SAM CURTIS: THE SAME OLE SCHICKADY

Patriotism According To The Fox In The Hen House

On Tuesday March 18, 2008, Barack Obama gave a memorable speech regarding race in America.   The speech came as a result of some fiery sermons delivered by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s minister and spiritual adviser.

On the Friday before the week of Obama’s speech The U. S. Federal Reserve pledged a record $30 billion in taxpayers money to guarantee Bear Stearns assets while struggling homeowners who are tax payers and who are also at the core of this financial crisis default on their mortgages.   The media’s focus was on Jeremiah Wright’s sermons.   

Serious comments were zeroed in on Reverend Wright’s allegations as to the Federal Governments participation in infecting the Black community with the HIV virus.  It has been entitled the conspiracy theory, and is felt by many outside of the Black community to be without merit.  The usual suspects vehemently shout from their fair and balance bow tie wearing airwaves to the high heavens that it is not only without merit, but also is anti-American and/or unpatriotic.  Their rhetoric continues in the aftermath of the Obama Race In America speech.

While the usual suspects continues the full court press, responsible journalist and politicians are now properly focusing on this financial debacle.  Focus is necessitated since this bailout dwarfs the $3.6 billion deal the Feds brokered in bailing out hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.   Those pre 9/11 funds came from a consortium of banks rather than taxpayers pockets.

The Fed’s who gave its’ blessings on Sunday March 16, 2008 to JP Morgan’s plan to buy Bears Stearns for $2 per share- a snippet of the stocks worth on that Friday’s trading contends that it would not have been in the best interest of the country to sit idle and permit Bear Stearns collapse.  In the Feds opinion it was necessary to throw a lifeline to the fifth largest U.S. Investment Bank whose collapse would have the potential of dragging down other financial firms.  Although this lifeline could cost the taxpayers who would be on the hook for billion of worthless securities should Bear Stearns assets lose value, the Feds presume that a collapsing financial firm poses more of a serious imminent threat to the U.S. economy than struggling homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

Despite the Governments contentions, as to why it is providing this record bailout at taxpayers’ expense, it is now facing some pointed criticism. 

Texas U.S. Representative Ron Paul a recent Presidential contender and a vocal critic of the Fed, said the latest steps smacked of panic and would pile more pressure on the downtrodden U.S. dollar, inflicting added pain on taxpayers already struggling to cope with rising inflation.  “To me, it’s an immoral act. It’s deceitful and it’s stealing from the people who saved money. It should be unconstitutional because technically they have never been given direct authority to create money out of thin air,”

Could Representative Paul be accusing our Government of printing money and stealing from the citizens it is sworn to represent and protect?

If so, what would be his factual basis of accusing a Government who lied about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of oil rich Iraq?  What would be his factual basis of accusing a Government who is now at war in Iraq, a war costing us billions of dollars per day, a war that is being financed by borrowing from the Chinese government?  You know, the people who are now killing peaceful protesters in Tibet; the people who put lead in our children’s toys, the people who put poison in our dog food without a flinch from our government which is supposedly based on democracy and not greed.

No one is accusing Representative Paul of being anti- American and/ or unpatriotic.   In fact we would and should expect this kind of criticism from the Representative as well as other U.S. citizens including Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Reverend Wrights’ HIV allegations have long been accepted as more than possible in the Black community and with good reasons.

Remember the Tuskegee Experiments?  No this was not an experiment to see if black men could fly airplanes during WWII.

The Tuskegee Experiments, also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, was clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee Alabama in which 400 poor illiterate sharecroppers were denied treatment for syphilis.  These individuals plus 200 in a controlled group without syphilis did not give informed consent. and were not told of their diagnosis.   Instead, they were told that they had bad blood and could receive free medical treatment, free rides to the clinic meals and death insurance in case death in return to their participation.

In 1932, when the study started, syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease frequently led to a chronic, painful and fatal multi-system disease.  Treatment for syphilis at that time was toxic, dangerous and of questionable effectiveness.  Therefore the goal of the study was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with the toxic remedies. 

By 1947, penicillin had become the standard treatment of syphilis.  Rather than treat all the subjects having the disease with penicillin, and closing the study, the researchers withheld the penicillin and information about such treatment and proceeded to use the subjects to study how the disease would spread and kill.   It should be noted that the subjects were also prevented from accessing treatment programs that were available to others in the area.  The study continued until 1972 when a leak to the press resulted in its termination. 

As we can see, both men have good reasons for their criticism of our Government.  The only difference between these two men is Ron Paul is a white elected official and Reverend Wright is a black private citizen.   Our Constitution does not confer its rights based on race.  Therefore each man has the right to express his opinions about Government actions without regard to race.  After all the Government belong to all the people, and not just a select few.

This is what Barack Obama’s campaign is about.  Obama wants to take our Government away from the special interest groups and give it back to the citizens.  Barack Obama wants to represent all the people regardless of race creed, gender and sexual preference. 

If elected Obama will upset the apple cart, and change the status quo.  Those few who profit off the status quo, does so at the expense of the citizens.  The mortgage crisis is a prime example of such profiteering.  Bears Stearns and other financial institutions’ personal greed overpowered safe sound financial decisions.  Citizens who are also customers of these financial institutions depend on the executives who are paid exuberant salaries to make safe sound decisions with their investment money.   Yet this was not done.  Now we have many citizens being foreclosed on, and many citizens who will lose their life savings.  Bear Stearns is now being bailed out at taxpayers’ expense, the same taxpayers who face becoming homeless, the same taxpayers who will be stuck with billions of worthless securities if Bears Stearns assets should lose value.

The usual suspects who disguise themselves as journalist so that they can fit comfortably under the “without malice umbrella”, maliciously brainwash some of these poor souls into thinking that their problems lie with the Mexican who comes across the border to pick fruit so that he can feed his family, or with Blacks who they feel get special treatment at the white populations expense because they are black.  The subjects of the Tuskegee Experiments and their families were not given special treatment at the expense of white citizens because they were black.  They of course was taken advantage of and used like guinea pigs because they were black.  The white citizens who are just as susceptible to syphilis benefited from the study.   Reverend Wright who has lived through this and similar atrocities used his sermon to remind his African American congregation, that such has happened, can and perhaps has happened again.   Reverend Wright has done no more than what a Rabbi might do when speaking of the Holocaust. 

The usual suspects don’t speak to this.  Never is the blame placed where it should be placed.  To do so would put them out of business.  Yes, they make millions off of their hate baiting rhetoric.  They are no more than foxes in the hen house and should be treated as such.   This is what will happen if Obama is given the opportunity to unite the country.

Unite we must in order to preserve the union and move forward.  If not we will be a chaotic nation living in the streets while the status quo including the usual suspects live comfortably off the misfortunes they have created for us in the name of greed. 

Focus on the true issues that plague our nation.  It is still the economy stupid.  Don’t buy into the propaganda being peddled by the usual suspects.  It’s the same old schickady just a different butt hole.