The timidity shown by this White House against the continuous bull shit demagoguery broadcast by white punks IS NOT NEW and is traditional Democrat White House behavior. The Clinton administration essentially behaved the same way against smear tactics by the Republican sponsored broadcasters. The beef I have is against the resistance of Democrats to put up a fight against the Republican Smear Masters. I am not calling for a “War of the Roses” or a replay of World War II, just enough fight to make the political landscape in these United States LEVEL! I wrote a Blog that included this criticism of Democrats and posted it on DKOS, who took it down in short order as a “concern troll”. They may think this problem is just in the minds of concern trolls, but recent documented events strongly suggest that they have their heads up you know where.
Since I wrote that Blog, the Republican Smear Masters have put the administration in a position where it fired a loyal Dept of Agriculture African American employee without evaluating all the facts behind a Fox TV report that she was video taped espousing “Racism” at an NAACP meeting. In the aftermath of the Fox report, other independent broadcasters made the entire tape available which showed that Ms. Sherrod was testifying how she personal overcame hatred of white people even though her beloved father was brutally murdered by white men in Georgia when she was 17 years old. Since then the release of the complete tape showed that Fox TV had significantly edited the tape to give the appearance that Ms. Sherrod was preaching racism against white people. Faced with the clear evidence of another race baiting publicity stunt by Fox TV, the NAACP (who also urged her firing without any investigation of the Fox report) and the Obama Administration have been begging Ms. Sherrod to take her job back.
Another identical Fox “dirty tricks” publicity stunt resulted in the firing of Van Jones. Prior to coming to the White House Mr. Jones ran a successful campaign to raise public awareness of the high level of racist commentary being broadcast by Glenn Beck. Jones campaign resulted in getting just about all of Beck’s sponsors to take their business elsewhere. Therefore when Van Jones was hired to be the “Green Jobs” czar in the Obama Administration Fox TV went after him with a vengeance. In an almost identical scenario to Ms. Sherrod’s case, Fox TV hosts accused him of being a Marxist/Communist who supported the “fringe” theory that the 9/11 attack was actually sponsored by the American government. Fox supported their charges with a document that Jones inadvertantly signed which called for an investigation of the 9/11 attack as part of a secret government plot. Within hours of the airing of this commentary by a Fox TV host, Van Jones was fired by the Obama Administration. The firing of Van Jones was likewise immediate and the Administration conducted no review or factual check as to the value of the allegations.
Many Obama supporters fend off complaints that Obama has been totally ineffective for the millions of black voters who helped to put him in the White House. They point to a rather insignificant list of “behind the scenes” accomplishments by the President. This is the same kind of defensive explanations used by black supporters of Bill Clinton when he was President, and faced the same complaints.
Here are my complaints against the Obama Administration. You will note that these complaints are based on things Obama can do with Executive authority alone and does not need any Congressional legislation to be executed.
(1) No heavyweight black political advisor is on his Oval office staff. The presence of the right politically astute African American person would be able to effectively guide Obama through the continuous rain of racial bombshells that the Republican propaganda machine (including Fox news) keeps throwing at the White House. In this position experience and race does matter!
(2) Black unemployment in the cities around the nation is above 23%. Yet less than 5% of the stimulus money was spent in the black communities across the nation. The Obama administration made a huge mistake channeling out the stimulus money using the usual federal to state procedures. Every dime of stimulus money issued should have been under the fiscal control of PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPA (Critical Path Analysis). Project planning and stimulus spending by the states would have been really transparent if these control mechanisms were manditory, as the White House would have all of the detailed data for every stimulus project. This data could have easily been cross referenced with the dynamic conditions in high pockets of unemployment. This is what is known as feedback, you’all.
(3) Likewise the small business loans granted to black businesses since the SBA loosened up its requirements for financial assistance to small businesses has been less than 1% of all the money allocated thus far. In response to this criticism, the White House used an argument right out of the George Bush playbook, i.e., the SBA hasn’t received many applications from black businesses since the program started. However, the Administration is completely silent when asked just how much effort in publicizing the new program in black communities was done by the SBA prior to the start of the new program?
These three criticisms are the real bread and butter issues for African Americans. The black community’s struggle to survive is not satisfied by the performance of show people and musicians at special White House petite bourgeois extravaganzas.
In summary there are two things that Barack needs to roll up his sleeves and resolve to DO IMMEDIATELY. (1) Develop a strategy to create some political bombs that will be the most effective against a weak and divided Republican Party. There are at least a couple of dozen strategies available RIGHT NOW that would create huge additional divisions and thereby invrease the pressure within the Republican Party. This would keep the Republicans busy and reduce the amount of time that they have to sit around and dream up shit against the Democrats, especially the President. (2) Obama needs to “get back to church” with African America. He needs to get on the practical level with black folks who are struggling just to get by from day to day. Nothing grandiose, just the practical things that you can do as President of the United States. Listen up Barack! You can be the “President of all Americans” on your second term in the White House. Now is the time to help out that 23% unemployed. Put on your thinking cap. As a former community organizer I am sure that you are well schooled in the many ways that you as President can offer to help poor black folks with sound projects that give folks a hand up, not a hand out. As incredible as it sounds helping poor black folks will be the biggest boost that you could ever give to the American economy. Why? Because poor black people have always been on the bottom in the history of this nation. But guess what? When you raise the basement, the whole house rises!
Barack it is time, it is definitely time….