SNL On Hillary: Sore Loser, Racist Supporters, No Ethical Standards

Pretty accurate summary, in fact.

Tuesday Open Thread: What's Up, People?

Good morning.

Drop those links, begin those debates. Share with your fellow JJP readers.

Hope you have a peaceful day.

IF WE CAN'T LOVE OURSELVES....?

If we as African-American, Black, Negro, people, can't love ourselves, we can't expect others to love us, or accept us, or treat us as human beings worthy of dignity and respect, either.

Especially, since some of us like to act no better than animals attacking their own:

While I know the majority of us are hard-working, taxpaying, decent citizens who contribute mightily to society as individuals and as a whole, it is incidents that show the worst of...the lack of humanity, that portrays us as nothing more than the "Boogey-Man" that Missy Hillary continues to use..and there are some of us who keep giving her ammunition. Dang.

No, I'm not going to give a "When are we Goin' to get our shyt Together" lecture, because at some point, our humanity has to come forth, or else we're merely shells of what we were always intended to be.

I know some of you think when Obama is elected, he's going to change all this; including those dark, ugly parts of our people and our community and make it beautiful, shiny and new. I'm sorry, he's going to be so busy cleaning up the mess being left by the Thief-in-Chief, we may not want to wait for him, but get busy to call out each other on our shyt. No matter what the risk; I know, some fools are itching to bust caps into people if you look at their Nikes wrong - but there are some who are waiting for those loving swift kicks in the arse to get our shyt together.

Do we love ourselves enough to do that? Because we can't give to others if we can't give to ourselves...

Report From The Ground In Appalachia

This is a report from Hugh. Hugh sent in a great report from SC in January, and he was in Asheville NC canvassing for Obama. I've made very minor spelling and formatting changes. Enjoy.

a little glimpse from appalachia...


Sunday:

In the hills well outside Asheville, I didn't expect to find appalachian black folk, much less an appalachian rastafarian, but that's what I found when I hit my turf. They were mostly Allen's living along Allen Rd. A few folks weren't back yet from church, but those who were were thrilled to see me and itching to go vote. A couple had seen Michelle in town the previous night. There was a party house with kids on the trampoline, one seasoned drunk, one loud inebriated white dude, and their pal who appeared to be the smart one, perhaps the Allen among them.

The somewhat loaded discussion was heavily pro-obama, but one of the moms hadn't made her choice. So I had a good back and forth with her while not being too blatant about not listening to the peanut gallery that was more interested in my opinion of who Obama should pick for VP. The seasoned drunk was convinced it should be Biden. Evidently the lady in the house across the little valley could hear us. Her house wasn't on the list, but as I jogged by later she ran out her front door yelling thank you! thank you! I ran up and gave her some more buttons and told her she would need them for the general.

Nearby, I knocked on one door atop a hill in a mobile home and woke up an elderly white lady, about 65 I guess. She is neighbors with someone named Dove Waking and someone else registered as Waking Dove, but neither of them were home. This lady, coming off her nap, was confused about what was actually being voted on that day, but she knew she liked Obama and "hated" Clinton. Later on I met another white lady, obviously poor and probably about 35, who hadn't ever registered but who would vote for Obama if she was registered. She likes him. Awesome. That's so great. DO YOU HAVE A DRIVER"S LICENSE!!! Ah well, at this point I began to think we might just exceed expectations.


Tuesday:

After a tour through a suburban subdivision where we found few people home, we went back to the Panera Bread staging location and got another turf with apartment complexes. Once there, I decided to just go ahead and hit all the doors. At the first door was a mexican guy, about 50, who had already voted for Obama. The next door that answered was a white lady who was bashful about her choice but had already voted. Then, a little black kid who relayed to me that his parent(s) had already voted, so I gave him a few stickers and my last obama button.

Another lady wasn't registered and had some crying infants to tend to. I then knocked on a door to find a young black 12 yr old girl home alone. She had heard of Obama. I asked if she wanted a button before realizing I had none left, so I gave her about eight feet from my roll of obama stickers. As I walked away she began to reel them in to the house. Now she'll have enough for the general election.

At the next complex, I knocked on the door of an afro-american couple, Beatrice Gbain and R. Thomas, both of whom are deaf. Their daughter, about 9 years old, is their voice to the world. Of course, she is a very serious kid. We were able to establish that they were thumbs up for obama, that they had registered when they got their nc identification cards, that they didn't know where the poll was and that they didn't have a way to get there. I told them someone would be back, and then I figured I better be the one to do it.

As it happens, in the area there are two "9 Miller Road" addresses, and the staging location's maps had the wrong one. Once I got them in the car, I became suspicious of having to get on the appalachian parkway for 6 miles. So I called the number on the door hangers and indeed the proper polling place was close by in the other direction. We enjoyed going out and back one exit on the parkway before eventually arriving at the poll. They had moved from NYC within the last year so it was the first time at this poll, not to mention the parkway.

Their daughter translated for each of them, signing to them and establishing their name, address, and party affiliation with the poll manager. After that though, much to her dismay, she wasn't allowed to watch over the shoulder of either parent as they cast their vote. Nonetheless, she was proud when the votes had been cast. Now that is some serious flipping hope!

Sidney Blumenthal Was There.

Max Blumenthal wants you to know that he was right there when all the scary Negroes were about to riot over the Sean Bell verdict:

Unlike Rich, and what seemed like the entire Times Metro desk, I attended the demonstration that erupted in Jamaica, Queens -- the neighborhood where Bell lived and died -- just hours after the verdict was announced. While this protest did not end violently, it was large, brimming with anger, and anything but restrained. At one point, I found myself in the midst of what seemed certain to become a brawl between a faction of furious protesters and a squadron of cops they had surrounded. It appeared from my vantage point that the cops retreated from the melee only because they were badly outnumbered.

But don't take me at my word. Watch the video I produced about the Sean Bell demonstrations, especially the latter half, which depicts the uncomfortable reality that Rich overlooked in his reductionist portrait of an imaginary post-racial America.

In the video, Blumenthal wrings his hands over Barack Obama's difficulty in "maintaining his credibility" among black voters while reaching out to blue collar whites. I'm not sure what planet Blumethal is on, but it's apparently not the one where Barack Obama is knocking Hillary into Nixon-like margins among black voters.  Son Of A Former Clinton Advisor Max Blumenthal knocks "former theater critic Frank Rich" for not "bolstering" his claim with statistical evidence, but the humiliating margin of the black vote Hillary Clinton is getting is notably absent. Who's the one really having trouble walking that tightrope?

One person Blumenthal interviews says "where's Hillary? She's our state's Senator". An interesting question, since Governor Paterson suggested he might revive the office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate claims of police brutality. The Sean Bell shooting happened in her state, and yet Clinton has been mad quiet. I'm sure it's not because voters in West Virginia and Kentucky might not want to hear what Clinton thinks about the Sean Bell verdict.

But all of this is less important than Blumenthal's ultimate point, which is that the Sean Bell trial (and his uncorroborated description of a near riot, which is actually just people talking smack at the police at a protest) proves that America is too racist to elect Barack Obama president.

Of course, Blumenthal's deep concern about issues of race and racism in America is by no means driven by his support for Hillary Clinton. He's just really worried that people don't understand how serious racism is, especially all those black folks who clearly have no idea, which is why we're voting for Obama, because we just don't know what it's like out here.

The Obama camp could have made a similar argument about Hillary Clinton with gender, but it hasn't, and it won't, and that just makes what the Clintons are doing all the more messed up.

After all, why stop with the president? Blumenthal's rationale extends itself to all spheres of life. Don't make him manager, people won't respect him because he's black. Can't let her into Yale, folks are racist, they might think she just got in because of affirmative action, and she might not be able to handle it. Might as well forget about going to medical school, because some white people don't want a black doctor.

America is a racist country, and has a lot of growing to do. But whether or not America is ready to elect a black president is yet to be decided, and racism should never be an excuse to tell a black person they can't do something.

There's something so sick about Blumenthal's exploitation of the Sean Bell tragedy to further a Pro-Clinton agenda. There's nothing in that "documentary" about an independent body that would have actual power to hold police accountable and would replace the toothless CCRB, there's no description of the increasing numbers of violations by the NYPD that have gone unpunished, just an assurance that black people are still angry and potentially violent.

Even Juanita Young, who was thrown down a flight of steps by cops after her son was murdered by the NYPD, appears as a mere prop in Blumenthal's piece, the only point of which is to smear the black man running for president as a race traitor.

UPDATE: I accidentally identified Max as having worked for the Clintons and having sent the emails, it was actually his father Sidney. 

Monday Open Thread - How was the weekend?

Good Morning.

Happy Monday.

What have you found around the net of interest? Drop those links, those comments, start some debates. Tell us what's going on.

Have a peaceful day.