DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Lanya on October 12, 2007, 01:50:39 PM
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Blackwater Is Soaked
An arrogant attitude only adds fuel to the criticism.
Gervasio Sanchez / AP
By Rod Nordland and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Oct. 15, 2007 issue - The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press."
Story continues below ↓advertisement
Whatever else Blackwater is or isn't guilty of?a topic of intense interest in Washington?it has a well-earned reputation in Iraq for arrogance and high-handedness. Iraqis naturally have the most serious complaints; dozens have been killed by Blackwater operatives since the beginning of the war. But many American civilian and military officials in Iraq also have little sympathy for the private security company and its highly paid employees. With an uproar growing in Congress over Blackwater's alleged excesses, the North Carolina-based company is finding few supporters.
Responsible for guarding top U.S. officials in Iraq, Blackwater operatives are often accused of playing by their own rules. Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."
Congress disagrees. Until now, private security contractors working for the State Department, as Blackwater does, have effectively not been covered by either U.S. or Iraqi law, or military regulations. A bill that overwhelmingly passed the House last week would close that loophole. But the law would also require the FBI to establish a large-scale presence in Iraq in order to investigate accusations against private contractors. Law-enforcement officials worry that this would draw valuable resources away from FBI efforts to combat terrorism in the United States. Also, whenever FBI agents venture into Iraq now they are guarded by ... Blackwater operatives. The bureau has sent a team to Baghdad to investigate the Sept. 16 shooting in Nasoor Square, in which Blackwater guards are accused of killing as many as 17 Iraqi civilians. In order to avoid "even the appearance of any conflict [of interest]," according to an FBI spokesman, the agents will be defended by U.S. government personnel.
It is not an idle concern. Blackwater's staunchest defenders tend to be found among those whom they guard. U.S. officials prefer Blackwater and other private security bodyguards because they regard them as more highly trained than military guards, who are often reservists from MP units. A U.S. Embassy staffer, who did not have permission to speak on the record, said, "It's a few bad eggs that seem to be spoiling the bunch." Late last week the State Department announced that it would increase oversight of Blackwater in particular, installing cameras in its vehicles and having a Diplomatic Security Service officer ride along on every convoy. But another State Department official, also speaking anonymously, says that DSS agents in Baghdad have not been eager to rein in the contractors in the past: "These guys tend to close ranks. It's like the blue wall."
Testifying before Congress last week, 38-year-old Blackwater chief Erik Prince vigorously defended his company's "dedicated security professionals" who "risk their lives to protect Americans in harm's way overseas." Prince probably had no reason to be as smug as he seemed to many observers. In deflecting questions about a drunken Blackwater operative who allegedly shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve last year, Prince said that the employee, later identified as Andrew Moonen, had been fined and fired. But on Friday House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman released a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recounting evidence that Moonen was able to return to Iraq and worked there for another company. Moonen's attorney, Stewart Riley, told NEWSWEEK his client denies wrongdoing and is not facing criminal charges. Blackwater is no doubt in for further fire fights.
With Larry Kaplow in Baghdad and Michael Hastings in Washington
? 2007 Newsweek, Inc. | Subscribe to Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21163806/site/newsweek/page/0/
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Ah, the next Democrat scandal of the week.
Ho hum.
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the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV
That really pisses me off. >:(
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Ah, the next Democrat scandal of the week.
Ho hum.
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Perhaps sometime soon, Blackwater might run into your car and force you to lie down in abject humiliation for an unspecified amount of time.
Then you would get upset if we said
"Ho hum"
The issue is should the government hire mercenaries that can violate everyone's rights with utter impunity.
I suppose you think that this is just hunky-dory.
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>>Perhaps sometime soon, Blackwater might run into your car and force you to lie down in abject humiliation for an unspecified amount of time.<<
What's the matter, are you scared? lol ...
As if you give a damn about American soldiers anyway.
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>>Perhaps sometime soon, Blackwater might run into your car and force you to lie down in abject humiliation for an unspecified amount of time.<<
What's the matter, are you scared? lol ...
As if you give a damn about American soldiers anyway.
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I would not feel threatened at all, if Blackwater were to humiliate you, actually. Even if the frog in your pocket were also humiliated.
Unlike you, I am all for American soldiers returning to the US unmaimed, alive and sane.
If this were to happen, they would feel better, and I would not have to pay their medical bills, psychiatric expenses, widows and orphaned children. I would not feel that I could have prevented their suffering just by voting here in Florida earier and more often than I did, thereby causing Al Gore to have been elected instead of swill-for-brains Juniorbush.
Perhaps a bit of voter fraud to prevent idiocy in the presidency would have been the correct moral choice.
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All of this is headed towards a second civil war in America. People like Richiepoo are going to start thinking that having and supporting Blackwater in the US is a good idea. They already have a base in CA and eventually someone is going to say, "Hey, why don't we just hire Blackwater to make sure we can march wherever we want when we protest against abortion?"
And no one is going to laugh out loud and tell that guy STFU. Then we'll have war.
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Blackwater is symptomatic of the trend to privatization and ever-diminishing accountability. It's funny but I just read of the acquittal of seven guards and a boot-camp nurse in the asphyxiation death of a 14-year-old black boy incarcerated in a private facility in Florida. It looks like the state monopoly on violence CAN be contracted out, for private profit and governmental immunity. What's good enough for Amerikkka's blacks is good enough for Amerikkka's Third World victims as well, and vice versa. Check out the results of the Martin Lee Anderson trial in Panama City Florida. Bush isn't leading a putsch, Hitler-style. He doesn't have to. The people who are behind him can wait a few years. Their fortunes are secure now and growing by leaps and bounds even with the residual amounts of freedom and democracy that still are lingering around waiting for their eventual nullification. They know that every year, little by little, Bush is taking them in the direction they want to go.
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Blackwater is symptomatic of the trend to privatization and ever-diminishing accountability. It's funny but I just read of the acquittal of seven guards and a boot-camp nurse in the asphyxiation death of a 14-year-old black boy incarcerated in a private facility in Florida. It looks like the state monopoly on violence CAN be contracted out, for private profit and governmental immunity.
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The particular boot camp to which you refer has been obliterated by the legislature. They claimed that the kid died as a result of sickle cell anemia, but that didn't wash, and the state was hit with a lawsuit. I didn't hear that anyone was acquitted, though.
I agree that Blackwater and its ilk are dangerous and should be unfunded everywhere because of their abuses and because the cops are bad enough without hiring overpaid thugs to do the work the cops can't get away with.
So far, Blackwater has only been immune from prosecution in Iraq.
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<<The particular boot camp to which you refer has been obliterated by the legislature. They claimed that the kid died as a result of sickle cell anemia, but that didn't wash, and the state was hit with a lawsuit. I didn't hear that anyone was acquitted, though.>>
The lawsuit was settled for $5 million which still has to be approved by the State Legislature. The criminal case verdicts were just handed down today. Unbelievable. This fourteen year old kid walking around all his life with sickle-cell trait (not the disease, the trait) and then one fine day he just drops dead from it. Never even knew he had the trait (it's common among African-Americans) but suddenly he just goes into a coma and dies the next day from it.
Oh yeah - - funny coincidence, he went into the coma as seven guards were preventing him from breathing through his mouth by closing it with their hands and simultaneously forcing him to inhale ammonia fumes.
But not to worry - - the all-white jury saw that justice was done, and acquitted all of them, even the camp nurse. It was just SO good to see how racism in Florida is just dead and buried. Believe me, if the kid had been white, it would have made no difference in the verdict. I know that. Believe me.
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You are right, this is insane. The State of Florida that hired these murderous doofuses is responsible to the tune of $5,000,000, but not a single doofus is actually guilty. How can this be? The State Legislature did not suffocate the kid. They may be fools for seting up this boot camp and hiring the people they did, but they are not as responsible as the people there on the ground.
Several of the guards were Black, by the way.
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Several of the guards were Black, by the way.
All of 'em Uncle Toms, I'm sure.
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<<All of 'em Uncle Toms, I'm sure.>>
Oh, no. The significance of their being black and Asian is that they couldn't POSSIBLY have acted badly towards a 14-year-old black kid who (tragically) just happened to die at the ripe old age of 14 not from a disease but a trait that he'd been walking around with all his life, just about the same time as those seven guards were covering his mouth and forcing ammonia fumes up his nose. What an unlucky coincidence!!
That's how we KNOW the murder charges were the bogus product of sick liberal minds trying to make the good decent white folk of Florida look like a bunch of racist thugs, BTW - - because some of the guards were black and Asian.
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I hardly think anyone needs to be a particular color to beat the crap out of a rebellious teenager. The guards were thugs, and were certainly parties to the death of this kid.
He was forced to run and when he could run no longer, he dropped, and this bunch of guards fell on him and began to beat him. When they decided he was unconscious, they crammed ammonia up his nose.
The lawyer for the defense, from what I read in the Miami Herald, claimed that there is this extremely rare occurrence in sickle cell patients where they die after undue exertion or something, and apparently that convinced the jury.
It wasn't the intent of the guards to kill the kid, they say, but then again they were charged with manslaughter, which is unintentional murder.
The paradox remains that the State of Florida was liable, but none of the hirelings was guilty. This is ilogical, and would never have happened on Planet Vulcan.
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Just to make this crystal clear to all RW nitpickers, the racism was not in the composition of the guard detail; even in the days of slavery, massa had his "house niggers" all too ready to deal with uppity slaves as they needed to be dealt with. The racism was in the callous attitude of the all-white jury, who obviously let the guards and the nurse walk because the VICTIM was "only" a poor black kid. Anyone who isn't sickened by the brutality of the prison and the indifference of the racist jury has to be a racist himself.
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I am surprised the jury was all white myself.
Perhaps the Republican efforts to clean the voter rolls was more successful than i thought.
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who obviously let the guards and the nurse walk because the VICTIM was "only" a poor black kid.
As I always say, anytime someone uses the "obviously" argument, they're almost always wrong. They don't have any evidence for their viewpoint, so it must be argued using "obviously."
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<<As I always say, anytime someone uses the "obviously" argument, they're almost always wrong. They don't have any evidence for their viewpoint, so it must be argued using "obviously.">>
Good point, Ami. Find the O-word and declare the argument over. Declare victory, hit enter. Brilliant.
[Here Tee signs off to begin a frantic search through all his old posts, ruthlessly destroying the O-word wherever it's found, in all its variations. "Clearly" also has to die. And "beyond dispute."]
. . . time passes . . .
Hey! I'm back! I deleted the O-word. I WIN!!
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>>All of this is headed towards a second civil war in America.<<
I sincerely hope so.
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Just to make this crystal clear to all RW nitpickers, the racism was not in the composition of the guard detail; even in the days of slavery, massa had his "house niggers" all too ready to deal with uppity slaves as they needed to be dealt with. The racism was in the callous attitude of the all-white jury, who obviously let the guards and the nurse walk because the VICTIM was "only" a poor black kid. Anyone who isn't sickened by the brutality of the prison and the indifference of the racist jury has to be a racist himself.
The kid has to be some sort of color.
What would have been the diffrence if he were a diffrent color than he was and everything else were the same?
Perhaps it wouldn't have made the news in Canada?
It is a fact that most violent incidents in the US happen between membrs of the same ethnicity , but is that a sad fact or a good idea?
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<<The kid has to be some sort of color.>>
Inane but true. Guy comes home early and finds his wife in bed with his best friend. Husband: "George! What are you doing here?" Friend: "Well, everybody's gotta be somewhere."
<<What would have been the diffrence if he were a diffrent color than he was and everything else were the same?>>
The difference would have been, if the victim had been WHITE, the all-white jury would have convicted all the defendants and they'd never see the outside world for a good twenty years. But a poor black kid ain't worth shit to a white Florida jury.
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The difference would have been, if the victim had been WHITE, the all-white jury would have convicted all the defendants and they'd never see the outside world for a good twenty years. But a poor black kid ain't worth shit to a white Florida jury.
Oh?
Why do yo think so?, is this another Obvious thing?
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Why do yo think so?, is this another Obvious thing?
Obviously.
(Why is there no 'laughing hysterically' emoticon?)
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Hey, Tee, if the south is so damned racist and the north is so damned pure, why have there been 3 (4 if you count the one on Long Island) nooses found hanging in and around NYC the last couple of weeks?
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(Why is there no 'laughing hysterically' emoticon?)
Well, you have XD (laughing hard), X8 (laughing hard while covering mouth) or :') (laughing till I cry).
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Hey, Tee, if the south is so damned racist and the north is so damned pure, why have there been 3 (4 if you count the one on Long Island) nooses found hanging in and around NYC the last couple of weeks?
Well, New York borders Pennsylvania, which is just a hop, skip, and jump from the real south. So, like Ohio, obviously racism hopped across the state lines. Can't keep it out, you know...
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Well, you have XD (laughing hard), X8 (laughing hard while covering mouth) or :') (laughing till I cry).
How do you do 'laughing so hard I spewed coffee all over my keyboard'?
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How do you do 'laughing so hard I spewed coffee all over my keyboard'?
Not easily.
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The point T made was that juries in America have been become oriented to race. Anybody after OJ is obtuse if they deny that.
In Florida, the panhandle Whites, who carry in attitude more of the Darling Dixie dogma than a much larger portion of the South, can be counted on exonerate anyone capable in this day and age of wasting a nigger. Much different than Pennsylvania.
I have heretofore hesitated in expressing opinions of the panhandle and Jacksonville, home to perhaps the largest contingent of many White Supremasist Hate groups in the nation, since people are oh so sensitive to the fact that the South has trully presented to the nation as a heritage a continuing horror.
Racism is spread throughout American, and is impacted in the South. The fact that racism has spread from the slavery south to the rest of the nation is no argument worth merit; racism in this country was distilled in meaning by the slavery angle. One must have contempt for slaves in order to avoid other conscience nudges. If there had been no slavery in American, black immigrants would have faced an easier initiation than they have all--ALL, TO THIS DAY--experienced. They continue to suffer due to the south's lack of true contrition. It is their recalcitrance to the crimes against humanity that serves to continue to feed racism
These catcalls, posse cooing emote jokes, winking piling on--all prove only one thing: lacking any substance relating to the point, they by their very vapid nature contribute nothing to the debate of Racism.
It is a tactic common amoung racists--change the subject and begin to catcall.
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So, Crane, how much time have you spent recently in Florida?
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that terrible old blackwater:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=66b_1192304186 (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=66b_1192304186)
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Hey, Tee, if the south is so damned racist and the north is so damned pure, why have there been 3 (4 if you count the one on Long Island) nooses found hanging in and around NYC the last couple of weeks?
And the 22 swastikas scrawled on school buildings, and three more nooses in two days, all in and around NYC, that bastion of racial and ethnic harmony...well, accordning to Tee, anyway...
Should we conclude that all New Yorkers are now racists and bigots?
I'm beginning to think the Jena incidents were caused by Yankee provocateurs sent there to make the South look bad.
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I'm beginning to think the Jena incidents were caused by Yankee provocateurs sent there to make the South look bad.
*snicker*
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<<I'm beginning to think the Jena incidents were caused by Yankee provocateurs sent there to make the South look bad.>>
Nice theory, except the South don't need anyone but their own good selves to make themselves look bad. Any outside help would just be "gilding the lily."
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I'm beginning to think the Jena incidents were caused by Yankee provocateurs sent there to make the South look bad.
*snicker*
More dipshit catcalls that reveal that at least two people cannot address the issue of race with even a modicum of maturity.
Who, I ask, when hearing these comments in actual life would not conclude that if that is all they have to say, all they have to say is veiled, cowardly racism?
Would they say those things if there were actually a Black in this forum?
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More dipshit catcalls that reveal that at least two people cannot address the issue of race with even a modicum of maturity.
That's probably because the lack of maturity component is coming from the side that still thinks racism is as rampant as it was in the 50's & 60's, and that its all stemming from 'the south"
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Yellerbird, I get tired of hearing from Tee how racist the South is, how it's uniquely a Southern problem, and how much better things are in the North. Maybe if he, and you, opened your eyes, you would see that it's a problem everywhere, otherwise we wouldn't have all these nooses and swastikas popping up in and around NYC the last couple of weeks.
And I would say that regardless of who was in this forum, or of what color.
Now you figure you have the guts to call me a racist, you yellow piece of shit?
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Would they say those things if there were actually a Black in this forum?
We don't?
How do you know?
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Yellerbird, I get tired of hearing from Tee how racist the South is, how it's uniquely a Southern problem, and how much better things are in the North. Maybe if he, and you, opened your eyes, you would see that it's a problem everywhere, otherwise we wouldn't have all these nooses and swastikas popping up in and around NYC the last couple of weeks.
And I would say that regardless of who was in this forum, or of what color.
Now you figure you have the guts to call me a racist, you yellow piece of shit?
I have made several posts discussing the racism issue, and have done so without slurring somebody representing the other side of the issue. I am neither a bird or a coward. But, as you remember and cannot get over, I am a barnburner. I have only one comment on that: LMAO. Your house for my Windows, dixie duke.
Note how it took you no time to get personal, and also note that you still have little to nothing to say about the issue with anything that is microscopically meaningful.
Oh wait, you did try to somehow make who knows what point by suggesting that it was not only in the South. I posted that it came from the South, and the South's lack of true contrition enabled a continuning polemic. I am not saying that, should the South get off their heritage high horse and admit that slavery is indeed something to be contrite over, it would end racism tomorrow. But let me hear you deny that if and when the South formally apologized for slavery and its singular perniciously stemmed racism, Blacks would ignore it.
I have seen you for a couple of years comment on racism, and on the South as it relates to racism, and it was always from a defensive, sometimes highly defensive, position.
NEVER have I heard you offer a concession or allow how any particular umbrage by a Black might be real.
You are both bigot and a racist.
Like with all bigots and racists, that makes you a coward.
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More dipshit catcalls that reveal that at least two people cannot address the issue of race with even a modicum of maturity.
That's probably because the lack of maturity component is coming from the side that still thinks racism is as rampant as it was in the 50's & 60's, and that its all stemming from 'the south"
Perhaps you might share what action on your part, what contribution on your part made it less prevalent.
I remember your posting several, no numerous times, about Jesse Jackson and Al Shaprton. Would there be a glimmer of redemption in one of those posts?
If not, put one up that will convince the world that you are more that a catcaller. (snicker)
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More dipshit catcalls that reveal that at least two people cannot address the issue of race with even a modicum of maturity.
That's probably because the lack of maturity component is coming from the side that still thinks racism is as rampant as it was in the 50's & 60's, and that its all stemming from 'the south"
Perhaps you might share what action on your part, what contribution on your part made it less prevalent.
You mean treating people as people, while not looking at their skin pigment? You mean advocating the Repetition of MLK Jr's speech where all men are looked at for their character and not the color of their skin? You mean supporting efforts to rid this country of discrimination paractices that look to push one person over another based on their skin color......like Affirmative Action practices?? Those are actions I actually have control of. What I also have is the realsim of knowledge that while racism is still active, it's no where near the monster it was in the 50's & 60's. and most of the time when a black person is arrested & prosecuted, it's generally due to a crime they committed and not based on the color of their skin
I remember your posting several, no numerous times, about Jesse Jackson and Al Shaprton. Would there be a glimmer of redemption in one of those posts?
Those 2 are the hallmark of current racism in this country, looking at anything and everything that happens as racially motivated, while ignoring the much greater problems within the African American community. MLK Jr would be rolling in his grave if he was aware of the mutation to his message that messers JJ and Sharpton have managed to accomplish
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We don't?
How do you know?
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On line, no one knows you are a dog.
Or a Donald Duck, or a Daffy Duck. ???
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<<Yellerbird, I get tired of hearing from Tee how racist the South is . . . >>
Truth sucks, eh?
<< . . . how it's uniquely a Southern problem>>
Nope, not me. Never claimed it was unique to the South.
<< . . . and how much better things are in the North.>>
Well, if the only examples you could dredge up a handful of nooses and swastikas in the past few months in New York, I rest my case. Let me know when they chain a black guy to the back of a pickup truck by his ankles and drag him till his head comes off. Let me know when they fly Confederate flags on the grounds of the Statehouse. THEN you'll have some northern racism to compare with the Southern brand.
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tee
as a fellow canadian who lives here I can confirm some of the things you say is partially true
thier is racism in the south
but you must understand there is much tolerance also
pretty much all the black universities are in the south
these are colleges with greater reps than Ivy leagues
true the n-word is used with great frequency by white folks in the south
but it`s also the prefered place to live by african-americans
despite what said in the media the n-word is tolerated by black folks in the south
a friend of mine kept saying it for weeks after her visit to new orleans
saying the south is racist is not as clear cut a statement.
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More dipshit catcalls that reveal that at least two people cannot address the issue of race with even a modicum of maturity.
That's probably because the lack of maturity component is coming from the side that still thinks racism is as rampant as it was in the 50's & 60's, and that its all stemming from 'the south"
Perhaps you might share what action on your part, what contribution on your part made it less prevalent.
You mean treating people as people, while not looking at their skin pigment? You mean advocating the Repetition of MLK Jr's speech where all men are looked at for their character and not the color of their skin? You mean supporting efforts to rid this country of discrimination paractices that look to push one person over another based on their skin color......like Affirmative Action practices?? Those are actions I actually have control of. What I also have is the realsim of knowledge that while racism is still active, it's no where near the monster it was in the 50's & 60's. and most of the time when a black person is arrested & prosecuted, it's generally due to a crime they committed and not based on the color of their skin
I remember your posting several, no numerous times, about Jesse Jackson and Al Shaprton. Would there be a glimmer of redemption in one of those posts?
Those 2 are the hallmark of current racism in this country, looking at anything and everything that happens as racially motivated, while ignoring the much greater problems within the African American community. MLK Jr would be rolling in his grave if he was aware of the mutation to his message that messers JJ and Sharpton have managed to accomplish
Level one of racial realities has (almost) all black people on the side of JJ and Sharpton, and most blacks are no more unaware of the flaws of both than you are. The point is that almost every black is. Now why is that? Why are the blacks on JJ and Sharpton's side? Look around you.
I grant you making some points in the area of blacks, especially in your personal life; my point is that catcalling is a risky way of demonstrating your tolerance. But when it comes to the cause, you have nothing to say about the way blacks have been treated and are continued to be treated. If they weren't treated that way, they might make Sharpton a little less powerful.
You get no points for always approaching the issue from the critical side relentlessly from such simple declarations, and demonstrate no real understanding of what all blacks know--their struggle is far from over. What they have gained in civil rights was given begrudingly, and all the while during those fights in realitively recent past the South demonstrated its ugliness time after time. That is a truth that MLK, Jr. would agree with me, were he not snipered by the hate in the city that MLK, Jr. said was more dangerous than Birmingham, in a state he considered more dangerous than any in the South. Look at the reality of Ford's loss--a simple ad which linked him to a white woman. Let us not get carried away with all this talk of the "New South." Blacks laugh at such a conveninent-for-the-whites-trying-to-untangle cop-out.
Today on a Larry King Live rerun, Bill Cosby was quick to point out the difference between he and Clarence Thomas when King tried to link them: "The difference between me and Thomas is that he does not care." To the following next five questions, Cosby repeated the same line: "The difference between me and Thomas is that he DOES NOT CARE."
Do you agree with Cosby or Thomas, since you cannot, in the vein of this single question, agree with both?
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<<as a fellow canadian who lives here I can confirm some of the things you say is partially true
thier is racism in the south
but you must understand there is much tolerance also
<<pretty much all the black universities are in the south
these are colleges with greater reps than Ivy leagues
true the n-word is used with great frequency by white folks in the south
but it`s also the prefered place to live by african-americans>>
I've BEEN in the South when it was still segregated. When blacks were being killed for standing up for their rights and all-white juries would let the killers walk free time after time after time. That kind of racism runs deeper than ANYTHING that existed up north. It was the lifeblood and mother's milk of an entire society, and nobody with half a brain could ever believe that that kind of deep-seated societal prejudice is just going to melt away in one or two generations. That is absolute and total bullshit.
Sure there's racism in the North. There's racism in Canada. But there's no racism that compares with the racism of the deep south. The historical roots, the culture of violence, sadism and brutality combined with ignorance, fanaticism and religious bigotry is a unique mix of satanic impulses that exists almost nowhere else on earth. Sure there's progress - - the racism is driven underground now, people realize that it's something that they can no longer speak of openly, so it's revealed in coded messages, attacks on "welfare recipients," on "illegal immigrants," on "liberal East Coast elites" or "Hollywood liberals," but it never vanished into thin air the way they like to pretend. And every once in a while, one of them oversteps the line, says something that tips his hand, reveals what's lurking just under the surface, because not only are racists basically cowards who shrink from the light of day, they are also monumentally stupid as well (obviously, if they weren't stupid, they wouldn't be racists.)
So we have these illuminating "moments of truth" where some stupid bastard, be it Trent Lott, be it Senator Macacawitz, opens his dumb fucking mouth and says something that undoes all the years of carefully and faithfully speaking only in the code in public and then the press is shocked -- - SHOCKED, I tell you - - to find out that Holy Batshit, BatMan, there's RACISTS in the Deep South still.
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uhm
how does that address the fact african-amercans prefer to live in the south in the very areas racism exist
thery stated they can florish better there better than anywhere else.
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I've BEEN in the South when it was still segregated. When blacks were being killed for standing up for their rights and all-white juries would let the killers walk free time after time after time. That kind of racism runs deeper than ANYTHING that existed up north. It was the lifeblood and mother's milk of an entire society, and nobody with half a brain could ever believe that that kind of deep-seated societal prejudice is just going to melt away in one or two generations. That is absolute and total bullshit.
There were better people here than you ever knew all along , and there has been more change than you are prepared to believe.
Here you almost admit that the reason you can't believe is internal to you , if we have improved more than you know , you can't know.
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<<how does that address the fact african-amercans prefer to live in the south in the very areas racism exist
thery stated they can florish better there better than anywhere else.>>
I think a lot of it has to do with family roots. Granma's there. Aunt Bessie and her kids. Family roots can draw a lot of people back. Also a more laid-back lifestyle. Maybe they don't like living on New York time or Chicago time. Maybe they like three-hour lunches, later nights, opening the store at 10 or 11 o'clock and just the sound of a lazy drawl in the spoken word. Maybe they like the climate. Or the landscape. Maybe the racism's been toned down enough to the point where it's tolerable in view of the other advantages.
You know there's a lot of reasons why people want to live in a place. Racial harmony might be one, but they might take a C+ in racial harmony if family ties, climate, landscape and lifestyle are all B+ and A.
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<<There were better people here than you ever knew all along . . . >>
Oh, yeah, I bet they were just living under deep, deep cover. And never voted.
<<and there has been more change than you are prepared to believe.>>
If the change were twice as much as I'm prepared to believe, they'd still be the most racist bunch of shits on the face of the earh.
<<Here you almost admit that the reason you can't believe is internal to you , if we have improved more than you know , you can't know.>>
There's nothing internal to me about the lynching photos I've seen, the speeches I've heard and read, the stories of black victims of racism I've seen on TV and read in paperbacks. There was nothing "internal to me" in the photos of Emmett Till's eyeless, battered, 14-year-old face. What's "internal" to you are those so-called "better people" who lived through it all and never did jack-shit about any of it. Believe me, I KNOW the South. Better than any of you want me or anyone else to know it.
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Getting back to Blackwater holding US soldiers at gunpoint....why did this happen?
This is very alarming, to know that US soldiers were evidently overwhelmed by mercs and forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint.
We have a private army...or rather, THEY have US. They're made up of Serbians, South Africans, Chileans, etc. as well as Americans.
From what I read, our soldiers really hate these guys.
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<<Getting back to Blackwater holding US soldiers at gunpoint....why did this happen?>>
Who knows? Probably a macho, authoritarian type thing. Each bunch of thugs determined to show their authority over the other. Only one group can win in a confrontation like that. Next time might be the Army's turn. Unless the mercs are uber-thugs. Maybe they'll win every time. Hopefully not. Probably make the world a better place if they opened fire on each other next time and saved the Iraqis the trouble. There was a funny cartoon in the New Yorker anthology, made during WWII. There were two tough-guy stereotypes, a U.S. Army drill sergeant driving a small car stopped in traffic and a NYC traffic cop standing in front of the car, facing the driver, hands on his hips, and the caption was, "Oh yeah?" "Yeah!" The same kind of brainless confrontation happens when male gorillas encounter one another in breeding season.
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uhm
how does that address the fact african-amercans prefer to live in the south in the very areas racism exist
thery stated they can florish better there better than anywhere else.
Wonder if that flourish would improve in the North if there were still car and steel manufacturing up there?
Now, Toyota et all seem to be locating in the South in America, where unions aren't and never were.
You are then left with the moral question--does the union send its workers down there for long hours and lower pay, or do they fight like they used to to make the gains they did via the immortal representatives of the middle class--Jimmy Hoffa, John L. Lewis, etc.?
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"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground . . . Power concedes nothing without a demand . . . It never did and it never will." -----Frederick Douglass
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<<Wonder if that flourish would improve in the North if there were still car and steel manufacturing up there?>>
WOW. Excellent point, Crane.
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NEVER have I heard you offer a concession or allow how any particular umbrage by a Black might be real.
They can take umbrage all they want, when they have reason to. I'm just tired of hearing racism referred to as some particularly southern problem, when it exists is all four courners of this country.
You are both bigot and a racist.
And you're a liar, a moron and a gutless coward.
Like with all bigots and racists, that makes you a coward.
Since I'm not a bigot and a racist, that doesn't apply to me, but see my former statement for the correct application of the term coward.
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true the n-word is used with great frequency by white folks in the south
I hear it most often from blacks referring to each other.
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There was nothing "internal to me" in the photos of Emmett Till's eyeless, battered, 14-year-old face.
You really are living in the past.
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...the immortal representatives of the middle class--Jimmy Hoffa...
Never represented me, especially when he turned from trying to help the working man to being a simple crook.
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<<You really are living in the past.>>
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.
I'm smart enough to realize the truth in what Faulkner said. To know that the kind of hatred and sadism that beat Emmett Till's face as flat as a pancake and took out his eyes and claimed his life and allowed the killers to walk out free, effectively with the endorsement of the entire white community, does not die out in a single generation, or even three or four generations. Only an idiot could believe that the kind of entrenched racism that we saw in Mississippi in the 50s came to an end with the stroke of a pen when the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were signed in 1964 and 1965,
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Sure it didn't end in the 60's - not in the South, and certainly not anywhere else, either. And that is my point. You concentrate your criticism on the South, and overlook the racism that still exists in the rest of the country.
Here's a news flash for you, Tee - you don't have to tell me about racism in the South. I've lived here practically all my life. Certainly it hasn't gone away, but I can tell you it's a hell of a lot better than it was, and it is getting better all the time. You just don't seem smart enough to realize we're not living in the fifties, or even the sixties, anymore. The times, they are a-changin', my friend, and while it may take more than two or three generations, we're a lot further along than you think. In the meantime, take the blinders off and look around you up Nawth. You might be surprised to find people up there aren't really that far ahead of us.
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Would they say those things if there were actually a Black in this forum?
I know of at least one. He's a lurker.
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You might be surprised to find people up there aren't really that far ahead of us.
And if you include latinos and aboriginal Americans, you'll find that the North lags behind the South ...
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This whole North vs South debate is tiresome as Hell.
There are racists in the North and racists in the South. In the South, one can be more blatant, in the North, they tend to be more sneaky, but with every year that passes a few more of the Jessee Helms type of racist die off, and he was hardly the worst.
When you get down to it, it's all about INDIVIDUALS, and percentages, not geography.
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<<Sure it didn't end in the 60's - not in the South, and certainly not anywhere else, either. And that is my point. You concentrate your criticism on the South, and overlook the racism that still exists in the rest of the country.>>
That's totally ridiculous. It's like saying there's antisemitism all over the world, so why all this criticism concentrated on Germany? The criticism was concentrated on the South because the racism was infinitely worse in the South than anywhere else. And if racsism is gradually being rolled back all over the world, when you freeze the process at any one point in time to take a snapshot, you are going to find that it's still abysmally worse in the South because they started off so far behind all the rest of us.
<<Here's a news flash for you, Tee - you don't have to tell me about racism in the South. I've lived here practically all my life. Certainly it hasn't gone away, but I can tell you it's a hell of a lot better than it was, and it is getting better all the time. You just don't seem smart enough to realize we're not living in the fifties, or even the sixties, anymore. The times, they are a-changin', my friend, and while it may take more than two or three generations, we're a lot further along than you think.>>
That's highly debatable. Racism that deep just doesn't vanish in a generation or two. If you chose to learn nothing from the recent exposures of Trent Lott and Senator Macacawitz, that's your problem. They are more representative of the REAL "new South" than all the BS and hot air of its defenders.
<<In the meantime, take the blinders off and look around you up Nawth. You might be surprised to find people up there aren't really that far ahead of us.>>
I'd say that until Northern racists drag a black man chained to a truck till his head comes off, and until the North produces senators like Macacawitz and Lott, I would think that nobody in his right mind could think for even a minute that the North wasn't really that far ahead of the South. The North really is "that far ahead" of the South, and all the wishful thinking and dreaming of "Dixie" ain't gonna change that by one iota.
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Tee, go to http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/hate_crime/index.html
Scroll down to Table 2.35.
Add up the number of incidents for the former Confederate (Southern) states.
Add up the numbers for the former Union (Northern) states.
Tell me which is bigger.
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The gross figures don't mean jack-shit. The northern states probably have a higher combined population than the southern states, which alone would account for a higher volume of reported hate crimes. If they were reporting per-capita figures, you'd be a little closer to relevance.
However, there are other factors - - severity of the "hate crimes" - - if they had categories for serious physical injury, they might have a higher south to north ratio, whereas the northern hate crimes might be heavily weighted by graffiti crimes. Similarly hate crimes might be significantly under-reported by victims in the south for a number of reasons - - fear of Mr. Charlie, distrust of the local Sheriff's office (it was Sheriff's officers who killed Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner, the three civil rights workers who went missing in Mississippi and were found buried in a dam) or fear of KKK vigilantes.
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If they were reporting per-capita figures, you'd be a little closer to relevance.
The population figures are there. You can convert to rates trivially.
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<<The population figures are there. You can convert to rates trivially.>>
Whoever proposed the chart as evidence of Southern benevolence can support his theories by working out the per-caps. I woudn't bother. In addition to challenging the numbers for lack of per capita figures, I also criticized them on two other grounds, broadness of definition of hate crime and factoring in for under-reporting. Adjusting only one of the potential factors for error and leaving the other two untouched wouldn't provide conclusive evidence of anything.
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Whoever proposed the chart as evidence of Southern benevolence can support his theories by working out the per-caps.
I guess we can expect you to support your theories in the future?
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<<I guess we can expect you to support your theories in the future?>>
Not if they're self-evident, as they often are.
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<<I guess we can expect you to support your theories in the future?>>
Not if they're self-evident, as they often are.
ROFL
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just out of idle curiosity, sirs, does "ROTFL" mean that you thought my little joke was very very funny, or does it mean that you didn't realize it was a joke and you wanted to express your disagreement with irony?
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Both :D
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Not if they're self-evident, as they often are.
The only thing I see that is self-evident is that your mind is closed on the matter. Locked up. The lights are out and the security system is armed.
'S okay. I understand you don't like the South. I don't like hosers. I try not to make an effort to put them down every chance I get, but hey, I'm just a nice guy.
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Blackwater is ranked No. 91 on Washington Technology?s 2007 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/31698-1.html