Where Are The White People With Good Sense?

"Most little white children come from families powerful enough to shut out reality."

Jonathan Schwarz
"Four People Turned Stupid By Power"
A Tiny Revolution

I don't know if I agree with the modifier "most" that Schwarz uses here, but I can certainly see the point Schwarz is trying to make. And if there ever was a moment in time that this quote summarizes, it is today, Tuesday, September 8th, when a certain frenzied subset of our paler population will withdraw their budding genuises from school so that Little Johnny will not have to be subjected to listening to that bad, bad man, Mr. Barack Obama himself, otherwise known to us real Americans as the president of the United States.

"I am not going to give him unfiltered access to my kids."

I imagine HBO will see a drop in its subscriber base soon. I expect sales of the video game Grand Theft Auto will tail off into nothingness. And IPod's will litter landfills across the country. These predictions would make sense if these parents were telling the truth - that anything untoward should never come within a hundred yards of little Johnny's pristine ears unless it has been filtered.

What planet are these people raising their kids to live in? Johnny can't stay on the curb of his cul-de-sacs for the rest of his life.

Since our TV producers can't seem to come up with any other creative ways to get you to watch their news product this week, all we will be seeing is these people who will be snarling and howling and shrieking and yes, CRYING, as if Beelzebub himself is going to whisper his evil thoughts - study hard, read more, make goals for yourself - into little Johnny's ears.

So what I want to know is...

...where are all the white people with good sense these days?

Are they still on vacation?

Have they left the country?

Or are they just so ashamed of these people who look like them, who may be their cousins, or their coworkers, or their in-laws, that they don't want to be mentioned in the same sentence with them?

I've been thinking about these irrational parents that have been featured rather prominently on TV lately. You know who I'm talking about. They are wild eyed, or teary eyed, and sanctimonious, and all of them are white, and they swear that if President Barack Obama so much as breathes in Johnny's direction during the school day, he will have their kids calling each other "comrade" by the time they come home.

Which is interesting, because many of these parents don't even know what socialism really is. Couldn't tell you what the tenets of communism are if a years worth of gas for their SUV was at stake.

I've been thinking about these parents quite a bit lately, because some of them are my neighbors. They are the people who will just about have a stroke if their child's teacher assigns their kid homework on the weekend, that sacrosanct time here in LaLa Land that is mandated to be filled with fun, fun, fun - four wheeling and jet skiing and hunting and fishing and SEC football games and soccer matches and birthday celebrations.

But if Johnny doesn't listen to his parents now, as any outing to a local restaurant will confirm, then what makes these moist eyed mommies think that their "wittle munchkins" are going to listen to the president while he talks on a TV screen in their classroom?

Another phrase, one that I've heard through the years that may hone in a little closer to what I want to say today is this:

"If you want to see where stupid children come from, follow them home."

That point was driven home Saturday night while I was reading an article by a friend of mine:

"Tom Hui is a self-described video game lover. Michelle Liu calls herself a nerd. Marissa Pan simply likes books, and Tanya Nguyen prefers balance in her life.

What do they have in common? All scored 2400 on the SAT, putting them in the elite company of 297 nationwide and 10 in Georgia earning perfect scores last year."

Gracie Bonds Staples
"Four Area Students Score 2400 On SAT — Perfect"
Atlanta Journal Constitution

After reading a story like the one above, why are the white parents that will be paraded across our airwaves today, prattling on about the president's powers of hypnosis, even relevant?

These four real American children in the excerpt above all attended public schools.

I live less than five hundred yards from a public library, which I frequent several times a week. There are so few white children in there at times, you would think you were in a foreign country instead of an Atlanta northern suburb.

What I want to know is what these people are going to do when this brownskinned president stays on their TV year after year? Even if you only watch FOX News, guess what? They don't have a storyline if it doesn't include Obama. When are they going to do when he stays on the front page of their newspaper week after week?

Are they going to lock Johnny in a closet, like the child abductors in the news this week? Are they going to build ideological bunkers behind their houses, and set off air raid signals whenever the stench of liberalism draws near?

The best protection for your child is an appreciation of knowledge for knowledge's sake. An understanding of the basic tenets of critical thinking. And a facility with the English language that includes mastery of a vocabulary large enough to recognize the nuances that differentiate the meaning of one word from the next when someone is speaking to you.

But that, as my mother would say, is too easy. Makes too much sense. Instead, these people will do the thing they always do, the way Rick Pitino did when he went into a rampage a couple of weeks ago at a news conference while discussing the latest allegations from his adulterous sexual dalliance - claim that the truth is what they are telling you, and that everything else is all lies.

Where are the white people with good sense these days?

Are you out there?

Right about now, if the script was flipped, and these were black people doing this, I would have already been approached by someone white by now who would ask me, point blank, "why are they doing this?"

But if they don't want their Johnny listening to the president of ALL of these United States as he gives out the kind of simple advice - study hard, read more, make goals for yourself - that helped to get Obama where he is today, that's fine.

Put President Obama's speech on for the black kids.

Jamal WILL be listening.

Put it on for the Asian kids.

Jiao WILL be listening.

Put it on for the Hispanic kids.

Javier WILL be listening.

Put it on for the Indian kids.

Jharma WILL be listening.

Put it on for the children of all our immigrants, for their parents who have defied every challenge in the book to get to the real America, the one that has "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" tattooed to the base of the Statue of Liberty.

The thing about white people with good sense is...

...they are boring.

The same way black people and Asian people and Hispanic people and Indian people with good sense are boring.

Which is why you won't see them in front of any TV cameras today.

They'll be the ones soberly helping their children to master their A-B-C's and 1-2-3's. Demanding that homework get done before play time begins. Adding enrichment programs and activities on their own to bolster what the school teaches. Helping their children learn, one day at a time, how to navigate this thing we call life without having to depend on slogans and jingles and propaganda of any kind to give them their own sense of personal direction.

Training them, in other words, to deal with the world and its realities rather than look for an excuse to opt out.


I don't know what these people are worried about.

Because if Barack Obama was really the Malcolm X type of political radical they make him out to be...

...he'd schedule a speech to school children every other week to MAKE SURE these people took little Johnny out of class each and every time.

Moving On To Your Next Shot

President Obama, you've had a long week. Lost a nominee. Had to cut stimulus plan. Capped exec pay at banks living on the federal dime.

And I imagine, just two weeks into living at the White House, that you've had to make some adjustments. Tried to get used to the brand new mattress they put on your brand new bed. Wondered how long it would take to get used to the whole live/work/play in one space idea. Wistfully recalled the days when you could get the attention of five or ten million of us from your computer without even putting on a tie.

The good thing about your new job, Mr. President, is that its a lot like playing on the PGA golf tour. Every time you get ready to tee it up, there is a scoreboard, right behind you, that shows how you're doing. The world's number one golfer, Tiger Woods, doesn't always get the ball on the fairway. He doesn't always hit the green on his approach shot. He might end up with a lie beside a tent, or behind a tree, or next to a rock.

Getting in trouble on one or two holes, even if they are back to back, doesn't faze Mr. Woods. He does what he has to do - turns the club head backwards, swings from a left sided stance, putts with his driver off the fringe- whatever it takes to get the ball in the hole.

And on Sundays, more often than not, he is in one of the final groups, with a chance to win.

So don't worry about these bumps in the road this week, Mr. President. You're still on the first hole, lining up your approach.

Just take a presidential mulligan, and bring your "A" game the rest of the way.

And when you've made a bad call, like you did with Daschle, leave it behind you. Move on to the next shot. When you've got to play politics, like you've done all week with Congress, and Rush, and us, including today on your radio address, come at it from any which way you need to in order to get the outcome you think the American public deserves.


And when you need to do a little trash talking, like you've done about Wall Street execs...


...back it up with a bold shot.

Is Henry Paulson The Next Bernie Madoff?

Palm Beach pawnshop

It seemed like everybody in Palm Beach over the age of sixty was on the evening news this week. If you’re like most Americans, I’m sure you felt a little smug as you watched these shell shocked people stand in front of their million dollar homes and tell the world that they had invested their life savings with Bernie Madoff. This resentment of the rich lingers deep inside our collective psyche, a mean-spirited reaction to the misfortunes of the affluent that is out of step with our nation’s official “grow rich and prosper” credo.

Its times like these when a lot of Americans revel in their ordinariness, in their stripped down lifestyles, in their modest homes and apartments. Many watch these elderly, formerly well-to-do people confess total ignorance of Madoff’s deception and feel a certain sense of superiority because they don’t need to have three tuxedos, or eat $300 dinners, or drive an expensive luxury car. In times like these, there is a renewed sense of devotion to frugal living, as if decency, honesty and humble circumstances are an indivisible trio.

Ordinary Americans shouldn’t start patting themselves on the back just yet, though.

Right now, the only difference I’m seeing between your faithful Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and confessed swindler Bernie Madoff is the size of their playground. And in the wake of the Madoff scandal, where he has simply stolen the largest amount of cash ever from the investors who put money into his investment fund, we the American people continue to rely on the assurances of Henry Paulson that we need to simply quit worrying about how much of our money he has handed away, or who he has handed it to, because he knows what he’s doing.

Right.

The offices where Madoff cooked his books so well he could be a contestant on Iron Chef were locked tighter than…well, almost as tight as the books at the U.S. Treasury. At least Madoff gave the SEC complete reports with all the blanks filled in, even if the the numbers themselves were made up. Your humble Treasury Secretary Mr. Paulson, on the other hand, has a penchant for submitting documents to the bailout oversight committee with the names of the banks and the amounts they got blacked out. Even Madoff knew that you had to show the people something if you wanted them to believe you.

Which is why, if you’ve done a bit of private gloating about the misfortunes that have befallen the ostentatiously wealthy, you might want to think about the situation we are all in a little more carefully. In a normal economy, we’ve pretty much established that there are the “have’s” and the “have nots”. A bad economy changes those labels to the “have less” and the “have nothing’s”.

The gray-haired people in those news reports can sell their real property, even at fire sale prices, and move from a million dollar home to a modest older home or an inexpensive condo. They are likely to draw the maximum in Social Security benefits, and you would be surprised at the number of them who receive pension checks or have small annuities they purchased back when they were all the rage in the eighties. There will be food in their refrigerators. They will be able to put gas in their cars.

But if you are an ordinary American, who is already struggling to make ends meet, who is already living in a modest home, or an apartment, where will you go if Henry Paulson turns out to be doing as bad a job as Bernie Madoff? What will be in your refrigerator? Will you be able to put gas in your car?

Christmas Tree Surgery Harder Than It Looks

I spent last night performing surgery on our Christmas tree. It's one of those artificial ones, the kind that comes in three pieces and has the Christmas lights already strung around the limbs. It weighs a lot, and is a little unwieldy to handle while you are putting it together, but once you get the three parts assembled all you have to do is plug all the cords for the lights into their assigned receptacles and the whole thing lights right up, ready to be decorated with ornaments. That's how it has worked for the last eight years. This year it's a little more complicated.

I normally don't pay much attention to any of this after I get the thing assembled. S. is the tree decorator. She starts with a basic arrangement of ornaments and adds a few everyday as she remembers where she stashed them away. Some are mementos, given to her by friends. Others are sentimental keepsakes that have been deemed much to valuable to store with the run of the mill ornaments, so their whereabouts are often a mystery that she has to solve, poking in the bottom of closets and the backs of drawers to eventually ferret them out.

But it seems this ritual can't begin until the tree itself is squared away. Which is why last night I found myself tracing individual strands of lights down intricately twisted paths over, under and around the stiff wire branches that were covered with fake pine needles, looking for burned out light bulbs, because two of the eight strands surrounding the Christmas tree won't light this year.

As I took the blackened glass bulbs from out of their plastic chassis and reattached clear bulbs I'd cannibalized from a new strand of icicle lights, I thought longingly of the football game I'd turned on down in the basement.

By the third quarter, the tree was in post op. My fingertips, tender from bending and rebending delicate wires around the tiny plastic pieces, were wrapped around a cold beer as I finally settled in to watch the Chicago Bears host the New Orleans Saints on Thursday Night football.

"I'll bet Barack Obama has NFL Network," I said to myself, because the only way you could see this game was if you were a subscriber, something I was still mad about ever since I'd signed up. "I'll bet Barack doesn't have to mess around with any old Christmas tree. Come to think of it, he's a big Bears fan - he's probably watching the game right now." The whole idea of imagining Obama sitting at home in Chicago, watching the game just like me, brought on a feeling of spiritual kinship so strong that I completely missed the action of the next play.

Then a Coors Light commercial came on.

I was still lost in my "Brown Man is watching the game, just like Obama is watching the game" reverie when I noticed, about a third of the way through the commercial, that there was something about the black woman sitting on the couch that was vaguely reminiscent of Michelle Obama. She didn't look exactly like her, but there was something about her professional demeanor, something about the look in her eyes as she said something to the black guy in the shirt and tie sitting next to her who was holding two Coors Light beers in his hand-

"Wait a minute," I said to myself as I sat up, grabbing the remote to rewind the action. "Since when does Coors have only black people in a commercial?" When I watched it again, from the beginning, I saw that the woman had come home from a hard day at the office, and told her husband, who was sitting on the couch in a still crisp blue dress shirt with his tie loosened, that she "just wanted to vent." He said "so do I. Let's vent together." and disappeared into the kitchen. The wife began to complain about her day, until her husband reappeared with a smile on his face and two cold beers. "We can vent together," he said with smile. The camera cut to his wife. An exasperated look appeared on her face and she left the room.

The camera cut back to the husband, cheerily watching a football game, holding an open beer. he looked up and yelled over his shoulder, "honey, am I going to have to start venting without you?"

A smile came over my face for a second as I thought about just how powerful that simple commercial was, mostly because what it wasn't doing was showing two African Americans slapping each other five, or hand jiving, or yelling "whasssup!" into a phone while they slouched on a couch in sweats.

Then my lips flattened as the real game came back on. They were flattened because I was back to imagining "Brown Man is watching the game, just like Obama is watching the game", only this time, what I imagined was probably more realistic.

"What do you mean you want to watch the game, Barack? We need to start looking at the list of movers, we need to-"

"Baby,baby, I'm just trying to catch the Bears game."

"Mr. Obama - you mean to tell me, as smart as you are, that you can't do this and watch the game at the same time?"

"Baby, I'm not just watching the game. I'm trying to enjoy the game."

"I thought football only came on during the weekend?"

"Barack Obama and I probably have more in common," I said to myself, "than I originally thought." Which can be a good thing, because some times there are things I need to be doing besides watching a football game.

My imagination kicked in again later, after the Bears terrible offense had turned the ball over, and their legendary defense was on the field, swarming all over the Saints offensive line in search of the ballcarrier. Barack Obama was probably wishing he could get the Bears defense to blitz Rod Blagojevich the same way they went after the Saints, dropping him in the political backfield before he could get started trying to cut a deal with the prosecutor.

The game went to overtime. I did not. I woke up a couple of hours later, twisting and turning on the couch to find the remote because I must be lying on it, the way it was changing the channels-

"You fell asleep." I jerked my head and there was S., sitting in the chair next to the couch,remote in her hand, flipping through the channels. She paused on SportsCenter long enough for me to see that the Bears had won, then kept clicking until she saw Anderson Cooper's pained face next to a picture of Chris Dodd speaking before the Senate.

The network switched to another camera that showed most of the Senate chamber, where it looked like the middle of a regular work day, except it was almost 2 AM.

The graphics superimposed over the scene read "Bailout Expected To Fail The Senate".

As the commentator started with the now familiar litany of ills that awaited the economy without the passage of this bailout, S. and I soberly listened to the news.

I thought about the real people whose lives were being messed with because a group of grown men who were still embarrassed about how easily they gave away 700 bllion dollars, 335 billion of which has already disappeared, were too proud to admit that they had been wrong before, and were willing instead to make the auto industry the whipping boy for their own shortcomings over a lousy 15 billion more dollars. They probably weren't worried right now about the lights on their Christmas tree, or the vagaries of the NFL Network.

Christmas tree surgery is harder than it looks. But I took a five dollar strand of lights and got a tree we paid two hundred dollars for to shine like it was new again.

The auto bailout is easier than it looks. 15 billion dollars is just TWO lousy percent of the 700 billion dollars that just got authorized for who really knows what, since all of our banks seem to have forgotten how to actually loan money to new customers.

To all the Congress people who voted against this bill, who are smugly going home to enjoy the holidays in their warm, cozy abodes - I sincerely hope Santa drops 15 tons of coal on top of each one of your houses this Christmas.

GOP "Legion of Doom" Shrink Black Vote

The polls are open now for early voting in many states. Black people are voting in droves - campaign volunteers who stripped off their "Obama ‘08" t-shirts in the parking lot, policy wonks reading emails and surfing the web on their Blackberries, along with a whole lot of us who only turn on the news at 6:59 pm to see what the day’s winning lottery numbers are.

And yet, you already know which voting precincts are going to make the evening news in your town on Election Night. You know the ones I’m talking about – the ones that will still have long lines of angry black people waiting to vote - while the TV reporter describes the scene behind him in the same detached monotone he uses to report on a car wreck.

This is what minority voter suppression looks like.

You saw it during the primaries in Gary, Indiana, and Houston, Texas and Cincinnati, Ohio, and you will see it again in over the next two weeks Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Count on it.

According to the Associated Press, "there are 9 million newly registered voters who are overwhelmingly Democratic." And the Obama campaign has millions of campaign volunteers who are knocking on doors, making phone calls and coordinating rides to the polls across the country, an operation whose sheer size dwarfs anything the McCain campaign or the Republican National Party has organized to get out the vote.

But when you have the Legion of Doom with their super powers to call on, like the Republicans do, you can level the playing field a bit. I can just about reel off the names of the Secretary of State in places like Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida from memory, because there isn’t a day that goes by that you don’t see one of them on the news, talking about "voter integrity".

The thing is, only 24 people IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY were convicted of illegal voting in federal elections between 2002 and 2005, according to ProgressiveStates.org.

Back in the sixties, it was pretty easy to figure out, with all those dogs barking and the water hoses from those fire hydrants going full blast, that if you had brown skin, you weren’t going to be greeted at the voting booth with open arms. It was the beginning of the real "Southern Strategy", when Harlington Wood, the GOP Deputy Director of Ballot Security, authored a "Ballot Security" handbook in 1964 to guide their field troops in an effort called "Operation Eagle Eye". The Wood manual originated the tactics we have come to associate with Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.

Voter intimidation, voter misinformation, voter credential challenges, and poll watchers taking pictures of voters – it's all there, a fully formed strategy that the GOP nurtured and spun off into the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) and various "voter security" organizations. Add voter caging, voter ID, lack of polling site resources and polling site placement, and you are looking at the Republican Party’s last chance to upset Barack Obama's quest to win the White House.

So check your registration online. Show people you know how to check theirs, or do it for them if they don’t have access to the internet. Make sure you have your photo ID when you go to the polls. Leave your Obama t-shirt at home. And if you see any poll watchers out there, taking pictures...

...give them a big "Yes We Can" smile for their cameras.

You Know You Flipped That Switch, John McCain

When YOU flipped the switch to start the negative campaigning in earnest, John McCain - YOU know what switch I'm talking about - YOU signaled to your troops how low YOU were willing to go.

I’m here to tell you that you wasted your breath dismissing the comments by Congressman John Lewis that compared recent actions surrounding your campaign to those promulgated by arch segregationist George Wallace. This is EXACTLY how you motivate people to believe your message, John McCain, when logic and common sense have to be abandoned. It's the same way you do it in wartime when you have to learn how to hate an enemy you don't know.

The Gordian Knot of race didn't tie itself. And in all those years since the first guy - who I am certain was not one of us pesky minorities, who have caused all the rest of the nation's ills, including the latest financial crisis - since that same first non-minority guy thought up the concept of discrimination based on skin tone and ethnicity, there were a whole lot of non-minority people through the ages who went along with the idea.

Why? Because it gave them an advantage.

But now that the shoe is on the other foot, having an advantage because of the color of your skin seems to be bad all of a sudden.

It isn't a coincidence that the party who has adopted Christianity as one of its main sponsors is paying the price for this. Over zealous religious believers have been some of our nations most dedicated and fervent oppressors, with centuries of practice under their belts, and even now, they have retained the unique ability to spit intolerance out of the same lips that they use to ask God for personal salvation.

Barack Obama is as much of a politician as the next guy, which is why I will applaud his use of any means necessary to corner, cower, antagonize, browbeat, and generally keep his opponent off balance.

You know who Obama is, John McCain. He's the one wearing the white trunks, not the right trunks. He's the one who you've said is "all show and no go", although he asserts that he is the second coming of "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee".

He's the one that's taller than you. He's the one you've been chasing around the country these last few weeks, trying to keep up with Obama campaign rally rope-a-dope. Now you're about to find out what Joe Frazier knows - the "sting like a bee" part can hurt you real bad.

But its not the "race card" that's doing all this, John McCain, its the collective strength of all those community organizers - remember them? - who are really taking a toll on you, who are showing in these final days that having a longer reach is as invaluable in politics as it is in boxing.

If I were you, John McCain, I would immediately demand an apology from George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Joe McCarthy, Jessie Helms, Lee Atwater, Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, and all the rest of those whose vile and despicable acts of the past have forced you to have to try to be a decent and honorable candidate, especially when the cameras are rolling.

Because it's too late to flip that switch back - it's stuck in the "ON" position.

Are You Suffering From Electile Dysfunction?

• Do you find yourself getting frustrated with your political opponent?

• Is it hard to maintain your concentration on current events ?

• Are you haunted by your choice of running mate?

• Is the leadership of your own party confused about your actions?

• Are you finding yourself unable to hang on to your core constituency?


You may be suffering from “electile dysfunction”. But you don’t have to suffer in silence.

Ask your doctor about LogiCal^TM , a low dose anti-bullshit inhibitor safe enough for daily use. With LogiCal^TM, you can regain the ability to make rational, clear-headed decisions when you’re ready. You can feel confident enough about keeping the lines of communication open between you and your party’s leadership to get everybody on the same page. Many users of LogiCal^TM also report increased energy levels, regaining the ability to read entire three page documents word for word before losing interest.

Its not too late.

Talk to your doctor about LogiCal^TM


**side effects may include hypersensitivity to bullshit, negative advertising, and bald faced lies. During campaign activity, if you become dizzy, nauseated, disoriented, or find yourself believing you have already won the election, call your doctor right away. Contact your doctor or seek emergency medical attention if you find yourself having an attack of conscience for more than four hours. Do not take LogiCal^TM if you are also using maximum strength Heronex^TM – this may cause a serious increase in erratic thinking.

66 Million Raised For Obama In August

Barack Obama’s fundraising generated more than 66 million dollars in August. An Obama aide said the campaign added 500,000 new donors to its rolls in August.

This shatters the campaign's previous record of $55 million. Obama’s ever growing base of contributors is now estimated to be north of 2.3 million donors.

Obama's total for August was almost $20 million more than the $47 million Republican rival John McCain raised last month.

Obama's campaign said that with the latest figures he had more than $77 million cash on hand.

The previous benchmark for the campaign to allow it to fully fund its projected fall budget of $200 million was a monthly fundraising goal of 54 million dollars between now and November. Now the Obama campaign indicates that they will need to maintain last month's level of giving in order to match revised estimates of the Republican's war chest for John McCain.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said Sunday that the campaign would not file its report to the Federal Election Commission until Sept. 20, so a more precise analysis of how the money was raised will not be possible until then.