dagblog - Comments for "An Ugly Truth: Why Some Black People Are Still Waiting For Santa Claus"

I totally agree, Richard -

Ewattree — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 23:49:00 +0000

I totally agree, Richard - except for the part about the Dems losing the House and Senate, but maybe that's wishful thinking on my part: Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree Revenge of the Nerds: Are Americans Being Brainwashed Into Mass Servitude? . I gave up watching television about a year ago. One day I got tired of simply complaining about how silly and inane television shows were and decided to do something about it. So I called Direct TV and told them to shove it, and I haven’t regretted that decision for even one second since. . But last week I had occasion to spend a night in a motel, and for lack of anything else to do, I decided to turn on the television and let it lull me to sleep. That decision not only confirmed why I stopped watching it in the first place, but much more. After not watching it for a year, its aggressive propagandizing was not only much more apparent to me, but its blatant and heavy-handed approach to controlling the public’s collective mind was all but oppressive. . The problem - and danger of television - is that it lulls the mind into a hypnotic state and then presents ideas and concepts as though it goes without saying that they’re valid. That causes the public to accept the most ridiculous and dysfunctional propositions as valid without the scrutiny of critical evaluation. . One of the most destructive propositions that television promotes in this manner is the concept that brawn is superior to brains. How many times have you watched movies or television shows that portray the dumb and clueless jock as superior to the "nerdy" intellectual? These shows will show a jock who can’t chew gum and tie his shoes at the same time as a handsome, sharp dressing, and confident lady’s man, while portraying the most intelligent student in the school as disheveled, awkward, and a turn-off to women. In short, they routinely profile intelligence and the pursuit of knowledge as a dysfunctional condition to be avoided at all costs. . That is the exact opposite of the message that we should be sending our young people. So it’s no wonder that America is rapidly sliding downhill. The fact is, just because an individual is intelligent, that doesn’t mean that he or she is either awkward, nerdy, or, socially dysfunctional. One simply has to look at many of the elegant denizens of Wall Street or Madison Avenue to recognize the fallacy of that portrayal - in fact, many of the struttin’, jock-strap-wearing "lady’s men" from high school are now the chauffeurs, flunkies, and "gofers" of these so-called nerds. . But perhaps that’s why many of the rich and accomplished have so little sympathy for middle-class America - they remember how they were treated in high school and college while they were trying to lay down their foundation for success. Many were looked down upon and treated as outcasts, so now, it’s payback time - and we’ve made that payback extremely easy to accomplish. . When many of us should have been hard at work laying down our own foundation to become competent individuals, we were so busy trying to be popular, and living vicariously through the exploits of our favorite celebrities and sports heroes, that we never learned to think. Instead of learning HOW to think, we were taught WHAT to think. As a result, we’ve become so thoroughly programmed in group-think that we’re now mired in a cesspool of intellectual dysfunction. That accounts for why we routinely hear, and never question, comments like, "President Obama is a socialist - he’s engaged in a socialist plot to provide my family with healthcare." Many Americans have been so brainwashed with respect to the "isms" that they fail to recognize the stupidity of such a statement. . A sizable number of Americans have also casually accepted the ridiculous concept that by making the simply rich, filthy rich, it will help to create jobs - and that’s in spite of the fact that the American middle class has been plummeting downhill for the past 35 years under the fallacy of that economic concept. Far too many Americans lack the simple intellectual competence to recognize that regardless to how much money we give to the rich, they will never use that money to create jobs unless they have someone to purchase the products in which those jobs produce - and the American middle class no longer possess those funds, because we’ve already given the rich our money . . . for free. So the one-percenters have absolutely no incentive to create jobs - they don’t have to. They can just sit back and play the stock market with the money they’re already getting from the American taxpayer. So why should they take on the additional headache of actually having to produce a product? . . . (MORE) . http://wattree.blogspot.com/2014/09/revenge-of-nerds-are-americans-being...

I totally agree, Richard -

Ewattree — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 23:48:55 +0000

In reply to I do not 'know' what the

I do not 'know' what the

Richard Day — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 23:17:17 +0000

In reply to Richard,

I do not 'know' what the 'truth' is anymore.

I am lost, really.

But I support any attempt at getting to the truth and I support the First Amendment to our Constitution and hopefully, we get the message out there.

And if I know anything at all, you are attempting to get this truth out there.

Half solved is better than zero solved.

I support you and I will attempt to aid in that aim.

But damn, corporations keep on keepin on in their attempt to obfuscate those truths.

We sell everything imaginable on TV and on the Web all the time.

How does this work?

Like I have emphasized afore, money controls our very souls.

Whether it is Tide or cheezwhiz or political ads, people in America (and all over the globe) are affected by propaganda. and THE RIGHT will spend billions upon billions to propagandize a point.

We, as Dems, are surely going to lose the House and the Senate, and it all involves money and ads.

I just get depressed, but I will never give up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTXb-ga1fo

Richard,

EWattree — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 20:12:52 +0000

In reply to I am afraid to get into this.

Richard, Some times we all overanalyze. That's why my approach to ALL problems is to cut to the chase. The nub of problem is ALWAYS stupidity, and the solution is ALWAYS knowledge. So when assessing any problem, the first look for the source of stupidity. Once I find that, the problem is half solved.

I am afraid to get into this.

Richard Day — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:49:25 +0000

In reply to An Ugly Truth: Why Some Black People Are Still Waiting For Santa Claus

I am afraid to get into this.

Richard Day — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:47:07 +0000

In reply to An Ugly Truth: Why Some Black People Are Still Waiting For Santa Claus

I am afraid to get into this.

That is just the truth.

I have problems walking a mile in my parent's shoes.

But here goes:

Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you’re going to catch hell just like I am. We’re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.......

Yet in Obama’s autobiography “Dreams From My Father” it is apparent how strongly Malcolm’s X’s vision has shaped his own. Malcolm’s writings serve as a template for understanding anger, his own and that of other black men, but they also forced him to articulate his unease with destruction as a path to the solidification of racial identity, especially the value of expunging his white heritage. Still, he comes to realize that the complexities of anger remain an important subtext for interpersonal understanding. He writes about a conflict with a white former girlfriend who, after seeing a play that made salient black anger and humor, said that she thought that such anger was a “dead-end.” Obama, it is implied, saw the anger as necessary, for catharsis but also for survival, given the strictures of racism, and her inability to appreciate these aspects was a signal of a deeper incompatibility of worldviews.http://www.salon.com/2014/09/09/why_obama_cant_show_his_rage_malcolm_x_key_and_peele_and_the_personal_history_behind_his_cautious_ferguson_response/

Booker T

Life is more complicated than writers or pundits say.

Booker T seemed to think, to hell with it, work with what you got.

And yet, 'behind the scenes' Booker T would 'fight' for desegration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington

WEB

Du Bois said basically 'fuck em' and was a commie and...

This is the course I would have taken if I had been a Black Man!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois

Levi-Straus

According to Lévi-Strauss, "mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution".[26] In other words, myths consist of:

elements that oppose or contradict each other and
other elements that "mediate", or resolve, those oppositions.....

The trickster is a mediator. Since his mediating function occupies a position halfway between two polar terms, he must retain something of that duality—namely an ambiguous and equivocal character.[27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss

Why would a Supreme Court Justice and folks like Dr. Ben become so goddamnable and turn their backs on America's Greatest Sin?

Maybe they feel like they are the 'trickster'. It might be a rationalization, maybe their roles are honestly experienced.

I do not know.

The corporate teat is always there.

'Scientists' will breach their own rules to support BP or Exxon or whatever and deny climate change.

'Economists' paid the highest salaries will support corporate sins.

'Pundits' are easy to spot as long as we know where their paychecks arise.

Hell, scientists will openly deny evolution and get paid extremely well.

The trickster is a means to obtain an end and yet 'we' might need tricksters as a sociological means to achieve an end.

Du Bois and Booker T represent opposing poles.

Again, I am just rambling with only Wiki sites because I aint gonna research this problem or series of issues to death.

Eric you forgot more about this 'subject' than I could ever learn in decades, and I do not have decades.

I understand, sometimes, that motivations are difficult to discern.

I also understand that 90% of 'Blacks' ;know damn well; whether they are members of megachurches or PACS or Civil Rights Organizations, that repubs are the enemy.

I am just musing in the middle of the night.

Maybe we need more tricksters from the left.

And I always like your writings.

I am sorry that I am such a coward and do not comment enough on your essays.

the end

I hope this does not sound shallow, but this is how I feel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuc4BI5NWU

Again, Du Bois and Booker T each presented their own ethos, with their own history and their own anger and their own possible solutions.

The police chief and Mayor of

rmrd0000 — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 21:42:32 +0000

In reply to TRUTH CAN STING . . .

The police chief and Mayor of Ferguson, Missouri probably had sequential heart attacks when the Black State Police Captain was put in charge. They stroked out when a Black Brigadier General was in charge of the National Guard. They fibrillated when Attorney General Eric Holder arrived.

The data collected about the shooting has not been out before the public. The records and Grand Jury trial are in the hands of a prosecutor that is not trusted by the Black community and the Governor is too weak-kneed to call for a Special Prosecutor.

TRUTH CAN STING . . .

Wattree — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:42:43 +0000

In reply to BTW, Obama is doing better

TRUTH CAN STING . . . . But not like life can if you try to ignore truth. What we're going through in the country is a living testament to that. The people of this country tried to deny their racism and then turned around and voted their bigotry when they voted for Reagan and the Bush's because they wanted them to hold minorities down. Now they're down here with us, and whinin' to a Black man for relief. . Now ain't that just too ironic? God had to have a hand in that. . Forbes Magazine * It’s Official: President Obama Is The Best Economic President In Modern Times * AND THIS IS IN SPITE OF A RACIST AND OBSTRUCTIONIST CONGRESS!!! http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/09/06/its-official-president-obama-is-... Eric L. Wattree's photo.

You may be correct.

rmrd0000 — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:41:53 +0000

In reply to I'm reminded of Hanlon's

You may be correct.

I'm reminded of Hanlon's

Verified Atheist — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 16:42:59 +0000

In reply to There is prestige and money

I'm reminded of Hanlon's razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

It's easy to imagine that there are plenty of African Americans who hold conservative views, and that, as you point out, there is a selection bias that elevates these people within the conservative community. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure some of them are truly manipulative and are holding these views (or pretending to) just for fame and/or other benefit. However, I suspect that most of them sincerely hold these beliefs and are thus merely useful idiots.