TRUE HEROES USE RESTRAINT AND VALUE ALL HUMAN LIFE

It was August 1965, it was during the Watt's Riot.

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I was 12 years old. About 5'8' and 150lbs. The only store that was open was a Safeway Store, where National Guard was staged. My mother needed milk for my baby sister and a few other items. My mother and father had recently divorced.

I rode my bike down an alley to avoid the traffic. As I came to the end of the alley. I did a hook slide to stop. It caused a lot of dust and debris to fly into the air. When the dust settled, I found myself looking up the barrel of an M-14 being held by a thin white man, dressed in Army gear. He was shaking and scared to death. But he didn't shoot me. He cursed me out and I rode away alive.

In 1971 I was at a party. It was in Compton, CA where I was grew  into adulthood. I was talking to a deputy sheriff who was called because a neighbor  complained about the loud music. As I was telling him I would go in and tell the person who lived there to come out, to my surprise a man was walking towards him with a meat cleaver lifted above his head ready to strike the the deputy. In an instant the officer, turned drew his gun, placed it in the center of the forehead of the assailant, and said, "Drop it mother!!". The idiot dropped the meat cleaver and the deputy turned him around and placed handcuffs on him and walked him to his patrol car.

By no means were any of the incidents the norm back then, but it showcases what a true hero is in my eyes. Men who could have taken a life and chose not to.

Sargent York received the Medal of Honor during WWI. One of the reasons,  he single handedly captured scores of Germans who had surrendered.

Even under the Geneva Convention when a enemy solider, throws down his weapon and raises his arms to surrender he becomes a non-combatant, and should not be killed.

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My favorite comic heroes and TV heroes Batman, Superman, the Lone Ranger all had a common characteristic. PRESERVE HUMAN LIFE 

When did the value of heroism change? When did it become a sign of courage and honor to kill an unarmed man or child? 

How is it that people like George Zimmerman, Darren Wilson, Joe Horn, Michael Dunn, Daniel Pantaleo, can be elevated to heroes by so many for their lack of courage, honor and regard for human life?

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Yes American Values have changed for the worse. Every American deserves his day in court, if charged with a minor crime or infraction. Not to be shot 6 times or choked to death. This type of attributes belongs to villains not law abiding citizens and police officers.

I now believe it is taught in police training that if you kill an unarmed black man in America, that there will be no serious consequences or indictment. It's an unwritten rule that needs to stop.

I applaud the many of people of all races who came out in protest of the non-indictment of Wilson and Pantaleo.

But what will it really change?

Nothing!!!!, until the American Value of RESTRAINT AND RESPECT FOR ALL HUMAN LIFE is restored and cowards, lairs, and murders who use the law as a shield, be given what they deserve.

Was the first US Ebola patient allowed to die?

Something strange happened to me today. I was going to use the subway in Los Angeles. I was headed to use the elevator at the Western and Wilshire Station. A black man held the door for me as I walk with a cane and was some distance from the door when it opened.
We were the only two on the elevator and he said something right out of the blue.
In what sounded like a African accent he stated, "Did you see how De killed D' man wit Ebola". He exited the elevator door and disappeared.
I do not know why he said what he said, as that was the extent of the conversation.
But, he did get me to thinking.
I began to think, if Thomas Eric Duncan, had lived, what would have been the consequences? Would there have been a flood of people from  Africa trying to get into the US?  Because of the death of Mr. Duncan that is now a moot point to the extent, it seems you can't get better care here in the US; or can you?

It's curious that the only other patients to get treated for Ebola in the US survived, and their treatment started in Africa.
They also happened to be white doctors and a missionary.
Can't wait to see if the photojournalist who is now being treated, survives. If he does that will certainly raise a lot of questions, what makes all them different from Thomas Eric Duncan?

I am not saying that anyone allowed Thomas Eric Duncan to die so much as I question the treatment he received in Dallas as opposed to the two white doctors and one missionary.

This is America after all. A place where time and time again, it has been proven that a black life is worth less than a white life.  
It's going to be fascinating  to watch. Stay tuned.

American Media Hysteria and African Americans

When you look at the history of America, when the news media, focuses on a negative issue and blacks are involved it appears to be hysteria. I'm not saying it is hysteria,  it looks and  feels  like it to me. All those frowning, sometime angry faces, calling them "monsters".

It scares the hell out of me.

It has all the dynamics of propaganda.

In U.S. history, I think about the many race riots. It wasn't until 1965 with the Watts Riots that rioting didn't involve attacks by whites on blacks. 

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Riots like the 1863 Draft riot in New York

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began after an extensive news blitz in New York press of Northerners having to fight to free slaves.

There were massacres in places like Rosewood, FL and Greenbough S.C., where unsupported reports of black men raping white woman where broadcast and printed daily for weeks. It is said that even the most liberal whites  supported the attacks after, hearing or reading the negative reports on a daily basis.

In recent times in Los Angeles in 1971, the local news media began to simultaneously broadcast reports of gang activity. I remember the headlines like it was yesterday, "Southland gang terrorizes Los Angeles." 

When in fact the so called gang incidences were unrelated. A shooting on Piru St in Compton, a man robbed for his leather coat and killed at the Palladium Theater in Hollywood, a group of kids in Watts, ages 9-11 threw rocks and killed a Ice Cream truck driver and killed him. The Ice Cream truck driver was reported by many of the people who lived in the neighborhood, I know because I lived in the area, was thought to be a Pedophile .  

All these incidents were linked an reported to be the work of a gang called the "Crips."

After that you could not walk down the streets in Los Angeles and be black without being accosted by law enforcement. The really ironic thing was, the areas drawn up in the news papers as gang territory didn't exist before before that reporting, sprang up afterwards. Even  gang names, many I heard for  the first time was during that media blitz.

Hell even the election of G.W. Bush may have hinged on mass media hysteria of Willie Horton.

It does bother and concern me now, with all the NFL domestic violence 24/7 coverage and all the faces I see are African American punctuated by attacks on Roger Goddell.

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It is safe to say that Roger Goddell won't be use to paint all white men as people who make bad decisions based on profit. That is not the same for the black NFL players.
I'm reading post, using the universal dog whistle name for blacks, "THEY".  They beat their wives, They beat their kids with trees, they make to much money.
Like I said in a earlier blog, black men have enough unfair negative labels to deal with.
I'm pretty sure there are many positive images of black NFL players that can be covered, like Devon Still, his little girl is battling cancer,

and what he did to make sure she receives treatment.

There is no Mass Media Hysteria when blacks do good, but there is plenty of history to prove it exist when blacks do bad. The consequences are never good for blacks either.

How many blacks today will not get a job because the employer, thinks he might beat his wife and kids?

I know to many what I am saying is ridiculous and far- fetched, but I think it needs to be said. Racism still exist in America.

The Danger of Ray Rice, The Media and Black men

First let me say I hate domestic violence. As a child I use to have to go to school with black eyes, and say I fell down, when in truth I got them attempting to protect my mother from my father.
I have never hit a woman, despite being taunted by one who had one purpose, she wanted me to hit her so I would go to jail. She did everything including spit in my face. So no man can tell me he had an excuse to beat a woman.
That being said I am concerned about the coverage of Ray Rice and his wife regarding the now infamous video tape of him hitting his girlfriend at the time.
A little history first.
I remember when domestic violence was treated in the same manner as jay walking. Even in the case of jay walking at least a you got a ticket. Many times, the police would tell the male to take a walk, spend the night somewhere else. Even if the woman wanted to press charges, the police would upon the request of her husband, usally talk her out of it.
All that changed in 1994. It took the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, to bring about the zero tolerance law that exist today. The linchpin was the, the 911  tape from Nicole Brown and the photos shown in the media of her bruised face.
Many in the black community wondered, was the outrage because O.J. Simpson beat Nicole Simpson, or was it, because a black man hit a white woman?

My concern is this. Could  Ray Rice becoming the face of domestic violence, effect all black men?

With the history of racism in this country that is not a unfair question.
It is safe to say that Jerry Sandusky did not signal in anyway that all White men were child molesters. Unless you are a black racist. Yet too many times I have heard comments about blacks like this, "They kill their babies", They are lazy and don't want to work, they are all on welfare." "They are thugs and are all in single parent homes where the father is absent". The list goes on and on.
Could there be a underlying attempt to signal that white girls should not date black men, because they will beat you?
When I see cable news program whose primary purpose is to cover political issues, devote almost their entire coverage to Ray Rice and Domestic violence, with photos of Ray Rice all over the media, yes as a black man it concerns me.
When I turn on the TV and read in the media and social media sites, that Ray Rice and his wife are a target and not the issue of domestic violence, yes as a black man it concerns me.

Again I am not taking up for Ray Rice what he did was despicable and there is no excuse. Had it been my daughter or granddaughters, I don't want to say what I would be inclined to do him in a private setting.
All I am asking is that the media be careful not to make Ray Rice the face of domestic violence perpetrators.

Black men in America have enough unfair negative labels to deal with.

ISIS: WHERE IN THE HELL DID THEY COME FROM, ALL OF A SUDDEN??

First let me give my condolences to the families of Steven Sotloff and James Foley.  I am angry and outraged by their murders. ISIS must be destroyed.

I am a baby boomer. I have seen my share of conspiracy theories. There are some I believe. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King conspiracies . I abstain on 911.  I do not believe the government is seeding the clouds with mind controlling agents.
There are some Conspiracy theories  that have proven to be true. Underground Railroad, Infected blankets to native Americans, STD test on Blacks, and of course Watergate and Iran Contra.

A more complete list can be found on this blog:
http://conspiraciesthatweretrue.blogspot.com/2007/01/list-of-proven-conspiracies-from.html

Well I have one. It pertains to ISIS. Where in the hell did they come from? I watch cable news at least 8 hours a day. I read the internet at least 2 hours a day.
The first time I heard of ISIS (  Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) which is derived from ISIL ( Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant )
was around January or February of 2014.
That is when they broke off from Al-Qaeda while fighting Syrian forces.

So how did they get so big so fast?

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What really makes me even more suspicious is what happened just before they came to public attention.

The #Warfarequeens, a phrase coined by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, were all over the air waves, on every TV show that would give them coverage, (I wonder if they tried to get on Sesame Street?)
It was the same old warmongers old and  new, begging on bending knees, pushing for the United States get involved with another war in Iraq and start one with Syria. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham. When that didn't work they called out the chief warmonger of them all, Dick Cheney. NEOCONS!!!!

John McCain can be seen with Syrian Rebel forces,

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The problem for these War Addicts, is President Obama and the American people were not buying it. Because of the fiasco of the last time we rushed into war in that area, Americans are war weary. 

They seemingly came  out of nowhere, suddenly ISIL came to public attention. They began to carve a bloody trail of murder of mayhem in Syria and eventually crossed into Iraq. Then they conveniently changed their name to ISIS to include they Country of Iraq in their title. Hmmmm!!!!

What is causing me so much alarm, is the speed in which a off branch of Syrian Rebels and Al-Qaeda, could amass so much power so fast. In comparison, Al-Qaeda began in 1989 and did not get organized in the same fashion until 10 years later.

But ISIS? They have more money and arms then most countries in the world and they seemed to have gotten it in a manner of MONTHS!!!!  They are sophisticated organization. They control oil production and are selling it on the market. And yes, their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, uses the title CEO of ISIL and owns a Rolex watch. 

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Now they are taunting the United States to fight them in Iraq, by beheading Americans and broadcasting it on a propaganda network that would put Fox News to shame.

All the #warfarequeens on all the networks are having multiple orgasms on Sunday news programs saying, Now is the time to get back into Iraq.

Claiming Obama is the reason ISIS exist. Even though Obama never stated anywhere at anytime, that he wanted to bomb Syria, to remove Assad or aid the rebels. He said he wanted to bomb Syria to prevent the use of chemical weapons.

ISIS is just too much of a damn coincidence to be ignored. 

There are many people right here in this country, that could fund and organize the beginning of a group like ISIS. Like rolling a snow ball down hill. If this is a fact and I am not saying it is, it is working.

Polls have shifted since the murders of James Foley and Steven Sotloff in favor of going back to war in the middle east. Hell at 61 I want to put on my uniform and go fight ISIS. It's working on me.

It doesn't take a genius or a conspiracy theory  nut to know who would benefit. 

I mean dang people there is video tape. You don't have to be a Pulitzer prize  journalist to see the dots if not connect them.

In a area where chaos is everywhere ISIS is the most stable and organized group and it only took them 7 months to do it.

The only other place I can see this happening so fast is in a Michael Bay movie.

Where the Hell is Hillary on Ferguson?

I have often heard that a person's silence speaks volumes. Hillary Clinton's silence on the situation in Ferguson is deafening.

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Let's cut with the political nonsense. She is apparently going to make a bid for the White House in 2016.
I for one, was going to support her hands down. I have to admit that one of the most difficult political decisions in my life was the decision to pick Obama over her in 2008.  The other was Nixon vs McGovern 1972. So she would get my support without question in 2015-16.
(cue the sound of a screeching car tire) Not so fast.

I became alarmed when she, publicly questioned the leadership of Obama on his decision not to bomb Syria.
Now I am not only alarmed, but pissed off on her silence regarding the shooting of Michael Brown and the police tactics in Ferguson. Especially in light of the the fact, that the only potential Presidential candidate that has made a statement is, Rand Paul.

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Too make things worst even Sen. Ted Cruz has made a statement regarding police militarization.

But nothing, not a peep out of Hillary, and too be honest for her to make a statement now, would be useless and  not genuine. Timing is everything. YOU THINK?

It also gives fodder to those who say Democrats take the African American voter for granted. Even though it might be true, the danger for Democrat candidates is,  if they want black voters to come out and vote in relevant numbers, they better show they have interest in our issues. So far I have heard nothing from Hillary Clinton's camp.

If she is afraid of making nonwhite blue collar voters angry or uncomfortable, she is best to consider who will come out and vote for her in mass and not just a small percentage.

In fact to be honest Rand Paul has changed my mind considerably since his "Civil Rights comment on The Rachel Maddow Show.

I'm starting to build a mistrust of Hillary Clinton. That is bad, because I vote.

I did vote Republican once before, there is nothing to say that people who think like me won't do it again.

I'm starting to think like Krystal Ball on MSNBC's, The Cycle. Maybe Hillary is not the best candidate for Democrats after all. 

Hillary I'm listening.

Is Michael E. Dyson Race Shaming Obama?

On recent appearances on MSNBC, Dyson refered to his detractors as "Obamabots" , ( a Right Wing slur for liberals) and "Twitwits", as oppose to nitwits. 

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I am proud to be both.

Michael E. Dyson has his opinion on Obama's, comments regarding Micheal Brown and Ferguson, Mo. 
Well I have my opinion on Michael Dyson's disgraceful and unrealistic opinion of our nations first African American president.
Now I am not as educated as Professor Dyson and of course I am not a celebrity.
What I am is a 61 year African American who had his first political debate, in 1960. It was with my grandfather. He was going to vote for Nixon over JFK.

Dyson claims in his Op-ed in the Washington Post that,

"Obama’s remarks on Ferguson are tone deaf and disappointing"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-eric-dyson-obamas-remarks-on-ferguson-are-tone-deaf-and-disappointing/2014/08/22/f93ec7e2-2981-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html



He states in his Op-ed the following, Regarding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates and Obama's comments of his arrest "The blowback from that intervention pushed an already reticent Obama into a monkish silence on race." To be fair Dyson never did say that Obama's language on Mike Brown's killing should be more aggressive, because he is the first African American president.  But, just like other races blacks have "Dog Whistles" too.
I recall coming up in the 60's when finally I could be proud to be black. Soon, Blacks began to use our new proud label, to manipulate cooperation from other blacks. That is the first time I heard the phrase, "Is it Black enough for you?" When blacks, from politicians and athletes and common folk too, were judged on how much "Blackness" they expressed in comments regarding racial manners in America. If you weren't angry, with your fist balled in the air, you were not "Black enough". 

It is obvious, that Obama faces challenges, that no other POTUS as ever faced in the past. He exemplifies the phrase "Damned if he does, Damned if he doesn't". But for so-called Black activist to attack him on his style is the quintessence of irony. It's another case of a black person having to do 110% to be satisfactory, in reverse. 
The other irony is that the only people who seemed to be support Dyson's POV hold- heartily are Right Wing Trolls. People who do not care about the context of Dyson's opinion, it's the fact that he is attacking Obama and they LOVE IT!!!

I have asked this question in a tweet and I will ask it again....WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT OBAMA ISN'T OUTRAGED WITH WHAT HAPPENED TO MIKE BROWN AND ALL BLACK YOUTH, WHO ARE GUNNED DOWN OBVIOUSLY UNFAIR AND ARGUABLE ILLEGALLY ?????. 

Every thing does not have to be said and expressed with emotion to understand what lies underneath.
Only an egotistical self promoting individual would believe, everything has to be expressed like Don King would, promoting a prize fight.
Obama said many times he is the President of all Americans. So therefore he must be cautious that there are those who fear he will lead in a unfair and prejudicial manner in favor of Blacks. As unrealistic as their fears are, they are still valid and MUST be considered.

If there is one thing I have learned in following Presidential politics for more than 50 years, is presidents get political points to spend the moment they are walk into the Oval Office.
It would be a foolish and stupid President to spend all of his political points at one time on one issues, i.e Invasion of Iraq.
Obama is not only the Democratic President he is also the ipso facto leader of the Democrat Party.
He has to think about others of our party who are running for office this November. What would happen if the GOP take over leadership in the Senate.
There is also Dyson's comparison of Obama's response to James Foley vs Mike Brown. Mike Brown was not beheaded on YouTube. I also was physically more angry at what happened to Foley but not less angry inside.
One last thing I think Dyson was attacking the wrong black person. He should have been attacking black celebrities  who showed more interest in dumping ice water on their heads than showing support for Mike Brown's family and the citizens of Ferguson, Mo, who were under military style attacks from their police department.

Finally, I too am uncomfortable with what seems to be the lack of attention paid to the problems of African Americans.  But I have faith that in 2016, there will be a change. The final year in office is when most POTUS are more likely to make controversial decisions. Until then I will support Obama unconditionally. If he leaves office and African Americans are still in the same place, then I will gripe unconditionally regarding his legacy.
Michael Dyson take a chill pill Brother.