Take America Back or Forward

Take America Back…or Forward?
Lowell Thompson, 9-28-12

Maybe I shouldn't say this. But, I'm almost starting to feel sorry for Mitt.

I said “almost”. Because that would be like a Mississippi field slave feeling sad because his ol' Massa's whip broke.

How could anyone fall so far so fast? Last week’s “47%” gaffe makes his past…er…uh… “misspeakings” sound like the Gettysburg address.

He was caught on video saying 47% of Americans are losers and leeches who rely on government for handouts and that's why they'll vote of Obama.

The scandal is not that he thinks this. I'd bet 99% of all WWSM (Wealthy White Straight Men) do. It's not even that he said it in public. Although nobody’s ever invited moi, I’d guess they say this stuff all the time at the country clubs, private islands and resorts they own. (And, as quiet as it's kept, the mainstream media’s heard it many times before, in spite of their "shocked, shocked" rhetoric. After all, their owners are almost all WWSM too).

No, the only difference is that he said it where some patriot with a camera - and muchas cojones - could record it and disperse it to YouTube and Mother Jones. I know it’s a cliché but something tells me the waiter did it. The latest word is that Jimmy Carter’s grandson had something to do with getting it out. Those Carter’s never quit, do they?

NOTE TO MYSELF: Nominate this person or persons for the Medal of Freedom. Or maybe even the Congressional Medal of Honor since they may have fired the winning volley in the class war. "Mother Jones" gets the Pulitzer, no contest.

When I started writing this a week ago, l already thought I had a great headline. "Take America Back…or Forward". I even designed a poster with the same line.

I was tempted to use something more topical like, "BIG NEWS: RICH GUYS BELIEVE IN CLASS WARFARE TOO" or "MITT ROMNEY WILL SAY ANYTHING TO WIN" or "MITT ROMNEY THINKS HALF OF AMERICANS ARE TOO LAZY TO LIVE".

Even David Brooks, the nice, clean conservative pundit at the New York Times, turned on the Mitt Man. His column last week, "Thurston Howell Romney" made him a traitor to his would-be class. But he quickly went back to being a right-wing beard in his next.

But, I'm rambling. Let me get to my point.

Is “white” America ready for reform?

You must remember this:

If it had been only up to “white” America, John McCain and Sarah Palin would be running for re-election now, not Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Let me repeat (with emphasis).

If it had been up only to “white” America, John McCain and Sarah Palin would be running for re-election now.

(This is assuming that the pressure of trying to turn around the massive ship of state Baby Bush ran to ground wouldn’t have killed 76 year old McCain. Just think, President Palin)

Only 43% of voting white Americans voted for Obama/Biden in 2008.

57% voted for McCain/Palin. 57% voted to take America back, not forward.

So the media is suddenly fascinated with the wrong number.

47% is not the issue. 57% is.

Will well over half of “white” American voters again vote to hand the nation back to Mitt Romney’s fellow country(club)men?

Of course, Dems can win without 50% of the…er…uh…”uncolored” vote, but what does that say about our nation? And now with disappointed young, idealistic “whites” now threatening to sleep in on election day - because Barack H. Obama couldn’t walk on water like Jesus H. Christ - will the number of “whites” who voted for going forward shrink even further?

Young whitefolks listen! The Repugnicans want to sell their lies, myths and fantasies about our nation's past as your future. They want you to believe they had everything working fine…until the blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, lazy union members and lily-livered liberals screwed things up. They’ll tell you, “If we could only go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, we'd be fine”.

Anyone who watched the G.O.P.’s convention saw the version of America they want to go back to - close up. It bore a striking resemblance to conventions of the 1920s, 30s and 40s and 50s. I remember watching them in the 60s on black & white TV. Only this time, there was no black. There were only “white” chamber of commerce types. It was like one of those “Get Rich Quick” infomercials that run on late-night.TV. I was half expectingTony Robbins, the self-help guru, to give the keynote. The Repugs might as well just tell everybody to go to the nearest casino instead of their polling places on election day. Instead of Social Security, they want to just give seniors vouchers to buy lottery tickets.

But, in spite of what the media is calling Romney’s amazing shrinking campaign, I'm not going to crack open the victory champagne bottle yet.

Why? Because I remember at almost exactly this time 4 years ago, the housing market burst, Lehman Brothers was declared bankrupt, the nation was smack-dab in the middle of two wars after 8 years of Baby Bush "leadership" and the start of the biggest drop in wealth in American history. And how did “white” America respond?

Most voted for the candidates of the party that had spent 8 years getting us into the mess in the first place. (This just in: The latest Politico/George Washington University poll shows RomRyan still leading ObamBiden 55 - 41% with the middle class.)

So the question now is the same as it was then. Will most “whites” still put their skin in the game ahead of anything else? Or will they finally give up on our nation’s racist, black or white past and step into the full-color future with the rest of US?

The Hank Williams, Jrs, Sarah Palins, Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelsons, Ted Nugents, Clint Eastwoods, Karl Roves, Rush Limbaughs, etc. of America have already shouted their vote. But they're just the most visible of the Whites Firsters. Who knows how many White Aryans Resisters, Survivalists and Tim McVeigh wanna-bes have the larders in their bunkers full and their arsenals overflowing, ready to fire the first shot in the next Civil War? Call me paranoid, but something tells me the four US Army guys arrested about a month ago for plotting an armed coup (and accused of killing a fellow plotter and his girlfriend) are just the tip of that humongous iceberg.

They all want to Take America Back …

…Back to a when working folks had no rights any wealthy boss had to respect.

…Back to the good ol' days when Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield and their fellow vulcans assured us that the war with Iraq was a cakewalk.

…Back to when a right-wing, Ayn Randian like Al Greenspan could be appointed the head of the Federal Reserve and assure us with haughty certainty that leaving Wall Street bankers and their new financial schemes alone was the key to never-ending prosperity.

…Back to 1919, before American women got the right to vote.

…Back to poll taxes and using state laws to keep the poor black, whites, browns and others from voting. (See new voter ID laws)

…Back to when the U.S. government seemed like a wholely-owned subsidiary of Goldman-Sachs.

…Back to a time when only rich corporations and individuals deserved welfare and/or tax breaks (See Mitt Romney's "47%” video).

…Back to laws designed to imprison black men and turn them back into slaves. (See Michele Alexanders’ great book, "The New Jim Crow")

…Back to the fiction of "don't ask, don't tell.” Or further.

…Back to when we had a president who considered global warming and evolution subjects to be debated with right-wing nuts and religious fanatics.

…Back to when Ku Klux Klanner and White Aryan Racists could lynch, torture rape and intimidate Jews, AfrAmericans, Catholics and anybody who stood up to them.

…Back to before ObamaCare (I just designed a T-shirt that reads, “Obama Cares. Romney Doesnt”). Back to where only private insurance company profits determined your chance to get coverage and your premiums.

…Back to a time when only wealthy, straight, white men had a chance to be president. Remember those days…just before November 4, 2008?

…Back to a segregated Army. (And while you’re at it, tell Jackie Robinson to stay in the Negro Leagues)

…Back to when, as noted in another supremely wrong Supreme Court decision, the “black” man “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” (Dred Scott decision, 1857)

Back to when the Southerners’ fiction of “Separate but Equal” was the law of the land?

…Back to the winner-take-all society Bill Clinton warned against in his great Dem Convention talk. RomRyan big donors want the Law of the Jungle to remain the law of the land.

…Back to when guys like Romney could claim, "We built America" and nobody would dare correct him. Nobody did when Cal Coolidge said, “The business of the American people is business” Period.

Back to when ideas like Social Securtiy, Medicare….and Obama Care were considered socialistic giveaways. (And anyone in a union was a Commie).

…Back to Baby Bush calling Michael D. Brown, his FEMA director after his Hurricane Katrina massive fail, saying. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job,"

…Back to when con arists and hustlers like Robert Reed, the defamed pseudo- religious conservative operative, can use the bible to get out the vote for any right-wing pol who pays him. (btw: According to a recent New York Times coverstory, he’s back!)

…Back to…well, need I go on?

Historically, every time our nation’s thinking, moral citizens have elected a leader to take our nation forward…closer to its loudly touted ideals, the morally and mentally challenged have done everything they could to take US back to the dark ages of when the GOGs (Gods of Greed) ruled. A decade after over 600, 000 Americans were killed in the war that freed the slaves, the South put them back in virtual chains for almost another 100 years with Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klans, poll taxes, sharecropping and Parchment prisons. One step forward, four steps backwards.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those old, “black”, left-wing, dyed in the wool, “See no evil” Obamans. Remember I’m the guy who wrote, “Barack Obama. The Token President?”, on the HuffPost exactly 3 years ago. And even though I still see room for improvement, he gets a solid B from me. (By comparison, I gave his predecessor, Baby Bush, an Z-)

BTW: And all you young “whites” who worked your butts off to elect Obama the first time, congratulations! You've earned your place in world history and America's future. You gave this nation a jump-start toward it's egalitarian ideals that rivals that of Abe's Emancipation Proclamation. But...and this is a BIG BUT - this is your chance to show older "white" heads (and the rest of the world) that you meant it. Tell your friends to stop whining, grow up - and go back to the polls again to seal the deal. Even Bill Clinton admitted he couldn’t have cleaned up the monumental mess the Repugs created in only 4 years.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Obama's re-election will settle all our problems. But it's a hellava down payment.

I'll call it "The 51% Solution". If we can get the majority of EurAmericans to embrace a multi-colored future instead of a black or white past we're well on our way to making this nation finally work...for all of US.

Then, in closing, at the risk of repeating myself (again):

The most important question is:

This November 6, will “white” America once again vote for their skin...or our country?

Will they choose to take America back....

Or forward?

BTWA: I want you to do your damnest to turn your regressive relatives and/or apathetic friends into Obamans. Make sure they're registered to vote, then wake them up November 6, and drive them to the polls with you. Our nation's future depends on you...again.

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Take America Back…or Forward? Lowell Thompson, 9-28-12

Take America Back…or Forward?
Lowell Thompson, 9-28-12