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    Tavis Smiley: "Mr. Accountability" Shuns Professional Accountability

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree



    Tavis Smiley: "Mr. Accountability" Shuns Professional Accountability
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    Tavis Smiley, none other than "Mr. Accountability," a man who's gone around the country hawking a book that he wrote on the subject, and who has literally forged a living out of lecturing President Obama and others on the need to be accountable, is blatantly, and shamelessly, shunning his responsibility as a journalist, and his accountability to the people.
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    Mr. Smiley is in direct violation of the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, which states the following in part:
    ACT INDEPENDENTLY

    Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.
    Journalists should:



     —Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

    — Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

    — Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment,   political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
     
    — Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
     
    — Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
     
    — Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
     
    — Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.
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    As pointed out in a previous article, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West traveled all across the country on a bus under the pretext of being so passionately concerned about poverty in America that they just HAD to take a stand - but of course, that was BEFORE the election, and when they had books to sell. But now that the election is over, and they don't have any books to sell, they couldn't bring themselves to walk down the street from Tavis' office to support the Black Friday demonstrations taking place all across the country against Wal-Mart - Tavis' major sponsor, a member of ALEC, and the biggest abuser of the working class in America today.
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    And not only did they fail to attend ANY of the demonstrations taking place across the country against Wal-Mart, they didn't even issue a comment of support. All we've heard coming from the Smiley/West camp are crickets - and as everyone knows, that's extremely uncharacteristic of Cornel West, who's renown for being willing to trade a kidney for a sound byte.  So I'd say that just about says it all about those two - Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are two of the biggest hypocrites that the Black community has ever suffered.
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    A QUESTION FOR BOTH TAVIS SMILEY AND CORNEL WEST
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    Mr. Smiley, do you intend to return the Millions of dollars that you reportedly made from herding poor Black people and Hispanics into the Wells Fargo “Ghetto Loan” scam to the people who lost their money and homes? And Dr. West, in your learned opinion, what is the appropriate course of action for your friend and associate to take - in accordance with the "prophetic tradition," of course?
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    A discrimination lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice, and several articles, including one seeded on Newsvine entitle, “Tavis Smiley - "Ghetto Loan" Peddler for Wells Fargo,” closely associates PBS talk show host, Tavis Smiley, with the Wells Fargo Bank scam targeting poor and middle-class Black and Hispanic borrowers. The article quotes Kelvin Boston, host of "Moneywise, and Keith Corbett, of the Center for Responsible Lending, as calling Tavis Smiley “the big draw” of the Wells Fargo scam. Specifically, the article states the following:
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    “Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw, according to Boston [host of “Moneywise”] and Keith Corbett, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, who attended two of the seminars. Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere... But what appeared on the surface as a way to help black borrowers build wealth was actually just the opposite, according to a little-noticed explanation of the "Wealth Building" seminar strategy, contained in a lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
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    “Wells' plan for the seminars all along was to target black borrowers for higher-cost subprime mortgages, not for wealth-building, the suit charged. And the seminars were a part of the bank's overall illegal and discriminatory practice of steering black and Hispanic borrowers into riskier and more expensive loans, the suit said.”
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    Subsequent to the law suit, Richard Prince reported in The Washington Independent that Smiley issued a statement indicating that he would sever all ties with Wells Fargo until charges that the company steered minorities into higher-rate loans are resolved. The article went on to say,
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    “Wells Fargo sponsored Smiley’s radio show on Public Radio International, and underwrote the annual C-Span-televised “State of the Black Union” conference that Smiley organizes. Smiley’s foundation also distributed Wells Fargo materials to young people at foundation events, he told Journal-isms.
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    ‘“I cut everything off with Wells Fargo,’ Smiley declared. He said the move cost ‘a lot of money’; he said he did not know how much.”
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    On July 12, 2012 Charlie Savage reported in the New York Times that Wells Fargo Bank agreed to pay $175 million to settle the discrimination suit which, according to the Department of Justice, targeted over 30,000 Black and Hispanic borrowers for subprime loans with a higher interest rate than for similarly situated White borrowers between 2004 and 2009.
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    What makes it particularly ironic that Tavis Smiley would be associated with this scheme to target poor and middle-class minorities is that Smiley is the primary promoter of what he calls “The Poverty Tour,” along with his friend and associate, former Princeton professor, Cornel West. During the tour, on their joint radio talk show, and on numerous media appearances, Smiley and West have gained a reputation for being President Obama’s harshest critics, indicating that the president is not sufficiently focused, and “accountable,” to the nation’s poor and minority community.
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    In a statement by Wells Fargo put out after the bank agreed to a settlement of $175 Million, they said that while not admitting to any wrong doing, Wells Fargo agreed to a settlement of the law suit because the bank felt that it was the right thing to do.
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    CNNMONEY quoted Mike Held, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, as saying, "Wells Fargo is settling this matter because we believe it is in the best interest of our team members, customers, communities and investors to avoid a long and costly legal fight, and to instead devote our resources to continuing to contribute to the country's housing recovery."
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    The settlement includes Wells Fargo paying the Black and Hispanic victims of discrimination $125 million in compensation, and an additional $50 million in down-payment assistance to borrowers in the affected communities.
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    So the question that remains is, if Wells Fargo Bank feels that paying compensating to the poor and middle-class victims of this scam is the right thing to do, shouldn’t Tavis Smiley, the most strident advocate of “accountability” and fervent crusader for the interest of the poor, feel obliged to do the same? Certainly, benefiting from the misery of the poor and minority community would run counter to Mr. Smiley's zeal for the need of the powerful to maintain accountability.
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    We’d also like to put that question to Smiley’s friend and associate, Dr. Cornel West. What do you think your good friend and associate should do, Dr. West? What does the “prophetic tradition” dictate is the proper course of action?
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    We’ll be anxiously awaiting your response.
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    Poverty Pimp, Inc.
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    What Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins Won’t Tell the Black Community
     
    In addition, there's the appearance that news is being manufactured.  People like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins are going out of their way NOT to tell the Black community that the United States Constitution gives sole control of spending to the United States House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republicans.  So the only way that President Obama can spend any money to assist the Black community is to get the Republican House to go along with him.
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    That’s why it’s so important for the president to hold together a coalition of Blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, and every other segment of the American population.  He needs ALL of us to place pressure on the Republicans to loosen the purse strings in order for him to get anything done. So anytime you hear Tavis, West, or Watkins pointing their finger at what President Obama is doing for any other segment of the population, they’re doing you a disservice.
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    Here’s how politics works - you support me when I need you, and I’ll support you when you need me. So whenever President Obama does anything for other segments of the population, he’s building up political capital so he can help you. But, he doesn’t discuss what he’s doing for the Black community for a very good reason - as Cornel says himself (when it’s convenient), “Race Matters.”
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    These gentlemen know full well that if President Obama runs around bragging about what he’s doing  for the Black community, the Republicans are going to use that as leverage to tear his coalition apart. They would tell women, gays, Hispanics, and everyone else in America that Obama doesn’t care about them, and that all he wants to do is help his own people, and that message hurts the Black community. Don’t these so-called intellectuals recognize that? If they don’t, they’re dumb. If they do, that means that they’re purposely trying to mislead the community. The question then, is why?
     
    So the fact is, when people like Tavis, West, and Watkins run around telling you that the proof that President Obama is not working for you is that he refuses to throw his fist in the air, these people are working against you, not for you - and they know it.  President Obama is trying to help ALL of the people - and that includes you.
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    But the primary agenda of the people mentioned above is NOT about helping the Black community, or anyone else, for that matter. Their primary interest is to service their own hatred, envy, and greed.
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    You see, they've never been able to get past President Obama's rapid rise to prominence in our society.  So instead of taking pride in what Obama has achieved like the vast majority of the Black community, they see his accomplishment as diminishing their stature among Black people, and it's killing them. So their primary agenda is not about helping you, it's about helping Obama's enemies tear him down, and getting rich in the process.
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    What makes this so sickening is, while these “brothers” are telling the people how much they love them, at the very same time they’re depending on the people’s blind ignorance in order to promote their own agenda.  But some of us have been around long enough to have seen this before. This is the exact same tactic used by the “brothers” who were planted inside the Black community by the FBI to sabotage the civil rights movement of the sixties.
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    It was called  “operation Cointelpro.”  The operation involved sending so-called brothers into the community to divide the various civil rights organizations - both, against one another, and within the organizations themselves. In order to accomplish this, the FBI plants would go into the community and convince the people that certain individuals weren’t militant enough. As a direct result of this ploy, Dr. King was the victim of the exact same kind of character assassination as Tavis and West are now trying to use on Obama. The Smiley and Wests of that era used to call Dr. King, “Martin Luther Coon.” So it is indeed ironic that these two individuals are now trying to use Dr. King’s own Bible in a tactic used against him, to now defame Barack Obama. It’s disgusting.
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    They’re playing the same old game of dividing the people that kept Black people from rebelling against slavery, and that has held Black people down for over 400 years. The only difference is, during slavery the turncoats would do it for a pat on the back and a new pair of shoes. But today, it involves millions of dollars.
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    Just ask yourself, how many millions of dollars would Tavis’ cronies at Walmart, Exxon/Mobile, and the other members of ALEC be willing to pay to bring down President Obama?  Let me give you a little insight into that, right out of the mouth of an irate Black Republican operative. In his article, "My Republican Party has Abandoned Me," (http://www.freedomsjournal.net/2012/10/31/my-republican-party-has-abandoned-me/) Black Republican activist, Raynard Jackson, says the following:
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    "For many years, I have approached the party and its supporters about underwriting programs to bring together Blacks who are Republican or lean Republican so we can weave them into every facet of the party structure. The answer is always, no! But, twice this year some of these same people have approached me about funding for some election year tricks that they (White Republicans) have conjured up and simply need a Black face to execute the plan. On these two separate occasions, these funders were willing to spend upwards of $20 million to have me organize a national campaign to identify Blacks who would be critical of President Obama." 
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    So there you are, and with that kind of money up for grabs, we would be ridiculously imprudent not to minutely scrutinize the rationale behind every syllable that slips from Tavis and West’s mouth. Because Tavis may be opposed to many things, but he’s certainly not one who’s opposed to making money.
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    After Tavis miscalculated his clout in the Black community by trying to punish candidate Obama for failing to come on his show, Tavis Smiley is quoted in “Black Enterprise Magazine” as saying the following:
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    “I went from making about $1 million a year in speaking fees to barely $100,000 because people stopped inviting me to speak in certain places,” he recalls. “Personalities like me have a Q rating, and mine dropped lower than Michael Vick’s after the dog fighting conviction. I couldn’t engage new sponsors or get the ones who have been with me to raise their spending levels.”
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    The article goes on to say, “So what did Smiley do? He rallied his troops to “stay focused on the work” as he conjured up new ideas and led his team to launch a new radio program, publish a slate of books that became top sellers, and create a traveling museum backed by Walmart, a long-time sponsor, among other ventures to fortify the company. “He kept going full steam ahead.”
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    What the article didn’t say was his radio show was financed from the proceeds that he made off the misery of poor and minority borrowers who lost their money and homes after Smiley herded them into the Wells Fargo “Ghetto Loans” scam.
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    The article goes on to point out the holdings of Tavis Smiley, Inc:
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    "His numerous holdings include:
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    • TS Media Inc., which produces the Tavis Smiley talk show that airs weeknights on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), viewed in 96% of U.S. households with approximately 400,000 viewers nightly.
     
    • Smiley Radio Properties, producer of his radio programs, The Tavis Smiley Show and Smiley & West, which he co-hosts with Cornel West, a close friend and one of the nation’s leading black intellectuals, for Public Radio International (PRI). Together, the programs reach more than 500,000 listeners daily.
     
    • High Quality Speakers Bureau, which, in addition to Smiley and West, offers lecture representation for approximately 17 social commentators and motivational speakers such as Henry Louis Gates Jr., Iyanla Vanzant, and Dr. Robin Smith. (Denise Pines, Smiley’s partner and marketing guru for 15 years, holds a minority stake in the company.)
     
    • SmileyBooks, a co-publishing venture with Hay House Inc. that has published 22 books to date including several best sellers.
     
    • Tavis Smiley Presents…, a unit that has managed and produced company-sponsored public events.
     
    • SIVAT Productions, a company that develops documentary films.
     
    • America I AM: The African American Imprint, a four-year traveling museum that has developed a number of spin-off publications and products.
     
    "The Tavis Smiley Foundation, the philanthropic arm that has raised $322,000 to teach youth leadership skills as well as Smiley’s investments in residential and commercial properties in California and his home state of Indiana are also under the TSG umbrella. He also owns a number of Marco’s Pizza franchises throughout Indianapolis.”[It doesn’t mention how much goes to the kids, and how much goes to his “investments” - and notice that they say “raised” for the kids, not donated].
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    But Tavis’ various holdings are very enlightening. They seem to explain Smiley and West’s over-the-top rhetoric. It seems that they’re generating their own news, and then they’re turning around and profiting off of the controversy that they themselves are creating. By creating controversy, that enhances their speaking fees (West, $30,000 a speech), book sales, and also enhances their television and radio audience. Then, Tavis will go back with his production company and produce a documentary on the screaming people that he’s managed to convince that they’re being ignored by the president.
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    Even the latest book that they went around the country hawking was disingenuous. The title of the book is “The Rich And The Rest of Us.” Who is the “US” that they’re talking about? With all of the money that they’re pulling down, they certainly couldn’t be talking about themselves. They’re not one of “US,” they’re part of “THEM.” You’d be wise to never forget that.
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    Tavis’ holdings also explain why in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy, where 26 people were killed, including 20 children, West seemed to be more interested in making headlines than mourning over the senseless death of these innocent people. West said, “We can’t just shed tears for those on the vanilla side of town with the Middle Class.”
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    West knew full well that the president's response had absolutely nothing to do with what "side of town" this tragedy took place. President Obama was responding as a father - as a human being - to the horrible tragedy of 20 innocent children being murdered while sitting in school. It didn't matter whether those children were Black or White; the tragedy was uniquely significant due to the horrific circumstances surrounding their deaths. Yet, even in the face of such a horrible tragedy, West couldn't resist his irresponsible urge to score a twofer for he and Tavis' team. He immediately saw an opportunity to both, criticize the president, and to garner headlines, which could later be converted to even more publicity, and cash.
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    For an individual who’s supposed to be a man of God, that was a horrible thing to say - in fact, it would have been a horrible and dumb thing for anyone to say, regardless to what their beliefs. But this seems to be Cornel West’s pattern. Instead of putting his agenda aside just long enough to support initiatives that are in everyone’s best interest, he insists on being divisive, incendiary, and self-promoting. By doing so, he not only detracts from the effort to get guns out of our communities - including the Black community, which he claims to be so much in love - but in the process, he also manages to desecrate the memory of 20 innocent children.
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    The man is shameless, and quite frankly, I'm beginning to wonder if his intense envy, and the resulting hatred, of President Obama might have pushed him over the edge. Because, other than Tavis Smiley himself, I've never seen another man of relative stature who seems to be so completely oblivious to his own destruction. And watching this drama play out on the public stage is absolutely surreal.
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    Is West's reckless behavior what one would expect of a true intellectual? I don’t think so. He's engaged in the kind of irrational behavior of a man who can’t be trusted - and he's been headed in this direction for quite some time. It was this very same kind of thoughtless, ego-driven, and self-serving behavior that caused Cornel West to be so instrumental in getting the entire country in the disastrous situation that we currently find ourselves.
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    In the 2000 election George W. Bush won the presidency by winning Florida by 537 votes. The Nader/West coalition peeled way 97,488 votes in Florida alone. So even for those who say that Bush stole the election, if it hadn’t been for the efforts of Nader and West, the election wouldn’t have been close enough for Bush to steal. Thus, all of West’s ranting about what Obama’s not doing is tantamount to a man who’s dug a ditch, and who’s now complaining that Obama’s not filling it in fast enough.
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    The Black community has had its share of poverty pimps, but we’ve never been pimped like this before. The poverty pimps of the past tended to just have little disorganized hustles, but Tavis Smiley seems to have created “Poverty Pimp, Inc.” He’s gaining the people’s confidence by staying in the public eye, and he stays in the public eye by financing his own shows with the money he derives from the people’s misery. So it seems that Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are the Iceberg Slim and Trick Baby of public pimpdom.
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    Thus, the Smiley/West coalition is well worth watching, because it’s a coalition forged between the Bogeyman and the Devil.

    Eric L. Wattree
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    Jan 20, 2011: Speaking in front of stacks of produce and a giant "Let's Move" and "Walmart" banners, Mrs. Obama told a crowded auditorium at a community center in southeastern Washington, D.C., that Walmart's new, healthy charter is a huge victory for every American.

    "It's a victory for parents. It's a victory for families, but most of all, it's a victory for our children," she said.

    July 20, 2011: I winced yesterday when James Gavin, chair of the Partnership for a Healthier America, said he’d like to see Walmart double its U.S. store count. He was speaking at Michelle Obama’s event announcing that several retailers will open stores in “food deserts.” It was a sort of half-jokey remark, but, still, in a conversation about food in America, the suggestion that Walmart should have an even bigger role in our food system is pretty disturbing. This is a company that already captures 25 percent of grocery sales nationally and more than 50 percent in some metro areas.

    5/2/2012: Wal-Mart has many more players in its pocket than just Tavis Smiley. Former Atlanta congressman and mayor Andrew Young was a prominent early sellout to Wal-Mart. Since then the retail giant has acquired hundreds of local preachers and politicians like Chicago aldermen for example, often purchased for what look like embarrassingly small contributions to their churches, political war chests or favorite charities, unless there are other sums of money under the table which the records don't reflect....

    As the White House's resident advocate for healthy eating and exercise, Ms. Obama has leveraged her image as a priceless asset to Wal-Mart, endorsing its drive to penetrate new urban markets, crush competition, and gobble up even more public tax breaks and subsidies. But in the real world, more urban Wal-Marts, and giving more public subsidies and market share to the amoral company that already accounts for 27 cents of every dollar spent on groceries in this country is not so much the solution to urban “food deserts” as it is the solution to Wal-Mart's problem of how to raise that 27 cents to 30, 40 or 50 cents of every grocery dollar in its corporate coffers. That's the problem Michelle Obama is helping solve, not the problem of accessing decent food at reasonable prices.

    Michelle Obama and Walmart: A Match Made in PR Heaven

    Walmart's announcement that it will hire 100,000 veterans over the next five years has prompted a wide range of reactions, but no one was more positive than Michelle Obama.

    The First Lady was effusive in her praise for the retailer, calling the commitment "historic" and saying that Walmart (WMT) was "setting a groundbreaking example for the private sector to follow."

    Jobs for veterans has been one of the First Lady's signature issues: She and Jill Biden spearheaded the "Joining Forces" initiative to assist military families, and the White House claims the program is responsible for the hiring of 125,000 veterans and military spouses. So it makes sense that Michelle Obama would give her endorsement to Walmart's plan to guarantee jobs for recently-discharged veterans.


    Mar 4, 2013: During her speech from the fresh produce section, the first lady said, “For years, the conventional wisdom said that healthy products simply didn’t sell – that the demand wasn’t there, that higher profits were found elsewhere, so it just wasn’t worth the investment. Thanks to Walmart and so many other great American businesses, we are proving the conventional wisdom wrong. Every day, with their success, these companies are showing us that what’s good for kids and good for family budgets can also be good for business."


    $30K for Cornel West might be a bargain.

    Bill Clinton -between $100,000 and $350,000 for his speaking engagements

    George W. Bush charges $150,000 per speech. Condoleezza Rice charges just as much as Bush. Sarah Palin fees from $100,000-$150,000. Bush's wife Laura charges $75,000 per speech.

    Bristol Palin is asking $15,000-$30,000. Having a superstar CEO like Jack Welch or Richard Branson speak at a business luncheon may be worth the $100,000+ price tag. Public figures like Anderson Cooper, Alex Rodriguez, Kim Catrall and Serena Williams all charge $50,000+ for their speaking engagements. $50,000 for Kim Kardashian. $100K for Shannon Doherty, Roseanne Barr, Clay Aiken (who?).

    Charles Barkley $50,000. Alice Walker $30K-50K. Dr. R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr $20K-30K. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar $30K-50K. Maya Angelou $30K-50K. Spike Lee $30K-50K. Bertice Berry $30K-50K. William Raspberry $10K-20K.

    http://www.nopactalent.com/celebrity/bertice-berry-agent-booking-appeara...

    http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0510/outrageous-celebrity-app...

     

     


    If William Raspberry is getting any money for appearances, it is a miracle since Mr Raspberry died in July 2012.


    Wow, like I'm so humiliated. Perhaps you can write to NoPACTalent and ask them about setting up a seance.

    In any case, as of last year he was getting 10-20K/speech - everyone else seems to be getting significantly more than Cornel West. Not sure what Wattree's complaint is there - like West should work for free or what?

     


    Like many people who suffer from ODS, Obama Derangement Syndrome, Wattree is compelled to attack anyone who questions the Great and Glorious Leader, Obama. Luckily the rose-tinted glasses many view Obama through are not yet required to be surgically attached to everyone by Homeland Conformity.


    I think what Wattree is attacking is a sense that everything absolutely everything is a disaster with no one looking towards solutions. Time is better spent addressing website issues than yelling that Obamacare is a disaster. Why is the solution approach better? It is better because now thousands of people are signing up each day and  as of now approximately 1.5 million uninsured people have health insurance. 

    Wattree wrote a beautiful peace on Nelson Mandela which went counter to some posts that required that Mandela be labeled a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is expected to label Mandela a terrorist, it is disappointing when the same point is made by Progressives. It is expected that Republicans want to destroy Obamacare. It is sad when 39 Democrats go along with the destruction.

    it is disheartening to hear repeatedly, that Blacks vote for Obama because Melissa Harris-Perry sends subliminal messages through the television screen or because our great leader Al Sharpton says we have to vote for Obama.. The charge that Blacks are stupid and vote in lockstep only confirms what Black voters believe about some so-called Progressives. These Progressives are totally unaware of what Black Americans see as major threats. This subgroup of Progressives fail to realize how Blacks respond to their words. This Progressive subgroup is as out of step with the Black voting community as the GOP.

    Call it race-based voting. Call it Obama Derangement Syndrome even though that was  originally meant for the wingnuts. Call them Obamabots. It no longer matters. What we have come to realize is that this subgroup of Progressives has nothing but criticism. They have no plan to put your words into action. Some even suggest losing elections for several years so that a team of "real" Democrats can build. Just what voting suppression needs., a wingnut Attornrey General who ignores voter suppression.

    Gerrymandering and voter suppression, special masters for majority minority cities, Stop and Frisk, and Stand Your Ground are all clear and present threats and yet the charge is Blacks had to be "told" to vote for Obama. Because of the threat of suppressed votes, Blacks organized to make sure that voters had the credentials and knew the precise location of their voting places. Blacks fought back against the GOP. The GOP isn't using the NSA to suppress votes, they are doing it legislatively. The GOP isn't using NSA to harass innocent Black citizens the NYPD is doing it in the open and fighting in court to have the intimidation continue. Did Blacks have to be "told" to vote for DeBlasio?

    I am sorry that some Progressives remain willfully unaware of the GOP's attacks on African-Americans. Blacks had to be "told" to vote for Obama. Rubbish. Obamacare is hopeless. Rubbish. Mandela was a terrorist. Rubbish.

     


    Mandela blew up power grids & police stations, and burned crops and was prepared to take violence further. By most standards, he was a terrorist as well as a freedom fighter, even though his cause of freedom for blacks was understandable, the government atrocities were quite worse, and the level of rebel-spilled blood at that time was kept minimal compared to what it became in the 80's or in similar situations with Namibia, Angola, et al. Mandela was not a Gandhi-ite MLK. If you have a knee-jerk need to paint roses over every real-life dilemma and complicated situation, and throw a tantrum because I used a word you didn't like, even while describing a situation accurately, there's little hope for you in a grown-up discussion.


    In his own words Mandela considered four options after the massacre in Sharpeville sabotage, terrorism, guerrilla warfare and open revolt. Mandela began with sabotage. When De Klerk made his shocking statement about releasing Mandela and lifting the ban on the ANC, he said specifically that he would not release those who had committed murder or terrorism. Thus in his decision, De Klerk officially separated Mandela from the charge of terrorism.

    If you note I was addressing statements by some Progressives who used the term terrorist. I did not single you out in that category. I note that De Klerk's statement supports that he did not consider Mandela terrorist. Mandela associated terrorism with the loss of human life. Apparently De Klerk felt the same way.

    I do disagree with you that waiting to build. bench of "real" Democrats is wise. We are still dealing with the aftermath of some Democratic voters staying home in 2010. This only helped put more wingnuts in office.

    I believe the failure to connect the threats posed by Stop and Frisk and Stand your ground, while only focusing on the NSA is a mistake. The police state is already here. Blacks did not have to be told to come out in force since Obama's DOJ was putting up a battle against voter suppression. Blacks did not have to be told to come out to support a candidate that seemed open to change Stop and Frisk in NYC.

    An underlying point is that some Progressives do not understand the Black voter.Rand Paul is never going to be accepted as a standard bearer for drug reform or altering the use of drones in the Black community. Rand Paul is a racist who hired a racist as a close associate and who embarrassed himself when he tried to impart a Black history lesson at Howard University, an HBCU. 


    "Terrorism is the systematic use of violence (terror) as a means of coercion for political purposes. In the international community, terrorism has no legally binding, criminal law definition.[1][2] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror); are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)." Commonly, the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as crops and electric grids is considered targeting civilians, but certainly killing civilians vs. inconveniencing them is a much higher level of terror. (I'm assuming their ruining of crops wouldn't rise to starvation as say the British in Ireland). Whether de Klerk defined things differently for real belief or for political expediency, it was a wise move - they needed to move on, and almost 30 years had passed.

    As for 2010, if Democratic politicians had given voters a strong reason to come out, they likely would have come out.

    "Stand Your Ground" hasn't been used that much (wasn't used in Zimmerman). Stop & Frisk is used every day. Don't see a reason to conflate them. I do agree that mass physical searches and mass violations of privacy are 2 sides of the same coin.

    No interest in discussing Paul for the umpteenth time.

     


    By his decision to keep ANC members who were murders and terrorists, De Klerk declared that Mandela was not a terrorist. Mandela could participate in negotiations specifically because he was not a terrorist. You are free to your own beliefs. 

    I noted that there was a lack of understanding of how Black voters felt about Stop and Frisk and Stand Your Ground. Your statements prove my point. Just set aside the racism, anti- worker and anti- women's rights aspect of his platform.

    Rand Paul was shoved in the faces of Blacks by some Progressives pointing out that Blacks should love Paul because of his views on drug laws. We were to just set aside his racist, anti-worker and anti-woman part of his platform.

    Finally, I think Wattree touches on a sense that for some Progressives, everything is bad.Obamacare is bad, not fighting a war in Syria is bad. The Iran deal is bad.  Vaccines are bad. Cardiologists are bad. We should wait and build a farm team to fight the Republicans. Let's just give up a political race before we know who is running.

    There was a couple called the. Dolans who had a financial advice column on CNN.Every show went over how every financial decision made by anybody was wrong. Business leaders were wrong, legislators were wrong, individual investors were wrong, workers were wrong. The show ended relatively quickly, because all they had were complaints with suggested solutions that were not practical.

    Vaccines save lives. Changes in vaccine advice are made as the need arises. Cardiologists listed objections to the new statin guidelines while the ink was still wet on the document. Obamacare will get health care coverage to the uninsured. Mandela is being praised as a freedom fighter by most people, except a small little group. Mandela is not under the dirt yet. Let's celebrate his life.

    After a point, the constant criticism becomes just background noise.


    I gave you a standard definition of "terrorism", not my "belief" or what De Klerk did. Mandela chose to "thank" Margaret Thatcher, though very likely he held her in contempt for her role in sanctions and helping the apartheid and was just being gracious. Should I take Mandela at face value? I implied before that likely Mandela's violence was justified given the torture and cruelty of the government, and certainly in the early years they seemed to have tried hard to avoid civilian casualties. So I wouldn't equate his terrorism with Al Qaeda's for example, but he was trying to scare and shock the community into moving forward on apartheid. That's all I'll say as that's all I know.

    As for blacks equating "stand your ground" & "stop and frisk", that's their right, but I don't see the law very equatable with the police practice, and while blacks can use SYG as a defense, they don't get any benefit out of SAF. Certainly there are many more incidences of SAF than someone encountering SYG.

    Not fighting a war with Syria is good. Whether Obama intended it or backed into it with Putin's help, it's still good he avoided it. The Iran deal is likely quite good - wish we'd managed some diplomacy all along. No idea on Cardiologists - always thought they were superheroes, have a family member receiving their benevolence right now - hip hip hooray!!!

    I'm not going to jump into a discussion on vaccines or Rand/Ron Paul, thanks. Been there, done that.


    South Africa is the midst of a ten day home going ceremony for a great man. His countrymen decided how he will be remembered.

    My post is really directed at the idea that if you aren't constantly pointing out Obama foibles, you are not paying attention. Obamacare has the promise of insuring millions. There will be glitches, instead of 39 cowardly Democrats turning tail, I would have loved to see them vow to make the program work because the end result was worth the effort.

    Obama spent months behind the scenes attempting to work a deal with Iran. Chemical weapons are hopefully leaving Syria. A great man dies and he is called a terrorist, not by wingnuts, but by Progressives. Can't let him go peacefully even before the dirt is thrown on his body. Even Mandela's foe De Klerk did not consider Mandela a terrorist. It just seems nothing is ever right. There are bright spots along the way and Mandela was one.

    After a point, the negativity grates. Youth are involved in Stop and Frisk and Stand Your Ground and combating voter suppression. There is fire.Maybe some older folks are just burned out and cynical.


    The real legacy that Mandela and the ANC leave SA has little to do with his armed struggle but with the deal they made with the IMF after coming to power. They sold out the revolution for the false promise of neoliberal capitalism and the masses of black South Africans have paid a heavy price for their weakness. After the Civil Rights gains of the early '60s MLK attacked the economic inequality and militarism in the US which was the logical progression for a true revolutionary and since he couldn't  be co-opted he was eliminated and black Americans have been left with superficial political power and crushing economic hardship similar to South Africa.


    So nothing good happened wither either Martin Luther King Jr or Nelson Mandela? Sad.


    We were discussing Mandela, not Obama in that regard - I just pointed out "terrorist" fit. Wattree spun from memorializing Mandela back to criticizing Smiley & West. You said everything was negative and I responded with 3 things I was happy about.

    Tell me 1 case of "Stand Your Ground" that's working against blacks. How many incidents nationwide? Just because you pile SYG together with S&F doesn't mean they're linked or equally significant. Voter suppression is a problem, but obviously doesn't usually result in death or incarceration.

    And I don't recall criticizing ACA in quite some time.


    Voter suppression was mentioned as a rationale for high Black turn out.


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