It was the fall of 1968 and the charts were popping with Aretha Franklin’s “This Is The House That Jack Built”. We were “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay” as we continued to mourn the loss of Otis Redding to a plane crash as well as Tighting Up” with Archie Bell and the Drells. Of course the number 1 joint on the 1320 dial known as WCOG was the Beatles’ “Hey Jude”.
Paul McCartney sung it the other night at the White House as the President and the first family joined he and others on stage. See video above.
The song was supposedly written for the John Lennons son, Julian. The first line lyrics: “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better, remember to let her into your heart, and you can start to make it better”.
How appropriate these particular lyrics in today’s political climate as we watch our gulf coast fill up with crude oil.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is shouting to the media about what he perceives as a bad federal government who has not approved his permits to build a barrier island, and demanding that our President make BP pay for the damages. The permits appear to be making the rounds in a timely fashion. The federal government want to make sure that the barrier island which may prevent the oil from making it to shore doesn’t create another environmental problem with similar results or worse. BP has said that they will pay for all the damages. So it appears that Jindal is talking loud and saying nothing of substance. This is also known as political rhetoric.
Bill Maher seems to want our President to mimic Bobby Jindal. However, when you think about it, Jindal’s tantrum is not producing results. Louisiana as well as Florida and Alabama need results not political rhetoric. Political rhetoric is what you get when people really don’t have a solution to the problem. It’s a smoke screen to divert the attention somewhere else, so people hopefully will not come to the realization that you are without clue.
BP is throwing up Hell Marys at the problem and it is obvious that they haven’t a clue. There is a solution to all problems, but these solutions are generally developed through calm methodical thought with the cooperation and participation of all. The objective is to resolve the problem without creating others. This calls for action through methodical thought and not knee jerk reactions through panic.
Our President is a calm and methodically guy. President Obama will take this sad situation and make it better by taking to heart all the problems caused by the BP catastrophy.
As you can see Jindal’s jumping up and down and yelling has not made it better, instead it only leaves the Louisiana citizens with hopelessness. Bobby, calmness allows careful thought, and careful thought will provide the results needed.
Hey Bobby Jindal don’t make it bad, work with the President on a solution. Can the political rhetoric.
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South Africa’s white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche was bludgeoned to death by two of his farm workers Saturday in an apparent dispute over wages, police said. Terreblanche’s violent death on Saturday came amid growing racial tensions in the once white-led country and underscores an ongoing controversy over African National Congress Youth Leader Julius Malema’s performance last month of an apartheid-era song entitled “kill the Boer.”
Terreblanche, 69, was leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement ( English:Afrikaner Resistance Movement), better known as the AWB, wanted to create three all-white republics within South Africa which blacks would be allowed only as guest workers.
The South African Press Association quoted police spokeswoman Adele Myburgh as saying that Terreblanche was attacked by a 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy who worked for him on his farm outside Ventersdorp, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.
Myburgh said the alleged attackers have been arrested and charged with murder. She said the two, whom she did not identify by name, told the police that there had been a dispute because they were not paid for work they had done on the farm.
“Mr. Terreblanche’s body was found on the bed with facial and head injuries.” She said a machete was found on his body and a knobkerrie – a wooden staff with a rounded head – next to his bed.
Terreblanche’s brother Andries Terreblanche urged reporters on Sunday to appear at the suspect’s first court appearance, scheduled for Tuesday. “Everyone must come to court to hear what is the truth,” he said. “It isn’t about wages.”
Eugene Terreblanche had threatened war on South Africa’s white minority government in the 1980s when it began to make what he considered dangerous concessions to blacks that endangered the survival of South Africa’s white race.
A symbol of white resistance to the democratic black majority rule, Terreblanche revived the AWB in 2008 and had rallies that drew growing crowds whom he wooed with his declaration that white South Africans are entitled to create their own country. Terreblanche declared that he would take the all white country fight to the International Court at The Hague.
An AWB member who said his name was Commandant Pieter Steyn noted the coincidence of Terreblanche’s name, which in French translates to “white land.” Steyn said the name is a common name among South African descendants of Dutch Huguenot settlers, and that Terreblanche was born with the name.
Steyn wore a khaki uniform which on one side said “100 (percent) Boer.” The uniform also had a patch of South Africa’s apartheid-era flag.
Andre Nienaber, a member of the AWB group and a relative of Terreblanche, said he believed Terreblanche’s death was “as a result of Julius Malema’s hate speech and direct orders in the media to ’shoot the Boers dead.’”
Malema, the African National Congress (”ANC”) leader who is often in the news, led college students in belting out an apartheid-era song that includes the lyrics “shoot the Boer” last month.
Boer means white farmers in Afrikaans, the language of descendants of early Dutch settlers, or Afrikaners. It has also become a derogatory term for any white in South Africa.
Although Malema did not mention Terreblanche or any other person in his performance, the song has sparked a legal battle. Last week, the high court ruled the song hate speech and banned the ANC’s Julius Malema from singing it. The ANC insists the song is a valuable part of its cultural heritage and that the lyrics — which also refer to the farmers as thieves and rapists — are not intended literally and are therefore not hate speech. The ANC is appealing the ruling.
On Saturday at a youth rally in the capital of Harare, Malema defended his decision to sing the song. Malema also stated “we are not being allowed to sing liberation songs in South Africa, but we are not going to stop”. “We are prepared to go jail and get arrested again. This is the court ruling of the white men in South Africa, but we are not going to obey it.”
The opposition Democratic Alliance party also blames increasing racial tensions for the killing.
“This happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fueled by irresponsible racist utterances” by two members of the governing African National Council, said the Democratic Alliance legislator for that constituency, Juanita Terblanche.
Terblanche, no relations to Eugene Terreblanche, said her party did not share his political convictions but warned that the attack on him could be seen as an attack on the diverse components of South Africa’s democracy.
Relatives and friends of Terreblanche gathered near his homestead Sunday morning to pay their respects. They gathered in front of a house with an oxwagon parked on the front lawn, a symbol of South Africa’s white settlers. Terreblanche’s family and the AWB invited the press into one of their homes to hear a brief statement. But later, as journalists outside the house tried to interview people who came to commiserate with the family, several AWB members carrying pistols in hip holsters, threatened the press and ordered them to leave immediately.
Andries Terreblanche and other AWB members later clashed with police as they tried to enter a press conference at the mayor’s office. Police refused to let several men enter with their pistols and stopped a woman who attempted to enter the building with a switchblade.
President Jacob Zuma appealed for calm following “this terrible deed.” In a statement, he asked “South Africans not to allow agent provocateurs to take advantage of this situation by inciting or fueling racial hatred.” Andre Nienaber also called for calm.
Terreblanche’s killing comes amid growing disenchantment among blacks for whom the right to vote has not translated into jobs and better housing and education.
Some consider themselves betrayed by leaders governing the richest country on the continent and pursuing a policy of black empowerment that has made millionaires of a tiny black elite while millions remain trapped in poverty as whites continue to enjoy a privileged lifestyle.
Eugene Terreblanche had recently made statements highlighting the corruption that has ballooned under the black government.
“Our country is being run by criminals who murder and rob … We are being oppressed again. We will rise again,” he said, referring to concentration-camp conditions that killed thousands during the Boer War fought by British colonizers.
Eugene Terreblanche launched his political career in 1973 amid growing opposition to the white minority government and its racist policies, forming the AWB with six other “patriots” of the Afrikaans-speaking whites descended from Dutch immigrants.
The AWB was a semisecret organization for years. When it “came out” in 1979, the movement displayed its Nazi-like insignia and declared opposition to any parliamentary democracy.
Eugene Terreblanche would arrive at meetings on horseback flanked by masked bodyguards dressed in khaki or black and became a charismatic leader for a small minority that could not envision a South Africa under the democratic rule of a black majority.
At one rally his guards who terrorized blacks and were dubbed “storm troopers” after the Nazis, brandished guns, police batons and knives, prompting the government to announce it was “looking into” the actions and attitudes of the movement.
In 1983, Terreblanche was sentenced to a two-year suspended jail sentence for illegal arms possession, though he said the arms were planted by black opponents. The same year, two AWB militants were jailed for 15 years for conspiring to overthrow the government and assassinate black leaders.
Eugene Terreblanche finally was jailed in 1997, sentenced to six years for the attempted murder of a black security guard and assaulting a black gas station worker. He became a born-again Christian in prison, and declared on his release in 2004 that his experience had convinced him that “the real hour to revive the resistance had arrived.”
Eugene Terreblanche threatened to take the country by force if the white government capitulated to the African National Council.
After the white government conceded, the ANC overwhelmingly won 1994 elections and has won every election since with more than 60 percent of votes.
The killing comes 10 weeks before South Africa prepares to host the first World Cup soccer tournament on African soil, with massive expenditures on infrastructure being questioned as hundreds of thousands of tickets and hotel rooms remain unsold.
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Some years ago, a group of angry conservatives staged a march through this posh Phoenix suburb, venting their frustration with Sen. John McCain. He wished them well and, through a spokeswoman, suggested they all wear sunscreen.
McCain exhibited that same attitude during his interview with Ann Curry on language used by his former running mate Sarah Palin.
After the healthcare bill was passed last weekend, Palin posted a picture on her Facebook page this week showing cross hairs over the districts of Democrats who voted for health care reform in districts that Republicans carried.
On the page, Palin writes:
With the president signing this unwanted and “transformative” government takeover of our health care system today with promises impossible to keep, let’s not get discouraged. Don’t get demoralized. Get organized!
Palin also tweeted the page:
Don’t Get Demoralized! Get Organized! Take Back the 20! http://fb.me/uexgabjc
Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” Pls see my Facebook page.
Of course Palin did the same thing during the Presidential campaign and McCain who has an adopted daughter who is black, did not reel Palin in until her hateful speech was criticized by John Lewis.
Although Lewis was called a nigger by the Republicans tea party backers, McCain refuse to acknowledge that Palin’s language is inappropriate and encourage violence towards members of Congress who supported the recently passed health care bill.
McCain appears to be exhibiting by any means necessary stance in his re-election bid for the Senate.
Two years after winning the GOP presidential nomination, McCain is facing his toughest reelection fight in nearly two decades — a primary challenge that highlights his uneasy relationship with fellow Republicans and the perils of his White House pursuit.
There is little honor in might-have-been, nothing that inoculates McCain from the economic anxiety and anti-incumbent undertow pulling at officeholders everywhere. Arizona faces one of the country’s worst budget deficits: Parks are closing, 911 service faces cuts andchildrenare being kicked off the state insurance rolls.
“It’s tough times in Arizona,” McCain recently told broadcaster Don Imus. “Really tough.”
But it’s more than that. The traits that turned McCain into a national figure — his ambition, his go-against-the-grain persona, his willingness to work with Democrats on climate change, judicial appointments, immigration and more — are being used to question his loyalty to the state and his party.
“For the better part of a decade, with his pursuit of national office, Arizona went on a back burner,” said J.D. Hayworth, 51, the former congressman-turned-radio-host who is McCain’s main GOP rival. “I think voters in the Republican primary are looking for a consistent conservative and someone who will be a United States senator for Arizona and not just from Arizona.”
McCain, 73, is clearly the front-runner in the August primary as he bids for a fifth term. He has more money, a more experienced campaign team and the support of most of the GOP establishment.
Hayworth might have appropriated the language of Scott Brown — “This Senate seat does not belong to any one party or any one personality” — but the Massachusetts senator is backing McCain. On Friday and Saturday, Sarah Retreat and Reload Palin will campaign for her former running mate.
This is a different John McCain than the buccaneer of the 2000 presidential race, who became a hero to independent voters, or even than the more conservative 2008 presidential nominee.
Although he insists he hasn’t changed, he has moved rightward, criticizing the Wall Street bailout he backed (he said he was misled), dropping his support for cap-and-trade legislation to fight climate change, and ending his push for comprehensive immigration reform. When the Supreme Court undid much of the campaign finance law that bore his name and antagonized conservatives, McCain’s response was meek. (”I am disappointed.”)
Still, some GOP voters are skeptical.
“McCain has this amnesty thing that he hasn’t been talking about much lately,” said Tony Bainum, a 52-year-old tax preparer in Mesa, Ariz., using critics’ shorthand to describe, and oversimplify, McCain’s immigration plan. “But I think it’s in the back of his mind, and I have a problem with that.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is McCain’s pugnacity. Just about every day brings a new McCain endorsement, ad or attack. Some are substantive; others, such as a back-and-forth over a Hayworth spoof showing McCain in “Avatar”-like blue paint, are not.
Hayworth, a former TV sportscaster, is hard to overlook. He stands 6 feet 5 and has a booming voice and a flair for the theatrical — during a recent Rotary Club speech he performed the plummy accents of both Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine.
He came to Congress from the Phoenix suburbs in the 1994 GOP landslide and emerged as one of the most outspoken members of that conservative class. In 2006, he was defeated after six terms by Democrat Harry E. Mitchell, and spent the next several years as a host on conservative KFYI.
Although Hayworth blames his defeat on atmospherics (read: Bush fatigue), he also suffered from ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the roughly $100,000 in contributions received from Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients.
It might seem a 12-year veteran of Capitol Hill with a scandal in his past may not be the best political messenger this year, but Hayworth calls his experience an asset.
“I’m at an advantage because I know what went right and what went wrong,” he said. Even so, the four biggest Arizona “tea parties” have professed their neutrality in the race.
McCain’s biggest worry is the primary date, Aug. 24, when the heat means those likeliest to vote will be the most ideologically driven: the sort of people who would picket — and risk sunburn — to show their discontent.
“J.D.’s been getting them going for the last four years on his radio show,” said independent pollster Bruce Merrill. “Those are the people he talked to every day.”
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Clarence Mathews and the Allen Life Guard traveled to Washington, D.C. to secure a Boy Scout charter. With the assistance of then Congressman, Oscar DePriest, Mr. Mathews and the boys were invited to the White House.
Oscar Stanton DePriest was born in Florence, Alabama on March 9, 1871. When he was seven years old, his family moved to Selena, Kansas.
After a limited education, he did a variety on menial jobs. His fortune, however improved when he moved to Chicago and he eventually became a successful real estate agent.
DePriest served as Cook county commissioner from1904 thru 1908 before becoming the first African American to be elected to Chicago’s City Council: serving proudly from 1915 to 1917 and 1941-43.
In 1919 race riots broke out in 22 urban American cities and towns, as U.S. soldiers returned home from WWI to scarce housing and jobs and class antagonism. African American soldiers in particularly came home expecting to enjoy the full rights of citizenship they had fought to defend overseas. Amongst those cities was Chicago which experienced the most severe riots- claiming the lives of 23 blacks and 15 white citizens. The count may have been higher for blacks had it not been for Oscar DePriest.
Dressed in a police uniform, DePriest commandeered a paddy wagon, driving it repeatedly through the white rioters, rescuing numerous African Americans trapped by the racist mob.
In 1928, DePriest became the first African American to be elected to the House of Representatives in the 20th Century-being elected some 28 years after George Henry White of North Carolina was defeated.
DePriest was also the first African American ever elected from a northern state. He would serve three terms in Congress as the only African American member.
Over the next few years, DePriest advocated an end to racial discrimination in Government, in military employment, and a federal anti lynching statute.
The Allen Life Guard was not the only African Americans invited to the White House as a result of Oscar DePriest. During DePriest’s first year in Congress, a controversy arose in 1929, over the fact that Mrs. Herbert Hoover the first lady decided to invite all wives of the members of Congress to the White House for a tea. Mrs. Hoover insisted on including Mrs. DePriest on the guest list since she was the wife of the member of Congress representing Illinois. In those days active segregation in Washington, still a southern city below the Mason Dixon line, the invitation to a black woman caused a social scandal of sorts. Wives of members of Congress from the south threatened to boycott the tea that was scheduled to be held on four different days to accommodate 435 wives. Newspapers, both North and South, said in editorials that it was inappropriate for a Negro woman to be invited to such a place of honor. The Boycott fell apart, and Mrs. Hoover, a Quaker got her way. Mrs. DePriest attended the final tea without incident.
DePriest was also a strong advocate of the fourteenth Amendment of The U.S. Constitution as it related to the voting rights of African Americans.
Oscar Stanton DePriest who lost his seat in 1934 died in Chicago on May 12, 1951. He will long be remembered by that generation of African Americans, especially by the Allen Life Guard for his vigorous representation in Congress.
Clarence Mathews will also be remembered for his unwavering support of civil rights for African Americans.
Today’s clip was narrated by Phillip DePriest, the great grandson of Oscan Stanton DePriest.
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Eight months after the civil war ended, the U.S. Congress ratified the 13th amendment abolishing slavery in the United States. Although four million or more blacks were no longer enslaved, they were shackled economically.
As a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision rendered regarding a slave named Dred Scott who lived in St. Louis Missouri, blacks were not recognized as American citizens or having equal rights under the law.
As a result of blacks economic status, the Freeman’s bureau was established to educated and supervise work contracts to ensure that they were paid for their labor.
As a political maneuver, President Andrew Johnson pardoned many of the confederate leaders, retuning their land that had been lost during the war. After regaining their power, these men established the Black Codes and vigilante groups.
Does the U.S. Supreme Court dictate policy?
The clip above narrated by former D.C. Superior Court Judge Evelyn Queen provides us with the details of this part of Black History.
For Spanish and hearing impaired versions, please go to the Febone1960.net Black History Month Calendar What’s Your Take On The Matter? Register and/or sign in and sound off!
