Grassroots Radio 05-16-2012

The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla In The Room With The "R" On His Chest

Sometimes I have things within me that is so burdensome that I have to get it out.  It is never that I am afraid to say what I feel, it is just that, I guess, I am hoping someone else will see what I see and say it before I feel I must say it.  The seed for this e-mail was born out of a conversation that I had with two members of Marion County Democratic Party at our monthly meeting and came to maturity after reading Mr Painters recent e-mail expressing his disappointment of the President and the Democratic Congress.  I have a problem when my colleagues and the media are appearing to be on the same page in their analysis of what is happening in politics and the community.  It is no secret that the media makes its living off sensationalism and half truths based on the direction that their owners and/or managing editors dictate.  But back to the purpose of this e-mail.

 On Monday I was telling two Party members about a conversation that I had with a friend of mine who use to live in England and still has strong ties in the European Community.  I told them that my friend stated that almost every country except America believes that President Obama is one of the most, if not the most respected and effective leaders in the world and that the foreign community does not blame him for what is happening in the American Legislature but they are blaming our Congressional leaders for his ineffectiveness.  This brought on a spirited conversation between myself and both the African-American and European-American gentlemen.  They both believed that President Obama should be more forceful and spirited in taking on the Republicans and should use the bully pit to force his issues through.  I of course disagreed with them.  I told them that I felt that he was doing exactly what he should be doing under the circumstances.  The fact that he is the first African-American President dictates that he cannot over play his hand, because this is what his adversaries are waiting for.  I also reminded them that I am a Hilary Clinton Democrat and that as a rule I don't use the race card, but in this particular instance we have to face the facts that it is Racism that keeps him from being effective.  Of course they both disagreed with that.  Now these are supposedly two staunch Obama followers and has always been Obama followers.  The European American stated that when Mr Obama ran the first time he housed some of his volunteers, worked as a volunteer and gave money, but this time he don't think he will do any of this.  So I said if you are not going to support him, then who are you going to support.  I stated that it is my belief that the Democratic Party is constantly shooting themselves in the foot by making rash and selfish decisions without associating the consequences with their actions and I re-emphasized the efforts that the Gay Rights wing of the Party made during 2010 that offset the other efforts within the Party which I believe caused a dismal showing at the ballot box by the entire grassroots community.  The African-American then began citing instances where other Presidents rose to the occasion under similar  circumstances.  I then told him that he was making my case for me and proceeded to ask him what color were they.  To which he made no statement.  I told them that Racism is not just a Republican and a Tea Party thing it is also a Democratic Party thing, because if you will remember that it was not the Republicans that held up and stripped the Health Care Legislation it was our own Democratic Congress Leaders that did this.  After this the European-American said I see what you are saying, but why is it that no one else is saying anything about it.  I said because if you say something about it you give it a name, then it is defined and finally it has a platform.  By not saying anything its power over the decision making process continues to grow and prevents us from doing what is naturally right.

Racism is an excessive and irrational belief in or advocacy of the superiority of a given group, people, or nation, on racial grounds alone; race hatred.  If you would examine the actions of our Political Leaders in all our Parties since President Obama has been elected, what you will see is a consistent record of excessive and irrational behavior aimed at discrediting, disrespecting, embarrassing and causing him to fail at the expense of the success of our country and the care of our citizens.  When Health Care is the number one drain on our economy and the people who need medical treatment, it is irrational to not want to pass a proper Health Care bill.  When you have proven over and over again that President Obama is a citizen of the USA and there is still solid resistance by a group of people, some of them Congressional Leaders, then this is both excessive and irrational.  When the Tea Party runs on a campaign of "Taking back our Country", this is advocating the superiority of a given group.  When most of your citizens are suffering financially and you would rather take more money and resources from those who do not have it to give, rather than take from those who have a surplus to give and then you call it balancing the budget, this is excessive, irrational and advocating for the superiority of a given group.  When you are constantly complaining about people on welfare or unemployed being a burden and drain to the tax payers in our country and you religiously give billions of dollars to Big Oil and other welfare recipient Big Businesses without a mention let alone a complaint, that appears to be irrational, excessive and the advocacy for superiority of a given group.  When the advocates for the Republican and Tea Party beliefs and their Candidates can get on television and radio and lie about our President and they or proven to be lying and people still find what they are saying to be creditable, this is an excessive and irrational belief in or advocacy of the superiority of a given group on racial grounds alone.  The problem with Racism in America is that everyone knows it is here, but no one wants to talk about it.  And it is because we do not talk about it, which allows it to continue to determine the decisions that we make and/or are made for us.  Racism has always lurked in the backrooms, alley ways and ivory towers of our society, because it has always been used to keep people of different races apart so that they can not recognize how much they have in common.  Our country is being destroyed by racist factions in our political leadership, financial leadership and our communities and they are using fear and distrust to make this happen.  All of us commit racist acts every day, but that does not make us proponents of racism and we are not.  Our acts are done out of ignorance of what constitute racism and because we lack intent of our actions we are not racist by its purist sense.  We must understand this because if we do not then we will allow others to characterize us and we may characterize ourselves as something that we are not.

When President Obama was elected, he stated that together we can bring change to America and that he could not do it alone.  He needed each and everyone of us to get involved and together we can make it happen.  The time is now!  Well this is that time when each one of us need to stand up and say to those that are using racist tactics that we know what you are doing and we will not continue to allow you to destroy our country for your racist agenda.  Call them what they are and demand that they put our country and citizens ahead of partisanship and racist ideology.

Oh by the way, the letter "R" on the Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla's chest stands for "Racism".  

As always this is just my opinion and that does not make it right.

Lee Walter Jenkins

As I See It

There are two types of eligible voters: the informed and the uninformed.  All Party’s have both, but the Democratic Party has the distinction of having the most uninformed voters and the Republican Party has the most informed voters.  This distinction has a lot to do with each Party’s Platform and priorities.

While informed voter’s make-up the minority of voters in both Parties, their concerns consistently make-up over seventy-five percent of each Parties Platform.  The thing about informed voters is that they are issue driven campaigners and they need an issue or issues that they believe in and/or are concerned about to motivate them enough to be a force in the campaigning arena.  Informed voters are very adept at seeking out and receiving information about their issues from multiple mediums.  What we have learned over the last five years is that whether the issue is true or not does not determine the effort an informed voter put into campaigning on that issue.  In fact in most cases they campaign harder for untrue issues than they do for true issues.  That is because the stimuli that motivates an informed voter to the issues they support could be driven by personal experience, political affiliation, religion, race, family loyalty and/or financial consideration.  Take for instance, the Tea Party Movement or as I call them, “The best Movement that money can buy”.  Most of the issues that they campaigned under were untrue and were investigated and documented to be untrue, but yet they grew and became successful enough to have a significant number of candidates elected to State and Federal offices.  This of course was because the uniformed voters were not inspired to come out and vote.  Some of the reasons why the Tea Party was successful included the following: being well funded by Big Oil, The Weapons Industry and their affiliates; most of the Media Industry bought in or sold out to them and; most of our Democratic leadership refused to fight for the peoples agenda.  Does this mean that I have a problem with informed voters?  I have no problem with Republican informed voters making their decisions based on lies, innuendoes, racism and money, but I do have a problem when Democratic informed voters emulates them.

Uninformed voters make up the majority in both Parties and have the least influence and input into their Political Platforms.  The irony of all this is that it is the uninformed voters who have the numbers to determine the success or failure of all elections.  By far the Democratic Party has the largest number of uninformed voters.  And unfortunately over the years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt they have not been able to consistently capitalize on their advantage.  One of the main reasons for this is that even though the Democratic Party promotes themselves as an open Party where everyone ideas are welcome and everyone’s needs are met, it has never quite got pass the Political Boss Stage where all decisions are made by a select few away from the body.  In South Carolina, Political decisions are still being made in the backrooms among tight knit Political Cronies, family members, friends and the big money backers who are the real decision makers in our State today.  It is amazing how stupid and powerless that they think the uninformed voters are.  They call them apathetic and believe that if they raise enough money to give out to these so called ignorant people, then they will get enough votes to win.  My Grandmother told me once that arrogance makes a rich man foolish and a poor man careless, which are two things neither man can survive with.  The truth is in every Democratic failed election; the uninformed has shown the Democratic Party how much smarter they are than them.  They understand that no matter who wins they lose.  So whether it is death by hanging or death my lynching, you are still dead with a rope around your neck.  There philosophy is why build the gallows that you will be hung on (vote for an uncaring Democrat candidate that you do not know and does not try to know you are your plight) when you can just not vote at all and get the same treatment by default by a Republican Administration.

As always these are my opinions and of course that does not make them right.

Lee Walter Jenkins

I wonder

Yesterday, the Republicans blasted the President for the market falling.
I wonder if those same Republicans praise the President for the market rising?

convention

I think that if someone wanted to be a delegate to the 2012 Democratic Convention, a posting should be made available delineating the necessary steps in order to become a delegate. Who's gonna write the steps?

More Americans killed

The other day I went to a restaurant and ordered a pizza. I said to the waitress that business seems slow; she blamed it on Obama. I asked myself what does Obama have to do with her restaurant. On the other hand, recently, many Americans were killed from the war zone. I do blame that on Obama. When is Obama going to pull his head out of his ass and do what he was elected to do? He should have taken out the troops long ago. I know that this is fodder for the damn Republicans, but it's time Obama pulled his head out.
With Obama, it's like watching a football game. When are we as Democrats going to get the ball?

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