I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Belinda44 · July 2013

Sending healing vibes and good thoughts out to Athena and Enjoyful!

Belinda44 · July 2013

I'm glad our President made the comments he did yesterday. Hopefully, we can have more dialogue and discussion and work for positive change in this country when it comes to race. Of course there will be those extremists who dismiss his comments (and of course they are part of the problem), but we must, as a nation, acknowledge the issue and work towards understanding and acceptance of one another.

It's eye opening when you witness racism fist hand. My colleague and friend is a black woman. I am white. For work, we did some traveling together (and this was before 9/11/2001). The majority of the time, at the airport, I was able to keep walking after the security scanner, but she usually would have her bag searched. We would go shopping together. I remember one clear incident where the sales clerk was much closer to my friend; however she ignored her and went out of her way to ask if she could help me. And I could go on and on with other examples.....

Does anyone watch the tv show, "Big Brother?" It has been my summertime reality show guilty pleasure for some time. This season, a young woman from Texas has been making headlines because of all the nasty and racist comments she has made. She sees nothing wrong with her remarks. It's been quite shocking to watch and just reinforces how we have such a long way to go in this country..........

From the New Yorker, re: Obama's remarks.....

".......Obama’s statement was not a variation of his earlier one but a powerful extension. This was not just about the idea that a young black man from a prominent family—even a President’s son—could be profiled as a criminal because of his race. It was about who any black teenager in a hoodie might still become, if he has the chance, if he is not left dead on a patch of grass in Florida.

The statement was reflective and forceful, without being angry nor facile. “I think the African-American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else,” Obama said. But they became “frustrated” when they believed “that context is being denied,” and when a child was lost who didn’t have to be. As Obama put it, “that all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”.....

........Some commentators asked, afterward, if Obama was putting himself in the middle of a case where he didn’t belong. But his voice does belong in it, as many more voices do. Messages about not belonging have haunted this case from the beginning. When the police found Trayvon Martin’s dead body, they at first accepted not only that he didn’t belong in the neighborhood but that he didn’t belong anywhere, or with anyone; his parents had to come looking for him the next day, after an night of uncertainty, only to be pointed to his body. But he belonged anywhere in America, as the teen-ager he was and the adult he could have been."

Full article:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/07/obama-trayvon-martin-could-have-been-me.html

Belinda44 · July 2013

politicalcartoons.com

Belinda44 · July 2013

"Thank God they Got a Green Card"

"Immigration reform has stalled and started, and stalled again in an especially discordant Congress. But America is a nation of immigrants who have contributed to our culture and economy in innumerable ways. When it’s tougher than ever for people to become citizens, just what kind of leaders, artists, and geniuses might we be turning away? Here's a look at a few of the foreign-born citizens who made it in. Thank God these folks got green cards."

Full gallery:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2013/07/19/thank-god-they-got-a-green-card-photos.html

crazy4carrots · July 2013

Remember this song from "South Pacific"? When the teaching stops, so too will racism.....

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

Belinda44 · July 2013

Yes, I remeber that song, c4c. It reminds me of this song, as well......

Probably one of the most beautiful performances I've ever witnessed.....

Betty Buckley and the Harlem Boys Choir.

Listen to the beautiful Stephen Sondheim lyrics.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njh-rYD6TBY

bluedahlia · July 2013

We'll make you an offer you can't refuse.............

Belinda44 · July 2013

One last post and then I gotta rush to the gym for a 10:30 class!

This poignant performance always makes me cry!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqcwuYmzWHI

IllinoisLady · July 2013

Belinda....those were beautiful pieces. How strange or perhaps from the previous song of being so careful what we teach, that toddlers and animals do not see color, dis-advantage, feel hatred, or otherwise treat anyone in destructive, dehumanizing ways.

I as well applaud a President who can speak out. As to all those who feel such disdain and hatred for anyone who is "not" like them -- your day will come, and your shame for this deficiency within yourself will likely be huge. I do wonder what part of anatomy is so well miss-understood. Strip off the first few layers and you can't tell me from you x/s the world at large.

If ( as so many people believe ) a loving entity made us all -- some of us I think must be a bitter disappointment in our racist bigotry. It is far past time to recognize that no one of us here is judge or jury. It is love that solves these issues and if you don't have, best work on getting it.

Jackie

pip57 · July 2013

Excellent speech by the president. Very heart felt, non political, very honest.

I have often thought about what the situation would have been if Trayvon also had a gun. I don't know any more about what really happened that night than anyone else does. We never will. I simply go by the "but for..." premise when thinking about how these situations should be judged. But for the fact that Zimmerman left his car....this would not have happened. Did Trayvon strike the first blow? Is that not standing your ground if he realized a guy with a gun was following him? Not clearly right or wrong on all fronts.

IllinoisLady · July 2013

Not only remember this, I also recall being the one attaching it to the car window. So much more pleasanter when I was one of the car occupants.

IllinoisLady · July 2013

IllinoisLady · July 2013

Anonymous · July 2013

Belinda - LOVED the videos, especially the second one - just wonderful, awe inspiring...

IllinoisLady · July 2013

ananda8 · July 2013

The button is a bit of an overstatement. Both Republican and Democrats feed at the corrupting trough of Big Business.

There is a great deal that Democrats could have done in the past 5 years to fix many of the bills that have been passed by Congress. They shouldn't have voted for the farm bill which is basically welfare for Big Agribusiness. They could have submitted legislation to at least reduce the tax breaks for Big Oil companies. The Democrats could have introduced legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs. This would save hundreds of millions a year without raising a single tax or cutting a single benefit. Even some Republicans would have joined them if the Democrats had showed some spine.

Enjoyful · July 2013

Farmageddon, a meeting of our BCO-ers down on the farm:

Enjoyful · July 2013

Another group photo, including Sampson:

Enjoyful · July 2013

Sampson at Farmageddon! Note the flag of United States of Americanada.

juliaanna · July 2013

E-fantastic pictures. Thank you.

Moderators · July 2013

Enjoyful, what a pleasure to see so many happy faces - and of course your handsome Sampson too!

suzieq60 · July 2013

Here's the gorgeous one - hard to get a shot of him as he seems to carry an anti camera gene - sorry about the weird bottom bit.

juliaanna · July 2013

What a sweetie, but do I sense a bit of mischief in the eyes?

suzieq60 · July 2013

Sorry Julianna - uploading a better one - stupid MS Picture manager chopped the other one - yes he is into everything.

suzieq60 · July 2013

suzieq60 · July 2013

Stupid photos - looks like it was dark but it wasn't quite yet - he had a nice time outside with his Mummy and Grandad today. Still it is a good pic of his smile - he really likes Grandad , not me so much because I say no.

Anonymous · July 2013

Enjoyful - what a wonderful group of women. Thanks for posting...love the flag too.

Belinda44 · July 2013

Enjoyful, what a lovely gathering for you and your BCO buddies! Hoping you heard back from Athena and hoping she's doing better!

Suzie, what an adorable picture of your grandson. He is precious!

Gonna post a few things and then I'm off to church and a family brunch!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Sunday!

Belinda44 · July 2013

"Pat Buchanan Announces ‘Depressing News’ For Racists: ‘Demographic Winter Of White America’"

by David Badash on June 14, 2013

"Paleoconservative Pat Buchanan is a racist. There’s no way out of that classification, and his latest screed makes that fact all the more clear.

For those who aren’t big followers of Buchanan some quick background.

After presidential candidate Barack Obama’s now-famous 2008 pre-election speech on race, Buchanan offered this:

“America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”

And in 2006, Pat Buchanan “claimed that illegal immigration threatens to reduce America to ‘a polyglot boarding house for the world, a tangle of squabbling minorities,’” as Media Matters reported.

Media Matters adds that Buchanan calls immigration an “invasion of the United States of America.”

Buchanan isn’t exactly fond of Black people, or brown people, (or gays, but that’s another story.) This morning, Buchanan penned an op-ed in Town Hall, one of the old conservative homes of hate, and lamented the “depressing news,” the “existential crisis of the GOP,” that the “demographic winter of white America is at hand.”

Claiming that “nearly 90 percent of all Republican votes in presidential elections are provided by Americans of European descent,” Buchanan writes:

In 1960 white folks were close to 90 percent of the entire U.S. population and 95 percent of the electorate. Nixon’s New Majority was created by pulling Northern Catholic ethnics and Southern conservative Protestants, white folks all, out of the Roosevelt coalition and bringing them into a new alliance that would give Nixon a 49-state landslide in 1972, which Reagan would replicate in 1984.

But since that New Majority gave the Republicans five victories in six presidential elections, four of them 40-state landslides, the political world has turned upside down, and demography is the cause.

Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the white vote, a 3-to-2 victory over Obama among America’s majority. In any year before 1980, that would have meant victory. But in 2012 whites were only 74 percent of those who went to the polls.

Thus, Obama’s sweep of 80 percent of the African-American, Asian and Hispanic vote, one-fourth of the electorate and rising, enabled him to coast to a second term.

Between 2008 and 2012, the Hispanic vote rose 1.4 million, the black vote by 1.7 million, and the white vote fell by 2 million.

Where is America going? What does the GOP future look like?

America’s white majority, 64 percent of the population and 74 percent of the electorate, still declining in relative terms, has begun to decline in real terms. Deaths outnumber births. Among all U.S. births in 2012, white babies were outnumbered by babies of color.

If Republicans are opposed to what mass immigration is doing to the country demographically, ethnically, socially and politically, there are, as Reagan used to say, “simple answers, just no easy answers.”

Those answers: No amnesty, secure the border, enforce laws against businesses that hire illegals, and impose a moratorium on new immigration so wages can rise and immigrants enter the middle class and start voting as did the children and grandchildren of the immigrants of 1890-1920 by 1972.

So what are the Republicans doing?

Going back on their word, dishonoring their platform, and enraging their loyal supporters, who gave Mitt 90 percent of his votes, to pander to a segment of the electorate that gave Mitt less than 5 percent of his total votes.

One final quick note on Buchanan and his homophobia, again via Media Matters:

“At the onset of AIDS, when it seemed mostly a gay malady, some right-wingers could barely contain their glee. Columnist Pat Buchanan wrote in 1983: ‘The poor homosexuals — they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution.’”

Belinda44 · July 2013

I think the first comment to the above article is spot on. The reader comments:

"The inability of Buchanan and his fellow white supremacists to begin adapting to the times is why America is bogged down. They see blacks, hispanics, asians, gays and I suspect any uppity women who stand up for themselves as problems, not solutions. You don't move a nation ahead by shoving so many people aside, instead of encouraging them to their full potential. It's amazing how they deal in lies and obstructionism while America declines."

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/pat-buchanans-latest-depressing-news-for-racists-demographic-winter-of-white-america/politics/2013/06/14/68702

I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

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