Category: Michele Bachmann

Another Face of Terrorism


There’s no doubt about it in this observer’s mind Joe Stack was a terrorist, and his act of flying an airplane into a building which contained the offices of a government agency (and I don’t care which acronym like agency it was) was straight out of the book of terror that this Nation went through a decade ago, yet very few people in corporate media or in government want to label him as such. Wonder why?

There’s been a certain amount of self-righteous discussion among media types why this is the case but in the end those who are self-indulgent simply say Stack doesn’t meet the criteria of a terrorist. There are even some who claim, such as Stack’s daughter that he was a hero of sorts, protesting against government. Wonder why?

Stack’s singular act of protest doesn’t even begin to meet the definition of the legally acceptable form of dissent, but it fits perfectly into the definition of terrorism. Yet there are people who are determined to not call it that and the simple reason why is because the West has been gripped by a virulent form of racism that is ethnocentric in nature towards people of color.  This indignation attempts to dress itself in a cloak of preserving a Judeo-Christian ethic, but when the results of such preservation have included diminishing the progress of that ethic, subversion of the rights of those who enjoy that ethic, such as privacy rights, free speech, et.al that excuse too falls by the wayside and is as hypocritical as media’s refusal to be inclusive in the terrorism appellation.

The refusal of corporate media to label Stack the terrorist he was has allowed all the other fringe groups to come out in support of his action in their opposition to the Nation’s first black president.    The Tea Party movement is nothing more than the 21st century Ku Klux Klan dressed up with the likes of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, et.al who are used to give such a movement legitimacy.  There is this symbiotic relationship, therefore, between corporate media and these racists.  They give rationale  to one another; the racist relish the media attention to their cause of opposing the first black, “foreign born”, “Muslim” president and the media loves the sound bites such idiots the likes of Stack, and Scott Roeder (the murderer/terrorist who stalked legally licensed American physicians) give them ignoring  their, media’s,  own responsibility to this collective hypocrisy and morass.   At the same time corporate media plunges headlong into their racist diatribe against Muslims, Arabs and especially Palestinians justifying any and all forms of state sponsored oppression against them because to media types the designation “terrorist” is appropriate and they have no hesitation at all using that term to describe them.

This way of doing business means the  Joseph Stack story is merely a mention in the headlines of the day, social titillation at best not worthy of any real consideration or reflection about the role of government, the impact of violence in society, the responsibility of citizens to social cohesion, the role of media if any in all of this, nothing to see just move along.  We should now expect this social irresponsibility from a upper middle class mostly white media with a strong affection for power and those who wield it in defense of their, corporate media’s interest.  However, the public, infinitely smarter than given credit by that same media, has to realize the impact media’s dereliction has on the over all society, in the form of their, corporate media’s, justification for wars of occupation and the sublimation of the rights of citizens, legal residents, and yes, even foreigners living in America to the wishes of government and corporate entities.

A Nation that is immersed in healthy not stifled debate is much more informed and enlightened.  Corporate media mimics its forefathers of old who sought to keep people in the dark by allowing only those deemed worthy the right or ability to read and get an education.  That dispensation of rights and responsibilities by the wealthy and often oppressor class became a rejected standard of living, and societies were better off for doing away with such notions.   Joseph Stack was a terrorist, no more and no less, who committed the same heinous act as those on 911, in his rejection of government policy and it resulted in the loss of human life, his and other(s) and that’s that.  Corporate media’s refusal to simply say that says more about them than Stack.  Perhaps its time we did away with them.

Republicans: Party of Sleaze and Racist/Ethno baiters


It didn’t take long for the Republicans to descend to the depths of sleaze and racialism when it comes to the economic problems affecting our country.  They’ve been wallowing around in the basement of racism and Islamophobia for the last eight years, frightening people with their ‘there’s a terrorist around every corner’ mantra.  For a very brief moment I thought they would take the high ground about our economic woes and say something like it’s time to tighten our belts, work together to solve this because  bigger government is not the answer.  For awhile they came across making that point,

It’s absurd, and at its heart, it’s un-American, in the sense that America exists precisely because of our desire to rein in government and make it accountable to the people…….Only in a panic, in which Congressional leadership abdicates its role to keep executive power in check, would any American Congress agree to surrender its Constitutional mandate for oversight. And that panic may be taking place now.

Well that sounds so very, very good and it’s a spot on analysis of what’s happening with this Administration’s attempts to push through as quickly as possible measures that would make the executive more distant and removed from the Constitution and more powerful than the Founding Fathers ever envisioned.  But……..well let’s just say, the problem with the above pronouncement is it’s totally against everything THE REPUBLICAN PARTY has stood for these last eight years.  Republicans may believe what was written by the author quoted above, but the party’s position is much more blatant in scope and encompassing in power.  There hasn’t been a single initiative undertaken by THE PARTY which was designed to limit ITS power.  Everything was done to increase power and the economic bailout is just another in a long series of power grabs.  Again, blogger and constitutional lawyer Glen Greenwald does an excellent job citing the hypocrisy of THE PARTY in his blog which I encourage all to read.

I’ve been watching Republican Party politics from the vantage point of a state that welcomed and endorsed and then elected one of the biggest race baiters of all times. He’s passed on now so I won’t speak ill of the dead, but Jesse Helms honed race baiting to a science that got him elected to the US Senate six times and in the process passed on that skill to THE PARTY which has gradually adopted it over the years.  Well, it’s come to fruition.  Leaving the high road of less government, THE PARTY descended to claiming the problem with the economy is because of black people and the employment of people of color in the banking sector.  Yup, you heard it right.  Minorities are the reasons why the United States is in the situation it’s in now.  Oh, and we have to blame Clinton in there somewhere.  Why all the drubbing Clinton gets from Republicans eight years after leaving office, it’s amazing he would say anything nice about John McCain, but that’s for another blog.  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) citied an article which appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, which states

Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other minorities to enter the middle class.

Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin’s Treasury Department to rewrite the rules in 1995.

The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, “made getting a satisfactory CRA rating harder.” Banks were given strict new numerical quotas and measures for the level of “diversity” in their loan portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted to expand or merge with another.

Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else.

“Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance,” wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute.

*snip*

From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners.

The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.

Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a failed legacy of the Clinton era.

So, there you have it.  Minorities defaulted on their home loans and that’s why banks and investment houses are going under.  Opps….that’s why banks are going under.  There’s this snippet from The National Review Online which takes things a step further by implying that banks that hired a racially diverse staff were the types of banks that failed.  Minorities aren’t good at math and computing, so goes the theory. Now my question is how does a federal government that’s spending billions of dollars a month on the occupation of two foreign countries, one of which had absolutely nothing to do with the tragic events of 911, come up with $700 billion to bail out ANYONE!?? One could make the proposition that it is us who need a bail out, but that’s another crisis which will surely be solved by increased federal power, spending and risks to the public.  Suffice it to say, one of the plans being tossed around will increase the national debt to $11.3 trillion.  (What’s a few trillion among tax payers?)

So we’ve gone from the sublime to the ridiculous in THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’s opposition to the initial Bush bailout plan and instead chosen to draw lines according to race and divisiveness.  Guess that comes natural for the GOP.