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| Response to warwriter 1969 common sense |
| 02.24.04 (11:52 pm) [edit] |
As one of the few [b]Black men[/b] on tBLOG I feel compelled to respond to your hate filled contribution to the national debate of Gay Marriage.
1. Not saying I am a libertarian, but I'm not sure what business the govt. has sanctioning marriage of any kind. Certainly incest is not physically healthy and perhaps polygamy is physically unhealthy as well.
2. Homosexuality may be against God's law, but the almighty has never asked any govt. to conform to his will. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell may disagree though. I recall scriptures that say to respect man's laws but the people should live by the commandments.
3. What sanctity does marriage between a man and a woman have anyway? Divorce rates rise, people have children w/o marriage and millions other simply shack up.
4. I never met these n*****s that you speak of who want payback.
Black man wanted to Vote. Medgar Evers was murdered conducting voter registration. No payback.
Black man wanted to be Educated, James Meredith was shot in the back on an Alabama Highway walking to University of Alabama attempting to enroll. No payback.
Black folk wanted to Equal Public Accommodations. Class action lawsuit against Denny’s, St. Marks Hotel. No payback.
Black folk wanted Equal Treatment by Law Enforcement. Amadou Diallo shot 27 times, including two bullets through the bottom of his feet. No payback.
5. I’m afraid you only believe Secretary of State Colin Powell is worthy of being noted as a Afro-American because he identifies himself as a Republican and a few Blacks have called him an uncle tom. But wait, you couldn’t even call him an Afro American.
Despite your ingenious tactic to espouse your racist views into a blog about gay marriage and your clear cut homophobia, [b]I LOVE YOU[/b] and will [u]FORGIVE YOU.[/u] I wish you were here with me so we can pray to our Christian GOD together.
That’s right, [u]I LOVE YOU.[/u]
[b]To a man, I LOVE YOU.[/b]
-- Proletariat
© E.D. Petty
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| G.W. Bush Conjures Up Ghost of Nixonomics |
| 02.19.04 (11:17 am) [edit] |
Reprinted Courtesy of LA Times
[url=] http://www.latimes.com/news/p...,1,2912493.story?coll=la-headlines-e lect2004 [/url]
I[i]n 1972, irresponsible tax cuts and spending helped the president win--at great cost.[/i]
By Bruce J. Schulman
Bruce J. Schulman is professor of history at Boston University and the author of "The Seventies."
February 15, 2004
BOSTON — Election-year budgets always embody campaign strategy, but President Bush's $2.4-trillion spending plan for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 offers a goody bag unprecedented in size and scope. In addition to permanent tax cuts for business, the Bush plan includes substantial spending increases for Defense and Homeland Security, a new Mars exploration package and a price tag for Medicare prescription-drug benefits that's 30% higher than the administration had originally estimated.
The lavish expenditures have raised eyebrows among the president's party faithful. "Our party's credibility on spending is slipping," Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) complained last week. The chair of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, Rep. Sue Wilkins Myrick (R-N.C.), concurred: "People back home are very upset with spending."
Many presidents have tried to spend their way to reelection. Eight years ago, President Clinton's micro-initiatives rewarded a variety of swing voters with "targeted" benefits. But when presidents prime the pump for political purposes against their better economic judgment and ideological convictions, the costs to the nation can be steep and lasting.
Unlike the president's father, who signed an unpopular tax increase to restrain a runaway deficit — and his role model, Ronald Reagan, who stayed the course with monetary contraction and painful reductions in social spending despite a deep recession and high unemployment — [b]Bush's budget strays far from his cherished small-government principles. [/b]Indeed, today's White House strategy most closely resembles the 1972 reelection plans of Richard M. Nixon, whose heavy-handed manipulation of the policy levers and generous payouts to key constituencies produced a well-timed, short-lived boom with devastating long-term consequences.
At the beginning of the 1972 campaign, Nixon was worried about the economy. Early in his presidency, the nation had struggled through a stiff recession: Unemployment soared and stubborn inflation forced the president to institute wage-and-price controls, the first in peacetime in U.S. history. After disappointing reversals in the 1970 midterm elections, Nixon told his top domestic advisor that he could not afford a slowdown during the reelection campaign. The economy, Nixon insisted, "must boom beginning July 1972." The administration pulled out all the stops in its effort to stimulate the economy. Despite signs that inflation had cooled and that, as economist Milton Friedman put it in July 1971, the economy had "lots of steam in the boiler," Nixon refused to take chances with gradualism. He proposed and won a series of tax cuts to stimulate the economy and abandoned requests for commensurate spending cuts.
At the same time, the Nixon administration presided over explosive growth in the money supply. No evidence exists suggesting that Federal Reserve Chairman and Nixon associate Arthur Burns deliberately overheated the economy to help reelect the president. Still, the popularity of easy money certainly convinced the Fed chairman to brush aside warnings that expanding the money supply at three times the historical rate posed substantial economic risks. Three months before the election, Burns told his colleagues that he "personally wanted to enjoy the period — however brief it might prove to be — of relative tranquillity and marked achievement which monetary policy has experienced over the past year."
Burns' peace of mind proved short-lived and expensive. The economy overheated in 1972, unleashing devastating inflation, crippling business, eroding savings and causing the worst economic crisis since the Depression. Still, along with Nixon's tax cuts and expansive spending, it produced the election-year boom that Nixon had demanded.
But that alone did not satisfy the Nixon administration. The president also delivered the goods to key constituencies, foremost among them elderly voters he had described as "a generation no longer forgotten." The key battleground involved Social Security benefits.
Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, had entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He rested his White House hopes on an audacious proposal to attract seniors. Mills proposed an immediate 20% increase in Social Security payments, reductions in taxes seniors owed on their benefits, and automatic cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, for future payouts. Unlike with most pie-in-the-sky campaign plans, however, Mills had the clout on Capitol Hill to push through his plan even as his presidential bid fizzled.
Mills' proposal posed a dilemma for Nixon. The White House understood that the plan meant economic disaster. "There is no magic actuary-alchemist," Budget Director George P. Shultz told the president, "who can provide benefits without incurring costs." The huge increases, coupled with the COLAs, would stoke inflation; they would also saddle the federal budget with ever-increasing entitlement obligations that would necessitate tax increases and cuts in other programs.
But in an election year, Nixon decided he couldn't afford to oppose the Social Security proposal. After signing into law a plan he knew to be irresponsible, the president deftly took credit for the increases. Fatter Social Security checks went out a few weeks before election day, along with a letter informing senior citizens of the president's role in their good fortune. No one mentioned the new taxes to pay for them, which went into effect the following January.
The political benefits of such fiscal recklessness are as clear as the cautionary tales of more responsible policies. Early in 1980, the Carter administration undertook draconian measures to derail inflation. The ensuing recession dragged into the fall and scotched Jimmy Carter's reelection bid. A decade later, the first President Bush signed a tax increase to rein in the budget deficit, which slowed the economy and contributed to his defeat in 1992.
By contrast, Nixon won a memorable landslide, but his political success exacted enduring costs — spiraling inflation, anemic productivity growth and a yet-to-be-resolved crisis in entitlement spending.
Like Nixon, the second [b]President Bush continues to ask Congress for fiscal restraint, but his own mammoth spending undermines the credibility of those requests.[/b] The trouble he may be borrowing, for his hoped-for second term and for the nation, may not be worth the votes he will earn.
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| Election 2004: Not an Intern, No Relationship w/ John Kerry |
| 02.16.04 (5:45 pm) [edit] |
Issue 2
1. After a week of the not-so-usual Internet rumor mill, Alexandra Polier and her parents released statements denying Alexandra was John Kerry’s partner in an extramarital affair that could damage his chances at becoming President of the United States. Senator Kerry denied the allegation on the Don Imus radio show, claiming there was nothing to report.
[u]Statement released Monday by Alexandra Polier:[/u]
"For the last several days I have seen Internet and tabloid rumors relating to me and Senator John Kerry. Because these stories were false, I assumed the media would ignore them. It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them. I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry, and the rumors in the press are completely false. Whoever is spreading these rumors and allegations does not know me, but should know the pain they have caused me and my family. I am in Kenya with my fiance visiting his family, and we ask that the press respect our privacy and leave all of us alone."
[u]Statement by Terry and Donna Polier, the parents of Alexandra Polier: [/u]
"We have spoken to our daughter and the allegations that have been made regarding her are completely false and unsubstantiated. We love and support her 100 percent and these unfounded rumors are hurtful to our entire family. We appreciate the way Senator Kerry has handled the situation, and intend on voting for him for president of the United States." Republicans who fueled this rumor may have made a mistake because the Polier family votes republican.
Apparently Hannity, Limbaugh, etc., just lost their President two votes.
2. Everyone’s asking, when will Dean leave? No one knows for sure, but for the second time in three weeks, a senior campaign staffer is leaving the campaign. National chairman Steve Grossman has not only resigned his post, but is publicly endorsing Sen. John Kerry. Oddly enough, the former Governor claims he hadn’t heard from Grossman since he publicly admitted Dean should bow out if he does not win Wisconsin.
According to the latest Zogby poll, Kerry sits upon a 24-point lead over Dean in Wisconsin. Nevertheless, Dean promises to continue on.
Dean said his largely Internet-based organization of hundreds of thousands of online backers "put some spine in the Democratic Party" by challenging it on matters from health care to the Iraq war. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, key Dean advisors are exploring ways to use their vast Internet machine to support the Democratic nominee and campaign against Bush. This would be in line with the advice of his former national campaign chair Joe Trippi, who urged Dean not to turn over his supporter lists to the DNC.
3. Prez George W. Bush, there isn’t much positive news to report. Bush released his military records in an attempt to prove he met all the requirements of him in Alabama. However some have poignantly questioned his apparent lack of flights. Remember, Bush Jr. was a pilot for the Air National Guard. Perhaps Bush is better suited staying removing himself from the Vietnam War debate that has now being rehashed by Kerry supporters. He won’t win that debate, no matter how many doctored photos of Kerry and Jane Fonda may be released.
As of late, Bush has begun to tout the improving economy and the success of the Iraq war. After all, Libya’s Mommar Qhadafi revealed his not-so-secret weapons programs and will begin destroying all weapons and stopping all programs. It appears there will be an ensuing normalization of relations between Libya and the U.S. Its safe to assume financial aid will follow.
But Bush should be careful here, Libya may have just done what the administration claims North Korea is trying to do. Black mail the western world for support and aid.
Off to Blog Another Day,
Proletariat
© E.D. Petty
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| Election 2004: Dean, Clark or Bush |
| 02.09.04 (3:11 pm) [edit] |
Issue I
Dean, Clark or Bush
1. If you support Howard Dean for President, jump on a new bandwagon as quickly as possible. There is no need to stay aboard a sinking ship. Wisconsin democratic voters will not save him. The former governor may appear to be some great liberal that will take back the American flag from Rush Limbaugh, but voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, etc, have clearly spoken. Besides, Dean is not the type of special liberal like the late Sens. Paul Wellstone or the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy that could win over votes from those who did not agree philosophically.
And just how do you spend $40 million that fast and produce no wins?
On the upside, Dean did provide some excitement to an otherwise boring bunch of democratic hopefuls. Even Al Sharpton and his James Brown hairdo did not entertain us the way we figured he would. And Dean has managed to do what we’ve only seen from Rev. Jesse Jackson and saxophonist Bill Clinton in the last twenty years. Excite young people about the upcoming election.
Republicans beware: the 3500 students who went to Iowa to help Dean should serve as a sign of things to come.
2. Retired General Wesley Clark will not be in this election long after Dean leaves. Besides becoming a Democrat less than a year ago, Clark was never ready for primetime. His Iraq war resolution flip-flop was an early example of his lack of political principles. In just days, Clark stated he would have supported the Iraq war resolution in Congress, he would not have and then he would have.
Perhaps his lack of experience makes him less slick than John Kerry who voted to support the use of force in Iraq.
But Clark’s biggest problem is that he is critical of a war that he supported. In the year before the war Clark made countless speeches in support of Pres. Bush and his administration.
As Kerry rolls, the flow of money to Clark will dry up and he’ll be all but done. Clark’s campaign will be a sad note in history when you consider the grassroots momentum that brought him into the race. At this point, it’s tough to see him as a potential choice for the Vice President nomination.
3. This election is still the President’s to lose. Lately, he’s been trying to do just that. While chief weapons inspector David Kay was preparing to reveal to the world that we might have been wrong about WMDs in Iraq, Bush was proposing federal spending no conservative approved of. Mission to Mars, Low-Income Marriage Counseling, increased support for the Arts and the third rail issue of Amnesty for illegal immigrants.
After months of pounding from the democratic hopefuls, Bush has now begun to swing back. In his State of the Union speech, he vowed the U.S. would never seek a permission slip to defend itself and touted his tax cuts. The speech was a total campaign speech, why else would you hear a POTUS talk about ephedrine?
This weekend Dubya met the press. Tim Russert gave him a generally tough interview, although that’s debated by some. Already, Bush supporters are unhappy with the interview. Its still to early to tell if Bush served himself well. One thing is clear, he put himself in a position, in which he had to defend his actions. That’s generally not a good idea for the self-proclaimed ‘War President.’
Yes Democrats, I know, polls are showing Kerry beating Bush in a November head to head match up, but let me forewarn you, incumbent President Ronald Reagan trailed Walter Mondale by double digit percentage points in many polls a year before the election. We all know the results, Reagan pulled off one of the largest blowouts in electoral history.
Off to Blog Another Day,
Proletariat
© E. D. Petty
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| Election 2004 Political Analysis |
| 02.06.04 (11:44 am) [edit] |
Beginning early next week, the Proletariat will regularly dispense political analysis of the all important Presidential Elections.
All the marbles are at steak for the Democrats. Can they win back the house, the senate and/ or the Presidency?
Does Howard Dean still have a chance or is he done for?
Will Kerry walk away with the nomination or will Clark and Edwards slow his roll?
Is the election really Bush's to lose or has he already lost thanks to his Amnesty plan?
Find out by reading my blog on a regular basis. Please note that the Proletariat will not be in favor of any particular candidate or President. Just straight up analysis based on my national electoral experience and in the campaign sources.
On To Blog Another Day,
Proletariat
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| Election 2004 Political Analysis |
| 02.06.04 (11:41 am) [edit] |
Beginning early next week, the Proletariat will regularly dispense political analysis of the all important Presidential Elections.
All the marbles are at steak for the Democrats. Can they win back the house, the senate and/ or the Presidency?
Does Howard Dean still have a chance or is he done for?
Will Kerry walk away with the nomination or will Clark and Edwards slow his roll?
Is the election really Bush's to lose or has he already lost thanks to his Amnesty plan?
Find out by reading my blog on a regular basis. Please note that the Proletariat will not be in favor of any particular candidate or President. Just straight up analysis based on my national electoral experience and in the campaign sources.
On To Blog Another Day,
Proletariat
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1 Comments
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| Not Again!!! NYPD Kills Young Black Man |
| 02.05.04 (11:29 pm) [edit] |
By Herb Boyd
Managing Editor
The Black World Today
http://www.tbwt.org/home/content/view/103 /2/" title="http://www.tbwt.org/home/content/view/103 /2/" target="_blank"http://www.tbwt.org/home/cont...
Brooklyn -- Irene Clayburne wept inconsolably throughout the 90-minute funeral for her grandson, Timothy Stansbury, Jr.
There was nothing Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Councilman Al Vann, Minister Kevin Muhammad, Assemblywoman Annette Robinson, or even the Rev. Craig Gaddy could say to stem the flow of tears, though their remarks aroused the mourners crowding the pews here at Friendship Baptist Church.
"He was on the right path," Mayor Bloomberg said of Stansbury, 19, who was killed by a housing cop on the rooftop of a building where he often lived with his grandmother. "He resisted the temptations that trap so many of our young people."
But the one trap Stansbury, and many young black men, cannot not elude [i]is the one set by nervous white police officers. [/i] Officer Richard Neri, who had his gun drawn while patrolling the rooftops of the housing complex, told sources that he didn't recall the incident–"it happened so fast."
Apparently Stansbury opened the exit door on the roof Saturday morning, January 24, at the same time the officer was pulling it open, according to several witnesses, including two young men who accompanied Stansbury as they took a short cut across the rooftop, rather than descending four flights of stairs of the adjoining building and then climbing back up to reach their destination.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who did not attend the Friday funeral, quickly called a press conference after the shooting and announced that it [b]"appeared to be unjustified,"[/b] which was a reaction that was in stark contrast to the attitude of the Giuliani administration and it's tendency to do everything possible to protect members of the NYPD.
"We lost a piece of our future," Bloomberg continued to respectful applause. "It is something we cannot afford to lose....He's gone from our vision, but not from our hearts."
Councilman Vann, who administers the district where Stansbury lived and was killed, was equally emotionally in his statements that drew a thunderous response. After commending the community activism of his colleague on the council, Charles Barron, Rev. Herb Daughtry, and the mayor for his sentiments, he wanted to know why it's always "young black boys and young black men who have been shot mostly by white police officers...We must make sure that justice is served.
"We are at a defining moment in the city," Vann continued, "and Mayor Bloomberg has had the courage to tell the truth." He turned from the pulpit and faced the mayor and said: "We can work together to bring about change."
Assemblywoman Robinson also entreated the mayor, asking him to resurrect the "Safe Streets, Safe Cities" program. "We need more of these programs," she insisted. [b]The police need to "recognize that everyone in our community is not a criminal."[/b] Listeners came to their feet with a sustain round of applause.
The applause grew even louder when Minister Muhammad boomed that "Our people can't take anymore. We are tired of this, and there must be an atonement." Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, heads Mosque #7 in Harlem, was furious and recounted a litany of police atrocities from Eleanor Bumpurs to Amadou Diallo. Then, pointing to the metallic blue casket at the front of the church, he said: "Timothy is still here with us because why would we all be here?"
"I didn't know my brother was loved by so many people," said Stansbury's sister, Timetress, who left her seat where she sat with her father, Timothy, Sr. and her mother Phyllis Clayburne, to read a poem she wrote for the occasion.
At the close of the service, Rev. Gaddy, pastor of the church, praised those who had come, particularly the city's elected officials that included City Comptroller William Thompson, State Senator David Paterson, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Councilman Bill Perkins, Council Speaker Gifford Miller, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.
"This is what we call leadership," Rev. Gaddy roared. "Together we can make a difference."
Stansbury, who had great aspirations to be a basketball player, leaves to mourn his father, mother and grandmother; sister, Timetress; four aunts, Sandra Clayburne, Cormella Smith, Margie Clayburne, all of Brooklyn; Elaine Clayburne of Hampton, Virigina; three uncles, Wayne Clayburne, Frank Clayburne and Stanley Clayburne all of Brooklyn; a loving stepfather and friend Tracey Watson and a host of cousins and friends. He was laid to rest at Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey.
(Monday, 02 February 2004 )
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