Flag Pins In Black And White

"The more I saw, the more I realized how my own personal movement was limited. And the North was only a hair better than the South. Up there the hatred and prejudice was a bit more subtle, the hypocrisy a little slicker. You could change the lyrics, but the was still the same everywhere you went.

Don't get me wrong: I never blamed all the white people in America. I didn't fault all of any one group. Lots of white cats were afraid if they served blacks at their lunch counters or let blacks use the bathrooms in their gas stations, they might lose their whole business. After all, there were actual laws on the books against integration of any kind..."



"...Then there were the pressures of their friends. If a white dude was nice to a black, his partner might scream at him, "You a nigger lover or something? Next thing you know your daughter will be fucking a coon!"

On the other hand, I understood that the big Supreme Court decisions which were changing the laws about segregated schools were being made by white judges.

Still, every day I began to see that we were just starting to talk about getting certain things -- freedom to go to school, to eat in a truck stop, to piss in a bathroom -- that should have been ours all along."

from "Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story"
by Ray Charles & David Ritz

America's "Freedom Ride"

"In the summer of 1962, blacks remained frustrated by the slow pace of progress toward equality. Martin Luther King Jr.'s SCLC, SNCC, and other groups, with their strategy of direct action involving boycotts, civil disobedience, nonviolent sit-ins, and mass demonstrations, had succeeded in dramatizing American racial injustice in the South and in focusing the attention of the nation and the world on it. This caused considerable embarrassment for the Kennedy administration at the time when America sought to compete effectively worldwide with Soviet communism and other repressive ideologies. At the United Nations and in other international forums, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban rulers Fidel Castro, and other Communist spokesmen pointed to the racial turmoil in America as evidence of American hypocrisy in human rights.

In the mind of the President, direct action, with in cycle of escalating black demands followed by increasingly violent white backlash, threatened to rend America's tenuous social fabric. Black and white Freedom Riders were attacked and brutally beaten, their buses sometimes burned, by angry white mobs wielding ax handles, bicycle chains, and baseball bats. Local law enforcement, authorities, sympathetic to the rabble, frequently stood by idly as the violence transpired or even conspired to bring it about."

from "Thurgood Marshall: Warrior At The Bar, Rebel On The Bench"
by Michael D. Davis & Hunter R. Clark



"We could be driving for hours and never find a gas station which would let us use the bathroom. If we stopped by the side of the road, we stood a chance of getting busted, so we'd open both doors of the car and piss between them. We could be hungry as bears and go half a day before we'd find a joint that would serve us. The race thing hit us where is hurt -- in the stomach and in the balls."

from "Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story"
by Ray Charles & David Ritz

Americans Don't Want The Hole Thing

"I saw an article today that indicated Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses ($18.4 billion, actually, according to New York comptroller). That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful...Part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, some discipline and some sense of responsibility. The American people understand we've got a big hole we've got to dig ourselves out of. They don't like people digging a bigger hole even as they're being asked to fill it up."

President Obama


"There will be a time for them to make profits and a time for them to get bonuses. This is not that time."

President Obama

There Ain't No Honey On The Moon

The "stimulus package" must have been a big topic of discussion this weekend. To non-related people basically hit me with the same question today. The Rush Limbaugh Parrot squawked that Obama is driving the national debt to a level where he can't sleep at night worrying about his kids' future. He said we are turning in European democracies -- Rush says this a lot. When I asked if he knew anybody who lives in Europe, he said he knows someone who lives in Canada. I pointed out that Canada is not in Europe.

Other person called me and said, "Look what you Democratic President is doing!!! Who's going to pay for all this?"

They both voted for McCain and Bush twice. I pointed out that they need to remember that McCain interrupted his campaign to fly back to Washington to help push through the first stimulus package. So far, Obama is responsible for nothing concerning budget deficits and national debt. It's a Bush thing.

Christ the only Presidents that have driven up the national debt since 1950 are Reagan, Bush and Bush. It's good to see that gaining a new President doesn't necessarily mean the facts are going to start being used. Both said that the problem with the Democrats is that they don't know how to live within a budget. Both are college graduates and, I believe, a little confused.

The budget is being drawn up now. It's easy to live with in your budget, if you make your budget big enough. The question is...is the outgo exceeding the income and, if so, how are you going to finance the difference.

I amazed Obama made it two weeks as President before the 2012 Presidential election started. After Reagan, Bush and Bush spent 20 Presidential years telling us about shrinking government and now the talk has stopped. The battle in the Republican Party will now be between the US House and Senate v. the Republican governors.

And so it goes...

Questions & Solutions

"By standing united, we offered hope to struggling families and small businesses across America looking to Washington for real solutions to the challenges they face. We also made good on our pledge that Republicans will not simply be the party of opposition, but the party of better solutions."

John A. Boehner R-Ohio
House Minority Leader


"The question we ask today is not how big or small our government is, but whether it works."

President Barack Obama