Friday, October 31, 2008

Studs Terkel: 1912-2008

Many years ago I read the Terkel book, "Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession" (1992. ISBN 978-1565840003). Terkel had a way of taking you into people's lives to experience their everyday thoughts and beliefs, some pretty, some not so. But with each of his subjects you could not help but come away with a profound respect for what there is to be learned from mining honest feelings.

James C. Collier

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Thursday, October 30, 2008

Acting White: Friends Close...Enemies Closer

So with seven days to go, Bill is finally making nice with Obama, eh? What's up? Has he forgiven Barack for trouncing good old Hill, otherwise a shoe-in for heading the Demo-ticket into this election? Hardly, if you know Bill. The Clinton's have memories like elephants, and certainly don't like the crow they've had to force down these last few months, while some still-wet-behind-the-ears wanna-be walks off with their prize. Hillary, to her credit, has been soldiering-on for Obama. After being with Bill all these years, she's a pro at smiling through the pain. Bill, on the other hand...

Now do I think the Clinton's are racist? Yes, I do, but no more so than any other white or black politician in America. On top of their normal race sensitivities, let's not forget we are talking about lawyers on both sides of the scrimmage line. They are trained from the get-go to use every part of the pig, including the oink, to win. Race is just a high-card to be played when backs are against the wall, and favorite marbles are about to exchange pockets. Both Clinton's and Obama appealed to race as an issue. It's just that the Clinton's, followed by McCain/Palin, did it ever so poorly to the evolved taste of the voters.

So what do you do when the so-called affirmative action candidate whips your butt, fair and square? Well, you lick your wounds, make nice, and wait. In Hill and Bill's case, you definitely put the cozy on, because if this Obama dude not only wins the White House, but leads the party to 'run the table' on the Republicans, taking him down ain't gonna be without risks. Lots of folks who have been in the Clinton fold are running to the O-man about now, knowing that his vigilance will be on keeping a tight tab on the Clinton backroom-game and who is attending.

The best bet for the Clinton's is to make a good show of backing an Obama dent in this country's Bush mess. Helping him succeed is a much better strategy than undermining him. If he falters, expect them to pounce. Team Obama knows all of this. Should be interesting, but Obama must still get past Nov 4...

James C. Collier

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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Acting White: Post-Traumatic Bush Syndrome

The last few weeks should have made things very clear to Americans. George Bush, as a president, has been a monumental failure. History is only left to argue his place among the worse of the worse. Some will say he had bad luck, like 9/11 and Katrina, but he has also betrayed any and all ideologies that Americans hold dear. He has effectively stuck the country with a sub-prime loan on our future. Dismal, very dismal.

Bush tax and oversight policies have failed our economy. Bush spending has failed the Republican platform, and made it possible that Democrats will control not only the presidency (a good thing), but also both houses (not a good thing). He lead us into a bad war, needlessly causing the deaths of thousands on both sides and wasting billions. He erased a budget surplus and doubled the country's deficit from 5 to 10 trillion dollars.

He has placed hand-cuffs on our crumbling education system, with No Child Left Behind, and done nothing while millions of citizens - families - are banished to the rolls of the uninsured. The impact reaches beyond our shores as well where, as Mr. Free World, he has stumbled and bumbled his way on a seemingly aimless journey, too often laid out by men of sinister character and motives, with names like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, and Rove.

So whether you are an Obamamaniac, McCain supporter, or undecided, we are left with the stream of cold imploding headlines as evidence that the George Bush legacy is our country in one hell of a mess, which I doubt anyone will soon forget.

James C. Collier

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

Acting White: Raw & Real!

"On October 12, one of our reporters [Al Jazeera English] interviewed people attending a Sarah Palin rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio. It was raw and it was real.

Here's a sample of some of the comments the reporter heard about Barack Obama:

"I'm afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over. He's not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?"
"When you got a Negra running for president, you need a first stringer. He's [McCain?] definitely a second stringer."




Sarah Palin seems to be the knife that John McCain is using to gut his own run for the White House.

Poor judgment simply does not describe what is going on here. Whatever one thinks of Obama, there should be no argument that McCain's stirring of such vile dens of racist cockroaches is the truest of political gifts, along (of course) with the hapless efforts of the clueless Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission.

James C. Collier

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Friday, October 24, 2008

Acting White: I'm Shocked!

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he [Greenspan] told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The NYT article goes on to say, "Many Republican lawmakers on the oversight committee tried to blame the mortgage meltdown on the unchecked growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies that were placed in a government conservatorship last month. Republicans have argued that Democratic lawmakers blocked measures to reform the companies.

But Mr. Greenspan, who was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan, placed far more blame on the Wall Street companies that bundled subprime mortgages into pools and sold them as mortgage-backed securities. Global demand for the securities was so high, he said, that Wall Street companies pressured lenders to lower their standards and produce more “paper.”

“The evidence strongly suggests that without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations (undeniably the original source of the crisis) would have been far smaller and defaults accordingly far lower,” he said."

It looks more and more, by the words of the 'maestro' himself, that the melt-down was not caused by all those minorities scamming poor bankers, but just the opposite - loose lending to feed the greedy appetites of Wall Street.

This much is for sure, there are a lot of poor folks deserving of a big fat apology and some debt relief from the likes of Greenspan, the Treasury, and the pundits who have been heaping blame on their poor wanton souls over the past weeks. But I won't hold my breath waiting.

James C. Collier

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Acting White: AA, Diversity I & II

My daughter is a high school senior looking at colleges, so I have the pleasure of attending numerous ‘college nights’, as she executes her move into this phase in her young life. This gives me a trench-level view of how advanced education currently views young blacks. Now I’m too old to have experienced the diversity argument of the nineties. Before then it was just straight-up affirmative action (AA), with the goal of righting past wrongs, by tossing blacks into elusive college programs to sink or swim. Unfortunately, too many sank. It turns out that plus addmission points for skin-hue did not translate into grade points for graduation. Surprise!

Following AA, the first diversity push, which I’ll call D1, quietly converted the strategy of atoning for past wrongs, to focusing on balance. If blacks are 13% percent of the population, then they should be 13% of the college students. Fair is fair, right? But this did not work, either. Sure, there is growing black excellence, but not enough of it to fill all of America’s colleges with their 13%. Also, it seems like a quota, and that is one dirty word in the lexicon. So, back they went to the drawing board.

Now we have D2, the second diversity push. Only this time the story is not about the benefit to blacks, but rather the value to all who need to sit in a classroom with blacks, in order to get their educational money’s worth – a diverse learning environment. The plus-points doled out to under-represented minorities are justified, under D2, for the value it brings to the education promise of ‘everybody’ (esp. liberal white kids). And just so long as race is not the too obvious driving criteria for admission, these race-based bonus points are allowed, so says the Supreme Court.

In all cases, whether I witnessed it 20 years ago or just saw it just last night, the underlying problem remains. The bonus points that accompany the diversity recruitment promos still do not translate into the GPA that will make my girl, and me, smile and establish her argument into graduate school. So it is up to me to appropriately counter the bonus points that entice her, and black kids like her, into programs which, by their mismatch skills and requirements, will result in less educational enrichment, lower grades, and fewer graduate school opportunities/experiences.

While we continue with outdated and ineffective solutions, more and more poor kids, of all colors, are being locked out of higher education. It is they who need points and programs to overcome the impact of economically disadvantaged schools from the start. I hate it that Ward Connerly-types have hijacked the pursuit of fair solutions to unfair disparities. Nevertheless, bankrupt educators should neither get away with trickery to prop up an approach that they know does not work, and which should have been replaced long ago.

James C. Collier

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Sunday, October 19, 2008

Acting White: Colin Powell Endorses Obama


The NYT reports today that Former Secretary of State and well-respected Republican Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama.

I have faith that Powell could extricate us from the Bush-Iraq debacle better than any other man this country has. If Bush had listened to the General at the outset we probably would not have wasted thousands of lives and billions of tax dollars lining the pockets of Cheney's war-contracting thug-buddies.

If called upon by Obama, I'm sure the patriotic Powell would jump in with both hands and feet, as this is the kind of man he is. I have always admired him and wish I could have voted for him for president. I also understand his desire to not put his family through the dirt of presidential politics.

Powell's criticisms of McCain's campaign are fair and on target, with the simple descriptor that it has been 'over the top'. Unlike McCain's half-assed vetting of Sarah Palin, you can bet the General has gone over Obama with a fine-toothed comb before lending him his good name. For many Americans, this will mean something.

The Times also reports that Obama raised a record $150M this past month, with 632K new contributors. It seems Americans really are looking for a change.

James C. Collier

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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Acting White: How Liberal is Obama?


I keep hearing how Obama is the second most liberal Democrat in all of Washington, a bad thing, and how John McCain is a 'maverick' within the Republicans. Now being labeled as very liberal is suppose to taint you with bloated government, ear-mark spending, over-regulation, and bureaucracy. Being a maverick, on the other hand, is suppose to mean that you somehow do not run with the big-business, special-interest crowd, whether to right or the left of center.

So with all of this, I searched and found this interesting graph prepared by Keith T. Poole PhD., Professor of Political Science, University of CA, San Diego. Poole presents that Obama, McCain, and Clinton, are all much closer to the average voting ideology of their respective parties, compared to what they, or others, want us to believe. His work utilizes DW-NOMINATE, a system which measures Congressional legislators’ ideological locations over time.

If McCain was the maverick that he claims, we would expect him, over time, to be on either end of his party's ideology, rather than near the middle. If Obama was the flaming liberal-socialist his opponents say he is, why does he not show up at the far left of his party voting?

This is just one small exposé of the magic show we are watching called election 2008. Food for thought.

James C. Collier

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Thursday, October 09, 2008

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Acting White: Hacking Democracy 9 of 9



"This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren't safe, then our democracy isn't safe either. The documentary exposes the dangers of voting machines used during America's mid term and presidential elections. Electronic voting machines count approximately 90% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections. The technology is also increasingly being used across the world, including in Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and Latin America. Filmed over three years this expose follows the investigations of a team of citizen activists and hackers as they take on the electronic voting industry, targeting the Diebold corporation. "Hacking Democracy" uncovers incendiary evidence from the trash cans of Texas to the ballot boxes of Ohio, exposing secrecy, votes in the trash, hackable software and election officials rigging the presidential recount. Ultimately proving our votes can be stolen without a trace "Hacking Democracy" culminates in the famous 'Hursti Hack'; a duel between the Diebold voting machines and a computer hacker from Finland - with America's democracy at stake. The two Ohio election staff who feature in "Hacking Democracy" were sentenced on March 13th 2007 for rigging the 2004 presidential recount. Incriminating footage from the documentary was used in their court case as evidence." http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/

LET THE VOTER BEWARE!!

Diebold Letter (in their defense)

Independent Review by California Secretary of State: Security Analysis of Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter by University of California, Berkeley (2006).

James C. Collier



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Acting White: The Perfect Lie

"John McCain has an illegitimate black daughter!" When the George Bush campaign of 2000 made this claim, they set the standard for the 'perfect lie'. A perfect lie stops a voter dead in their tracks, via some minuscule measure of truth, wrapped in a big ugly. Indeed, Senator McCain has an adopted daughter, not borne by either of his wives, and whose skin is dark complected (making African ancestry plausible). Beyond this, all lies. Bush made this up and sank McCain with it. Now McCain is desperately searching for his perfect lie to sink Obama. But he has two problems. He has not found the lie and his delivery/deliverer, Sarah Palin, is all wrong. Perfect lies must be whispered under the radar of the press, those pesky fact checkers. Bush used telephones, hundreds of thousands of them, while publicly denying their smear effort. Palin is openly accusing Obama of 'paling with terrorists', while the press repeats 'not true, not true'. This is nothing but sloppy dirty-campaigning on McCain's part. It is the same as McCain getting shot off his horse by his Republican peers when he suspended his campaign to save us from the economic crisis. Sloppy, stupid and despicable. I really expected more from big John, son of an admiral. Where's the strategy, where's the cunning and guile? But really, where's McCain's self-respect. This is what some Republicans mean when they tell him to muzzle Palin, but he does not get it.

James C. Collier

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Saturday, October 04, 2008

Friday, October 03, 2008

Acting White: Biden v. Palin 2008

I know who I wanted to win the debate, but more importantly I want to maintain some modicum of objectivity. So here goes...

On one side you have Biden, a career politician and trained lawyer, with a penchant for an attack-dog style and putting his foot in his mouth on lesser issues (gaffes). Not a change agent, rather a consummate insider. He did not attack. He tasted none of his shoe. And said nothing he regretted. Still, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

On the other side you have Palin, a political new-comer and self-proclaimed evangelical hockey-mom. Consummate intellectual lightweight (five colleges in six years). Runner-up beauty contestant, small-town mayor, small-state (pop.) governor. Josephine six-pack, campaign spokes-energizer model. Didn't mention seeing Russia out her window. Winked and nodded at the camera. Tricked by that sneaky gay question. Admitted to not answering questions if they don't suit her (just about all of them).

I call the debate a tie against their respective benchmarks, but Joe is clearly about 30 years ahead in knowing something about anything.

However, when you throw in the probability of either of them replacing their bosses, due to incapacity in office, (with all due respect to McCain) the winner is ultra-clear.

Biden.

BTW, Ifill's moderation was impressive, as expected.

James C. Collier

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Acting White: NPR News & Notes

The good folks at News&Notes, with Farai Chideya, had me on their blogger round-table today, along with bloggers from Racialicious (Carmen Van Kerckhove) and BookerRising (Shay Riley). We talked about black folks getting blamed for the mortgage melt-down, the 'Dump Palin' campaign by Republicans, and PBS Gwen Ifill writing a book about Obama (with promotion tied to his winning) while she is set to moderate the upcoming VP debates. The discussion was pretty tame with good input all the way around.

Shay was a bit curious when she went off on a rant about 'big government' and the mortgage melt-down. I sensed that we needed to move the dialog along, but it seems to me that Greenspan and his protégé Bernake are way guilty of being too hands off with aggressive bank lending for the past 'umpteen years, while Bernake is now putting his fat-govt-fingers into the taxpayer wallets to clean up the mess. So it looks like instead of 'big' we have 'no' government preceding a good old-fashion shake-down. Maybe she will come on this blog and clue me in from the right. (She has a good radio voice, BTW).

James C. Collier

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