Dr. Rice Shouldn’t Have Met with McCain Gang!

Beauty and the Beast!

Once More Republicans Prove they Cannot be trusted

The Experience of UN Ambassador, Dr. Susan Rice, in attempting to clarify the events surrounding the attack on the American Embassy at Benghazi Libya, where the American Ambassador and four embassy workers were killed, demonstrates once again that the Grand Obstructionist Party must not be entrusted with the national security of this country.

While opportunistic right-wing charlatans like Senators John McCain and his side kick Lindsay Graham are beating the bushes in search of a scandal that could wound the Obama Administration and injure the president – even to the point of inventing one – there are serious foreign policy problems that are critical to present and future American interests in the volatile Middle-East.

The absurdity of the near hysterical fulminations expressed by these Senators and their female mascot Senator Kelly Ayotte – who was obviously chosen to nullify the charge of sexism in their unjustified attacks on Dr. Rice – is being duly noted by a wide variety of critics in academia, the intelligence/diplomatic  community, and the major press.   In fact, it is only on the FOX Network, a Republican propaganda outfit posing as a serious journalistic institution

When Joe Scarborough attempted to discuss McCain’s complaints about how the Obama administration handled the attack, both in terms of embassy security and the explanation given of the event, Time magazine political reporter Joe Klein practically laughed in his face while dismissing Scarborough’s hyperbolic rhetoric.

A crack investigative reporter who has a son that is a diplomat who serves in dangerous foreign posts, Klein has conducted a survey of important figures in the diplomatic and intelligence communities and they all say that there is no cover-up and the explanations provided by the Obama administration is perfectly plausible, and whatever information they have with-held to protect covert assets is perfectly plausible. Editorials in both the Washington Post and the New York Times have treated the McCain/Graham witch hunt as an absurdity.  And the father of one of the victims has accused McCain of playing politics with this tragedy.

The shameless duplicity of Lindsay Graham and John McCain is readily apparent to everyone who is familiar with the very different positions that these same Senators took when Secretary Of State Colin Powell came before the United Nations and presented a justification for invading Iraq that was later shown to be a complete fabrication.  And yet this report led to a war of choice that we are just getting out of after a decade at a cost of two trillion dollars, and thousands of young American lives wrecked or lost.

From her position as National security Advisor – whose role is to evaluate the “intelligence product” before presenting it to the President in briefings twice a day, guiding his decisions about vital national security matters, Condoleezza Rice was culpable in this disaster.  In fact, one could argue that she was the central figure in the massive intelligence failures that led to both 9/11 and the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Yet these Senators not only enthusiastically supported her, but when democrats sought to question her about the role she played in these national security disasters they were accused of acting out if resentment for having recently lost the elections. Yet there was far more reason to question Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s competence than Dr. Susan Rice’s, since whatever happened in Benghazi she had nothing to do with it, and Condoleezza Rice is directly responsible for the monumental blunder that has resulted in unprecedented national security disasters and foreign policy failures.

These facts beg the question: Why shouldn’t we regard the Republican attacks on Dr. Susan Rice as nothing more than an attempt to discredit the Obama Administration because they are both shocked and outraged at the fact that he creamed them twice in presidential elections…and like FDR, they suspect that Barack could well win a third term if it were not expressly forbidden by law.

Since I have already discussed the twisted emotions that motivate Senator McCain ( See: Stop the Attack on Dr. Susan Rice) I shan’t belabor it here.  It is enough to note the superficiality of their accusations and the transparency of their fake outrage to dismiss their whining as legitimate.  Hence listening to the Gang Of Three’s protest only inspires contempt for their lack of ethics, and anxiety for our nation that such flawed people could exercise such power.

When The Gang of Three says that they are more troubled after their private talk with Dr. Rice than before, well so am I.  For it is clear that she should never have met with them. They are scurrilous frauds, and the tutored eye can easily see it; their protests make no sense.

That’s because they really don’t care about Dr. Rice; their real target is President Obama, they are trying their best to conjure up a conspiracy on the part of the White House to supress the truth about the role of terroist in the attack on the Benghazi embassy in order to improve the President’s chances of reelection.  It is an absurd theory that makes no sense except in the twisted minds of Republican conspiracy theorists.

Hence it was a mistake for Dr. Rice to have them this special deference.  From now on she should let her Republican detractors state their charges in a public hearing if President Obama nominates her for Secretary Of State, and I hope he does!   If she retains the confidence of the President he should go to the mat for her.

The President and his Ambassador

Young, Gifted and Black

Dr. Rice is smart and articulate enough to defend her record against these jackals.  Thus she can kill two vultures with one stone: Clear her name, and put her accusers to shame by turning public opinion against them.  As usual the Republicans are counting on the ignorance of the electorate.  However the results of the presidential election demonstrated that while there is no paucity of morons; there is reason to believe that they are not yet the majority of voters.

The fact that polls show 52% of the public believes that the Republican brouhaha over Benghazi is nothing more than political opportunism suggests that Republicans are about to receive yet another rejection by the American people. In the meantime and in between time Dr. Rice should follow the old Afro-American folk adage: “Tell the Gang Of Three to kiss her where the sun don’t shine…and pay them no rabbit ass mind!”

 The Gang Of Three Stooges

Kelly Ayotte. John McCain and Lindsay Graham

 

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Playthell George Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 27, 2012

On The Road To War!

                  Israeli Warplanes Bomb Gaza

 The US Must Demand Restraint and De-escalation

As relations rapidly deteriorate between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Militant Palestinian organization that controls Gaza, the US government must employ all of its diplomatic resources to arrest the movement toward all-out war.

The images of Palestinian children slaughtered by Israeli bombs while playing in their yards will surely swell the legions of Islamic militants across the Arab world.  It is the nature of the dynamics of mass transformative movements, as I have explained elsewhere.

Hence the Israeli bombings, the results of which are broadcast in graphic detail on Arabic language television networks such as Al Jazeera and Al Arriba, are literally manufacturing the next wave of Islamist suicide bombers, and they will be seeking an even bigger spectacle than the leveling of the world trade towers.

This is an evitable development, because we have made enemies of people who are convinced that they are instruments of the will of God, the sword of Allah, destined to purge Muslim lands of the Great Satan’s legions and their Zionist proxys.  It is as if we are caught in a death struggle with the Islamic world and just can’t extricate ourselves from it.

Israel  upped the ante by assassinating Ahmed al-Jaabari, the millitary commander of Hamas.  And if she gets embroiled in an all-out war in the Middle East, which is to say an invasion of Gaza sets off a general conflagration that will involve armed hostilities between Israel and several Arab countries, the US will be dragged into yet another war in the Islamic world…the possible consequences of which are too horrifying to contemplate.

While such a possibility was unimaginable when Barack took office, because the neighboring Arab states were either clients of the US or were more interested in selling their oil – Egypt, Jordon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia, et al – the massive upheavals of the Arab Spring has transformed power relations in several of these countries and destabilize the others.

This is what Democracy Looks Like….

……When the Arab Street is Empowered

 Now that the masses in the Muslim world have experienced the intoxicating power of popular democracy, it may not be possible for the traditional princes and powers to control them.  Especially since these spontaneous upheavals often empower previously suppressed Islamic Jihadist forces.

Egypt is the classic example.  Here a once reliable ally ruled by modern secular military men, has been converted into a state governed by a recently elected president, Mohamed Morsi,  who is a member the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is why even before the outbreak of the resent conflict, President Obama said he didn’t know if Egypt was still a reliable ally.  We shall soon see, because the Muslin Brotherhood is a close ally of Hamas and can use their good offices to help broker a settlement of the conflict if the choose to.

The fact that President Morsi has made much of his resignation from the organization in a public political act, does not mean that he is not still with them in his heart and mind.  After all, this is a matter of deep spiritual belief, a way of viewing the world.

Furthermore, without the Brotherhood  Mohamed Morsi would never have become the leader of Egypt, thus he must consider their views in any policy he adopts.  This explains why Morsi has condemned the Israeli air raids in no uncertain terms and called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League to discuss the conflict.

Hence all of this preachment about the virtues of democracy that the US and other western countries have promoted in the Muslim world, may come back to haunt us….”be careful what you ask for” as the old adage warns, because you just might get it.

The questions on the minds of thoughtful people everywhere just now, as the Middle East region teeters on the brink of yet another disastrous war, are: Why did this escalation of violence occur now?  What was the triggering event?  Who is at fault?  And what are the chances of the worst case scenario becoming political reality.

Since it is axiomatic that in war the first casualty is truth, it is hard to discern just what happened to set off the chain of events that now threatens to set the Middle East – a major source of petroleum for the US and other western countries – on fire.  Naturally each side blames the other.

Yet whoever started it their remains the question of “proportional Response,” whether the Israeli response to Hamas’ rocket attacks is disproportionate in its destructiveness.  That will almost certainly be the case because the disparity in military might between the Palestinians and the Israeli’s.

It’s almost like the US Calvary fighting the Native Americans during the wars in the Great Plains.  There is a reason why Palestinians invented suicide bombers.  It is a cultural expression of the nihilism many young people who grew up under Israeli occupation feel.

In fact, when the attack of 9/11 occurred I thought they were Palestinians, although I have persistently questioned the US government’s decision to have the CIA arm and train the Afghan Mujahidin – especially with sophisticated weapons like stinger missiles.  We have the late Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson to thank for that disastrous blunder, which would later cost the lives of American combatants.

Then the US government was calling them heroes, because they were fighting the Russians.  But I knew they also regarded us as Godless infidels; after all the Iranian Ayatollahs – who were presiding over the first Islamic theocracy state in the modern world – had branded us: “The Great Satan,” the number one enemy of Islam!

Hence when I learned that Al Qaeda had carried out the attack and the CIA had trained Osama bin Laden in terrorist tactics, I was barely surprised – although the Israeli suppression of the Palestinian Intifada at the time seemed the most likely catalyst for the suicide mission.

I think if the United States now unconditionally supports Israel in a full-fledged military assault on Gaza I think it will prove as serious a blunder as arming the Afghan Mujahidin, in terms of producing enemies dedicated to our destruction. However President Obama is in a precarious position: He could be damned if he does and scorned if he doesn’t.  He has inherited  a set of obligations to Israel –  formal and informal – that he cannot simply walk away from.

However the fact that he will never run for political office again affords President Obama a unique opportunity to break this pattern of slavish American acquiescence to Israeli objectives…even when they contradict our own.  And while pro-Zionist Americans – both Jewish and Christian – such as the activist in the powerful IsraeI Lobby, will argue that there is no difference in the national interest of the US and Israel, I beg to differ.

It cannot be true that a global power whose economy is petroleum based, and must maintain complex relationships with the Islamic world, has the same national interests as a small  desert nation whose sphere of influence is limited to the Middle-East.  This is why those who support the “identical interests” thesis became hysterical when the President said “there must be light between Israeli and American foreign policy.”  But of course there must!

To take any other position raises the question asked by Professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, in their definitive study The Israel Lobby: “Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? “  In their effort to answer this question the professors offer the following observation:

“One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides. Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.”

Among the things the Israel Lobby has been known to do is support opposition candidates to members of the US Congress who refuse to support their agenda.  And both parties are beholden to elements of the Lobby for support.  The democrats are highly dependent upon Jewish money and talent, while the “Christian Zionists” in the protestant evangelical movement comprise a critical segment of the Republican base.

This is why the rhetoric coming from our Senators and Congressmen from both sides of the aisle sound as if Hamas is the sole cause of the present conflict, and they stumble over each other trying to be the first to publicly announce that they support Israel’s right to take whatever action they deem necessary to “protect their citizenry from attack.”

The uniformity of this vision of events means that there is little chance that a genuine counter-narrative critical of Israeli policy will emerge among our governing class.  This makes it all the more difficult for President Obama to take an objective stance and address the urgent need to resolve the long festering issues of Palestinian sovereignty that is the root cause of the present crisis.

Let us hope that the frenzy of diplomatic activity taking place behind closed doors can resolve the present conflict before it degenerates into all-out war between the Israeli’s and the Palestinians that could destabilize the entire region and send the price of petroleum products through the roof.  This could plunge the still fragile economies of Europe and the US into a deep recession and spark a world-wide economic downturn.

Furthermore the continued loss of life from Israeli bombings of Gaza, a heavily populated area where dispossessed Palestinians are concentrated, will only increase the ranks of those who hate and want to destroy the US – since they view Israel as an American client state over whose actions the US government has a veto.  This is a reasonable assumption but untrue, because the Israel Lobby has so terrified members of congress that none dare oppose its agenda.

For all of these reasons American involvement in another war in the Arab world, this time in direct support  of Israeli aggression, will be an unmitigated disaster for the US with no upside that I can envision. That’s why the US government must insist on a diplomatic solution to the present crisis. Viewed from this perspective there is an opportunity to make history here; for it could provide an opening to negotiate a historic peace settlement.

Most people on both sides prefer peace, and they could force their leaders to negotiate if a genuine opportunity for a just and lasting peace were at hand. It is the kind of complex problem that brings out the best in Barack. The problem remains the belligerence and intransigence of Bibi Netanyahu, whose refusal to negotiate with Mahmoud Abbas, the reasonable leader of the largest Palestinian political faction, only serves to empower Hamas.

It is policy that makes successful peace negotiations impossible….and could well plunge the US into yet another war against the Arabs, with a tragic and ruinous expenditure of even more American blood and treasure

Adding insult to injury, there are rumors abroad that the real reason Bibi Netanyahu decided to launch this war just now is because he will soon be coming up for reelection. And like hurricane Sandy did for President Obama, a military assault on Hamas will provide Netanyahu a chance to look heroic!   In other words, smacking Hamas around will enhance his chances of victory.

This charge  is being made by people who know what they are talking about; such as writers at the London Guardian and some factions of the Israeli opposition.  It is a serious charge, and the US government must take it into account when formulating America’s diplomatic strategy in this crisis.  And act for once in the best Interests of this nation!

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Playthell George Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 18, 2012

Was Picking Lyin Ryan a Bad Move?

Where’s the Beef Dog?

Paulie Went Over Like a Steel Balloon!

Of all the mistakes Mitt made in his attempt to unseat President Obama and make the Oval Office his new headquarters as CEO of America Incorporated, choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate is among the worse.  While it is conventional wisdom that presidential elections are determined by the top of the ticket, Vice-Presidential running mates are expected to help the ticket by appealing to certain constituencies and contributing particular skills that the Presidential candidate lacks.and like doctors taking the Hyppocratic oath: They must first of all do no harm.

It is a pretty straight forward calculus. John Kennedy chose Lyndon Johnson as a running mate because he was everything that Kennedy wasn’t.  A Boston Irish Catholic born to the purple, his ability to attract southern Protestants and working people was an iffy proposition.  Hence the addition of Lynden Baines Johnson, a Texas  bred Anglo-Saxon protestant, with working class roots and a degree in public speaking proved a brilliant choice.

Furthermore, Kennedy was a relatively inexperienced Senator, while Johnson was one on the most effective Senate majority leaders in history.  This meant that Johnson would prove a valuable asset to Kennedy far beyond the election; should the ticket win Kennedy would have a brilliant manager of his legislative initiatives up on Capitol Hill.

Beyond these considerations Johnson also met the critical test of whether he could step in and become an effective president at a moment’s notice. Alas, as things turned out, this was a test Johnson was confronted with. All of the assumptions proved true, as he helped Kennedy win and proved to be a great president that transformed American society for the better after  Kennedy’s assassination.

Likewise, Joe Biden was chosen by Barack Obama because of his working class Irish Catholic roots, his residence in a border state with a southern tradition, his long experience as a Senator and effective operator on Capitol Hill, and his unquestioned expertise in foreign policy.  When these assets were added to Biden’s brilliant oratorical skills, and his ability to sell Barack’s dreams to reluctant working class white guys, whose understanding of the issues is hazy at best, Biden proved an invaluable asset to the success of the ticket and the process of governing.

These are the kinds of things Mitt’s strategists calculated that Lyin Ryan would bring to the ticket. They envisioned Ryan – a small town mid-westerner from a working class Catholic background – as the perfect counterweight to the stiff, arrogant, Richey Rich Boston business mogul and Mormon Bishop at the top of the ticket.

Furthermore Ryan is a much celebrated policy wonk, who was considered a visionary that had seen the future by right wing Republican ideologues. The Republicans were so certain that this was a winning combination Mitt decided not to even outline a concession speech!

Alas, all of their calculations proved wrong; as is generally the case when they are based on incorrect assumptions. First off, Ryan’s Catholic background proved more of a liability than an asset when his famous “Prosperity Budget” drew fire from the leadership of his church.

A group of Nuns took to the road on a bus, giving voice to the concerns of the poor and telling everybody who would listen that the Ryan budget violated the command of Jesus Christ to feed the poor, heal the sick and clothe the naked. It was an abomination!

The nuns persuasively argued, with passion and conviction, that Ryan’s budget was a rejection Jesus’s clear statement that “as you do unto the least of these…you have done it unto me!”  Their denunciation of Ryan’s claim that his budget was an expression of catholic teaching was affirmed by the clerical hierarchy and intellectuals of the Church.

Ryan’s economic ideas was denounced by the American Conference of Bishops, the theologians and secular intellectuals in major Catholic universities as a heretical doctrine whose true roots lie in in the writings of Ayn Rand – a Russian atheist and Social Darwinist – whose ideas were antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ, as clearly expressed in the New Testament.

And when Democratic opposition researcher’s unearthed video footage of Paulie testifying that Rand’s writings inspired him to enter politics, and her ideas formed the basis of his political philosophy, then juxtaposed Ayn Rand on a television talk show declaring her belief that God is a fiction, Ronald Reagan a dangerous warmongering fool, and the nuclear family an unnecessary anachronism, the campaign of Lyin Ryan was on the road to dyin!

Then his ideas became the target of an all-out assault by organized labor, who struggled heroically to let working people know that despite his working class roots, Lyin Ryan was an enemy of working class interests.  When Ryan was caught lying about his Marathon time, it only served to magnify the fact that he was also lying about the teaching of Catholic doctrine….and probably everything else.

And finally he was savaged by Joe Biden in the Vice-Presidential debate; who reduced him to a figure of ridicule before the world by contemptuously dismissing his arguments as “malarkey!”  The image of Ryan – whose poppy Barney Google eyes and pumped physique gives him the look of a roid freak – constantly gulping down glasses of water, reminded me of a man awaiting his turn on the gallows.

The bottom line is that when the final tally came in Ryan’s liabilities proved  much greater than his assets!  This was a dramatic failure of the amoral cost/benefit analysis that had worked so well for The Mittster in his previous incarnation as a corporate raider at Bain Capital.

As the former San Francisco Mayor and Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown observed, Mitt’s analysis of how they lost the election shows that he believes  money can by love. He never understood that elections can be won on superior ideas and a real love for the people.  Brown is one of the savvyest political operators in the country, therefore his opinions warrant serious consideration .

Since the proof of the puddin is in the eatin let’s look at the numbers; they tell the whole story.  Like Mitt the snobbish clueless twit, Paulie lost both his home state and his home town!  Janesville Wisconsin is a struggling blue collar town with a population of 63, 537, and a declining manufacturing base.

According to the County Clerk, Ryan’s neighbors who know him best, voted against him and Mitt by 62% to 37% in favor of Obama/Biden.  The returns from his local polling place, the Hedberg Public Library, were even worse!  Of the 1,428 votes cast in this venue 65% went for Obama-Biden, and only 34% chose the Romney-Ryan ticket.

Although Ryan has served seven terms in the House of Representatives, he faced a stiff challenge from Democrat Paul Zerban for his Congressional seat.  Ryan retained his seat by 12 percentage points – 55% to 43%, but the margin of victory came from the wealthy suburbs of Milwaukee; he actually lost his working class hometown of Janesville to Zerban by 10 points, 55% to 44%.  And he lost the vote at his neighborhood polling place in the Hedberg Library by an even larger margin: 41% to 58%, a 17 point deficit!

Hence it is a measure of the extent of his delusions, or the inability of Ryan to quit his lyin, that he blames their loss of the election on “the urban vote” – which is code words for “black and Hispanic.”  The fact that they also lost in such Whitelandia precincts as New Hampshire and Maine, didn’t convince him that they were defeated because their ideas and policy proposals were odious to millions of Americans of all persuasions, is good news for the Democrats.

Let us hope that the princes and powers of the Grand Obstructionist Party share Ryan’s conclusions; cause if they don’t change their ways the voters will end their days as a party capable of seriously contending for national elections.  Viewed from this perspective, Ryan’s delusional lyin is a blessing in disguise!

The GOP Future?

Or an Albatross Around their Neck?

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Playthell George Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 16, 2012

Stop The Attack On Dr. Susan Rice!

Beauty, Intelligence Eloquence, The Complete Packag

The savaging of Dr. Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, signals a new low in the scurrilous tactics of the Grand Obstructionist Party against the Obama administration. These attacks are distinguished not just for the viciousness of their assaults on her character and competence, but also for the extent to which they are divorced from reality.

The thoughtful listener is forced to wonder if  Republicans are experiencing a peculiar bout of collective madness, or do they believe the rest of us are stupid.  What else can we make of the statement by Arizona Senator John McCain that the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi Libya,  where  four Americans were killed, is “the worse national security failure of my lifetime.” Such mindless hyperbole on the part of a major political figure is cause for serious concern.

Aside from making the senator look ridiculous, and not serious about conducting the nation’s business, he dishonors the many thousands of innocent Americans slaughtered in the 9/11 attack. And the thousands more who were maimed or killed by the disastrous invasion of Iraq, and before these disasters there was the invasion of Vietnam: Which was spurred by a spectacular failure of intelligence.

Has the Senator forgotten that there was abundant intelligence warning of an attack on tall building with planes piloted by Islamic Jihadist, but the Bush Administration ignored it? Does the Senator not remember that Condoleeza Rice, then the National Security Advisor, was begged by Richard Clark, the terrorism Czar held over from the Clinton Administration, to call a joint meeting of the heads of all the nation’s vast intelligence agencies an compare intelligence reports to see if the various pieces of the puzzle would reveal the plan of attack?

Viewed from the hindsight of history, we now know they would have figured it out…and 9/11 would just be a nostalgic memory in the fevered imagination of the would be attackers as they languished in their federal prison Cells. The spectacular intelligence failures that led to Vietnam, 9/11 and Iraq cost many thousands of American lives, billions in treasure, domestic tranquility, and millions of innocent foreign lives!

So the question remains: what are we to make of John McCain?  Well, for my part, not much.  I am not among those who consider him either a war hero or a man of honor.  He is not so much immoral as amoral.  I have expressed my views on Johnny Mack in several essays, and they will be included in my forth coming book: “Witnessing the Motion of History: Notes on the Obama Phenomenon.”

Essentially I view Senator McCain  as a deeply wounded man with profound  emotional scars from the rather spectacular failures in his life.  For most men McCain’s life would be regarded a great success.  He is a celebrated Senator with a rich blond wife and more mansions than he can account from memory.

Yet when compared to the achievements of his father and grandfather, both of whom were Admirals  that commanded fleets in great wars and were victorious, Johnny Boy’s record as a naval pilot shot down over Vietnam, where he was captured and forced to do the every bidding of his little brown Vietnamese masters upon pain of corporal punishment, his military career was a humiliating failure!

John McCain Shot Down

 McCain Rescued by Vietnamese Soldiers

That humiliation is magnified by the fact that he sang like a caged bird during captivity.  Since I have already written about this – see “General Clarke is Right: John McCain is Not Qualified to be Commander-In-Chief ”- I won’t re-litigate it here, suffice it to say the evidence for my claim is abundant and indisputable.  Anyone who has ever served in the military knows the protocol for how to behave if captured by the enemy.

You give your name, rank and serial number: That’s it!  McCain told his captors much more than that.  He even told them the size of his fighter squadron, the type of aircraft and even some of their targets.  He could have been Court Marshaled, for his behavior….and I know Vietnam vets who believe he would have been had he not been so well connected.  So much for our great “war hero;” he may have fooled the public, but he knows he squealed like a rat.   I believe that’s part of what’s eating him; why he wants to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an elusive “victory.”  It is another expression of Vietnam Syndrome.

Winning the presidency would have allowed him to one-up his dad and grand dad, who were genuine war heroes.  However he discredited himself for the job with his first serious decision of his campaign: selecting an Alaskan Barbarian as his running mate.  The fact that he would place Sarah Palin - a verbose, self-absorbed, dunce - a heartbeat from the presidency, let all thinking people know that McCain’s ambitions and quest for power ranked infinitely higher than his love of country.

And now he has the unmitigated gall to call Dr. Susan Rice, a Rhodes Scholar and career diplomat, unqualified to be Secretary of State after arguing that Silly Sarah was qualified to be President?…Commander-In-Chief of the nation’s armed forces?  John McCain is a dishonest buffoon, a sad spectacle of a once impressive man.

Nothing demonstrates McCain’s lack of any sense of integrity more than the fact that he, and that Jackanapes South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, both supported the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice for Secretary Of State after she had presided over the two worst intelligence failures in American history!

Such shameless duplicity is beneath contempt.  As my grandfather would say:“Them thar boys are liars and finks, they feet stinks, and they don’t love Jesus!  It is time for General Colin Powell, who is also a former Secretary of State, to speak out against this scurrilous attempt to besmirch the reputation, and destroy the career, of Dr. Rice…especially since he was once victimized by bad intelligence.

Condoleezza Rice has already spoken out against the attack on Susan; it’s time for Colin Powell to stand up to these lying charlatans in his party.  He should do it as an act of contrition for remaining in the fold of the Grand Obstructionist Party, which regularly fans the flames of racial hatred against the President and Black Americans in general.

If Powell cannot see it in their actions he is blind.  If he does not hear in in their rhetoric he is deaf.  And if he can’t put them together and figure out that it is driven by both ideological differences, sexism and racism he is dumb!  I don’t think he is either.

But if he does not speak out in defense of his beleagured sister the brave general has become spineless. I think the President, who defended his UN Ambassador with fire and conviction yesterday, should now appoint her Secretary of State.

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Playthell George  Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 15, 2012

Reflections on Pussygate

Author Paula Broadwell says the General was “All In”

OPP….Tis A Thrice Told Tale

The more I hear of the voluptuous intrigues and dangerous liaisons  involving powerful men at arms, spooks, spies, shameless hussies, randy generals and home  wreckin hos, the more it appears a theater of the absurd.  It is Much ado about nothing; a tempest in a teapot.  And the lamentations of Congressional members over not being told that the war weary General was tuppin a tasty tender ewe, is a burlesque on congressional oversight!

That brave and highly skilled defenders of the nation, stationed on bloody battlefields around the globe, should be driven from their post because they secretly dipped their wicks in forbidden juice boxes, with the willing compliance of its owners, is madness!

Mrs Patraeus is on the far right

Can you see why the general’s eye wandered

Forsooth! This is not a saga of  malice and murder; it is a profoundly human story, a very old and recurrent tale.  They were making whoopee, tasting forbidden fruit – getting OPP!  Witnessing all the self-righteous chatter among the commentariat, I’m flummoxed!

It seems that the media is populated with finicky prudes that would make Victorians look like sexual libertines – which more than a few were.  And like the intrepid Generals, they kept their erotic indiscretions under wraps…undercover lovers.  However the Victorians were not subjected to the various kinds of electronic snooping as today’s sexual outlaws; so they got away with it.

But this is nothing new; it has been ever thus.  The general and his lady of easy virtue committed adultery, and they did it the way good ever responsible Victorians did it.  This is no picayune observation, for the Victorians are famous for having created the most successful monogamous society in history. Yet it is conventional wisdom among students of the era that this was due in no small part to the pervasiveness of bawdy houses with love for sale, and wide spread clandestine affairs with both sexes.

The Victorians were wise enough about the ways of the world to understand that the responsible thing to do was render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, and unto God that which is God’s.  And give the Devil his due.  Hence they had their cake and ate it too.  That’s why the British upper classes have a tradition of stable families despite a history of sexual scandals.  But none of this should surprise anyone who understands the power of erotic attraction – especially forbidden fruit.

If the things you liabel to read in the bible are true; then we must earn our bread by the sweat of our brow today because Adam and Eve couldn’t resist forbidden fruit.  Let’s face it: alas Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom and folly, planned it this way!  Bird’s do it; Bees do it, even monkeys in the trees do it!

I say let those who are without sin cast the first stone. Since I live in a glass house I shan’t throw stones.  For I have had occasion to fall under the spell of forbidden fruit and kick about in some other stallion’s stall – my steadfast resolve in the face of danger has often crumbled when confronted with the power of the nookie.  In my youth I was fired upon more than once by irate spouses for meddling with OPP.

But I have contented myself with the sure knowledge that the worse anybody can be honestly say of me is that I have coveted OPP.  All other charges are scurrilous lies purveyed by shameless charlatans, and those accusers who bear false witness against me will die the death of pole cats and stink their way to hell! I confess that I have been weak of the flesh, like Sugar Willie Clinton, but I struggled heroically not to yield to temptation.

Never-the-less I take some consolation from the fact that this weakness places me in the fraternity of the greatest men in history and the bible.  Pretty Freddie Douglass, Big Paul Robeson, and Dr. Martian “The Love Man” King; plus  I can claim kinship with David, Samson and Solomon of biblical fame; all of whom proved weaker than me when it came to temptations of the flesh….and all loved OPP.

David sent a loyal comrade at arms into battle to be slaughtered so that he might lay with his wife Bathsheba.  Samson betrayed the secret of his great strength in order to enjoy the favors of the succulent Delilah, and King Solomon, though rumored to be the wisest man in the world, turned against God to please the black and comely Makeda, Queen of Sheba!

What then can be expected of an ordinary colored man like me, or the high and mighty generals, when confronted with the irresistible charms and splendiferous pleasure of the omnipotent Nookie?  None of us can hope to be greater that these titans of history and annointed of God?

Despite the attempts by evil airhead FOX News chatter boxes to concoct a dark political  conspiracy by the Obama administration, and notwithstanding the general’s foibles and incompetence as military commanders, pussy power rules this situation.  Alas we are all like silly putty, to be manipulated and molded anyway it wishes.

And we shall all crumble when confronted with the marvelous powers of the Goody Gap.  So it is written…so it shall be!  Let the self-righteous prigs, who fain innocence of lust or licentious impulse, prattle on about who’s zooming who; but the truth shall set thee free.   Alas the indisputable truth is everybody loves OPP.

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Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 14, 2012

The Fall Of Turd Blossom

           

Karl Rove Busted!

 Bush’s Brain is Dead!

After engineering the election of George Bush, a Texas Republican dunderhead with little knowledge about the world, to the presidency of the United States over the far more capable Al Gore, political strategist Karl Rove was acclaimed a political genius and dubbed “Bush’s Brain.”  Although Bush’s pet name for his puppetmesiter is “Turd blossom.”

And when he did it again, after Bush had presided over the 9/11 attack – the worse national security failure in American history, and then attacked the wrong country – Rove took on the aura of a political oracle whose political advice was infallible, and Republicans regarded his pronouncements with the reverence with which the Catholic faithful receive the encyclicals of the Pope.  That’s why they are all shell shocked after President Obama’s crushing defeat of Mitt The Twit.

Turd Blossom’s  dramatic fall from the pedestal on which he had pompously perched began when he was commenting on the election returns on FOX News – that flagship of that incubator of Republican fantasies David Frum, a former Bush speech writer and genuine intellectual, calls “The Republican entertainment complex.” After FOX’s own numbers men called Ohio for President Obama, which gave him the election, Rove had a conniption and went into fumbling fit of denial.

Reflecting the tension between those who consider themselves “journalist” and the Republican propagandists who provide the commentary, the anchor woman, Megyn Kelly,  got up and walked back the room where the election results were being tallied and asked them to respond to Rove’s concerns.  They were steadfast in their conclusions.

This prompted her to ask Rove live on television if his calculations were real or  “just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better.”  It was the most embarrassing moment I have ever witnessed of a major commentator on television in real time.  One can see why Rove went into shock and denial because he had just blown 300 million dollars on the election through his two super PACS American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. 

Not only did Romney lose with two million fewer votes than John McCain garnered, but all but one of the Senate candidates supported by Rove also lost!  The Democrats retained the White House, added to their majority in the Senate and increased their numbers in the House. This colossal Republican defeat has reduced Rove to a figure of ridicule and contempt in and out of the Grand Obstructionist Party.

The venerable rightwing war horse Richard Viguerie predicted that Turd blossom “would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again.”  And the racist Blow hard Republican Buffon Donald Trump tweeted “congrats to Karl rove on blowing 400 million this cycle.  Every race Crossroads GPS ran ads in the Republicans lost.  What a waste of money.”

The Donald Was Really Pissed!

 

Yet his insane Racist Antics Help Bring the GOP Down!

Joe Scarboro lamented that the reason the Republicans were so shocked by their defeat was because the Republican media commentariat “lied to us!”  Indeed, the analysis of the various pre-election polls released today by Nate Silver – the numbers crunching wizard at the New York Times who called it all right – shows that the most inaccurate predictions came from two of the most prestigious albeit Republican leaning pollsters: Rasmussen and Gallup, who were off by 4 and 5 points respectively

The attacks cited above are but a sampling of the invective his fellow Republicans are heaping on the head of Turd. And other Republican prognosticators who had predicted a Romney victory – Newt Gingrich, Dirty Dick Morris, Michael Steele, et al – are publicly confessing the error of their ways.

However the most brutal public flagellations are coming from the television comedians.  There are certainly too man to cover here, but the Saturday Night Live Skit deserves honorable mention, but  Dave Letterman bit took first prize with me.  Assuming the dramatis personae of a Koch brother speaking to Rove, he says “Hey Tubby, how much will it take to but this election” as he shells out money.

Dave cautions us not to be surprised if we hear that the Koch brothers  jumped Rove and kicked his ass! The bloodletting in the Grand Obstructionist Party has just begun.  I shall watch from my front row seat with the jaded blood lust of spectators in the Roman Coliseum where Gladiators fought to the death, and everybody will get a thumb’s down!   I pray that Turd Blossom die the death of a pole cat and stink his way to hell!!!!!

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Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 12, 2012

What the Obama Victory Means

Thanking Supporters for a Job Well Done

 Political Science + Organization + Candidate = VICTORY!

It isenough to witness the stunned looks and listen to the silly excuses offered by Republican strategists, and their media shills, attempt to explain why the Grand Obstructionist party crashed and burned at the polls to understand that they were caught off guard by the President’s smashing victory.

Viewing the smug statements of confidence offered by Fox’s favorite presidential soothsayers Dirty Dick Morris, and that prissy know-it-all George Will – who always reminds me of “Jughead” from the old “Archie” comics – they appear totally out of touch with the new political reality in the US.

Hence when Nate Silver, the real numbers crunching wizard at the New York Times, gave President Obama an 85% chance of reelection and predicted that he would win with over 300 votes in the Electoral College, he was greeted with boisterous chorus of angry invective and contemptuous ridicule by Mitt Romney’s supporters.  However as I write Silver is looking like a 21^st century Nostradamus, except there is no mystery to his method of predicting the future.

While soothsayers of the past relied on incomprehensible Mumbo Jumbo – i.e. unseen supernatural forces – Nate Silver employs the scientific method. Fortunetellers rely on magic and scientists rely on math.  And it is clear that President Obama’s campaign strategist, the much maligned “Chicago Gang,” were relying on the same mathematics Silver was using in his calculus.

Although Silver was sitting in his cubical at the New York Times feeding massive amounts of data into his computers, analyzing it with an alogrithm of his invention, and the Obama campaign operatives were receiving their data from the reporting of on-the-ground organizers, after running 60, 000 computer simulations of likely voter behavior in specific districts nationwide, they arrived at the same conclusions about the outcome of the election with amazing accuracy.

Although the Obama strategists never spoke with the quantitative specificity of Mr. Silver, there was a quiet confidence in their manner graced by the sly smiles of those who know something that the rest of us don’t – especially their adversaries.  While the Romney campaign relied on propaganda based on blatant lies, bombarding the public with cleverly crafted messages by hot shot “Madison Avenue Mad Men” convinced they could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, Barack stood fast in his belief that integrity matters and the truth will out.  Because God don’t like ugly!

The Romney campaign, directed by haughty plutocrats and their lackeys at FOX TV, operated on circus promoter P.T. Barnum’s apocryphal axiom: “You can never go broke underestimating the taste and intelligence of the American public…and there’s a sucker born every minute.”

They also agreed with H. L. Menchen, a distinguished Dean of American letters who coined the term “Boobus Americanus,” which characterized a unique species of mass American ignoramus.  But Barack Obama maintained confidence in the basic wisdom of the American people, and held fast to his conviction that you can’t fool all the people all the time.

Viewed from the irrefutable perspective of history, Chilly B. Knowledge, the amazing Chi-Town Kid, was right.   That’s why he and Michelle are cribbin in the White House, while Mitt the Twit and the saditty Miss Ann are in the outhouse!

While the sophistication of their research, media propaganda and organizational capabilities were the vehicles that transported them to victory, in the end I believe the character and quality of their product won the day for the Democratic Party.  Barack’s honesty and personal integrity served to magnify Mitt’s smarmy moral relativism and avaricious character – his Cayman Island bank accounts and clandestine tax avoidance schemes that may yet prove criminal.

Alas, Mitt’s dramatic character deficits, when compared to Barack’s quiet virtues, proved far too formidable to overcome even with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in slick advertising.  The public just didn’t buy it!

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Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 8, 2012

Barack Obama is Re-elected!

Chilly B. Knowledge: Superstar!

 A Weary World Rejoices

As the foreign press reports on reactions to the American election abroad tell us, people everywhere were holding “watch parties,” anxiously awaiting the outcome. From Moscow and Peking, to Paris, Kenya, Kabul, Caracas, Berlin and elsewhere; people anxiously awaited the results of the Presidential election with bated breath.  When the news hit the wires that Obama had been reelected spirits danced all over the planet, in anticipation of better days for the nations of the world.

But this should come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention to the President’s foreign policy.  Despite persistent attempts by the left to paint President Obama as a warmonger expanding the American empire, President Chavez of Venezuela, the most powerful leftist leader in Latin America, rooted for his victory.  Just one more indication of how delusional the American left is just now.

The Left Wing Parisian tabloid, “Liberation” ran a portrait of President Obama with the giant headline “Yes!”  And bloggers at the “Guardian,” a distinguished left leaning London Newspaper with a world-wide readership that I once regularly wrote for, observed with characteristic British irony: “The London Olympics went rather better than Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.”  It was their opportunity to pay the Mittster back for his ill-considered criticism of the London Olympics during Romney’s disastrous journey to Britain during the Olympic Games.

Corriere della Sera, an important Italian not only applauded the President’s victory but praised the expertise of his campaign team. “a team of professionals who made extensive use of ‘big data’ technology, along with extraordinary support for the president from music and film stars, a very effective Bill Clinton, and Michelle Obama, who carried on a parallel campaign in support of her husband as no first lady has done before.”

Russia’s authoritative paper Izvestia,  was cool to the outcome of but did note that  Barack was “more conciliatory” than Romney toward Russia.  However the article also featured a quote fom the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee in Parliament Alexi Pushov who called Barack’s Russian policy “tactless” and challenged him  to give the Russian government   “a signal of readiness to build a constructive personal relationship” with President Vladimir Putin.

The Sydney Morning Herald of Australia hailed the victory, and Daniel Filton, a senior foreign correspondent noted:  “BREATHE a sigh of relief, Australia—had Mitt Romney won the day, it would have made for an ugly time with our big alliance partner. Barack Obama, by contrast, will now be judged in his second term on a pledge to ‘pivot’ America’s attention to this neighborhood.”  Filton also noted that Obama’s economic policies were favored by the Aussies’  Treasurer Wayne Swan, who called the Tea Party Republicans in congress “Cranks and crazies!”

Press coverage in Japan was favorable to the election’s outcome and a senior foreign policy official was quoted as saying: “Japan welcomes the continuation of the U.S. basic policy that focuses on Asia.”  The South Korean Yohap News Service noted: “Relations between the U.S. and South Korea “have been arguably at their best state in nearly a decade.”

And while German’s Bild-Zeitung featured an English head line : “Yes he can again,” India’s Financial Times agonized over the fate of outsourcing by American corporations to India.  But this was the rare exception…which proves the rule.  In general the News of President Obama’s reelection inspired jubilation everywhere.

And not least of all at the rousing party thrown by State Senator Bill Perkins, at the Adam Clayton Powell office building in Harlem, where a packed house watched the results on a giant screen.  When the President’s victory was announced at a little past 11 oclock, the live band struck up “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” and everybody got up and boogied down!

Lady In Red

One of many Obama Suporters at Senator Perkin’s Party

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 Playthell Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 7, 2012

The Supreme Court and Racial Equality

 Fisher outside the Supreme Court

 Fisher vs. U of Texas Could Turn Back the Clock

The case of Fisher V The University of Texas dramatizes the fact that rulings by the Supreme Court can determine the life’s chances of entire groups of American citizens, especially the poor, the powerless and minorities. The fate of Afro-Americans has been determined to an extraordinary degree by Supreme Court decisions.  Several times there have been dramatic swings in the in the opinion of the High Court on the same issue, and the life chances of Afro-Americans were shaped by those swings.

Now the Court is about to rule on a case that could radically decrease the chances for Afro-Americans, and other minorities, to succeed in this country.  If the court kills all Affirmative Action programs it will cement the advantages whites have obtained due to over three centuries of race based slavery and caste discrimination based on the principle of “white supremacy.” Without Affirmative Action guidelines the white majority will award the lion’s share of the benefits offered by American society to their kith and kin.

Hence jobs for which racial minorities and women are equally qualified – or even slightly better – will be denied them in favor of white males who may be less qualified.  This was the normal way of doing things before the advent of Affirmative Action programs.  Hence Affirmative Action requirements are dsigned to level the playing field, not give Afro-Americans and other minorities an unfair advantage.

It has proved an effective remedy for the practice systematic discrimination against the protected groups that restricted their chances of success in a highly competitive society in the past, and offers protection against institutional racism in American society today.  There is a supreme irony in the fact that the present case involves race and admissions policy at the University of Texas, because it’s the site of the landmark case Sweatt V. Painter.

In 1950 Herman Marion Sweatt, a Houston Texas mail carrier who aspired to become a lawyer, won a suit against the law school at the University of Texas, which had denied him admission because of his race.  The Supreme Court’s ruling found that the University’s policy violated Sweatt’s constitutional rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment, which had been defined as “Separate but Equal” in the court’s ruling on  the Plessy v Ferguson case of 1896.

When Sweatt’s lawyers convinced the Court that a law school set up for black students was demonstrably inferior, the University of Texas law School was forced to admit him. Now Abigail Fischer, a white female who was refused admission to the University of Texas, has filed a case charging racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause, claiming she was not admitted to the University because of her race.

The basis for Ms. Fischer’s charge is that a Texas program which requires the University of Texas to admit the top 10% of all high school students, allows the university to admit non-white students who are less qualified than her.  However the Texas policy is following the guidelines handed down in the Grutter v Bollinger decision of 2003, which allowed universities to consider race as a factor in admissions…so long as it was not the deciding factor.

Never the less Ms. Fischer contends that she was denied admission to the university of Texas because of her race.  Hence this is the question that will be decided by the supreme court in this case.   When we look at the changes to the Court since Grutter v. Bollinger – with the Bush appointees John Roberts and Samuel Alito both passionate opponents of race based remedies, and Sandra Day O’Conner, who wrote the opinion in Grutter retired, and Elena Kagan recusing herself, we might well witness the death of Affirmative Action – a policy that quadrupled the black middle class and took white women through the glass ceiling.

Savvy court watchers who do it for a living have warned us not to predict what the Justices are likely to decide based upon the questions they ask during oral arguments.  Yet it is hard not to rush to judgment based on the persistent questions of Justice Roberts as to what the university considers a “critical mass” of black and Hispanic students, which would render race sensitive admissions policies obsolete.

The lawyers for the university must view this line of questioning as a trap, because all of the precedents in previous cases rule against racial quotas.  Hence if they cite a specific figure they could be accused of setting a quota by the other side and lose the case on this issue.  So the university’s lawyers are mum on the issue. But the legal precedents call for close scrutiny of any government program in which race is at issue.

This confusing state of American jurisprudence on racial matters prompted Chief Justice Roberts to ask Gregory G. Garre, lead counsel for the University, “How am supposed to do the job that our precedents say I should do?”   According to the New York Times’ reportage of 10/11/12 “The questioning on Wednesday from the Chief Justice and his colleagues was b turns caustic, exasperated and despairing.”

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, who departed the Court in 2006, was present to hear the arguments.  Some Court watchers speculated that she was there to see if the precedent set in the opinion she authored in Grutter Vs. Bollinger, which said race could be considered as a factor in a “holistic review” of a variety of admission criteria.

Alas, the fruits of many generations of struggle will be wiped away in  flash.  The High Court giveth…and the High Court taketh away.  Hence it has presented Black Americans with both triumph and tragedy. That’s why it really, really, matters who is appointing the Justices!

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Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

November 2, 2012

On Sandy’s Path of Destruction

A Silent Madonna Stands Amidst the Destruction

 A Natural Phenomenon or Divine Intervention?

Hurricane Sandy was a storm of biblical proportions.  Her powerful winds spread out over hundreds of miles wreaking havoc everywhere she touched.  Rain, floods, fires, pestilence, blizzards and deaths followed in her wake.  I have survived six hurricanes during the course of my life: five on land and one at sea.  But my experience with Sandy was unique.

Before Sandy struck it was always the destructive power of raging waters that terrified me, but this time it was the howling winds that worried me as I hunkered down in my high rise apartment atop Harlem’s Sugar Hill, far above the floods, where I sat awake all night watching the large bay windows bend back and forth threatening to break and blow all of my books and papers away, destroying documents and rare books more valuable to me than gold.  All that stood between me and disaster was some panes of glass.

It was a strange storm; the wind never reached a hundred miles an hour and was downgraded to slightly above a tropical storm by the time it reached New York.  Growing up in Florida where there were tropical storms every year, a legit hurricane had to have winds of a hundred miles or more.  Sandy’s winds never exceeded 85 miles, but the extent of the destruction she wrought was astonishing.

The Turbulent Waters Ran Ships a Ground

 And smashed violently into the Shores  

 

Leaving a Trail of Destruction

 

 Bewildered Citizens Trucking Through the Devastation

Washed Away

Watching your Dreams Sink

While I am perfectly content with the explanation that atmospheric forces came  together in a rare combination and caused this storm’s destructiveness, offered by Dr. Mishu Kaku and other scientist, there are others who offer a different explanation of for the unique destructiveness of this storm.

Among some evangelical Christians, the ones like my cousin Pookie, who read the bible differently from the so-called “Christian Right” and Tea Party Zealots, Sandy is God’s way of intervening in the elections; a warning to this nation not to elect a heretic who is a Bishop in a renegade cult that preaches false doctrines and prefers the Book of Mormon to the Holy Bible.   A man who genuflects before Mammon and exalts the rule of gold over the Golden Rule.

They say if we place such a man and his minions at the levers of power in the world’s mightiest nation, casting out a man who is not only a real Christian, too legit to quit, trying his best to carry out Jesus’ command to feed the hungry and heal the sick, God will inflict this nation with plagues, storms, famine, trials and troubles.  The say first it was Katrina and now Sandy; ominous signs from the almighty to change our ways before he ends our days!

They say that Barack’s spiritual guide, the righteous prophet and patriot “Jeremiah The Right,” tried to warn this nation we are inviting damnation; just like the prophets of Old Testament fame, but he was buked and scorned.  The princes and powers called him everything but a child of God!

Nebbacunezza and Pharaoh had nothing on the arrogant rulers of this land. The say the proof of their truth is that a latter day Saul has arisen to testify in behalf of the President, much to the chagrin of his privileged Republican class. Alas, like Saul on the Road to Damascus,  New Jersey governor Chris Christy’s encounter with Sandy caused him to see the light, and now he is singing the President’s praises like Caruso.

When asked by FOX News if he would be touring the hurricane ravaged areas of his state with Mitt Romney, the plain spoken Governor greeted the question with contempt; dismissing them with the comment that he didn’t give a damn about politics just now because he had far bigger fish to fry.  He would be touting with the President and told the Republican shills at FOX that if they thought he would conduct a photo-op for Romney, “you don’t know me at all!”

Hence while Romney runs around trying to look relevant by collecting canned food for Sandy’s victims, when the Red Cross says what they really need is money, Barack is exercising the power of his office to make things happen.   Hence the President is looking presidential while Mitt comes across as an opportunistic buffoon!

The deeply religious folks I’ve talked to believe that God sent Sandy to provide just such an opportunity to show that he is the best caretaker for the nation, and the people will reject Romney next Tuesday.  We shall soon see.  If I were a religious man I’d have no trouble envisioning the hand of God in this…since I already believe Barack is the savior of America from the evil folly of the Grand Obstructionist Party.

Chilly B to the Rescue!

Help is on the way

A Warning to the Money Lenders?

 

 “Quit yo evil ways or God almighty will end yo days!”

 

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 Playthell G. Benjamin

Harlem, New York

October 31, 2012