It struck me at the time that Americans would never elect a "Wimp" for
president.
Then I reviewed the list of those who held the title prior to George
Bush. Then the Media looked at this bland, meek appearing man and
seized upon the term, "Kinder, Gentler"
This should have alarmed the American People, this bold face lie.
Even his signing of the ADA could not override his careless use of
American Troops, and the murder of thousands of innocent people.
But still, looking back through the long list of men holding the
presidency, George Bush is in good company, America's "Murderers Row".
Carl Jarvis
On 12/10/ A Brief History of Everything That Happened Because of
George H.W. Bush's
> Insecurity
> By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
> 10 December 18
>
> He was called a wimp. He overcompensated. People went to jail and died.
>
> It's become fashionable in some circles this week to denounce the newly
> buried George. H.W. Bush as a war criminal, but that seems gratuitous.
> After
> all, from a technical standpoint, what American president isn't a war
> criminal? It's probably a short list.
>
> Thanks to the invasion(s) of Iraq, the bombing of civilians in places like
> Cambodia and Laos, Guantanamo Bay/torture, the overthrow of numerous
> democratically elected foreign regime, and support of repressive states
> like
> Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, "war criminal" is kind of a weak accusation to
> throw at a commander-in-chief.
>
> We've had a few presidents that would have proudly tattooed the term on
> their pecs or had it emblazoned on their limo flags. In this sense, George
> H.W. "Poppy" Bush didn't particularly stand out, compared to his son
> least of all.
>
> If anything, the defining characteristic of the elder Bush is that he didn'
> t really have one - at least, not as a politician. There's evidence that as
> a Navy pilot he showed considerable bravery and ingenuity. He came from a
> generation when children of the very rich still fought in the wars their
> parents arranged to enter, and Poppy flew real combat planes by the age of
> 19, escaping probable death by cannibalism in one remarkable episode.
>
> He also supposedly had a legit 11 handicap, which isn't bad for a
> president. Only Jack Kennedy and, oddly enough, Donald Trump are said to
> have better scores. (Trump is actually a crack golfer despite an
> even-for-presidents bad rep for cheating.)
>
> For most of his political life, George Herbert Walker Bush was basically
> the
> unimaginative proxy for other powerful interests. He was always the front
> man for the fellas at the club, be it Skull and Bones or the CIA (he
> retains
> the dubious distinction of being the only spy head to become president). He
> excelled in this brute-behind-the-scenes role.
>
> But once fashioning himself as something other than Ronald Reagan's
> wingman, politics demanded he offer the national public glimpses of his
> personality. Sadly, he was president before he found out he didn't really
> have one.
>
> This would have been fine, if he'd been a more confident person. But Bush
> was not satisfied to be remembered as a dull imperial steward, and his
> flailing efforts to carve out a macho personal myth on par with Reagan or
> Kennedy marred both his presidency and large swaths of the planet.
>
> Unable to let insults stand, he dreamed up stunt after stunt in an attempt
> to counter Heathers-style media taunts that grew out of inside jokes
> circulated in Washington during the Reagan years.
>
> His presidency turned into an endless cycle: Bush would do something
> goofy/out of touch, the press would bash his brains in for it and he'd
> overreact, often by having someone bombed or jailed.
>
> Here are the top five moments in this progression:
>
> 1. The "manhood problem"
>
> In the age of Trump, it looks like a misdemeanor, but people forget Poppy
> was a pioneer of fake news. A key moment came in his October 12th, 1984
> debate against congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro.
>
> Bush seemed to resent being thrust into the role of first male to debate a
> woman on the presidential stage. A Bonesman to the core, that wasn't the
> history he wanted to make. He was hyper-aggressive throughout, and in a key
> moment, over-reached factually. Referring to the deaths of Marines in
> Beirut
> at the hands of terrorists, Bush said:
>
> "For somebody to suggest, as our two opponents have… these men died in
> shame - they better not tell the parents of those young Marines."
>
> But neither Ferraro nor Walter Mondale had ever uttered anything of the
> sort. Ferraro pounced, saying, "No one has ever said that those young men
> who were killed through the negligence of this Administration and others
> ever died in shame."
>
> Mondale labeled the accusation "unpardonable" and demanded an apology. The
> take-cornered Veep refused.
>
> The day after the debate, Bush gave an address to a bunch of longshoremen
> in
> Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was overheard saying, "I tried to kick a little
> ass." If you believe Kitty Kelley's account in The Family, this is what
> happened next:
>
> Hours later his staff showed up on the press plane wearing buttons that
> said, "We kicked a little ass." Some reporters started calling the Vice
> President "Kick-Ass George," others wore hats made of jockstraps.
>
> A few days later, Barbara Bush, while engaged in what the New York Times
> described as "banter" with reporters, said Ferraro was a
> "four-million-dollar - I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich." Poppy's
> press secretary, Peter Teeley, said Ferraro was "too bitchy."
>
> It was absurd enough that the former Yale first baseman fled to the company
> of longshoremen after his debate with Ferraro, but things got even sillier
> when he told the press the "kick a little ass" remark was an "old Texas
> football expression" that he and his children (remember that part) used
> "all the time."
>
> After all this, Mondale decided to take a shot at Bush, right in the
> jockstrap. He said Bush "doesn't have the manhood to apologize."
>
> A few weeks later, the Doonesbury comic strip - which was a big deal in an
> age when everyone read newspapers - ran a cartoon playing on the theme of
> Bush's "manhood problem." Cartoonist Garry Trudeau had newsman character
> Roland Hedley Jr. doing a standup outside the White House, announcing, "In
> a White House ceremony today, Bush will formally place his embattled
> manhood
> in a blind trust."
>
> The legend of Bush's "manhood problem" had begun. It's impossible to
> tally the final consequences of this series of events, but it's not crazy
> to suggest that our ongoing bombing of the Middle East three decades later
> is due at last in part to it. Because of…
>
> 2. The "wimp factor"
>
> The Bush family never got over the Doonesbury thing. "He's been reduced to
> a cartoon," fumed son Jeb in a 1987 Newsweek cover story called "BUSH
> BATTLES THE WIMP FACTOR" that, to be fair, was one of the all-time lows in
> campaign journalism. The Newsweek piece was one of the worst examples of a
> type of campaign reporting that involves pundits formalizing the inane
> Beltway caricatures of politicians.
>
> Bush throughout Reagan's presidency had been the target of razzing
> depicting him as a lackey, Reagan's brown-nosing yes-man, or worse. There
> were a lot of jokes playing on the theme of Bush "serving under Ronald
> Reagan," and some suggested he should add Reagan UN Ambassador Jeane
> Kirkpatrick to his ticket to add "machismo" for his 1988 run.
>
> The Newsweek piece formalized all of this. It had some true observations
> ("His political identity was fuzzy from the start"), but mainly focused on
> a "problem" that Bush had an "image" of a "guy who takes direction," a
> character issue the magazine claimed 51 percent of the electorate heading
> into the 1988 election believed "poses problems for his candidacy."
>
> After the "Wimp" cover, Doonesbury doubled down - among other things,
> depicting Bush as literally invisible, which caused the Bushes to overreact
> in historic fashion. Bush himself admitted in an interview that he wanted
> to
> "kick the hell" out of Trudeau dating back to 1984, and his sons George
> and Jeb actually reached out to the cartoonist, who was a Yale classmate of
> W. This is in Poppy's recollection:
>
> ″Trudeau says to our son, 'Well, I hope your family doesn't take this
> personally.' And George says, 'They don't take it personally, but my
> brother (Jeb) wanted to come up and kick your ass all over New York."
>
> This all seems absurd now, but Bush spent the rest of his political career
> beating back the wimp/manhood thing.
>
> He made sure the press saw him eating pork rinds on the campaign trail. He
> had himself photographed in a nuclear bomber. An infamous exchange with Dan
> Rather in January 1988 was informed by the "wimp" subtext. Rather was
> pursuing a legitimate line of questioning about why Bush had gone along
> with
> the monstrous Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages plan, when Bush lashed out.
>
> "I don't think it's fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran,"
> he said. "How would you like it if I judged your whole career by those
> seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?"
>
> Bush was referring to Rather's infamous tantrum-walkout after the CBS
> Evening News was shortened to finish a U.S. Open broadcast.
>
> After the exchange with Rather, Poppy tore off his earpiece, but his mic
> was
> still on. "That guy makes Lesley Stahl look like a pussy," he barked,
> nonsensically, referring to the CBS journalist. He seemed to be reaching
> for
> some other insult.
>
> Bush went on to get elected, among other things, thanks to the media
> deciding to launch an even more asinine "wimp" campaign against Mike
> Dukakis. The Duke's crime was being a small Greek man who allowed himself
> to be photographed in a tank.
>
> Without the triple foils of Rather, Dukakis and "Veepette" Dan Quayle
> (Quayle was often depicted as a Himbo, which might have been part of the
> reason he was picked), George H.W. Bush might have struggled to get
> elected.
>
> This was the ultimate example of how the press screws itself with its own
> phony narratives. Instead of answering questions about Iran-Contra and
> other
> serious issues, Bush got to run, successfully, against his own concocted
> "wimp" image.
>
> In this, he was aided by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who composed Bush's
> hyper-manly 1988 nomination acceptance address. Bush's speech was basically
> a long-winded promise to kick more little asses, but with real arms this
> time.
>
> "Weakness tempts aggressors. Strength stops them," he growled. "I will
> not allow this country to be made weak again. Never."
>
> His image rose with male voters after this address. Then he got elected,
> and
> started picking fights all over the place.
>
> 3. The "rite of passage"
>
> After Bush's election, Doonesbury infuriatingly refused to stop depicting
> him as invisible. What the hell? Wasn't being president enough to end this
> intransigence?
>
> In December 1989, Bush invaded Panama, ostensibly to capture former
> American
> client/human rights monster Manuel Noriega. The New York Times cheered Bush
> for going through the "rite of passage" of the presidency, which involved
> "a need to demonstrate the willingness to shed blood."
>
> The paper was one of many to describe the invasion as a triumph over both
> Newsweek and Doonesbury:
>
> For President Bush… a man still portrayed in the Doonesbury comic strip as
> the invisible President - showing his steel had a particular significance.
>
> The Ottawa Citizen ran a typically Canadian series of articles about the
> military action, focusing as foreigners sometimes do on things like the
> deaths of actual people. "Fearful civilians run for cover," read one
> December 21st, 1989 headline, describing "women and children" out on the
> streets fleeing in terror during shoreline bombing. At the bottom of the
> page there was a blunt picture of Poppy over the caption: "Wimp label
> gone."
>
> But bombing a few Panamanians wasn't enough. People simply refused to
> forget certain episodes, like the time Poppy was overheard asking for just
> another "splash" of coffee. His efforts to "rub off" what the New York
> Times euphemistically called "the Patina" never stopped.
>
> Even within his own party, Bush was still getting it, even after Panama. In
> 1990, columnist George Will accused the Bush administration of
> "intellectual and moral flaccidity" and worried about "the sagging of
> America into a peripheral role abroad."
>
> George Will using the words "flaccid" and "sagging" is about as profane
> as country club Republicanism used to get. In a later insult, Will's
> brother-by-another-overused-Thesaurus, William Safire, ripped an
> insufficiently aggressive Bush address about the collapse of the Soviet
> Union as the "Chicken Kiev" speech.
>
> Bush then invaded Iraq. In an act of breathtaking pettiness and
> self-involvement, he chose Newsweek as the venue to explain to Americans
> why
> their sons and daughters were being sent to get shot halfway around the
> world. "Why We Are In The Gulf," was published in November 1990, about 10
> months after George Will metaphorically accused him of having a soft penis.
>
> About half-a-year later, the president appeared at the Malibu home of Jerry
> Weintraub, producer of The Karate Kid. He also played a round of golf that
> day with his ex-boss Reagan at the Sherwood Country Club, where, as the
> Times noted, "the tee markers are little brass archers." After the game,
> he told reporters he was still pissed about the Newsweek thing.
>
> "You're talking to the 'wimp,'" he said. "You're talking to the guy
> that had a cover of a national magazine, that I'll never forgive, put that
> label on me."
>
> In the end, Bush finally got some pop culture credit for being a mean
> dirtbag. The Simpsons had him wrestling Homer in a drain pipe, with Bush
> saying: "If he thinks George Bush will stay out of the sewer, he doesn't
> know George Bush!"
>
>
>
>
>
> 4. Bush vs. crack
>
> Bush once sent a poor black kid to a real prison for real years for the
> crime of being a political prop.
>
> In the summer of 1989, while vacationing avec speedboat in his
> Kennebunkport, Maine, estate, Bush came up with the brilliant idea, or at
> least acceded to one dreamed up by aides. He would do a live address to the
> country while holding up a bag of crack that had been sold just outside the
> White House. The idea was to show that crack could "be bought anywhere."
>
> The problem was, nobody sold crack in Lafayette Square near the White
> House,
> which is where Bush aides wanted the crack found. There is a long backstory
> here that involves administration officials tasking the DEA with securing a
> bust near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They ended up having an undercover
> agent
> contact an 18-year-old named Keith Jackson from a poor neighborhood in
> southeast Washington. He was asked to bring his wares to the White House.
>
> "Where the fuck is the White House?" he asked.
>
> "We had to manipulate him to get him down there," a DEA agent later
> admitted. "It wasn't easy."
>
> Bush ended up doing his idiotic address to the nation about the dangers of
> crack. It had pretty much the opposite effect of what he intended.
>
> Almost immediately, Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live did a mock Oval
> Office speech that savaged Bush, prefacing the crack tale by telling
> audiences he'd been "doing loop-de-loops" in his speedboat in
> Kennebunkport and not catching anything while fishing ("not… the…
> point!" Carvey quipped). Carvey then pulled out a giant bag of "coke"
> which, he joked, had been sold "three feet from this desk."
>
> I had to research this incident for a book about the late Eric Garner
> called
> I Can't Breathe (Garner was also busted for crack dealing around that
> time), and one of the amazing and underreported aspects of this case was
> that Jackson, who was clearly entrapped in the most absurd fashion, ended
> up
> doing eight years in prison so that Bush could have his stupid photo op.
>
> The federal judge in the case, Stanley Sporkin, wanted desperately to not
> impose a stiff sentence on Jackson, but - in a problem none of the Bush
> aides who cooked up this dumb scheme thought of - mandatory sentencing laws
> handcuffed Sporkin. So the kid was sentenced to 10 years (he was later
> paroled). Sporkin, a former CIA general counsel appointed by Reagan,
> suggested Jackson ask Bush for a pardon:
>
> "He used you, in the sense of making a big drug speech… But he's a decent
> man, a man of great compassion. Maybe he can find a way to reduce at least
> some of that sentence."
>
> Bush blew that off and instead issued pardons to six Iran-Contra defendants
> on Christmas Day in 1992.
>
> 5. The apple
>
> It is absolutely logical to blame George H.W. Bush for the catastrophes of
> his son's presidency.
>
> For one thing, Poppy surely helped get Bush The Younger elected, by being
> part of a narrative that made W look human. A lot of the male campaign
> reporters liked W because, as a reporter put it to me once in '04, "Hey,
> the guy had a dick for a father."
>
> If you want an example of how that reality impacted the thinking of even
> Bush's harshest critics, watch Oliver Stone's W. By the end, the film has
> you rooting for the try-hard cheerleader forced by fate to swim upstream
> against King Daddy's sneering disdain over things like not being able to
> hold down a real job before the age of 40. The opening line of the W.
> trailer is Poppy's voice, played by master character actor James Cromwell,
> sneering at his disappointing heir, "If I remember correctly, you didn't
> like the sporting goods job."
>
> The plot of that underrated movie: "Hey, I can be a crappy president,
> too!"
>
> As bitterly as W wanted to outdo his Dad - particularly by winning
> re-election and conquering all of Iraq - he had been even more offended by
> the "Wimp Factor" piece than his father. When the Rather episode happened
> in 1988, young W reportedly stormed into his Dad's campaign headquarters
> yelling, "Macho! Macho!"
>
> When he himself became president, W basically set fire to the Middle East
> in
> defiance of "moderates" like Colin Powell, in order to show everyone how
> not-flaccid the Bushes were. The fact that Saddam Hussein "tried to kill my
> Dad" was somehow openly a factor in all of this.
>
> W's belief that his father's failure to take Baghdad and topple Saddam had
> cost him re-election in 1992 - ironically, Bush's own son believed his Dad
> to be a wimp about that - was a major reason we ended up occupying the
> whole
> country, for years, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives at the very
> least.
>
> The younger Bush - said to be aggrieved both by the "Wimp Factor" charge
> and by Daddy's vacillating stances between gunboat diplomacy and a
> "kindler and gentler" nation - made being "decisive" the cornerstone of
> his moronic presidency.
>
> We now know his father disagreed with his son about Iraq.
> Characteristically
> he was too passive-aggressive to confront him head-on, reportedly using a
> Brent Scowcroft editorial to express his doubts about junior's military
> misadventures.
>
> Years later, we not only are still in the Middle East, but have a Star
> Wars-style permanent garrison of bases with which we've droned and bombed
> the region more or less uninterruptedly since the early 2000s.
>
> Poppy's last act, in death, was to be elevated to icon status by the same
> Democrat-neocon alliance that turned the funeral of John McCain into
> something like a national religious rite.
>
> Since one of Donald Trump's defining characteristics is his lack of
> reverence for anyone who's not himself, the establishment-in-exile has made
> Trump's lack of public prostration before Poppy's corpse another
> unforgivable blow to the dignity of Washingtonhood.
>
> Brian Krassenstein of the flying #Resistance Krassensteins notes that Poppy
> once cursed at the TV at the sight of Trump, so "I like George H.W. Bush
> even more now." (Why did you like him before?)
>
> And the Washington Post went ape because Trump didn't recite the Apostles'
> Creed as part of the interminable Soviet-style funeral ceremonies of this
> week.
>
> The paper said Trump stood, "lips not moving," while all the other
> dignitaries paid homage to the fallen patriarch. This was likely because
> Trump is an ignoramus and didn't know he was supposed to read, or maybe
> he's not actually religious, or maybe he was thinking about his next
> cheeseburger - whatever, it became a thing. Once again, Poppy was elevated
> by a less-popular foil.
>
> Bush the elder had some decent qualities, or at least relatable ones. He
> served his country bravely and was famous for the thoughtful notes he sent
> to almost everyone, demonstrating a memory for people that would be
> commendable in the social director of a cruise liner, or the president of a
> charity.
>
> Bush's problem was that he was totally ruthless about pursuing real power
> without much of a clue why - "the vision thing." To win an election he
> sank to Trumpian lows with the Willie Horton episode, even as his reasons
> for running seemed elusive.
>
> He's being elevated this week, among other things as a way of taking a shot
> at Trump by comparison. But let's not confuse that with George H.W. Bush
> being a great president. He was kind of a hack, actually. In fact, maybe
> the
> most special thing about him was a lack of a sense of humor so extreme,
> people may have lost their lives to it.
>
>
>
> Email This Page
>
>
> e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
>
>
>
>
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
The Corruption of America's Holidays
Name a Holiday celebrated by Americans that has not been exploited by
our Capitalist Overlords.
Holidays are called Holidays because they are single day celebrations.
Otherwise they would be called Holiweeks(Holy weeks).
But the corporate exploiters are not bothered by such limitations.
Take for example President's Day. Did I say, Day? Madison Avenue
calls it "President's day week long sales.
Each Holiday has a buffer of several days around it to enable the
product pushers to do their thing.
The granddaddy of all, is of course, Christmas. Christmas has pretty
much shoved past Thanksgiving day, since Turkey Day sales are mostly
limited to food sales. Even Halloween has to fight for shelf space
with Christmas. The preparation for that one day, that Holy Day of
Love and Giving and Sharing, that Holiest of Holy Days for Christians,
has had its purpose totally corrupted by Commercialism.
Jesus, whose birthday some folks still think Christmas represents, has
been pretty much replaced by Santa Claus, as the chief Product Pusher.
Remember the tale of the frog who sat in the pan of water? The water
slowly heated up and the frog adjusted to the rising
temperature...until it boiled to death.
We have been slowly adjusting to rising gluttony. One fine day we
will realize, too late, that we have been consumed by our own fat.
Carl Jarvis
our Capitalist Overlords.
Holidays are called Holidays because they are single day celebrations.
Otherwise they would be called Holiweeks(Holy weeks).
But the corporate exploiters are not bothered by such limitations.
Take for example President's Day. Did I say, Day? Madison Avenue
calls it "President's day week long sales.
Each Holiday has a buffer of several days around it to enable the
product pushers to do their thing.
The granddaddy of all, is of course, Christmas. Christmas has pretty
much shoved past Thanksgiving day, since Turkey Day sales are mostly
limited to food sales. Even Halloween has to fight for shelf space
with Christmas. The preparation for that one day, that Holy Day of
Love and Giving and Sharing, that Holiest of Holy Days for Christians,
has had its purpose totally corrupted by Commercialism.
Jesus, whose birthday some folks still think Christmas represents, has
been pretty much replaced by Santa Claus, as the chief Product Pusher.
Remember the tale of the frog who sat in the pan of water? The water
slowly heated up and the frog adjusted to the rising
temperature...until it boiled to death.
We have been slowly adjusting to rising gluttony. One fine day we
will realize, too late, that we have been consumed by our own fat.
Carl Jarvis
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Fwd: [acb-chat] (no subject)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 18:54:55 +0000
Subject: Re: [acb-chat] (no subject)
To: "General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
range of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
whatever comes to mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion
list." <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Cc: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Andy and all Blind People doing their crumby best.
Personally, I don't like to think in terms of whose fault it is. It
just is what it is.
And yes, each of us could do more for ourselves. But why focus on
"Us"? We could say that our government, which is set in place to care
and protect All of the People, could do much more for all citizens.
But as I say, it is what it is. It is what we decide to do with that
which is around us, that matters.
William has presented himself as the "rugged individual", the "I'm for
Me First!" sort of fellow. On the other end, I am a "Groupie", a
fellow who believes that many heads solve the problems better. Over
the years I, along with others, gathered blind people and their
friends together into Support Groups. The ACB and the NFB and the
Blinded Veterans are, among other things, nation-wide support groups.
Which course of action should we involve ourselves in, William's
Rugged Individualism or a strong nation-wide support group? We can
begin by asking which philosophy gets results. William's approach
seems to have done William a good turn...but most of us don't know
William, so we can only take his word. We can turn to the Group
Action Organizations. Now we can see a wide trail of accomplishments
and improvements. I would suggest that anyone really doubting the
achievements can do a little research, so I will not lengthen this
note by listing some of them. But here is an interesting fact, many
of those blind folk who shun support groups, and even ridicule them,
have benefited by the collective actions that have resulted in better
services and a move closer to equality. It is, in my opinion, the
continuous activities of strong support groups that will continue to
improve our lives, and the lives of future blind people.
As a "joiner" I appreciate a side benefit. I have a huge number of
good friends. I understand that this is a personal benefit, that some
folks like their solitude, but it's a real appeal for those of us who
enjoy sitting around at a banquet, laughing with friends and shoveling
good food and drink down our collective throats.
Carl Jarvis, Jefferson County Council of the Blind secretary
Co-Director, Peninsula Rehabilitation Services
Co-Founder, Lilac Blind Foundation in Spokane, WA.
Retired Director of the Orientation and Training Center for the
Washington State Department of Services for the Blind.
Former Assistant Director for the Washington State Department of
Services for the Blind
etc., etc., etc.,
On 12/18/18, Andy Baracco via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
> I do think that Will's statement was rather harsh, but I also think that
> many blind people can do a lot more than they think they can. This isn't
> their fault, but the fault of all of the enablers out there who are
> convinced that blind people can't do anything without help.
>
> Andy
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dan Weiner via acb-chat" <acb-chat@acblists.org>
> To: "Jack Heim via acb-chat" <acb-chat@acblists.org>
> Cc: "Dan Weiner" <dcwein@dcwein.cnc.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 6:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [acb-chat] (no subject)
>
>
> Will, I'm glad you have been successful, but I do agree with the other
> guy, why even post this on ACB's list, just go on with your life and
> don't even bother with other blind people, after all you've helped
> yourself and done it all.
>
>
> Unless it is to show us how successful you are and that you feel
> satisfaction in telling us all about this because you have done it many
> times.
>
>
> I wish you all the best,
>
>
>
> Dan
>
>
> On 12/18/2018 9:22 AM, Jack Heim via acb-chat wrote:
>> LOL! No irony what so ever in posting this on an ACB list, right?
>>
>> I mean, seriously, do people give the slightest thought what so ever to
>> the stuff they post to this list?
>>
>> On 12/17/18 5:54 PM, William Grussenmeyer via acb-chat wrote:
>>> No thanks to doing good or helping people. Life is a competition and i
>>> only help myself.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>>> On Dec 17, 2018, at 1:47 PM, Demaya, Diego via acb-chat
>>>> <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Guys,
>>>>
>>>> The problems we witness daily, whether a mass shooting or the tragedy of
>>>>
>>>> Yemen, has nothing to do with any of us as individuals. Please do not
>>>> get caught up in the stupid blame game played by the agenda-driven mass
>>>>
>>>> media and agenda-driven politicians. No need to be spreading blame on
>>>> issues and situations that are beyond the control of anyone individual.
>>>>
>>>> I remind folks that what our politicians decide in our best interest is
>>>>
>>>> nothing of the kind. And, there is no cynicism in embracing the view
>>>> that money does indeed protect or shield any individual from just about
>>>>
>>>> any type of situation -- including bankrupting large corporations
>>>> without regard to employees, corrupting influences of group-think in
>>>> politics, political corruption, law enforcement corruption, gutting of
>>>> our Constitution, etc. If anyone feels that money is not what controls
>>>> all there is, then please name me a single corporate executive who has
>>>> gone to jail for bankrupting viable profit-making companies, murdering
>>>> his/her spouse, willfully committing medical malpractice, poisoning
>>>> entire populations with pollutants, harmful chemicals, or plain water,
>>>> abusing Presidential privilege, etc. And, no, do not site me these
>>>> seldom occasional incidences where we are told that justice has been
>>>> served by sending some rich idiot scapegoat to jail. Money does indeed
>>>> impose a harsh reality: greed, fear,, and power.
>>>>
>>>> Last I heard about the great Sears corporation shutting down was that
>>>> while its CEO was busily closing down stores around the country and
>>>> laying off thousands, he was also busy securing his personal private
>>>> island estate in Florida complete with an around the clock armed
>>>> military-style security force. Rush Limbau resides in a 40 thousand
>>>> square foot home and has a private security guarded "bunker" from which
>>>>
>>>> he sends out his lying message to his loyal flock. Let's see, HP forked
>>>>
>>>> over 100 million dollars to Carly as severance just so she would stop
>>>> further ruining the company... Gosh, should I continue? How about
>>>> Goldman Sacks? Think anyone there went to prison for defrauding billions
>>>>
>>>> of dollars from people like you and I who lost their investments and
>>>> homes? What about Weiss Fargo and that fraud case where they created
>>>> fee-generating accounts for people who never asked?
>>>>
>>>> And get this: Obama at least had the decency of putting into place the
>>>> CFPB that could financially punish banks and mortgage companies for
>>>> wrongdoing -- mind you not criminally -- but at least financially. Guess
>>>>
>>>> what? Mr. Trump came in and his third day he promptly deleted the CFPB
>>>> from existence! No, Obama was no angel, but at least he did some small
>>>> things that made some small sense --
>>>> even if no one could go to prison. In Trumps hay day of the now, not
>>>> even a small semblance of justice, like the CFPB, can stand. You see,
>>>> these monsters have progressed beyond simple capitalist greed: they will
>>>>
>>>> burn the planet down so long as they get what they want --
>>>> even if it kills them as well!
>>>>
>>>> Regarding criminals who kill people in mass shootings and/or at a liquor
>>>>
>>>> store robbery, how can such an atrocity be blamed on anyone except for
>>>> the perpetrators? Sure, perhaps the getaway driver should not be put on
>>>>
>>>> death row or given life in prison if he did not kill anyone, but no
>>>> criminal justice system is perfect. But again, I reject any personal
>>>> blame for such events -- because they are entirely beyond my control --
>>>>
>>>> regardless whether I like guns and support the Second Amendment or not,
>>>>
>>>> or whether anyone misguidedly believes that banning guns will keep
>>>> children and innocent people safe from deranged killers.
>>>>
>>>> Next, I find it ironically cynical to naively believe that an single
>>>> individual doing a good deed for his/her community or friends will
>>>> change the global elite powers that presently run all nations and
>>>> economic systems for the better? The global elite powers are only in it
>>>>
>>>> for themselves, so trust me, they do indeed mean harm for all of us. To
>>>>
>>>> them we are nothing more than poorly educated and ignorant consumers who
>>>>
>>>> are hooked on their goods! Just look at the iPhone psychosis or
>>>> PlayStation phenomenon if you do not believe me!
>>>>
>>>> Definition of Globalism or New World Order: The ultimate goal of the new
>>>>
>>>> world order as an ideology is total centralization of economic and
>>>> governmental power into the hands of a select and unaccountable
>>>> bureaucracy made up of international financiers. This is governance
>>>> according to the dictates of Plato's Republic; a delusional fantasy
>>>> world in which benevolent philosopher kings, supposedly smarter and more
>>>>
>>>> objective than the rest of us, rule from on high with scientific
>>>> precision and wisdom. It is a world where administrators become gods.
>>>>
>>>> Consider the statement above closely.
>>>>
>>>> Hence, I advise folks that they should indeed be kind to one another,
>>>> respect our mutual politics and religions, and indeed do a good deed for
>>>>
>>>> someone, or several people, in dire need. But the difference is that you
>>>>
>>>> should do it because it makes you feel good -- not because it might make
>>>>
>>>> some other bunch feel good. For instance, I feel no guilt about what is
>>>>
>>>> happening in Yemen or our own border with Mexico. Such problems are made
>>>>
>>>> up of various complex equations and machinations for which blame can no
>>>>
>>>> doubt be spread quite widely -- though certainly not on any single
>>>> person. I am human and I am limited to making choices as a single person
>>>>
>>>> and for me only. I do not make choices for other people -- unless they
>>>> are children or mentally unable to sidestep a looming danger. Yes, I
>>>> still apply common sense, social decency, and the occasional rational
>>>> logical approach to problems I encounter -- both personal and political.
>>>>
>>>> Yet even then, any choices or thoughts I may have are strictly my own.
>>>> Whether anyone wishes to make a personal choice themselves and follow
>>>> anything I say or believe, this is a matter, again, entirely up to that
>>>>
>>>> person alone, and I will not be responsible for that person's actions.
>>>>
>>>> This is not about disliking each other on this forum. This is not about
>>>>
>>>> arguing silly political differences. This is about critically
>>>> recognizing reality from fantasy. But just because we face real issues
>>>> on a daily basis does not mean we should forget what is truly important.
>>>>
>>>> The media, politicians, and global elites want the rest of us to stay
>>>> distracted and arguing with each other about the issues... Indeed, here
>>>>
>>>> is how much they care about what we think:
>>>>
>>>> Wolves don't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep...
>>>>
>>>> In the end, we as individuals are entitled to believe whatever we
>>>> wish -- and no one is permitted to openly criticize unless otherwise
>>>> invited to do so! So, if anyone on this forum takes someone else's'
>>>> shared opinion personally, please do not cry havoc if you invited others
>>>>
>>>> to comment.
>>>>
>>>> I leave you with great words from one of my favorite rockers, Elvis
>>>> Costello:
>>>>
>>>> "What's so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding?"
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Diego
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> .
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> D
>>>> Diego Demaya, J.D.
>>>> Human Resources Adviser -- Director ADA Technical Assistance
>>>> Southwest ADA Center (Region VI TX, LA, NM, OK, AR)
>>>> TIRR Research Center – 2nd Floor – Suite 212
>>>> Memorial Hermann Healthcare System
>>>> 1333 Moursund St.
>>>> Houston, TX 77030
>>>> (713) 797-7114 Office Direct
>>>> (800) 949-4232 Toll Free
>>>> E-Mail: diego.demaya@memorialhermann.org
>>>> Web: www.SouthwestADA.org
>>>>
>>>> Disclaimers and Notices
>>>>
>>>> This communication constitutes neither legal advice nor a determination
>>>>
>>>> of your rights under any law. This is technical assistance and informal
>>>>
>>>> guidance. The opinions and/or observations expressed herein, if any, are
>>>>
>>>> those of the author and do not represent those of the Southwest ADA
>>>> Center. Reading this response does not create an attorney-client
>>>> relationship with the author or with the Southwest ADA Center.
>>>>
>>>> Copyright © Diego Demaya - 2003-2018 - All Rights Reserved –
>>>> Individuals, news reporting organizations, corporations, government
>>>> representatives, or other organizations may neither reprint nor quote
>>>> from this response without written consent from the author. This
>>>> communication may not be distributed through any means, including, and
>>>> not limited to, digital file transfer, upload or posting on any Social
>>>> Media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, LinkedIn, online
>>>> blogs, by fax or hard copy print-out, or texting without the expressed
>>>> approval of the author or as otherwise stated in the body of this
>>>> correspondence.
>>>>
>>>> ****************************************************************************
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Bob via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
>>>> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 10:54 AM
>>>> To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> range of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion
>>>> list.
>>>> Cc: Bob
>>>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [acb-chat] (no subject)
>>>>
>>>> Carl:
>>>>
>>>> That is a real stretch for analysis.
>>>>
>>>>> On 12/17/18, Carl Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>>> How many reports such as the one below must we see before we realize
>>>>> that there is blood on all of our hands?
>>>>> When a robber held up a liquor store and gunned down the clerk, the
>>>>> police also arrested his accomplice, who sat at the curb behind the
>>>>> wheel of the get away car. Even though he did not enter the store,
>>>>> nor did he have a weapon on him, and he claimed to know nothing about
>>>>> his buddy's intentions, he was charged and sentenced for murder.
>>>>> If that is true under our laws, then we all, all Americans are guilty
>>>>> of the murders of thousands of Yemen citizens.
>>>>>
>>>>> US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus
>>>>> Eleven adults also died and 79 people were wounded
>>>>> Bomb sold to Saudi Arabia was made by Lockheed Martin
>>>>> list end
>>>>>
>>>>> Julian Borger
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.acblists.org_mailman_listinfo_acb-2Dchat&d=DwICaQ&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=FesoZLoZqJVow9GCPNQt2QRrD6MkMiayIXjx2kQdv0c&s=rb-Q7gF8p5ZY74opx1LYjA0CfjNg0XEcAzTKcOPAdDY&e=
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
>>>> TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=HTTP-3A__BOB-2DCLARK.COM&d=DwICaQ&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=FesoZLoZqJVow9GCPNQt2QRrD6MkMiayIXjx2kQdv0c&s=GVPSQG2pM4mDDm7-RwSQfoktHBvdrqIFdvA8bPBj5lE&e=
>>>> Telephone: 800-345-9760
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.acblists.org_mailman_listinfo_acb-2Dchat&d=DwICaQ&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=FesoZLoZqJVow9GCPNQt2QRrD6MkMiayIXjx2kQdv0c&s=rb-Q7gF8p5ZY74opx1LYjA0CfjNg0XEcAzTKcOPAdDY&e=
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> acb-chat mailing list
>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>>
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> acb-chat mailing list
> acb-chat@acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
acb-chat mailing list
acb-chat@acblists.org
http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-chat
From: Carl Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 18:54:55 +0000
Subject: Re: [acb-chat] (no subject)
To: "General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
range of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
whatever comes to mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion
list." <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Cc: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Andy and all Blind People doing their crumby best.
Personally, I don't like to think in terms of whose fault it is. It
just is what it is.
And yes, each of us could do more for ourselves. But why focus on
"Us"? We could say that our government, which is set in place to care
and protect All of the People, could do much more for all citizens.
But as I say, it is what it is. It is what we decide to do with that
which is around us, that matters.
William has presented himself as the "rugged individual", the "I'm for
Me First!" sort of fellow. On the other end, I am a "Groupie", a
fellow who believes that many heads solve the problems better. Over
the years I, along with others, gathered blind people and their
friends together into Support Groups. The ACB and the NFB and the
Blinded Veterans are, among other things, nation-wide support groups.
Which course of action should we involve ourselves in, William's
Rugged Individualism or a strong nation-wide support group? We can
begin by asking which philosophy gets results. William's approach
seems to have done William a good turn...but most of us don't know
William, so we can only take his word. We can turn to the Group
Action Organizations. Now we can see a wide trail of accomplishments
and improvements. I would suggest that anyone really doubting the
achievements can do a little research, so I will not lengthen this
note by listing some of them. But here is an interesting fact, many
of those blind folk who shun support groups, and even ridicule them,
have benefited by the collective actions that have resulted in better
services and a move closer to equality. It is, in my opinion, the
continuous activities of strong support groups that will continue to
improve our lives, and the lives of future blind people.
As a "joiner" I appreciate a side benefit. I have a huge number of
good friends. I understand that this is a personal benefit, that some
folks like their solitude, but it's a real appeal for those of us who
enjoy sitting around at a banquet, laughing with friends and shoveling
good food and drink down our collective throats.
Carl Jarvis, Jefferson County Council of the Blind secretary
Co-Director, Peninsula Rehabilitation Services
Co-Founder, Lilac Blind Foundation in Spokane, WA.
Retired Director of the Orientation and Training Center for the
Washington State Department of Services for the Blind.
Former Assistant Director for the Washington State Department of
Services for the Blind
etc., etc., etc.,
On 12/18/18, Andy Baracco via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
> I do think that Will's statement was rather harsh, but I also think that
> many blind people can do a lot more than they think they can. This isn't
> their fault, but the fault of all of the enablers out there who are
> convinced that blind people can't do anything without help.
>
> Andy
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dan Weiner via acb-chat" <acb-chat@acblists.org>
> To: "Jack Heim via acb-chat" <acb-chat@acblists.org>
> Cc: "Dan Weiner" <dcwein@dcwein.cnc.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 6:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [acb-chat] (no subject)
>
>
> Will, I'm glad you have been successful, but I do agree with the other
> guy, why even post this on ACB's list, just go on with your life and
> don't even bother with other blind people, after all you've helped
> yourself and done it all.
>
>
> Unless it is to show us how successful you are and that you feel
> satisfaction in telling us all about this because you have done it many
> times.
>
>
> I wish you all the best,
>
>
>
> Dan
>
>
> On 12/18/2018 9:22 AM, Jack Heim via acb-chat wrote:
>> LOL! No irony what so ever in posting this on an ACB list, right?
>>
>> I mean, seriously, do people give the slightest thought what so ever to
>> the stuff they post to this list?
>>
>> On 12/17/18 5:54 PM, William Grussenmeyer via acb-chat wrote:
>>> No thanks to doing good or helping people. Life is a competition and i
>>> only help myself.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>>> On Dec 17, 2018, at 1:47 PM, Demaya, Diego via acb-chat
>>>> <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Guys,
>>>>
>>>> The problems we witness daily, whether a mass shooting or the tragedy of
>>>>
>>>> Yemen, has nothing to do with any of us as individuals. Please do not
>>>> get caught up in the stupid blame game played by the agenda-driven mass
>>>>
>>>> media and agenda-driven politicians. No need to be spreading blame on
>>>> issues and situations that are beyond the control of anyone individual.
>>>>
>>>> I remind folks that what our politicians decide in our best interest is
>>>>
>>>> nothing of the kind. And, there is no cynicism in embracing the view
>>>> that money does indeed protect or shield any individual from just about
>>>>
>>>> any type of situation -- including bankrupting large corporations
>>>> without regard to employees, corrupting influences of group-think in
>>>> politics, political corruption, law enforcement corruption, gutting of
>>>> our Constitution, etc. If anyone feels that money is not what controls
>>>> all there is, then please name me a single corporate executive who has
>>>> gone to jail for bankrupting viable profit-making companies, murdering
>>>> his/her spouse, willfully committing medical malpractice, poisoning
>>>> entire populations with pollutants, harmful chemicals, or plain water,
>>>> abusing Presidential privilege, etc. And, no, do not site me these
>>>> seldom occasional incidences where we are told that justice has been
>>>> served by sending some rich idiot scapegoat to jail. Money does indeed
>>>> impose a harsh reality: greed, fear,, and power.
>>>>
>>>> Last I heard about the great Sears corporation shutting down was that
>>>> while its CEO was busily closing down stores around the country and
>>>> laying off thousands, he was also busy securing his personal private
>>>> island estate in Florida complete with an around the clock armed
>>>> military-style security force. Rush Limbau resides in a 40 thousand
>>>> square foot home and has a private security guarded "bunker" from which
>>>>
>>>> he sends out his lying message to his loyal flock. Let's see, HP forked
>>>>
>>>> over 100 million dollars to Carly as severance just so she would stop
>>>> further ruining the company... Gosh, should I continue? How about
>>>> Goldman Sacks? Think anyone there went to prison for defrauding billions
>>>>
>>>> of dollars from people like you and I who lost their investments and
>>>> homes? What about Weiss Fargo and that fraud case where they created
>>>> fee-generating accounts for people who never asked?
>>>>
>>>> And get this: Obama at least had the decency of putting into place the
>>>> CFPB that could financially punish banks and mortgage companies for
>>>> wrongdoing -- mind you not criminally -- but at least financially. Guess
>>>>
>>>> what? Mr. Trump came in and his third day he promptly deleted the CFPB
>>>> from existence! No, Obama was no angel, but at least he did some small
>>>> things that made some small sense --
>>>> even if no one could go to prison. In Trumps hay day of the now, not
>>>> even a small semblance of justice, like the CFPB, can stand. You see,
>>>> these monsters have progressed beyond simple capitalist greed: they will
>>>>
>>>> burn the planet down so long as they get what they want --
>>>> even if it kills them as well!
>>>>
>>>> Regarding criminals who kill people in mass shootings and/or at a liquor
>>>>
>>>> store robbery, how can such an atrocity be blamed on anyone except for
>>>> the perpetrators? Sure, perhaps the getaway driver should not be put on
>>>>
>>>> death row or given life in prison if he did not kill anyone, but no
>>>> criminal justice system is perfect. But again, I reject any personal
>>>> blame for such events -- because they are entirely beyond my control --
>>>>
>>>> regardless whether I like guns and support the Second Amendment or not,
>>>>
>>>> or whether anyone misguidedly believes that banning guns will keep
>>>> children and innocent people safe from deranged killers.
>>>>
>>>> Next, I find it ironically cynical to naively believe that an single
>>>> individual doing a good deed for his/her community or friends will
>>>> change the global elite powers that presently run all nations and
>>>> economic systems for the better? The global elite powers are only in it
>>>>
>>>> for themselves, so trust me, they do indeed mean harm for all of us. To
>>>>
>>>> them we are nothing more than poorly educated and ignorant consumers who
>>>>
>>>> are hooked on their goods! Just look at the iPhone psychosis or
>>>> PlayStation phenomenon if you do not believe me!
>>>>
>>>> Definition of Globalism or New World Order: The ultimate goal of the new
>>>>
>>>> world order as an ideology is total centralization of economic and
>>>> governmental power into the hands of a select and unaccountable
>>>> bureaucracy made up of international financiers. This is governance
>>>> according to the dictates of Plato's Republic; a delusional fantasy
>>>> world in which benevolent philosopher kings, supposedly smarter and more
>>>>
>>>> objective than the rest of us, rule from on high with scientific
>>>> precision and wisdom. It is a world where administrators become gods.
>>>>
>>>> Consider the statement above closely.
>>>>
>>>> Hence, I advise folks that they should indeed be kind to one another,
>>>> respect our mutual politics and religions, and indeed do a good deed for
>>>>
>>>> someone, or several people, in dire need. But the difference is that you
>>>>
>>>> should do it because it makes you feel good -- not because it might make
>>>>
>>>> some other bunch feel good. For instance, I feel no guilt about what is
>>>>
>>>> happening in Yemen or our own border with Mexico. Such problems are made
>>>>
>>>> up of various complex equations and machinations for which blame can no
>>>>
>>>> doubt be spread quite widely -- though certainly not on any single
>>>> person. I am human and I am limited to making choices as a single person
>>>>
>>>> and for me only. I do not make choices for other people -- unless they
>>>> are children or mentally unable to sidestep a looming danger. Yes, I
>>>> still apply common sense, social decency, and the occasional rational
>>>> logical approach to problems I encounter -- both personal and political.
>>>>
>>>> Yet even then, any choices or thoughts I may have are strictly my own.
>>>> Whether anyone wishes to make a personal choice themselves and follow
>>>> anything I say or believe, this is a matter, again, entirely up to that
>>>>
>>>> person alone, and I will not be responsible for that person's actions.
>>>>
>>>> This is not about disliking each other on this forum. This is not about
>>>>
>>>> arguing silly political differences. This is about critically
>>>> recognizing reality from fantasy. But just because we face real issues
>>>> on a daily basis does not mean we should forget what is truly important.
>>>>
>>>> The media, politicians, and global elites want the rest of us to stay
>>>> distracted and arguing with each other about the issues... Indeed, here
>>>>
>>>> is how much they care about what we think:
>>>>
>>>> Wolves don't lose sleep over the opinion of sheep...
>>>>
>>>> In the end, we as individuals are entitled to believe whatever we
>>>> wish -- and no one is permitted to openly criticize unless otherwise
>>>> invited to do so! So, if anyone on this forum takes someone else's'
>>>> shared opinion personally, please do not cry havoc if you invited others
>>>>
>>>> to comment.
>>>>
>>>> I leave you with great words from one of my favorite rockers, Elvis
>>>> Costello:
>>>>
>>>> "What's so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding?"
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Diego
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> .
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> D
>>>> Diego Demaya, J.D.
>>>> Human Resources Adviser -- Director ADA Technical Assistance
>>>> Southwest ADA Center (Region VI TX, LA, NM, OK, AR)
>>>> TIRR Research Center – 2nd Floor – Suite 212
>>>> Memorial Hermann Healthcare System
>>>> 1333 Moursund St.
>>>> Houston, TX 77030
>>>> (713) 797-7114 Office Direct
>>>> (800) 949-4232 Toll Free
>>>> E-Mail: diego.demaya@memorialhermann.org
>>>> Web: www.SouthwestADA.org
>>>>
>>>> Disclaimers and Notices
>>>>
>>>> This communication constitutes neither legal advice nor a determination
>>>>
>>>> of your rights under any law. This is technical assistance and informal
>>>>
>>>> guidance. The opinions and/or observations expressed herein, if any, are
>>>>
>>>> those of the author and do not represent those of the Southwest ADA
>>>> Center. Reading this response does not create an attorney-client
>>>> relationship with the author or with the Southwest ADA Center.
>>>>
>>>> Copyright © Diego Demaya - 2003-2018 - All Rights Reserved –
>>>> Individuals, news reporting organizations, corporations, government
>>>> representatives, or other organizations may neither reprint nor quote
>>>> from this response without written consent from the author. This
>>>> communication may not be distributed through any means, including, and
>>>> not limited to, digital file transfer, upload or posting on any Social
>>>> Media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, LinkedIn, online
>>>> blogs, by fax or hard copy print-out, or texting without the expressed
>>>> approval of the author or as otherwise stated in the body of this
>>>> correspondence.
>>>>
>>>> ****************************************************************************
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Bob via acb-chat [mailto:acb-chat@acblists.org]
>>>> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 10:54 AM
>>>> To: General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
>>>> range of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
>>>> whatever comes to mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion
>>>> list.
>>>> Cc: Bob
>>>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [acb-chat] (no subject)
>>>>
>>>> Carl:
>>>>
>>>> That is a real stretch for analysis.
>>>>
>>>>> On 12/17/18, Carl Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>>>>> How many reports such as the one below must we see before we realize
>>>>> that there is blood on all of our hands?
>>>>> When a robber held up a liquor store and gunned down the clerk, the
>>>>> police also arrested his accomplice, who sat at the curb behind the
>>>>> wheel of the get away car. Even though he did not enter the store,
>>>>> nor did he have a weapon on him, and he claimed to know nothing about
>>>>> his buddy's intentions, he was charged and sentenced for murder.
>>>>> If that is true under our laws, then we all, all Americans are guilty
>>>>> of the murders of thousands of Yemen citizens.
>>>>>
>>>>> US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus
>>>>> Eleven adults also died and 79 people were wounded
>>>>> Bomb sold to Saudi Arabia was made by Lockheed Martin
>>>>> list end
>>>>>
>>>>> Julian Borger
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> acb-chat mailing list
>>>>> acb-chat@acblists.org
>>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.acblists.org_mailman_listinfo_acb-2Dchat&d=DwICaQ&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=FesoZLoZqJVow9GCPNQt2QRrD6MkMiayIXjx2kQdv0c&s=rb-Q7gF8p5ZY74opx1LYjA0CfjNg0XEcAzTKcOPAdDY&e=
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> YOUR HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PERSONAL ASSET!!!
>>>> TAKE THE CHALLENGE AT:
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Monday, December 17, 2018
Murderers by Association
How many reports such as the one below must we see before we realize
that there is blood on all of our hands?
When a robber held up a liquor store and gunned down the clerk, the
police also arrested his accomplice, who sat at the curb behind the
wheel of the get away car. Even though he did not enter the store,
nor did he have a weapon on him, and he claimed to know nothing about
his buddy's intentions, he was charged and sentenced for murder.
If that is true under our laws, then we all, all Americans are guilty
of the murders of thousands of Yemen citizens.
US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus
Eleven adults also died and 79 people were wounded
Bomb sold to Saudi Arabia was made by Lockheed Martin
list end
Julian Borger
that there is blood on all of our hands?
When a robber held up a liquor store and gunned down the clerk, the
police also arrested his accomplice, who sat at the curb behind the
wheel of the get away car. Even though he did not enter the store,
nor did he have a weapon on him, and he claimed to know nothing about
his buddy's intentions, he was charged and sentenced for murder.
If that is true under our laws, then we all, all Americans are guilty
of the murders of thousands of Yemen citizens.
US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus
Eleven adults also died and 79 people were wounded
Bomb sold to Saudi Arabia was made by Lockheed Martin
list end
Julian Borger
Monday, December 10, 2018
Chris Hedges: The Heresy of White Christianity
The Heresy of White Christianity
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
There are, as Cornel West has pointed out, only two African-Americans who
rose from dirt-poor poverty to the highest levels of American intellectual
life—the writer Richard Wright and the radical theologian James H. Cone.
Cone, who died in April, grew up in segregated Bearden, Ark., the
impoverished son of a woodcutter who had only a sixth-grade education. With
an almost superhuman will, Cone clawed his way up from the Arkansas cotton
fields to implode theological studies in the United States with his
withering critique of the white supremacy and racism inherent within the
white, liberal Christian church. His brilliance—he was a Greek scholar and
wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Swiss theologian Karl Barth—enabled
him to "turn the white man's theology against him and make it speak for the
liberation of black people." God's revelation in America, he understood,
"was found among poor black people." Privileged white Christianity and its
theology were "heresy." He was, until the end of his life, possessed by what
the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr called "sublime madness." His insights, he
writes, "came to me as if revealed by the spirits of my ancestors long dead
but now coming alive to haunt and torment the descendants of the whites who
had killed them."
"When it became clear to me that Jesus was not biologically white and that
white scholars actually lied by not telling people who he really was, I
stopped trusting anything they said," he writes in his posthumous memoir,
"Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian,"
published in October.
"White supremacy is America's original sin and liberation is the Bible's
central message," he writes in his book. "Any theology in America that fails
to engage white supremacy and God's liberation of black people from that
evil is not Christian theology but a theology of the Antichrist."
White supremacy "is the Antichrist in America because it has killed and
crippled tens of millions of black bodies and minds in the modern world," he
writes. "It has also committed genocide against the indigenous people of
this land. If that isn't demonic, I don't know what is … [and] it is found
in every aspect of American life, especially churches, seminaries, and
theology."
Cone, who spent most of his life teaching at New York City's Union
Theological Seminary, where the theological luminaries Paul Tillich and
Reinhold Niebuhr preceded him, was acutely aware that "there are a lot of
brilliant theologians and most are irrelevant and some are evil."
Of the biblical story of Cain's murder of Abel, Cone writes: "… [T]he Lord
said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?' He said, 'I don't know; am I my
brother's keeper?' And the Lord said, 'What have you done? Listen: your
brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground!' " Cain, in Cone's
eyes, symbolizes white people, as Abel symbolizes black people.
"God is asking white Americans, especially Christians, 'Where are your black
brothers and sisters?' " Cone writes. "And whites respond, 'We don't know.
Are we their keepers?' And the Lord says, 'What have you done to them for
four centuries?' "
The stark truth he elucidated unsettled his critics and even some of his
admirers, who were forced to face their own complicity in systems of
oppression. "People cannot bear very much reality," T.S. Eliot wrote. And
the reality Cone relentlessly exposed was one most white Americans seek to
deny.
"Christianity is essentially a religion of liberation," Cone writes. "The
function of theology is that of analyzing the meaning of that liberation for
the oppressed community so they can know that their struggle for political,
social, and economic justice is consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Any message that is not related to the liberation of the poor is not
Christ's message. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of
liberation is not Christian theology. In a society where [people] are
oppressed because they are black, Christian theology must become Black
Theology, a theology that is unreservedly identified with the goals of the
oppressed community and seeking to interpret the divine character of their
struggle for liberation."
The Detroit rebellion of 1967 and the assassination of Martin Luther King
Jr. a year later were turning points in Cone's life. This was when he—at the
time a professor at Adrian College, a largely white college in Adrian,
Mich.—removed his mask, a mask that, as the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote,
"grins and lies."
"I felt that white liberals had killed King, helped by those Negroes who
thought he was moving too fast," he writes. "Even though they didn't pull
the trigger, they had refused to listen to King when he proclaimed God's
judgment on America for failing to deal with the three great evils of our
time: poverty, racism, and war. The white liberal media demonized King,
accusing him of meddling in America's foreign affairs by opposing the
Vietnam War and blaming him for provoking violence wherever he led a march.
White liberals, however, accepted no responsibility for King's murder, and
they refused to understand why Negroes were rioting and burning down their
communities."
"I didn't want to talk to white people about King's assassination or about
the uprisings in the cities," he writes of that period in his life. "[I]t
was too much of an emotional burden to explain racism to racists, and I had
nothing to say to them. I decided to have my say in writing. I'd give them
something to read and talk about."
Cone is often described as the father of black liberation theology, although
he was also, maybe more importantly, one of the very few contemporary
theologians who understood and championed the radical message of the Gospel.
Theological studies are divided into pre-Cone and post-Cone eras. Post-Cone
theology has largely been an addendum or reaction to his work, begun with
his first book, "Black Theology and Black Power," published in 1969. He
wrote the book, he says, "as an attack on racism in white churches and an
attack on self-loathing in black churches. I was not interested in making an
academic point about theology; rather, I was issuing a manifesto against
whiteness and for blackness in an effort to liberate Christians from white
supremacy."
Cone never lost his fire. He never sold out to become a feted celebrity.
"I didn't care what white theologians thought about black liberation
theology," he writes. "They didn't give a damn about black people. We were
invisible to their writings, not even worthy of mention. Why should I care
about what they thought?"
"After more than fifty years of working with, writing about, talking to
white theologians, I have to say that most are wasting their time and
energy, as far as I am concerned," he writes, an observation that I, having
been forced as a seminary student to plow through the turgid, jargon-filled
works of white theologians, can only second. Cone blasted churches,
including black churches that emphasize personal piety and the prosperity
gospel, as "the worst place to learn about Christianity."
His body of work, including his masterpieces "Martin & Malcolm & America"
and "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," is vital for understanding America
and the moral failure of the white liberal church and white liberal power
structure. Cone's insight is an important means of recognizing and fighting
systemic and institutionalized racism, especially in an age of Donald Trump.
"I write on behalf of all those whom the Salvadoran theologian and martyr
Ignacio Ellacuriìa called 'the crucified peoples of history,' " Cone writes
in his memoir. "I write for the forgotten and the abused, the marginalized
and the despised. I write for those who are penniless, jobless, landless,
all those who have no political or social power. I write for gays, lesbians,
bisexuals, and those who are transgender. I write for immigrants stranded on
the U.S. border and for undocumented farmworkers toiling in misery in the
nation's agricultural fields. I write for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, on
the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem. I write for Muslims and refugees who
live under the terror of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. And I write
for all people who care about humanity. I believe that until Americans,
especially Christians and theologians, can see the cross and the lynching
tree together, until we can identify Christ with 'recrucified' black bodies
hanging from lynching trees, there can be no genuine understanding of
Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of
slavery and white supremacy."
The cross, Cone reminded us, is not an abstraction; it is the instrument of
death used by the oppressor to crucify the oppressed. And the cross is all
around us. He writes in "The Cross and the Lynching Tree":
"
The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world's
value system, proclaiming that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering
and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the
first last. Secular intellectuals find this idea absurd, but it is
profoundly real in the spiritual life of black folk. For many who were
tortured and lynched, the crucified Christ often manifested God's loving and
liberating presence within the great contradictions of black life. The cross
of Jesus is what empowered black Christians to believe, ultimately, that
they would not be defeated by the "troubles of the world," no matter how
great and painful their suffering. Only people stripped of power could
understand this absurd claim of faith. The cross was God's critique of
power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory from the jaws of
defeat.
Present-day Christians misinterpret the cross when they make it a
nonoffensive religious symbol, a decorative object in their homes and
churches. The cross, therefore, needs the lynching tree to remind us what it
means when we say that God is revealed in Jesus at Golgotha, the place of
the skull, on the cross where criminals and rebels against the Roman state
were executed. The lynching tree is America's cross. What happened to Jesus
in Jerusalem happened to blacks in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
Lynched black bodies are symbols of Christ's body. If we want to understand
what the crucifixion means for Americans today, we must view it through the
lens of mutilated black bodies whose lives are destroyed in the criminal
justice system. Jesus continues to be lynched before our eyes. He is
crucified wherever people are tormented. That is why I say Christ is black.
Every once in a while, when Cone expressed something he thought was
particularly important, he would say, "That's Charlie talking." To know Cone
was to know Charlie and Lucy, his parents, who wrapped him and his brothers
in unconditional love that held at bay the dehumanizing fear, discrimination
and humiliation that came with living in Jim and Jane Crow Arkansas. He,
like poet and novelist Claude McKay, said that what he wrote was "urged out
of my blood," adding "in my case the blood of blacks in Bearden and
elsewhere who saw what I saw, felt what I felt, and loved what I loved."
The essence of Cone was embodied in this radical love, a love that was not
rooted in abstractions but the particular reality of his parents and his
people. The ferocity of his anger at the injustice endured by the oppressed
was matched only by the ferocity of his love. He cared. And because he
cared, he carried the hurt and pain of the oppressed, the crucified of the
earth, within him. As a boy, after dark, he waited by the window for his
father to return home, knowing that to be a black man out on the roads in
Arkansas at night meant you might never reach home. He spent his life, in a
sense, at that window. He wrote and spoke not only for the forgotten, but
also in a very tangible way for Charlie and Lucy. He instantly saw through
hypocrisy and detested the pretentions of privilege. He never forgot who he
was. He never forgot where he came from. His life was lived to honor his
parents and all who were like his parents. He had unmatched courage,
integrity and wisdom; indeed he was one of the wisest people I have ever
known.
Cone was acutely aware, as Charles H. Long wrote, that "those who have lived
in the cultures of the oppressed know something about freedom that the
oppressors will never know." He reminded us that our character is measured
by what we have overcome. Despair, for him, was sin.
"What was beautiful about slavery?" Cone asks in his memoir. "Nothing,
rationally! But the spirituals, folklore, slave religion, and slave
narratives are beautiful, and they came out of slavery. How do we explain
that miracle? What's beautiful about lynching and Jim Crow segregation?
Nothing! Yet the blues, jazz, great preaching, and gospel music are
beautiful, and they came out of the post-slavery brutalities of white
supremacy. In the 1960s we proclaimed 'Black is beautiful!' because it is.
We raised our fists to "I'm Black and I'm Proud,' and we showed 'Black
Pride' in our walk and talk, our song and sermon."
He goes on:
"
We were not destroyed by white supremacy. We resisted it, created a
beautiful culture, the civil rights and Black Power movements, which are
celebrated around the world. [James] Baldwin asked black people "to accept
the past and to learn to live with it." "I beg the black people of this
country," he said, shortly after "Fire" ["The Fire Next Time"] was
published, "to do something which I know to be very difficult; to be proud
of the auction block, and all that rope, and all that fire, and all that
pain."
To see beauty in tragedy is very difficult. One needs theological eyes to do
that. We have to look beneath the surface and get to the source. Baldwin was
not blind. He saw both the tragedy and the beauty in black suffering and its
redeeming value. That was why he said that suffering can become a bridge
that connects people with one another, blacks with whites and people of all
cultures with one another. Suffering is sorrow and joy, tragedy and triumph.
It connected blacks with one another and made us stronger. We know anguish
and pain and have moved beyond it. The real question about suffering is how
to use it. "If you can accept the pain that almost kills you," says Vivaldo,
Baldwin's character in his novel Another Country, "you can use it, you can
become better." But "that's hard to do," Eric, another character, responds.
"I know," Vivaldo acknowledges. If you don't accept the pain, "you get
stopped with whatever it was that ruined you and you make it happen over and
over again and your life has—ceased, really—because you can't move or change
or love anymore." But if you accept it, "you realize that your suffering
does not isolate you," Baldwin says in his dialogue with Nikki Giovanni;
"your suffering is your bridge." Singing the blues and the spirituals is
using suffering, letting it become your bridge moving forward. "For, while
the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph
is never new, it always must be heard," Baldwin writes in his short story
"Sonny's Blues." "There isn't any other tale to tell, and it's the only
light we've got in all this darkness."
"I would rather be a part of the culture that resisted lynching than the one
that lynched," Cone writes at the end of the book. "I would rather be the
one who suffered wrong than the one who did wrong. The one who suffered
wrong is stronger than the one who did wrong. Jesus was stronger than his
crucifiers. Blacks are stronger than whites. Black religion is more creative
and meaningful and true than white religion. That is why I love black
religion, folklore, and the blues. Black culture keeps black people from
hating white people. Every Sunday morning, we went to church to exorcize
hate—of ourselves and of white racists."
There will come difficult moments in our own lives, moments when we are
faced with an impulse, driven by fear or self-interest or simple expediency,
to turn away at the sight of suffering and injustice. We will hear the cries
of the oppressed and want to shut them out. We will count the cost to our
careers, our reputations and perhaps our security, for to truly stand with
the oppressed is to be treated like the oppressed. But a force greater than
our own will compel us to kneel down and pick up the cross. The weight will
cut into our shoulders. Our step will slow. Our breathing will become
labored. We will be condemned by the powerful and ignored or reviled by the
indifferent. But we will demand justice. And when we do, we will say to
ourselves, "That's Cone talking."
Chris Hedges
Columnist
Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
There are, as Cornel West has pointed out, only two African-Americans who
rose from dirt-poor poverty to the highest levels of American intellectual
life—the writer Richard Wright and the radical theologian James H. Cone.
Cone, who died in April, grew up in segregated Bearden, Ark., the
impoverished son of a woodcutter who had only a sixth-grade education. With
an almost superhuman will, Cone clawed his way up from the Arkansas cotton
fields to implode theological studies in the United States with his
withering critique of the white supremacy and racism inherent within the
white, liberal Christian church. His brilliance—he was a Greek scholar and
wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Swiss theologian Karl Barth—enabled
him to "turn the white man's theology against him and make it speak for the
liberation of black people." God's revelation in America, he understood,
"was found among poor black people." Privileged white Christianity and its
theology were "heresy." He was, until the end of his life, possessed by what
the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr called "sublime madness." His insights, he
writes, "came to me as if revealed by the spirits of my ancestors long dead
but now coming alive to haunt and torment the descendants of the whites who
had killed them."
"When it became clear to me that Jesus was not biologically white and that
white scholars actually lied by not telling people who he really was, I
stopped trusting anything they said," he writes in his posthumous memoir,
"Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian,"
published in October.
"White supremacy is America's original sin and liberation is the Bible's
central message," he writes in his book. "Any theology in America that fails
to engage white supremacy and God's liberation of black people from that
evil is not Christian theology but a theology of the Antichrist."
White supremacy "is the Antichrist in America because it has killed and
crippled tens of millions of black bodies and minds in the modern world," he
writes. "It has also committed genocide against the indigenous people of
this land. If that isn't demonic, I don't know what is … [and] it is found
in every aspect of American life, especially churches, seminaries, and
theology."
Cone, who spent most of his life teaching at New York City's Union
Theological Seminary, where the theological luminaries Paul Tillich and
Reinhold Niebuhr preceded him, was acutely aware that "there are a lot of
brilliant theologians and most are irrelevant and some are evil."
Of the biblical story of Cain's murder of Abel, Cone writes: "… [T]he Lord
said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?' He said, 'I don't know; am I my
brother's keeper?' And the Lord said, 'What have you done? Listen: your
brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground!' " Cain, in Cone's
eyes, symbolizes white people, as Abel symbolizes black people.
"God is asking white Americans, especially Christians, 'Where are your black
brothers and sisters?' " Cone writes. "And whites respond, 'We don't know.
Are we their keepers?' And the Lord says, 'What have you done to them for
four centuries?' "
The stark truth he elucidated unsettled his critics and even some of his
admirers, who were forced to face their own complicity in systems of
oppression. "People cannot bear very much reality," T.S. Eliot wrote. And
the reality Cone relentlessly exposed was one most white Americans seek to
deny.
"Christianity is essentially a religion of liberation," Cone writes. "The
function of theology is that of analyzing the meaning of that liberation for
the oppressed community so they can know that their struggle for political,
social, and economic justice is consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Any message that is not related to the liberation of the poor is not
Christ's message. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of
liberation is not Christian theology. In a society where [people] are
oppressed because they are black, Christian theology must become Black
Theology, a theology that is unreservedly identified with the goals of the
oppressed community and seeking to interpret the divine character of their
struggle for liberation."
The Detroit rebellion of 1967 and the assassination of Martin Luther King
Jr. a year later were turning points in Cone's life. This was when he—at the
time a professor at Adrian College, a largely white college in Adrian,
Mich.—removed his mask, a mask that, as the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote,
"grins and lies."
"I felt that white liberals had killed King, helped by those Negroes who
thought he was moving too fast," he writes. "Even though they didn't pull
the trigger, they had refused to listen to King when he proclaimed God's
judgment on America for failing to deal with the three great evils of our
time: poverty, racism, and war. The white liberal media demonized King,
accusing him of meddling in America's foreign affairs by opposing the
Vietnam War and blaming him for provoking violence wherever he led a march.
White liberals, however, accepted no responsibility for King's murder, and
they refused to understand why Negroes were rioting and burning down their
communities."
"I didn't want to talk to white people about King's assassination or about
the uprisings in the cities," he writes of that period in his life. "[I]t
was too much of an emotional burden to explain racism to racists, and I had
nothing to say to them. I decided to have my say in writing. I'd give them
something to read and talk about."
Cone is often described as the father of black liberation theology, although
he was also, maybe more importantly, one of the very few contemporary
theologians who understood and championed the radical message of the Gospel.
Theological studies are divided into pre-Cone and post-Cone eras. Post-Cone
theology has largely been an addendum or reaction to his work, begun with
his first book, "Black Theology and Black Power," published in 1969. He
wrote the book, he says, "as an attack on racism in white churches and an
attack on self-loathing in black churches. I was not interested in making an
academic point about theology; rather, I was issuing a manifesto against
whiteness and for blackness in an effort to liberate Christians from white
supremacy."
Cone never lost his fire. He never sold out to become a feted celebrity.
"I didn't care what white theologians thought about black liberation
theology," he writes. "They didn't give a damn about black people. We were
invisible to their writings, not even worthy of mention. Why should I care
about what they thought?"
"After more than fifty years of working with, writing about, talking to
white theologians, I have to say that most are wasting their time and
energy, as far as I am concerned," he writes, an observation that I, having
been forced as a seminary student to plow through the turgid, jargon-filled
works of white theologians, can only second. Cone blasted churches,
including black churches that emphasize personal piety and the prosperity
gospel, as "the worst place to learn about Christianity."
His body of work, including his masterpieces "Martin & Malcolm & America"
and "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," is vital for understanding America
and the moral failure of the white liberal church and white liberal power
structure. Cone's insight is an important means of recognizing and fighting
systemic and institutionalized racism, especially in an age of Donald Trump.
"I write on behalf of all those whom the Salvadoran theologian and martyr
Ignacio Ellacuriìa called 'the crucified peoples of history,' " Cone writes
in his memoir. "I write for the forgotten and the abused, the marginalized
and the despised. I write for those who are penniless, jobless, landless,
all those who have no political or social power. I write for gays, lesbians,
bisexuals, and those who are transgender. I write for immigrants stranded on
the U.S. border and for undocumented farmworkers toiling in misery in the
nation's agricultural fields. I write for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, on
the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem. I write for Muslims and refugees who
live under the terror of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. And I write
for all people who care about humanity. I believe that until Americans,
especially Christians and theologians, can see the cross and the lynching
tree together, until we can identify Christ with 'recrucified' black bodies
hanging from lynching trees, there can be no genuine understanding of
Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of
slavery and white supremacy."
The cross, Cone reminded us, is not an abstraction; it is the instrument of
death used by the oppressor to crucify the oppressed. And the cross is all
around us. He writes in "The Cross and the Lynching Tree":
"
The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world's
value system, proclaiming that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering
and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the
first last. Secular intellectuals find this idea absurd, but it is
profoundly real in the spiritual life of black folk. For many who were
tortured and lynched, the crucified Christ often manifested God's loving and
liberating presence within the great contradictions of black life. The cross
of Jesus is what empowered black Christians to believe, ultimately, that
they would not be defeated by the "troubles of the world," no matter how
great and painful their suffering. Only people stripped of power could
understand this absurd claim of faith. The cross was God's critique of
power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory from the jaws of
defeat.
Present-day Christians misinterpret the cross when they make it a
nonoffensive religious symbol, a decorative object in their homes and
churches. The cross, therefore, needs the lynching tree to remind us what it
means when we say that God is revealed in Jesus at Golgotha, the place of
the skull, on the cross where criminals and rebels against the Roman state
were executed. The lynching tree is America's cross. What happened to Jesus
in Jerusalem happened to blacks in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
Lynched black bodies are symbols of Christ's body. If we want to understand
what the crucifixion means for Americans today, we must view it through the
lens of mutilated black bodies whose lives are destroyed in the criminal
justice system. Jesus continues to be lynched before our eyes. He is
crucified wherever people are tormented. That is why I say Christ is black.
Every once in a while, when Cone expressed something he thought was
particularly important, he would say, "That's Charlie talking." To know Cone
was to know Charlie and Lucy, his parents, who wrapped him and his brothers
in unconditional love that held at bay the dehumanizing fear, discrimination
and humiliation that came with living in Jim and Jane Crow Arkansas. He,
like poet and novelist Claude McKay, said that what he wrote was "urged out
of my blood," adding "in my case the blood of blacks in Bearden and
elsewhere who saw what I saw, felt what I felt, and loved what I loved."
The essence of Cone was embodied in this radical love, a love that was not
rooted in abstractions but the particular reality of his parents and his
people. The ferocity of his anger at the injustice endured by the oppressed
was matched only by the ferocity of his love. He cared. And because he
cared, he carried the hurt and pain of the oppressed, the crucified of the
earth, within him. As a boy, after dark, he waited by the window for his
father to return home, knowing that to be a black man out on the roads in
Arkansas at night meant you might never reach home. He spent his life, in a
sense, at that window. He wrote and spoke not only for the forgotten, but
also in a very tangible way for Charlie and Lucy. He instantly saw through
hypocrisy and detested the pretentions of privilege. He never forgot who he
was. He never forgot where he came from. His life was lived to honor his
parents and all who were like his parents. He had unmatched courage,
integrity and wisdom; indeed he was one of the wisest people I have ever
known.
Cone was acutely aware, as Charles H. Long wrote, that "those who have lived
in the cultures of the oppressed know something about freedom that the
oppressors will never know." He reminded us that our character is measured
by what we have overcome. Despair, for him, was sin.
"What was beautiful about slavery?" Cone asks in his memoir. "Nothing,
rationally! But the spirituals, folklore, slave religion, and slave
narratives are beautiful, and they came out of slavery. How do we explain
that miracle? What's beautiful about lynching and Jim Crow segregation?
Nothing! Yet the blues, jazz, great preaching, and gospel music are
beautiful, and they came out of the post-slavery brutalities of white
supremacy. In the 1960s we proclaimed 'Black is beautiful!' because it is.
We raised our fists to "I'm Black and I'm Proud,' and we showed 'Black
Pride' in our walk and talk, our song and sermon."
He goes on:
"
We were not destroyed by white supremacy. We resisted it, created a
beautiful culture, the civil rights and Black Power movements, which are
celebrated around the world. [James] Baldwin asked black people "to accept
the past and to learn to live with it." "I beg the black people of this
country," he said, shortly after "Fire" ["The Fire Next Time"] was
published, "to do something which I know to be very difficult; to be proud
of the auction block, and all that rope, and all that fire, and all that
pain."
To see beauty in tragedy is very difficult. One needs theological eyes to do
that. We have to look beneath the surface and get to the source. Baldwin was
not blind. He saw both the tragedy and the beauty in black suffering and its
redeeming value. That was why he said that suffering can become a bridge
that connects people with one another, blacks with whites and people of all
cultures with one another. Suffering is sorrow and joy, tragedy and triumph.
It connected blacks with one another and made us stronger. We know anguish
and pain and have moved beyond it. The real question about suffering is how
to use it. "If you can accept the pain that almost kills you," says Vivaldo,
Baldwin's character in his novel Another Country, "you can use it, you can
become better." But "that's hard to do," Eric, another character, responds.
"I know," Vivaldo acknowledges. If you don't accept the pain, "you get
stopped with whatever it was that ruined you and you make it happen over and
over again and your life has—ceased, really—because you can't move or change
or love anymore." But if you accept it, "you realize that your suffering
does not isolate you," Baldwin says in his dialogue with Nikki Giovanni;
"your suffering is your bridge." Singing the blues and the spirituals is
using suffering, letting it become your bridge moving forward. "For, while
the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph
is never new, it always must be heard," Baldwin writes in his short story
"Sonny's Blues." "There isn't any other tale to tell, and it's the only
light we've got in all this darkness."
"I would rather be a part of the culture that resisted lynching than the one
that lynched," Cone writes at the end of the book. "I would rather be the
one who suffered wrong than the one who did wrong. The one who suffered
wrong is stronger than the one who did wrong. Jesus was stronger than his
crucifiers. Blacks are stronger than whites. Black religion is more creative
and meaningful and true than white religion. That is why I love black
religion, folklore, and the blues. Black culture keeps black people from
hating white people. Every Sunday morning, we went to church to exorcize
hate—of ourselves and of white racists."
There will come difficult moments in our own lives, moments when we are
faced with an impulse, driven by fear or self-interest or simple expediency,
to turn away at the sight of suffering and injustice. We will hear the cries
of the oppressed and want to shut them out. We will count the cost to our
careers, our reputations and perhaps our security, for to truly stand with
the oppressed is to be treated like the oppressed. But a force greater than
our own will compel us to kneel down and pick up the cross. The weight will
cut into our shoulders. Our step will slow. Our breathing will become
labored. We will be condemned by the powerful and ignored or reviled by the
indifferent. But we will demand justice. And when we do, we will say to
ourselves, "That's Cone talking."
Chris Hedges
Columnist
Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
Re: [blind-democracy] UNAC statement on the CNN firing of Marc Lamont Hill
Oh how we Americans love to talk about our "Freedom of Speech". But
we never talk about how exercising that "Right" can destroy our lives.
It certainly is important that more and more of us stand up and
exercise our Free Speech Rights, but we need to remember that when we
do, we've got a tiger by the tail.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/10/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> https://socialistaction.org/2018/12/09/unac-statement-on-the-cnn-firing-of-marc-lamont-hill/
>
>
> UNAC statement on the CNN firing of Marc Lamont Hill
>
> / 22 hours ago
>
>
> MLH
>
> The following statement was published by the United National Antiwar
> Coalition (UNAC) on Dec. 3. Supporters of Israel and Zionism have
> repeatedly charged in the mainstream media that Professor Marc Lamont
> Hill's statements at the UN on behalf of the rights of the Palestinian
> people are "anti-Semitic" and have demanded that Temple University fire
> him, as CNN has already done. Patrick O'Conner, chairman of Temple's
> board, labeled Hill's address to the UN as "hate speech," while Temple
> President Richard Englert stated that some people view Hill's remarks as
> a "perceived threat."
>
> At the same time, however, many Temple instructors and students have
> rallied to Professor Hill's defense, pointing out that critics have
> distorted his remarks. A student-initiated march in support of Hill took
> place on campus on Dec. 6.
>
> Temple University professor and CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill was
> fired from CNN after giving a powerful speech at the United Nations in
> support of Palestinian rights. The Nov. 29, 2018, UN meeting was to
> commemorate the 70th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
> The meeting also fell on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, when 700,000
> Palestinians were forced from their homes by the newly declared state of
> Israel and hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were emptied and
> destroyed.
>
> Marc Lamont Hill spoke of the many violations of Palestinians' human
> rights by the authorities in Israel. Not one fact that he mentioned in
> his talk was disputed by CNN, but his contract was terminated with a
> simple statement that said, "Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under
> contract with CNN."
>
> In his statement to the U.N., Hill stated that "at the current moment,
> there are more than 60 Israeli laws that deny Palestinians access to
> full citizenship rights simply because they are not Jewish. From
> housing, to education to family reunification, it is clear that any
> freedoms naturally endowed to all human beings are actively being
> stripped away from Palestinians through Israeli statecraft."
>
> He went on to speak about the recent National State Law that makes it
> explicit that Israel is not a state for the Palestinian people who live
> there and made illegal settlement expansion a national value. He also
> spoke about the special situation of the people of Gaza who live in the
> world's largest "open-air prison." In Gaza, unarmed Palestinians
> protesting, on their own territory, the conditions Israel imposes on
> them have been shot in the thousands by Israeli forces.
> Jan. 2019 Hill protest (Joe Piette)
> Temple students rally for Professor Hill. (Joe Piette)
>
> Hill equated the Palestinian struggle to the struggle for Black
> liberation in the U.S. and specifically mentioned the solidarity that
> was expressed between the Palestinian people and the people of Ferguson,
> Mo., as they protested the cop murder of Michael Brown.
>
> Hill also said that words are not enough and that we must all take
> action. He said that justice requires a "free Palestine from the river
> to the sea." This last statement has been especially criticized by
> Zionist organizations and individuals as meaning, in their minds, that
> the Palestinians want genocide of the Jewish people. But what it calls
> for is simply freedom for Palestinians in their own land. If Zionists
> don't like this statement then we must ask them, "In which area from the
> river to the sea should the Palestinian people not be free?"
> Unfortunately, through their actions, their answer has been all of it.
>
> As CNN proclaims itself a bastion of freedom of speech, it denies this
> freedom to Marc Lamont Hill and all who speak truth to power. They
> afford freedom of speech only to those who agree with the reactionary
> politics of the CNN editors and censors.
>
> UNAC demands: Reinstate Marc Lamont Hill! End all U.S. aid to Israel!
> Free Palestine from the river to the sea! Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad!
>
> Top photo: Marc Lamont Hill. (Ouzounova / SplashNews)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Share this:
>
> Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
> 20Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)20
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>
>
> December 9, 2018 in Civil Liberties, Palestine.
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> _________________________________________________________________
>
> J.K. Rowling
> " I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for
> believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! "
> ― J.K. Rowling
>
>
>
>
>
>
we never talk about how exercising that "Right" can destroy our lives.
It certainly is important that more and more of us stand up and
exercise our Free Speech Rights, but we need to remember that when we
do, we've got a tiger by the tail.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/10/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> https://socialistaction.org/2018/12/09/unac-statement-on-the-cnn-firing-of-marc-lamont-hill/
>
>
> UNAC statement on the CNN firing of Marc Lamont Hill
>
> / 22 hours ago
>
>
> MLH
>
> The following statement was published by the United National Antiwar
> Coalition (UNAC) on Dec. 3. Supporters of Israel and Zionism have
> repeatedly charged in the mainstream media that Professor Marc Lamont
> Hill's statements at the UN on behalf of the rights of the Palestinian
> people are "anti-Semitic" and have demanded that Temple University fire
> him, as CNN has already done. Patrick O'Conner, chairman of Temple's
> board, labeled Hill's address to the UN as "hate speech," while Temple
> President Richard Englert stated that some people view Hill's remarks as
> a "perceived threat."
>
> At the same time, however, many Temple instructors and students have
> rallied to Professor Hill's defense, pointing out that critics have
> distorted his remarks. A student-initiated march in support of Hill took
> place on campus on Dec. 6.
>
> Temple University professor and CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill was
> fired from CNN after giving a powerful speech at the United Nations in
> support of Palestinian rights. The Nov. 29, 2018, UN meeting was to
> commemorate the 70th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
> The meeting also fell on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, when 700,000
> Palestinians were forced from their homes by the newly declared state of
> Israel and hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were emptied and
> destroyed.
>
> Marc Lamont Hill spoke of the many violations of Palestinians' human
> rights by the authorities in Israel. Not one fact that he mentioned in
> his talk was disputed by CNN, but his contract was terminated with a
> simple statement that said, "Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under
> contract with CNN."
>
> In his statement to the U.N., Hill stated that "at the current moment,
> there are more than 60 Israeli laws that deny Palestinians access to
> full citizenship rights simply because they are not Jewish. From
> housing, to education to family reunification, it is clear that any
> freedoms naturally endowed to all human beings are actively being
> stripped away from Palestinians through Israeli statecraft."
>
> He went on to speak about the recent National State Law that makes it
> explicit that Israel is not a state for the Palestinian people who live
> there and made illegal settlement expansion a national value. He also
> spoke about the special situation of the people of Gaza who live in the
> world's largest "open-air prison." In Gaza, unarmed Palestinians
> protesting, on their own territory, the conditions Israel imposes on
> them have been shot in the thousands by Israeli forces.
> Jan. 2019 Hill protest (Joe Piette)
> Temple students rally for Professor Hill. (Joe Piette)
>
> Hill equated the Palestinian struggle to the struggle for Black
> liberation in the U.S. and specifically mentioned the solidarity that
> was expressed between the Palestinian people and the people of Ferguson,
> Mo., as they protested the cop murder of Michael Brown.
>
> Hill also said that words are not enough and that we must all take
> action. He said that justice requires a "free Palestine from the river
> to the sea." This last statement has been especially criticized by
> Zionist organizations and individuals as meaning, in their minds, that
> the Palestinians want genocide of the Jewish people. But what it calls
> for is simply freedom for Palestinians in their own land. If Zionists
> don't like this statement then we must ask them, "In which area from the
> river to the sea should the Palestinian people not be free?"
> Unfortunately, through their actions, their answer has been all of it.
>
> As CNN proclaims itself a bastion of freedom of speech, it denies this
> freedom to Marc Lamont Hill and all who speak truth to power. They
> afford freedom of speech only to those who agree with the reactionary
> politics of the CNN editors and censors.
>
> UNAC demands: Reinstate Marc Lamont Hill! End all U.S. aid to Israel!
> Free Palestine from the river to the sea! Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad!
>
> Top photo: Marc Lamont Hill. (Ouzounova / SplashNews)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Share this:
>
> Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
> 20Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)20
> Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
>
>
> December 9, 2018 in Civil Liberties, Palestine.
>
>
> Related posts
>
>
>
> Two new films fuel debate on Mumia Abu-Jamal
>
>
>
>
>
> Nationwide protests demand: Stop Kavanaugh!
>
>
>
>
>
> UConn students respond to alt-right speech on campus
>
>
> Post navigation
>
> ← Stamford hotel workers launch union drive
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Get Involved!
> Donate to help support our work
> Get email updates
> Join Socialist Action
>
>
> Newspaper Archives
> Newspaper Archives Select Month December 2018 (3) November 2018 (15)
> October 2018 (10) September 2018 (8) August 2018 (12) July 2018 (13)
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>
>
> --
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> J.K. Rowling
> " I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for
> believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! "
> ― J.K. Rowling
>
>
>
>
>
>
Very important SRC conference call tomorrow
To: Yvonne Thomas-Miller <
yvonne.mi11ertime@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Mobility Question
Hello Mimi. Yvonne Thomas-Miller wrote me asking if I had any O&M
contacts. I sent her Ryan's contact information, and he said he still
has contract money to provide ILOB O&M services.
Carl Jarvis
****
Hi Yvonne,
Below is the name and phone number for an O&M teacher who was
contracting with the ILOB program:
Ryan Kupfer:
phone: 262 484 8239
Call him and ask if he is still under contract, and if
he would travel the distance. He did teach a couple of our clients in
the Kitsap county area.
Let me know what you find out.
Carl
yvonne.mi11ertime@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Mobility Question
Hello Mimi. Yvonne Thomas-Miller wrote me asking if I had any O&M
contacts. I sent her Ryan's contact information, and he said he still
has contract money to provide ILOB O&M services.
Carl Jarvis
****
Hi Yvonne,
Below is the name and phone number for an O&M teacher who was
contracting with the ILOB program:
Ryan Kupfer:
phone: 262 484 8239
Call him and ask if he is still under contract, and if
he would travel the distance. He did teach a couple of our clients in
the Kitsap county area.
Let me know what you find out.
Carl
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Rational Evidence
Oh the pressures from beyond our control that attempt to force us to
conform to someone Else's Beliefs.
I was thinking of what pressures Mostafa must have undergone to make
him as rigid as he appears, but we all have our personal demons to
battle. My growing up years were back in the American Dark Age. Born
during Roosevelt's first term, my world was one of lingering
depression, World War II, the Korean War, and McCarthyism.
Also, having had to live during such horrors as Nixonstein,
Reaganloff, and TWO, count them, 2 George Bushes. As if the burning
Bush was not enough. And of course there were our two Republicrats,
Slick Willie and Bumbling Barack, both with lips pursed to Wall Street
while giving the finger to Joe/Jane Public. Of course I may simply be
grumping over the fall of my childhood hero, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. I clung to my memory until having to confront the truth of
his New Deal. It was a New Deal only if you were White, and mostly
Male. FDR sold out Negroes and Japanese as well as doing nothing for
Latinos. Women, who had only recently gained the right to vote, were
still nearly half a century away from any relief from male oppression.
Maybe LBJ, whom I personally found disgusting, did more for the entire
population than any other president. And speaking of women, I would
vote a tie between the two most disgusting First Ladies in my
lifetime. Ladybird and Mamie. My vote for the greatest First Lady
goes to Eleanor Roosevelt. The Grand Dame of America.
And yet, when I hear that old familiar voice saying, "We have nothing
to feeah but feeah itself", my heart goes all a flutter.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/5/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> When I was in elementary school - I forget which grade - we were given
> the assignment of reading as many books as we could in the school year.
> We were to keep a record of these books on index cards classifying them
> as fiction or nonfiction. There may have been some subcategories too.
> The teacher insisted that any books about dinosaurs be classified as
> fiction because the bible had nothing to say about dinosaurs. We would
> have actually have gotten a reduction in our grade for the project if we
> didn't classify them as fiction too.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> J.K. Rowling
> " I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for
> believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! "
> ― J.K. Rowling
>
>
>
>
> On 12/5/2018 7:34 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
>> Well said, Roger.
>> An aunt and uncle of mine told me that they did not want me to read
>> stories about dinosaurs to their son. They said that such stories
>> were the work of Satan. The Bible proved that the Earth was only a
>> bit over 5,000 years old. Scientific evidence was either deliberately
>> invented or based on poor research. Where could I turn? It came down
>> to my word against the Word of God. I made the comment that my
>> information also came from a book. Oops! I was told that such talk
>> was blasphemous, and if I continued talking like that I would not be
>> welcomed in their home.
>> Despite my understanding the rigidity of their position, I later tried
>> my hand at being a Born Again Christian, baptized in the Holy spirit.
>> While I never again want to be so Perfect and so Totally self
>> righteous, I would not trade the experience for all the ticks and
>> tocks' in my Grandfather's Clock. Carl Jarvis
>>
>> Carl Jarvis
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/5/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>>> I just got out of bed a while ago and have spent some time at my morning
>>> ablutions and done some talking book listening and am now sitting down
>>> at the computer for the first time today. This is not the time of day
>>> that I usually deal with email, but I went to bed with a discussion from
>>> this list on my mind and I decided to elaborate on it while I still had
>>> it on my mind. Mostafa accused me of not knowing about so-called
>>> rational evidence. It was not that I didn't know about it. It was just
>>> that I considered it irrelevant to the discussion, so I ignored it at
>>> first. But let's look at what it is and why it was so irrelevant.
>>> Rational evidence is a legal concept and a theological concept. What it
>>> amounts to is that someone tells you something and that telling is
>>> accepted as evidence. In a court of law if someone states that he knows
>>> that an event happened because someone told him that it did that
>>> testimony is most often thrown out as being hearsay. It is also an
>>> example of so-called rational evidence. On the other hand, if the
>>> witness says that an event happened because he saw it happen then that
>>> testimony is usually accepted and added as evidence in the legal
>>> proceeding. It is called rational evidence because the witness has
>>> nothing to back it up, but the witness is presumed to be a rational
>>> witness. If, however, some independent evidence is found that shows the
>>> witness to be lying then that opens him up to charges of perjury and,
>>> possibly, obstruction of justice. Of course, the rational evidence must
>>> be credible to be accepted too. Now, let me say that I am willing to
>>> accept so-called rational evidence under certain circumstances. For
>>> example, suppose someone sends me an email in which he claims to be
>>> wearing white socks. I am specifying email because that takes my
>>> blindness out of it as possibly a failure to verify. No one can verify a
>>> claim if all they have is an email making the claim. Well, I would be
>>> inclined to believe that claim. Wearing white socks is a very, very,
>>> common thing to do. I would not have any reason to think the person
>>> making the claim had a motive to lie about it. If I did think of a
>>> credible reason that he might be lying, though, I would become more
>>> skeptical. But if I accept the claim I am still accepting a claim that
>>> has nothing to back it up and so so-called rational evidence has about
>>> as much to do with being rational as Ayn Rand's objectivism has to do
>>> with being objective. I think that is a good analogy because in both
>>> cases it works for specific claims, but as a general principle for
>>> acquiring knowledge they are both worthless. Now, let's look at Carl
>>> Sagan's admonition that fantastic claims require fantastic evidence.
>>> That concept was also embodied in he Isaac Asimov quote I was using as
>>> my signature line last month. I may accept the claim that a person is
>>> wearing white socks on nothing but his word because that is not a
>>> fantastic claim in the least, but if the same person claims that there
>>> is an invisible man in the sky with magical powers who made me then that
>>> claim is a lot harder for me to accept on the person's word. It is a
>>> very fantastic claim and it requires evidence from the person making the
>>> claim. And because it is a fantastic claim it requires really fantastic
>>> evidence too. What kind of evidence does it require? Well, Mostafa was
>>> dismissing the validity of empirical evidence, but it is a part of what
>>> would be called scientific evidence. By the way, empiricism is a branch
>>> of materialist philosophy that can be discussed separately. I mention it
>>> now because I thought it likely that the word empirical might bring that
>>> up, but it is not particularly relevant to what I am discussing right
>>> now. Empirical evidence is pretty much the same thing as data. That is,
>>> everyone can look at it and agree that it is real except for some wack
>>> jobs who would deny the existence of a brick wall if they were slammed
>>> against it, that is, religious types. Scientific evidence means that
>>> scientific method has been applied to the empirical evidence. That is,
>>> it is hypothesized that if certain things are done to the empirically
>>> derived data that certain things will happen and then these things are
>>> done to it - that is, an experiment - and the hypothesis is either
>>> verified or refuted by the outcome. Somehow Mostafa thinks that
>>> so-called rational evidence is more reliable than either empirical or
>>> scientific evidence. That is, if someone tells him that Muhammad, peas
>>> and carrots be upon him, rode through the sky on a flying horse he will
>>> accept that over any scientific studies on aerodynamics or biology. He
>>> also gets to pick and choose. He will accept utterly ridiculous claims
>>> like that, but if I make a claim that is just as much an example of
>>> so-called rational evidence he will reject it. It is also a bit ironic
>>> that the person who believes in the flying horse would say that I am the
>>> one who belongs in a mental hospital.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>
>>> J.K. Rowling
>>> " I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for
>>> believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! "
>>> ― J.K. Rowling
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
conform to someone Else's Beliefs.
I was thinking of what pressures Mostafa must have undergone to make
him as rigid as he appears, but we all have our personal demons to
battle. My growing up years were back in the American Dark Age. Born
during Roosevelt's first term, my world was one of lingering
depression, World War II, the Korean War, and McCarthyism.
Also, having had to live during such horrors as Nixonstein,
Reaganloff, and TWO, count them, 2 George Bushes. As if the burning
Bush was not enough. And of course there were our two Republicrats,
Slick Willie and Bumbling Barack, both with lips pursed to Wall Street
while giving the finger to Joe/Jane Public. Of course I may simply be
grumping over the fall of my childhood hero, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. I clung to my memory until having to confront the truth of
his New Deal. It was a New Deal only if you were White, and mostly
Male. FDR sold out Negroes and Japanese as well as doing nothing for
Latinos. Women, who had only recently gained the right to vote, were
still nearly half a century away from any relief from male oppression.
Maybe LBJ, whom I personally found disgusting, did more for the entire
population than any other president. And speaking of women, I would
vote a tie between the two most disgusting First Ladies in my
lifetime. Ladybird and Mamie. My vote for the greatest First Lady
goes to Eleanor Roosevelt. The Grand Dame of America.
And yet, when I hear that old familiar voice saying, "We have nothing
to feeah but feeah itself", my heart goes all a flutter.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/5/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
> When I was in elementary school - I forget which grade - we were given
> the assignment of reading as many books as we could in the school year.
> We were to keep a record of these books on index cards classifying them
> as fiction or nonfiction. There may have been some subcategories too.
> The teacher insisted that any books about dinosaurs be classified as
> fiction because the bible had nothing to say about dinosaurs. We would
> have actually have gotten a reduction in our grade for the project if we
> didn't classify them as fiction too.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> J.K. Rowling
> " I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for
> believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! "
> ― J.K. Rowling
>
>
>
>
> On 12/5/2018 7:34 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
>> Well said, Roger.
>> An aunt and uncle of mine told me that they did not want me to read
>> stories about dinosaurs to their son. They said that such stories
>> were the work of Satan. The Bible proved that the Earth was only a
>> bit over 5,000 years old. Scientific evidence was either deliberately
>> invented or based on poor research. Where could I turn? It came down
>> to my word against the Word of God. I made the comment that my
>> information also came from a book. Oops! I was told that such talk
>> was blasphemous, and if I continued talking like that I would not be
>> welcomed in their home.
>> Despite my understanding the rigidity of their position, I later tried
>> my hand at being a Born Again Christian, baptized in the Holy spirit.
>> While I never again want to be so Perfect and so Totally self
>> righteous, I would not trade the experience for all the ticks and
>> tocks' in my Grandfather's Clock. Carl Jarvis
>>
>> Carl Jarvis
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/5/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>>> I just got out of bed a while ago and have spent some time at my morning
>>> ablutions and done some talking book listening and am now sitting down
>>> at the computer for the first time today. This is not the time of day
>>> that I usually deal with email, but I went to bed with a discussion from
>>> this list on my mind and I decided to elaborate on it while I still had
>>> it on my mind. Mostafa accused me of not knowing about so-called
>>> rational evidence. It was not that I didn't know about it. It was just
>>> that I considered it irrelevant to the discussion, so I ignored it at
>>> first. But let's look at what it is and why it was so irrelevant.
>>> Rational evidence is a legal concept and a theological concept. What it
>>> amounts to is that someone tells you something and that telling is
>>> accepted as evidence. In a court of law if someone states that he knows
>>> that an event happened because someone told him that it did that
>>> testimony is most often thrown out as being hearsay. It is also an
>>> example of so-called rational evidence. On the other hand, if the
>>> witness says that an event happened because he saw it happen then that
>>> testimony is usually accepted and added as evidence in the legal
>>> proceeding. It is called rational evidence because the witness has
>>> nothing to back it up, but the witness is presumed to be a rational
>>> witness. If, however, some independent evidence is found that shows the
>>> witness to be lying then that opens him up to charges of perjury and,
>>> possibly, obstruction of justice. Of course, the rational evidence must
>>> be credible to be accepted too. Now, let me say that I am willing to
>>> accept so-called rational evidence under certain circumstances. For
>>> example, suppose someone sends me an email in which he claims to be
>>> wearing white socks. I am specifying email because that takes my
>>> blindness out of it as possibly a failure to verify. No one can verify a
>>> claim if all they have is an email making the claim. Well, I would be
>>> inclined to believe that claim. Wearing white socks is a very, very,
>>> common thing to do. I would not have any reason to think the person
>>> making the claim had a motive to lie about it. If I did think of a
>>> credible reason that he might be lying, though, I would become more
>>> skeptical. But if I accept the claim I am still accepting a claim that
>>> has nothing to back it up and so so-called rational evidence has about
>>> as much to do with being rational as Ayn Rand's objectivism has to do
>>> with being objective. I think that is a good analogy because in both
>>> cases it works for specific claims, but as a general principle for
>>> acquiring knowledge they are both worthless. Now, let's look at Carl
>>> Sagan's admonition that fantastic claims require fantastic evidence.
>>> That concept was also embodied in he Isaac Asimov quote I was using as
>>> my signature line last month. I may accept the claim that a person is
>>> wearing white socks on nothing but his word because that is not a
>>> fantastic claim in the least, but if the same person claims that there
>>> is an invisible man in the sky with magical powers who made me then that
>>> claim is a lot harder for me to accept on the person's word. It is a
>>> very fantastic claim and it requires evidence from the person making the
>>> claim. And because it is a fantastic claim it requires really fantastic
>>> evidence too. What kind of evidence does it require? Well, Mostafa was
>>> dismissing the validity of empirical evidence, but it is a part of what
>>> would be called scientific evidence. By the way, empiricism is a branch
>>> of materialist philosophy that can be discussed separately. I mention it
>>> now because I thought it likely that the word empirical might bring that
>>> up, but it is not particularly relevant to what I am discussing right
>>> now. Empirical evidence is pretty much the same thing as data. That is,
>>> everyone can look at it and agree that it is real except for some wack
>>> jobs who would deny the existence of a brick wall if they were slammed
>>> against it, that is, religious types. Scientific evidence means that
>>> scientific method has been applied to the empirical evidence. That is,
>>> it is hypothesized that if certain things are done to the empirically
>>> derived data that certain things will happen and then these things are
>>> done to it - that is, an experiment - and the hypothesis is either
>>> verified or refuted by the outcome. Somehow Mostafa thinks that
>>> so-called rational evidence is more reliable than either empirical or
>>> scientific evidence. That is, if someone tells him that Muhammad, peas
>>> and carrots be upon him, rode through the sky on a flying horse he will
>>> accept that over any scientific studies on aerodynamics or biology. He
>>> also gets to pick and choose. He will accept utterly ridiculous claims
>>> like that, but if I make a claim that is just as much an example of
>>> so-called rational evidence he will reject it. It is also a bit ironic
>>> that the person who believes in the flying horse would say that I am the
>>> one who belongs in a mental hospital.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>
>>> J.K. Rowling
>>> " I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for
>>> believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! "
>>> ― J.K. Rowling
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
Saturday, December 1, 2018
a blind man's tribute to george bush
For those of us active in the struggle for passage of the Americans
with Disabilities Act(ADA), the election of George Bush as President
looked like a real setback. But the Disabled Community doubled down,
rather than backing down, and the new president bowed to their
combined pressure. The passage of the ADA must be a reminder of what
the American People can accomplish when they put their minds to it.
Here are the words of George Bush as he prepared to sign the ADA:
Remarks of President George Bush at the Signing of the Americans with
Disabilities Act
Evan, thank you so much. And welcome to every one of you, out there in
this splendid scene of hope, spread across the South Lawn of the White
House. I
want to salute the Members of the United States Congress, the House
and the Senate who are with us today -- active participants in making
this day come
true. This is, indeed, an incredible day -- especially for the
thousands of people across the Nation who have given so much of their
time, their vision,
and their courage to see this act become a reality.
You know, I started trying to put together a list of all the people
who should be mentioned today. But when the list started looking a
little longer than
the Senate testimony for the bill, I decided I better give up, or that
we'd never get out of here before sunset. So, even though so many
deserve credit,
I will single out but a tiny handful. And I take those who have guided
me personally over the years: of course, my friends Evan Kemp and
Justin Dart, up
here on the platform with me; and of course -- I hope you'll forgive
me for also saying a special word of thanks to two from the White
House, but again,
this is personal, so I don't want to offend those omitted -- two from
the White House, Boyden Gray and Bill Roper, who labored long and
hard. And I want
to thank Sandy Parrino, of course, for her leadership. And I again --
it is very risky with all these Members of Congress here who worked so
hard, but
I can say on a very personal basis, Bob Dole has inspired me.
This is an immensely important day, a day that belongs to all of you.
Everywhere I look, I see people who have dedicated themselves to
making sure that
this day would come to pass: my friends from Congress, as I say, who
worked so diligently with the best interest of all at heart, Democrats
and Republicans;
members of this administration -- and I'm pleased to see so many top
officials and members of my Cabinet here today who brought their
caring and expertise
to this fight; and then, the organizations -- so many dedicated
organizations for people with disabilities, who gave their time and
their strength; and
perhaps most of all, everyone out there and others -- across the
breadth of this nation are 43 million Americans with disabilities. You
have made this
happen. All of you have made this happen. To all of you, I just want
to say your triumph is that your bill will now be law, and that this
day belongs to
you. On behalf of our nation, thank you very, very much.
Three weeks ago we celebrated our nation's Independence Day. Today
we're here to rejoice in and celebrate another ``independence day,''
one that is long
overdue. With today's signing of the landmark Americans for
Disabilities Act, every man, woman, and child with a disability can
now pass through once-closed
doors into a bright new era of equality, independence, and freedom. As
I look around at all these joyous faces, I remember clearly how many
years of dedicated
commitment have gone into making this historic new civil rights act a
reality. It's been the work of a true coalition, a strong and
inspiring coalition
of people who have shared both a dream and a passionate determination
to make that dream come true. It's been a coalition in the finest
spirit -- a joining
of Democrats and Republicans, of the legislative and the executive
branches, of Federal and State agencies, of public officials and
private citizens, of
people with disabilities and without.
This historic act is the world's first comprehensive declaration of
equality for people with disabilities -- the first. Its passage has
made the United
States the international leader on this human rights issue. Already,
leaders of several other countries, including Sweden, Japan, the
Soviet Union, and
all 12 members of the EEC, have announced that they hope to enact now
similar legislation.
Our success with this act proves that we are keeping faith with the
spirit of our courageous forefathers who wrote in the Declaration of
Independence:
``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights.'' These
words have been our guide for more than two centuries as we've labored
to form our more perfect union. But tragically, for too many
Americans, the blessings
of liberty have been limited or even denied. The Civil Rights Act of
'64 took a bold step towards righting that wrong. But the stark fact
remained that
people with disabilities were still victims of segregation and
discrimination, and this was intolerable. Today's legislation brings
us closer to that day
when no Americans will ever again be deprived of their basic guarantee
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This act is powerful in its simplicity. It will ensure that people
with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for which they have
worked so long
and so hard: independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives,
the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic of the
American mainstream.
Legally, it will provide our disabled community with a powerful
expansion of protections and then basic civil rights. It will
guarantee fair and just access
to the fruits of American life which we all must be able to enjoy. And
then, specifically, first the ADA ensures that employers covered by
the act cannot
discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities. Second,
the ADA ensures access to public accommodations such as restaurants,
hotels, shopping
centers, and offices. And third, the ADA ensures expanded access to
transportation services. And fourth, the ADA ensures equivalent
telephone services
for people with speech or hearing impediments.
These provisions mean so much to so many. To one brave girl in
particular, they will mean the world. Lisa Carl, a young Washington
State woman with cerebral
palsy, who I'm told is with us today, now will always be admitted to
her hometown theater. Lisa, you might not have been welcome at your
theater, but I'll
tell you -- welcome to the White House. We're glad you're here. The
ADA is a dramatic renewal not only for those with disabilities but for
all of us, because
along with the precious privilege of being an American comes a sacred
duty to ensure that every other American's rights are also guaranteed.
Together, we must remove the physical barriers we have created and the
social barriers that we have accepted. For ours will never be a truly
prosperous
nation until all within it prosper. For inspiration, we need look no
further than our own neighbors. With us in that wonderful crowd out
there are people
representing 18 of the daily Points of Light that I've named for their
extraordinary involvement with the disabled community. We applaud you
and your shining
example. Thank you for your leadership for all that are here today.
Now, let me just tell you a wonderful story, a story about children
already working in the spirit of the ADA -- a story that really
touched me. Across
the Nation, some 10,000 youngsters with disabilities are part of
Little League's Challenger Division. Their teams play just like
others, but -- and this
is the most remarkable part -- as they play, at their sides are
volunteer buddies from conventional Little League teams. All of these
players work together.
They team up to wheel around the bases and to field grounders together
and, most of all, just to play and become friends. We must let these
children be
our guides and inspiration.
I also want to say a special word to our friends in the business
community. You have in your hands the key to the success of this act,
for you can unlock
a splendid resource of untapped human potential that, when freed, will
enrich us all. I know there have been concerns that the ADA may be
vague or costly,
or may lead endlessly to litigation. But I want to reassure you right
now that my administration and the United States Congress have
carefully crafted
this Act. We've all been determined to ensure that it gives
flexibility, particularly in terms of the timetable of implementation,
and we've been committed
to containing the costs that may be incurred.
This act does something important for American business, though -- and
remember this: You've called for new sources of workers. Well, many of
our fellow
citizens with disabilities are unemployed. They want to work, and they
can work, and this is a tremendous pool of people. And remember, this
is a tremendous
pool of people who will bring to jobs diversity, loyalty, proven low
turnover rate, and only one request: the chance to prove themselves.
And when you
add together Federal, State, local, and private funds, it costs almost
$200 billion annually to support Americans with disabilities -- in
effect, to keep
them dependent. Well, when given the opportunity to be independent,
they will move proudly into the economic mainstream of American life,
and that's what
this legislation is all about.
Our problems are large, but our unified heart is larger. Our
challenges are great, but our will is greater. And in our America, the
most generous, optimistic
nation on the face of the Earth, we must not and will not rest until
every man and woman with a dream has the means to achieve it.
And today, America welcomes into the mainstream of life all of our
fellow citizens with disabilities. We embrace you for your abilities
and for your disabilities,
for our similarities and indeed for our differences, for your past
courage and your future dreams. Last year, we celebrated a victory of
international
freedom. Even the strongest person couldn't scale the Berlin Wall to
gain the elusive promise of independence that lay just beyond. And so,
together we
rejoiced when that barrier fell.
And now I sign legislation which takes a sledgehammer to another wall,
one which has for too many generations separated Americans with
disabilities from
the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp. Once again, we rejoice
as this barrier falls for claiming together we will not accept, we
will not excuse,
we will not tolerate discrimination in America.
With, again, great thanks to the Members of the United States Senate,
leaders of whom are here today, and those who worked so tirelessly for
this legislation
on both sides of the aisles. And to those Members of the House of
Representatives with us here today, Democrats and Republicans as well,
I salute you.
And on your behalf, as well as the behalf of this entire country, I
now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disabilities Act and say:
Let the shameful
wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. God bless you all.
with Disabilities Act(ADA), the election of George Bush as President
looked like a real setback. But the Disabled Community doubled down,
rather than backing down, and the new president bowed to their
combined pressure. The passage of the ADA must be a reminder of what
the American People can accomplish when they put their minds to it.
Here are the words of George Bush as he prepared to sign the ADA:
Remarks of President George Bush at the Signing of the Americans with
Disabilities Act
Evan, thank you so much. And welcome to every one of you, out there in
this splendid scene of hope, spread across the South Lawn of the White
House. I
want to salute the Members of the United States Congress, the House
and the Senate who are with us today -- active participants in making
this day come
true. This is, indeed, an incredible day -- especially for the
thousands of people across the Nation who have given so much of their
time, their vision,
and their courage to see this act become a reality.
You know, I started trying to put together a list of all the people
who should be mentioned today. But when the list started looking a
little longer than
the Senate testimony for the bill, I decided I better give up, or that
we'd never get out of here before sunset. So, even though so many
deserve credit,
I will single out but a tiny handful. And I take those who have guided
me personally over the years: of course, my friends Evan Kemp and
Justin Dart, up
here on the platform with me; and of course -- I hope you'll forgive
me for also saying a special word of thanks to two from the White
House, but again,
this is personal, so I don't want to offend those omitted -- two from
the White House, Boyden Gray and Bill Roper, who labored long and
hard. And I want
to thank Sandy Parrino, of course, for her leadership. And I again --
it is very risky with all these Members of Congress here who worked so
hard, but
I can say on a very personal basis, Bob Dole has inspired me.
This is an immensely important day, a day that belongs to all of you.
Everywhere I look, I see people who have dedicated themselves to
making sure that
this day would come to pass: my friends from Congress, as I say, who
worked so diligently with the best interest of all at heart, Democrats
and Republicans;
members of this administration -- and I'm pleased to see so many top
officials and members of my Cabinet here today who brought their
caring and expertise
to this fight; and then, the organizations -- so many dedicated
organizations for people with disabilities, who gave their time and
their strength; and
perhaps most of all, everyone out there and others -- across the
breadth of this nation are 43 million Americans with disabilities. You
have made this
happen. All of you have made this happen. To all of you, I just want
to say your triumph is that your bill will now be law, and that this
day belongs to
you. On behalf of our nation, thank you very, very much.
Three weeks ago we celebrated our nation's Independence Day. Today
we're here to rejoice in and celebrate another ``independence day,''
one that is long
overdue. With today's signing of the landmark Americans for
Disabilities Act, every man, woman, and child with a disability can
now pass through once-closed
doors into a bright new era of equality, independence, and freedom. As
I look around at all these joyous faces, I remember clearly how many
years of dedicated
commitment have gone into making this historic new civil rights act a
reality. It's been the work of a true coalition, a strong and
inspiring coalition
of people who have shared both a dream and a passionate determination
to make that dream come true. It's been a coalition in the finest
spirit -- a joining
of Democrats and Republicans, of the legislative and the executive
branches, of Federal and State agencies, of public officials and
private citizens, of
people with disabilities and without.
This historic act is the world's first comprehensive declaration of
equality for people with disabilities -- the first. Its passage has
made the United
States the international leader on this human rights issue. Already,
leaders of several other countries, including Sweden, Japan, the
Soviet Union, and
all 12 members of the EEC, have announced that they hope to enact now
similar legislation.
Our success with this act proves that we are keeping faith with the
spirit of our courageous forefathers who wrote in the Declaration of
Independence:
``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights.'' These
words have been our guide for more than two centuries as we've labored
to form our more perfect union. But tragically, for too many
Americans, the blessings
of liberty have been limited or even denied. The Civil Rights Act of
'64 took a bold step towards righting that wrong. But the stark fact
remained that
people with disabilities were still victims of segregation and
discrimination, and this was intolerable. Today's legislation brings
us closer to that day
when no Americans will ever again be deprived of their basic guarantee
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This act is powerful in its simplicity. It will ensure that people
with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for which they have
worked so long
and so hard: independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives,
the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic of the
American mainstream.
Legally, it will provide our disabled community with a powerful
expansion of protections and then basic civil rights. It will
guarantee fair and just access
to the fruits of American life which we all must be able to enjoy. And
then, specifically, first the ADA ensures that employers covered by
the act cannot
discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities. Second,
the ADA ensures access to public accommodations such as restaurants,
hotels, shopping
centers, and offices. And third, the ADA ensures expanded access to
transportation services. And fourth, the ADA ensures equivalent
telephone services
for people with speech or hearing impediments.
These provisions mean so much to so many. To one brave girl in
particular, they will mean the world. Lisa Carl, a young Washington
State woman with cerebral
palsy, who I'm told is with us today, now will always be admitted to
her hometown theater. Lisa, you might not have been welcome at your
theater, but I'll
tell you -- welcome to the White House. We're glad you're here. The
ADA is a dramatic renewal not only for those with disabilities but for
all of us, because
along with the precious privilege of being an American comes a sacred
duty to ensure that every other American's rights are also guaranteed.
Together, we must remove the physical barriers we have created and the
social barriers that we have accepted. For ours will never be a truly
prosperous
nation until all within it prosper. For inspiration, we need look no
further than our own neighbors. With us in that wonderful crowd out
there are people
representing 18 of the daily Points of Light that I've named for their
extraordinary involvement with the disabled community. We applaud you
and your shining
example. Thank you for your leadership for all that are here today.
Now, let me just tell you a wonderful story, a story about children
already working in the spirit of the ADA -- a story that really
touched me. Across
the Nation, some 10,000 youngsters with disabilities are part of
Little League's Challenger Division. Their teams play just like
others, but -- and this
is the most remarkable part -- as they play, at their sides are
volunteer buddies from conventional Little League teams. All of these
players work together.
They team up to wheel around the bases and to field grounders together
and, most of all, just to play and become friends. We must let these
children be
our guides and inspiration.
I also want to say a special word to our friends in the business
community. You have in your hands the key to the success of this act,
for you can unlock
a splendid resource of untapped human potential that, when freed, will
enrich us all. I know there have been concerns that the ADA may be
vague or costly,
or may lead endlessly to litigation. But I want to reassure you right
now that my administration and the United States Congress have
carefully crafted
this Act. We've all been determined to ensure that it gives
flexibility, particularly in terms of the timetable of implementation,
and we've been committed
to containing the costs that may be incurred.
This act does something important for American business, though -- and
remember this: You've called for new sources of workers. Well, many of
our fellow
citizens with disabilities are unemployed. They want to work, and they
can work, and this is a tremendous pool of people. And remember, this
is a tremendous
pool of people who will bring to jobs diversity, loyalty, proven low
turnover rate, and only one request: the chance to prove themselves.
And when you
add together Federal, State, local, and private funds, it costs almost
$200 billion annually to support Americans with disabilities -- in
effect, to keep
them dependent. Well, when given the opportunity to be independent,
they will move proudly into the economic mainstream of American life,
and that's what
this legislation is all about.
Our problems are large, but our unified heart is larger. Our
challenges are great, but our will is greater. And in our America, the
most generous, optimistic
nation on the face of the Earth, we must not and will not rest until
every man and woman with a dream has the means to achieve it.
And today, America welcomes into the mainstream of life all of our
fellow citizens with disabilities. We embrace you for your abilities
and for your disabilities,
for our similarities and indeed for our differences, for your past
courage and your future dreams. Last year, we celebrated a victory of
international
freedom. Even the strongest person couldn't scale the Berlin Wall to
gain the elusive promise of independence that lay just beyond. And so,
together we
rejoiced when that barrier fell.
And now I sign legislation which takes a sledgehammer to another wall,
one which has for too many generations separated Americans with
disabilities from
the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp. Once again, we rejoice
as this barrier falls for claiming together we will not accept, we
will not excuse,
we will not tolerate discrimination in America.
With, again, great thanks to the Members of the United States Senate,
leaders of whom are here today, and those who worked so tirelessly for
this legislation
on both sides of the aisles. And to those Members of the House of
Representatives with us here today, Democrats and Republicans as well,
I salute you.
And on your behalf, as well as the behalf of this entire country, I
now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disabilities Act and say:
Let the shameful
wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. God bless you all.
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