does nothing more than denote the race of the one referred to.

For the past hundred years, black Americans have decided to cling to their position that there was insult warranting their “resentment” inherent first in “nigger”, then in the more old-south-polite, “darkie”, thereafter in the more politically-correct “negro’, and still longer thereafter more politically-correct “colored”, which was thereafter deemed less accurate and therefore more offensive than their “true” color  label. “Black” was collectively OK for a short time last decade, and now it appears there’s only one appropriate way for a white to refer to a black in the U.S., that being “African American”, and I utter it at the risk of causing offense to important folks like Barrak Obama who want to be referred to regressively as “black”).  Ho….hummmmmmmmm!  Do I ever get tired of all this galactically-stupid bantering about words!

Give it up, Black man. Give up your collective lack of self-esteem for being black and declare yourself  ipso facto in the promised land…that place where white folk have always pretty much comfortably existed…where you can refer to them with any word in the world that roughly transmits the message that they are members of a race  in which they are  never ashamed to be.

I for one don’t give a tinker’s damn if a white, black or yellow person refers to me with any adjective that  means they are calling me Caucasian.  I’m not  “proud” of being Caucasian in lieu of “racially other” because, having read history, I find that most the really bad deeds and mistakes cultures and peoples throughout history–including little incidents like WWI ,WWII, the Holocaust, the Crusades, the burning of witches, the drowning of the Anabaptists—for baptizing their children too late–have all been committed by the predominately white folk on earth.  So “pride” is not the cause of my being immune from insult when someone—with the use of any term (including “cracker”, “honkie”,”whitie”, —you name it—the list is long) refers to the fact that I am white.

Now you can not  include in such list things like “white trash”, because that’s going beyond calling someone “white”…it’s calling someone “base” or “worthless’ or worse.  The term “nigger” says only two things:  The speaker is referring to or addressing a member of the black race, and the speaker is an idiot who, simply for the nasty and sadistic pleasure of it is risking getting his throat cut for exercising his right to (stupid) free speech.

Why, then should black (excuse me- African American) citizens be permitted  exclusively to own the “N-word” when there is no counter-part “C-Word” whites can call taboo, “fighting words”?

Did you know, parenthetically,  that our State and Federal Appellate courts have bought into this non-sense? Take for example the common law crime of simple assault.  Most states (including mine, N.C.) have case law (judicial appellate decisional law)  holding that there are basically “no words that justify an assault”. This means, if you refer to some stranger in the street as a “bigoted dumb-ass”,  he commits an “unjustified and unprovoked” and hence criminal assault on you if he gets mad and hits you.

There are exceptions to that general rule when courts (including NC’s) have ruled that some words are so insulting and provocative that men of ordinary temper and prudence are reasonably unable (hence not required) to resist hitting people who use those words.  Included in those “exceptionally-provocative” list of words–which includes one’s mother and her immaculate lingual behavior in regard to the insulter and/or his body parts–is the word “nigger”.

There are cases holding that where a white man calls a black man “nigger”, he has justified the black man’s assaulting him by way of reprisal. That’s not to say the black man may not be sued and held financially responsible for the damages he inflicts in his assault, but it is to say he may be found innocent of any criminal charges because the courts have determined that he need not hold back his fist when a white man he’s just called “cracker” counters  his insult with …the N-word.

No, I’m not kidding you. I’m a lawyer. I’ve been on the losing end of this very issue in court (defending a foolish, loose-tongued cracker).  In answer to the question in your hopefully-amazed noggin, the answer is “no”. There are no cases in which the courts of our country say it’s justified for a white man to assault a black man because he’s been hurled any epithet which as a bottom line simply means the black man has called the white man…Caucasian.

Look it up in Webster’s unabridged dictionary. The term “nigger” has only one denotation (definition) – it is: “a member of any dark-skinned race”.  That’s all, folks!

It doesn’t say there are any implications of any negative nature whatsoever in the term. It means only what it says- It denotes that the person so addressed or designated is a member of a dark-skinned race. It does not mean he is the son of slaves; it does not imply he is unworthy or unclean. It implies only that he is a member of a dark-skinned race. The “connotations” of the word, if any, exist only in the hearts and heads of the black (sorry- again…African American) individuals who ELECT,   who CHOOSE to take offense at the use of the word.  So I ask you finally, where is the power in the word but in the heart of the man who elects and chooses to feel anger at its utterance? The red-neck ninny who utters the word may hope it hurts its black target, but it’s the black person who

elects to be hurt. In this land you can elect to be free or imprisoned…In this land you can also elect to be hurt or indifferent when you hear someone refer to you with a word that simply means you’re a member of your race.

The minute African Americans DECIDE that there is no harm or insult in words like “nigger” , “nappy”, “jig” (God help me I can’t ..and won’t try to conjure up all the ones I’ve heard–all you crackers and N-word denoted individuals out there know what they are) there will be no harm, and the old power in the “N-Word” will be dead. Only the black can kill it. Some white trash will use the weapon as long as it works.

All those words (“nigger”, “jig”, etc. ) are worthy of the same attention I suggested we pay to the KKK when they come to town and want to parade before us. Don’t go there. Don’t empower them with your attention and energy. That is what they seek and the only thing they seek.

Black people,  do likewise: Do not empower the red-necked cracker who calls you “nigger” by …noticing him. Don’t go there. Don’t empower them with your attention and energy. The moment the black man shows the imbecilic white (who would use the word) that the word has no power, the black man will have finally asserted his own equality, and white man (even the imbecilic) will gradually abandon its use. If the word don’t hit, they’d finally quit.  (Thanks, Johnnie C..  It wasn’t exactly O.J.’s glove, but it did in fact fit.)

I started out writing about what a small matter this Imus thing was and then proved myself the fool.  It wasn’t a small thing. Racial strife in this country is a big big thing. The Imus affair makes this abundantly clear. Racial self-consciousness and poor self-esteem on the part of the black minority is so pathologically extant—a century and a half after the emancipation proclamation, that we’re shocked every time it raises its nappy head.

Truth is, it’s all a matter of self esteem. The white man using any racial epithet is lacking self esteem and is attempting to raise himself by his bigoted bootstraps in the process of lowering his black brother…with a word.  By taking offense at the utterance of that word (the N one), the black man, because of his own suffering self esteem, is handing the wounded white man a weapon that only the wounded white man can wield in a hurtful way. The black man with undamaged self esteem, who has no un-expressed sub-conscious misgivings or regrets about being what he genetically is, is insulated—absolutely immune to injury by means of being referred to as what he is.

So what? What have I said with all this detouring from Imus’ words to N-words?  I’m afraid it comes down to this: Bigotry is here to stay. There will forever be little people wanting to feel big by making others feel smaller.  On both sides of all racial lines. I don’t envision any future where  white bigots will ever let loose of the weapons that black bigots continue to GIVE them.  I have here, quite conclusively (says I) contended that the power to destroy the power of the “N” word is and remains exclusively in the heart, mind and actions of the African American.

Bigotry is here to stay, but at any moment any individual African American simply decides it, he can instantly demand, seize and possess the same insulation that shields the white man in this society. There is no word a black man can use that causes a white man any substantial pain or misgivings where that word simply accuses the white man of being a white man.

African Americans, African American brothers and sisters, it’s your choice. Join with us whites in simply and forever deciding that a black human being —just as the proverbial rose–by any other name remains the same.

Putting  Imus in Perspective

This is certainly no nursery story being wound down to its end. The sky above our globally-warming planet is in fact falling. We are a disturbed and frightened people involved in a war being waged by our leadership under false pretenses. We have peace to establish and an earth to save and we are wasting inordinate time and energies gossiping about who’s going to adopt the orphaned child one of Hefner’s discarded old ho’s and inherit the fortunes she made in the trade.

We’re crucifying the fools among us and letting the diabolically-wicked villains  run the world amuck for oil, dollars and for  the Rapturous hell of it.

All we need is a change of focus. A redirection and adjustment of attitude. Whites need to realize that blacks need a little more time to muster their self esteem. In the meantime, if we see some of our own white race playing the race card (using the word, “nigger”) let’s beat the black man to the punch and knock the sucker out ourselves. It won’t get us out of trouble in criminal court because that’s a card they only let the black men play. But let’s play it anyway. Let’s do it because we’re not being forced to do it and because it’s the right thing (for us) to do.

Let’s get our legislators to apologize for the slavery thing our great-great grandparents and fathers did. Let’s do that too because we don’t have to.  For all you black brothers and sisters out there, whether you’re nappy-headed or straight, please do us non-bigoted white folk and yourselves a favor, and when some cracker uses the n-word, just say back to him—“That’s what I am. So what’s up, white man?”  Please do that and you will have done something the red-neck is totally incapable of understanding. You will have risen above him. Turned the other cheek. Disarmed him.  I still may slap him silly….and guess what.  He won’t understand that either.

Peace

War’s Still Our Only Enemy

Dusty Schoch

4 15 07

Counterpoints by Al Campbell*

Dusty,

Often it is assumed that skin color is the automatic doorway to racial or ethnic discussion.  Simply put, black American individuals are expected to know and understand who, what, why, where and when of all issues relative to conditions where blacks are participants yet white Americans are seldom treated the same within the white community.  The Imus case is no different and his disgraceful characterization of young women remains the hot-button wasted discussion.

The shameful term which he so comfortably used appeared to me to be a regular part of his demeanor.  He was more familiar with that kind of language than I – in truth, I had never before heard the phrase and was surprised like most normal people.

My selected realm of daily activities is not inside a small box of misinformation or degrading slang language.  Outside of that arena, I too have to be taught that with which I am unfamiliar.  My skin color is not a carte-blanch passageway into all black racial disruptions.  My skin color is not a free entrance to “black” issues nor does my skin color restrict me form the remainder of the learning horizon.

Over the years, like many other blacks, I have experienced the strange feeling of being asked about situations where blacks are a part while at the same time, passed over relative to current situations.  It is as though blacks are incapable of learning outside the “colored” box.  Really now, has time changed?

Personally, my choice of involvement whether reading, writing or simply conversing is attracted by the merits of the issue and not the skin color of the people.  What is said is more important than who said it.   What is done by a black person is no less important to me if done by white person.  A bullet shot from the hand of a black person is no less deadly than one shot from the hand of a white person.  To me, crimes by either are equally detestable and unacceptable.  Foolishness has no ethnicity.

Over the past forty years we have seen, persons of high elective office, the ministry, business CEOs, personalities and the list goes on, suffer career-ending punishments because of some form of foolishness.  Imus is no different.

I have never viewed his foolish show nor listened to his foolish tirades.  I am ignorant enough without soliciting more and his skin color plays no part.

My scripture teaches me, “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and they defile the man.” Matthew 15:18 – KJV

When wrong has been committed and exposed the perpetrator should be punished and Imus is no different.  A career ending infraction is a punishment suffered by ministers, politicians, business leaders and others…Imus is no different

Al

*Mr. Campbell is a former member of the High Point, North Carolina city council. He has been recognized by the current Governor Michael Easley for his service to the state.

Dusty’s Reply to Al…

Dear Al,

A brief response to your letter has to start with a defensive statement. If I thought I owed you an apology for asking for your opinion partly because you are African American, I’d have begun this reply with that apology. But I don’t. Your words make it clear that you don’t think African Americans are, because of their race, better able to answer questions about race than anyone else.  I disagree. I was born to a white family and community with white biases and know a whole lot more about how they express their attitudes about blacks than most all Blacks.

Having said that, I want to remind you that you have written for our DW site before, and every time I—or any one else writes an article therein—you are asked to contribute any comments you care to contribute to our website forum. The website begs everyone to contribute, regardless of political, religious or racial origins or affiliations.

When blacks and whites converse with each other, both are guarded…not because they’re bigoted, but because all words have differential connotations in different racial sub-communities. I wish this were not the case but it is. If you took offense at my asking you to express your opinions about the attitudes and realities of the black community, I am sorry, and saddened.  Feel free at any time to ask me about my view of the white sub-culture. I was raised by a grandmother who was raised by descendants of slaves. A grandmother whose parents were slave owners. My grandmother was in fact named “Birdie” by the children of former slaves who never left their (Alabama) plantation and enjoyed my grandmother’s singing (which they taught her) while they  picked cotton together in fields they collectively worked after the Civil War.

I myself was raised by a black family (two of them in fact).  I have spent a lifetime puzzled and discontent with the racial climate in my country. I will always do everything I can think of to better the situation.

I feel that you felt in my sending you the paper to review that I was seeking the viewpoint of a “token” black, or in any case “marginalizing” you.   Not the case. I sent it to you because you’re African American and I respect your opinion. You have insights into the collective mind, vernacular and soul of the black community that I don’t have. Vice-versa with me and the white community.

You and I and the rest of America have a shared community. In this community there is racial strife, like with the cases of Jimmy the Greek and with Imus. I—as you–never paid attention to either of them either, but what happened to each widely affected—and shed light on–our shared community.

I very much appreciated what you said at the end with -

Because of the user’s intention when using the N-word, it is unreasonable to say, “That’s what I am.” To ignore the misguided, yes – to concur with the misguided, Hell No, Never!

I can both see your point, agree with much of it, but the whole truth requires more. Just saying “no” to anyone’s use of the word “nigger” does not end the problem, either with the word or the racial tension that fuels its powerful engine of hatred. Saying “Hell no..Never…insures the empowerment of the word and the bigot who uses it…forever.”

Since you brought in Biblical Scripture as authority for your “No, Never!” remedy for racial slurs, I’m going to finalize my comments to you and our DW readership with my idea of how Jesus would have handled the situation had he found himself in the position of the Rutgers basketball team—having been insulted by the likes of Imus….

A Concluding Comment—and Parable from Dusty…

What Might Jesus Have Done to Imus for

Such a Racial Slur?

( Warning and Apolgia: What follows is a dramatic parable containing

some “bad” (very) words and bigoted slurs; so let the reader be forewarned.

Both the writer and DW staff deplore the use of language present in this

parable in the context of actual human communication (street talk).

The writer (Dusty) asks us to consider and accept the “taboo” words in the

dramatic/artistic context in which they are conceived, and understand

that it would not be possible to share the message in the parable

without making resort to language we all know, but consider “profane”.)

                                         THE ANSWER TO THE IMUS

ISSUES  IS ALREADY WRITTEN

I am convinced that Jesus gave us the answer. I think if some early-Judean skin head (non Jew) had approached Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and said: “What the fuck you doing on that donkey, you goddamned kike?…You think you’re king or something?” ,  Jesus would have turned the other cheek.  I can imagine the conversation going something like this:

Jesus: “I’m on the way to town and you are welcomed to come with us. And what, might I ask,  do you mean in referring to me as “Kike”?

I can see the skinhead pause with that question and shrink back a bit, then after pondering saying possibly,

“A Kike is a fucking Jew, stupid. Where have you been for the past 3 years.”

Jesus:  “I’ve been…studying and praying, and doing a little teaching and …ministering.  We can both see I am not—as you say—fucking, but I am  riding to town with these friends.  As for my being a Jew, I find you and I clearly see eye-to-eye in one very important respect. I am, verily a Jew. And a Jew with a following I again invite you to join, if you’d like to come with us to Jerusalem.”

Skinhead:  “What the hell for, man? Why on earth should I follow you and your donkey into town today? Those palm leaves there in your path—I can gather them myself.”

Jesus: “Are you willing to do that?”

Skinhead: “What- put palm leaves in front of that donkey…or follow you to J-town.?”

Jesus: “Either one. Choose either one, but in either case, do come with us. We would love to have you come…and be with us.”

Skinhead: “Why should I come with you…a stranger…into a town full of armed  soldiers, tax collectors and money lenders”?

Jesus: “In order to be with us and learn more of the magic you have just learned.”

Skinhead: “Magic!  What Magic have I just learned?”

Jesus: “The Magic that  in your heart just converted me from ‘Kike’ to … ‘stranger’ .”

Skinhead: “How long will we be in Jerusalem?”

Jesus: “As long as it takes to …share the magic.”

Dusty

4 23 07

Fixing the Middle East…

says Professor Leonard Carrier, would be “simple”.

I say it’s not, and furthermore, I’m beginning to wonder if fixing either the Middle East or what’s left Of America is worth it.

(An Exchange of Views between Len Carrier and Dusty Schoch on The Escalating violence in the Middle East)

FIX THE MIDDLE EAST

By Leonard Carrier
…A Simple Plan
How can we stop the escalating violence in the Middle East? I offer a simple plan that can be implemented by President Bush immediately. I propose that our president tell the Israeli government: (1) to stop its attacks on Lebanon, withdraw its forces, and announce a unilateral cease fire, (2) to lift the siege of Gaza, (3) to apologize for killing civilians in Lebanon and Gaza, (3) to repair damage to the infrastructure Israel has destroyed, (4) to release Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons, (5) to start negotiations immediately to end the occupation of Palestine by removing all the settlements on the West Bank, offering a compromise on the governance of Jerusalem, and discussing proper compensation in lieu of a right of return for those people displaced by the Israeli state. Would such a plan work? Of course it would. All our president has to do is threaten to cut off our annual $2.5 billion tax-funded aid to Israel if does not do these things and instruct our UN representative to propose economic sanctions on Israel, as well. The only reason Israel is pushing the envelope in over-reacting to attacks on Israeli soldiers is that our government has stood on the sidelines and allowed them to do it. Will Hamas and Hezbollah then stop their terror attacks. Of course they will. Once Israel does what our president tells it to do, and the Palestinian state approaches nearer to realization, the militants would be marginalized and the Israeli state would be secure. Why hasn’t our president even considered such a plan, a plan that would put him right up there with Mohandas Ghandi as one of the world’s greatest peace makers? My take on it is that he continues to get very bad advice, and he doesn’t know how to stop following it.
Len Carrier *
*(Dr. Leonard Carrier received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Miami in ’56 and ’58, respectively, and his Ph.D from Stanford in 1967.  He taught at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and the University of South Florida (Tampa) before spending the rest of his teaching and research career (29 years until 2000) at the University of Miami. )

By: Dusty Schoch

You say:  “A Simple Solution”….I say “A Clean Break” and finally I ask:   How fired up are you to “save” America?

It makes perfect sense, Len.  But the simpler fact is nothing Israel does is done without  advance U.S. covert approval.  Syria is one of our prime targets in the Armageddon Rapture promised-oil operations manual. Israel’s rockets are now hitting really close to that border.  “A Clean Break” is still the covert U.S. policy and Cheney is still implementing Wolfowitz’ plan that executes the Wurmser’s Clean Break.

I’m just about to the point Marlow says Kurtz reached in Heart of Darkness… “Exterminate the Brutes”.  Or at least a corollary of it:  Let them exterminate each other.  Sons of Isaac and Ishmael have been doing this forever. We are allied with Israel and the alliance is clerically and corporately-driven imperialism, one for the honey (as in milk) and two for the dough (oil), three to make ready (Jews+Christians+Corporations) and “go cat (cataclysm) go”.

 Evangelical Christians are now openly (turn on your TV) espousing this war as end-time pre-destined Armageddon.  It’s Christian/Jewish Zionist Rapture Herrenvolk. Bush is their collective crusading “Captain”.  No one’s going to stop this juggernaut unless it’s the clerics…or rather a revolt among the true followers of Islam and Christ.  The scariest part of this global clerical insanity is that the Jews and Christian fundies think they can play these end-time games in a pro-active way and Jesus and/or his Father will come and clean up the mess when it’s over.  I don’t think the creative writers of Old  or New Testament  scripture foresaw or factored in the 100,000-year half life of plutonium fallout.

Your proposal is sane and on the money, but totally fairytale. U.S. aid to Israel is given precisely to wage the on-going war with Palestine…and beyond.  The vestige of hope (dwindling) I have is still in having the clerics declare peace.http://democratswrite.com/articles_by_democrats/page31.htm

Great dreaming,  my friend, but it’s wake-up time. I’ve smelled the coffee.  We both, however, need to drink it and get creative.  Our country is in the hands of pseudo-Christian crusaders, just as Germany in the late 30’s. Our demagogic exploiter  is every bit as crazy as Hitler; every single bit. He has bankrupted our country and ended every major alliance we have save England, and England’s not a major military ally. We’re in deep shit and the only shovel we’re holding is a nuclear button for self-destruction. Our nation today stands as a macro-cosmic Jihad warrior shouting in the Global mall…”Do it my way or it’s Holocaust Highway”.  I’m almost to the point of getting philosophic about it. I am (sincerely) looking at property in Panama.  I am seriously searching for a 60-foot sea-worthy hull. I am a resident alien.  I am salivating for the safety and sanctuary of the open sea.

How long, Len, should we rage against the dying of something?  What is left of America? Let’s write about that.

Turn on your TV and read your paper. Please show me something of our society (besides a minority of scattered souls who remember the American dream the way we do) you want to preserve.  I think the glorious ride may be over.

A country dies when it’s dreams evaporate. We’re a nation of very ignorant and heedless hedonists. We’ve shipped to other shores our productive and creative labor and work ethic; we’ve exchanged ambition for entitlements;  We’ve converted Jesus, Prince of Peace to  Christ the crusading Zionist conqueror.

Three  decades ago we made the world’s best electric and other appliances, the best cars, furniture , textiles …everything. We now make nothing but weapons of mass destruction,  and nuclear WMD’s and delivery capability is our only card to play now in international power games.  These uglier-than-even-us Arab sheiks have more power and wealth under their sand than we do because of the new “oil standard” of wealth in this  new, hell-bent for eco-armageddon global culture of ours.

All the remaining power-hitters on this dying globe are now moving their mighty military minions  to the Middle East as forecast in “The Road Warrior” movie….to secure their share of “the juice”.  We’re pretty much, Len, you, I and a dwindling mini-minority, a vanishing species in this country. Watch what the x-generation is generating…It’s all narcissistic warring of all against all. The nightmare scenario we heard about in sociology 101, that converted Rome to ruins.

GWB showed us his colors in his first 4 years and was re-elected (almost). We can’t blame the Supreme Court….enough of us voted for a fascist dictator to take his election to court. He “won”.  Blue (thinkers) are now the minority among a burgeoning sea of righteously-ignorant red that swells like earth’s own, and for the same globally-warming reasons.

I’m serious, Len. Let’s write about an issue that might, in the debating, turn things around:  What’s left of America worth saving?   NASCAR?  A porn industry whose annual gross would redeem the national debt in a decade?  A population of SUV-driving kiss-my-polar-ice crack heads? A union of evangelical (crazy) Christians and state which has converted the Christian Church to the most dangerous lobby since Exxon/mobile and tobacco?  NASSA allied  science that concentrates 2 percent  studying the heavens and 98 percent on how to more efficiently and accurately decimate earth?

When I was a kid, Len, High Point, my home town, was furniture capitol of the world. More furniture was made within 50 miles of my door than everywhere else in the world. We called our furniture club “The String and Splinter Club” because we were also one of the world’s great textile centers.   All my industrial buddies (sons who inherited these industries from their industrious dreaming dads) have sold out. They did it piecemeal (one “line” of products at a time) to lower the profile of their Enronian personal-profit plans. The were finally all “constrained” to do it because it was the only way to compete in the global market.  Now I’ve suggested we rename our club the “Lint and Dust”  Club.

Corporate-run industry of all kinds has turned cannibal.  Corporation gobbling up corporation. Unlimited power at the top sucking the blood of the laboring corpus until the labor languishes and the productive burden is shipped to leaner and hungrier shoulders in sweatshops abroad.  Predatory marketing prevails as the new American paradigm.  Wallymart fist assassinates Kmart, and then feeds off its own and the life blood of its foreign labor.  Wallgreens strategically moves its stores right next door to its competitors in areas that cannot support 2 stores, and the bully thrives and the moms and pops die, and all the City Councils’ young cannibals endorse the process because it’ll expand the tax basis.

TV portrays and emulates the new cannibalism with cut-your-neighbor’s throat celebrations in the  so-called “reality” shows, where art is eliminated and the object is –always—screw your neighbor before he screws you. The new “American Idol” is elected in a process whose 98-percent effort is exerted in humiliating the 3000 artistic  souls who competed for the “honor”.

Welcome to the war of the worlds, the war of all against all. You can’t choose sides because there are none in reality any more. The corporations ultimately machinating the war in the Middle East are transnational.  Money has no borders. Money has no allegiances. Money is naturally akin to the most noxious element on earth…Mercury. Money, like “quick silver” gravitates and adheres to itself. It can molecularly bond with any element and in so doing renders the resulting compound manifold times more toxic than itself.  Money like mercury is now in our teeth and brain.  It can assume any shape and seep into cracks and crevasses  too small for the human eye to detect and interdict.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s happening in the Middle East and nothing simple’s going to alter it:

Two decades ago the world’s biggest bullies, U.S. and Russia saw the Sheiks get out of line, mark up the crude barrels and flex their muscles on the sheer (and correct) conviction that, since there were two nuclear bullies out there, neither would have the balls to take over the milk and honey juice  under Arab sand.  Afghanistan was the proving ground. That country was targeted by Russia because it could provide a pipeline for importing  the juice when and if either power took over the Middle East.

America defeated Russia (and their pipe line pipe dream) in Afghanistan as Communist Russia defeated the U.S. in Viet Nam.  Our stinger missiles pretty much did the trick, coupled with our C.I.A. schooling of bin Laden and his Al Qaeda warriors.
That was in 1992. With Russia’s failure, rose American/Israeli combined religious and corporate ambition.

 Today there is no real difference between clerical and corporate America, as the wedding of Evangelical Christianity to corporations via the TV broadcast media  is now consummated.

Eight years pass during which the Zionist Jews actively preach and teach (via U.S. think tanks, Institutes and Foundations) the methodology in taking over the Middle East, calling it a “re-ordering process”, and this plan was inherent in the “Mein Kamph” of World War Three, which has been under way since 9/11/01. “A Clean Break” is the Mein Kamph of which I speak, and it was tendered to and rejected by a sane Netanyahu in 1998.  This new Middle Eastern order was, by Netanyahu seen for what it was, a thinly-veiled plan for U.S. invasion and take-over  at the symbiotic instigation  of their little Jewish puppet state…Israel.

You could make a case for WW III’s having begun  in 1948 with the declaration of Israeli statehood, as every battle for the maintenance of that statehood was fought and won with U.S. Military machinery, training and aid.

England may have been instrumental in the formation of Israel, but America has been wholly responsible for its establishment and maintenance.  This reality is not a secret in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the informed world.

But, defense  of Israel has never been a “friendly” or selfless undertaking from American standpoint.  They are our friends now because they are our only port of unrestricted call in the middle of the alien-Islamics’  oil fields. They are our Kurtz in the heart of  Islamic petroleum darkness. At one time, we were the Marlowe’s, conscientiously trying to bring crazy-Kurtz Israel around to quitting its genocidal games with its Arab neighbors. But this was mission impossible from the date of inception (48).  You can’t displace Arabs  in the heart of Islam with Jews and sit back and say, “It’s a done deal”.  The Hatfields and McCoys of the Old Testament will never ever be a done deal.

But that doesn’t militate against the Clean Break plan of Middle Eastern oil take-over. It in fact makes the plan
Doable.   It’s the virtual back bone of the plan.  So long as Israel is playing its “Fort Apache in the Bronx” game in the heart of petro darkness, there will be turmoil, and where there is warring turmoil, the U.S. will have an excuse to maintain its military allied presence.  It takes an I.Q. of at least 60 to master this Middle-Eastern math.

But you must keep your eyes on the doughnut and not the hole. The hole is 9/11, Homeland Security, Saddham, al Qaeda, bin Laden, Hezzbolla, Hamas, Zionism, Rapture, Armageddon and most of all …TERRORISM.   The doughnut is oil.  The JUICE.  The juice is the corporations’ currency and currency is the corporations’ life blood.

From Netanyahu’s rejection of “A Clean Break” in ’98 to the Bush Doctrine of 2001, was only about 3 years.
The war to take over the Middle East needed a pretext, and 9/11 became it.  We all know the rest of the story.

The “Bush Doctrine” that “justified” the U.S. invasions sequentially of Afghanistan and then Iraq, was simply an execution of the Wurmser’s Clean Break.  It was machinated through the A.E.I. (American Enterprise Institute) and more precisely, via David Frum’s recording of Richard Perle’s dictation of the essential phrase (Bush Doctrine) in GWB’s address to Congress that declared WWIII – That being, that “America would tolerate no nation harboring terrorists”.  That doctrine was the  carte blanch—and pretext– to invade any country in the world, including all Arab countries, but excluding essentially no sovereign  nation. The details are still documented  in the July 2003 Vanity Fair.

 These “institutes” and “foundations” are funded with the money their shareholders have in stock and other wealth. These institutes (A.E.I., the Wurmsers’ pet Hudson Institute ,P.N.A.C, etc.) hire as their “objective” policy-preaching gurus, and think-tank leaders,  old-guard politicians who are re-cycled in and out of corporate and political chairs like Dick Cheney and G.W.B.,  i.e. in oil-drilling business or oil-refining failure one day and elected politicians the next.

These corporations are running the world and currently waging war to control the juice (oil/energy). Who ever controls the energy controls the wealth. The “hole” is terrorism, WMD’s, assaults by so-called “insurgents” on Israel and American soldiers (actually invaders and internationally criminal occupiers of Iraq and Afghanistan).

In the process of waging their war for the “juice”, and through their virtual control of the media and the fundamental religions in America (now merged with corporations as said before), the corporations have, in classical Orwellian (1984) fashion brainwashed and anesthetized America’s “red” citizens and with fear and  repetitions of the “big lies” (WMD’s, wanting to “democratize” Iraq, etc.) have lobotomized a weakling, waning and lazy nation into believing that killing 60,000 civilians (in Iraq and Afghanistan) without provocation can be…for any reason…justified…even rendered “righteous”.

The corporations have succeeded in America in gaining a nation’s endorsement of and participation in unprovoked genocide…for the purpose of securing the juice.

With all the evidence in…that the WMD’s etc. were lies, and the war was in fact “unjust” and for the oil, and that the Vice President’s own corporate boss (Halliburton) was engineering the war for the juice and sale of the juice, we Americans re-elected these criminals.

America has become a criminal fascist nation. We are, alone, waging World War III to secure control of the Middle East. Bush’s little bitch Tony B and his GB soldiers don’t count as a meaningful “sovereign” ally. We have none.

We could stop Israel’s bombing of Palestine and Lebanon instantly (as Len Carrier suggests) simply by threatening to terminate our fiscal support of Israel without which they couldn’t survive, much less wage war.  We don’t do this because Israel’s war is necessary for ours to continue. The next target in the “Clean Break” war plan is Syria…and/ or Iran…after which we (and our Bush royal relatives in Saudi Arabia) will own both the juice and the juice pipeline.  Then it will be most probable that the proverbial Armageddon manure will hit the Middle Eastern fan…all depending on whether Russia and/or China will let us get away with grabbing the juice without paying a price that can only be calculated on a nuclear-powered calculator.

And in case you haven’t read the papers, Russia and China are already gearing up for their allied response to Corporate America’s (not overly) covert plan to commandeer the juice machine.

The question remains, Len, can you think of any reasons to get fired up about saving a country that would let this sort of thing happen…at best…out of ignorance? If I were young enough to join and participate actively in a physical revolution, I would at least attempt to start a movement whereby the blue states (actually all the intelligent and educated metro areas of America) would secede from the red (the rural, ignorant and religiously right).  In effect, the red states, in re-electing Bush were voting to continue America’s evolution from benign democracy to fascistic imperialist. When is it the “right time” to man the life boats when you know you’re sailing on  Titanic? Have you checked on property values in Panama?  Sailing…anyone?

Dusty
July 18, 2006

LEN’S (BEAUTIFUL) FINAL RESPONSE…
A VOICE OF COURAGE and
A BREATH OF HOPE

Dusty sees the world as it is.  I see it as I would like it to be.  I think that Dusty would like it to be the way I would like it to be, but he sees no hope of getting there from the way it is.  He paints a grim but fairly accurate picture of our present foreign policy:  an imperialistic venture fueled by the corrosive combination of greedy corporations, military war-mongers, and fervent Armageddonists.  I say fairly accurate because I don’t think that we’re calling the shots with these present Israeli military ventures.  The United States and Israel have different interests. It just so happens that these interests now coincide.  We want a strong military ally in the Middle East as a counterweight to Syria and Iran so we can grab the oil; and they want us to stand aside so they can complete their takeover of the rest of Palestine. In both our countries the hard-liners have taken over, and we’re now at their mercy. So my simple plan is really not one I expect Bush to implement.  He’s too far gone down the wrong path.
But that doesn’t mean we should give up pointing out the right path–although my preference would be Paris over Panama if it ever came to that–because I think our country is worth fighting for.  I used to say that we get the government we deserve, but then a friend reminded me that I’m not getting the government I deserve, and Dusty is not getting the government he deserves, and there are lots of Israelis who aren’t getting the government they deserve, either. So what do we do about it?  I say we keep reminding people that we’ve gone through bleaker periods in our history–like the Great Depression and World War II–and we’ve come out of them. We should keep insisting that our Constitution says that our the government is constituted “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” with no mention at all of big business.  We keep exposing the corruption and the war-profiteering of corporations; we tell the Bible-thumpers to get out of politics and get back in their churches and synagogues; we refuse to be called “anti-Semitic” when we point out the immoral actions of the Israeli government; we keep reminding our elected officials that they are supposed to be serving us and not themselves and their fat-cat cronies.  And when these officials don’t listen, we set up a hue and cry and drive them from office.
Right now the militarists, the fat-cats, the hegemonists, the pious religionists, and the smug Wall Street types have the upper hand. But remember that it’s always supposed to be darkest before dawn.  Winston Churchill said it best: never give up–never, never, never, never.
– Len Carrier

Dusty, Signing Off…

Thanks, Len for the breath of courage and fresh air.  At Valley Forge I’d have  been  the shivering boy just about to sneak away back to his  Shenandoah valley home, and you’d have been….Well, Thanks, General.  I’ll try and bundle up and keep watch another fortnight.  But I have to say, you’ve got me thinking about Paris…that thought may keep me warm these nightmarishly bleak nights.

Dusty
July 18, 2006