"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
Michael Vick will be a free man on Monday. His home incarceration will be officially over and he will be allowed to re-enter society. That is when the drama may begin.
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
Michael Vick will be a free man on Monday. His home incarceration will be officially over and he will be allowed to re-enter society. That is when the drama may begin.
Posted by Average Brother on July 19, 2009 at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Average Brother on July 12, 2009 at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Average Brother on July 05, 2009 at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated?"
Posted by Average Brother on May 20, 2009 at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge."
"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them." --Paul Valery-- --H. L. Mencken-- John McCain pulled another rabbit out of his hat by attempting to make one man out of 300 million Americans into the persona of middle class regular "Joe" America. America meet "Joe the Plumber." Whereas I personally believe it is impossible to make one person speak for an entire group of people, "Joe the Plumber" provided America with a wonderful opportunity to take a close look at how a large group of Americans behave during every election. And the media blew it.
The media asked a lot of questions about "Joe the Plumber." We found out his full name. We found out how much he really makes a year. We found out what type of home he lives in. We even found out that he is not a licensed plumber, but what we did not find out is why does not support Barack Obama even though it appears to be in his economic interest.
It is rumored that thirty-six (36%) percent of Americans routinely vote against their interests. Yet, no one wants to explore why that is the case. "Joe the Plumber" appears to fall in that category. Every reputable fact checking website has made it clear that "Joe the Plumber" would receive more tax relief and better health care protection under an Obama administration than he would under a McCain administration, yet "Joe the Plumber" appears to support John McCain. Why?
That is the million dollar question that the media should be spending its time, because maybe then we will also learn why people in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, West Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and a bunch of other states continue to vote against their interests.
Posted by Average Brother on October 23, 2008 at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
--Abraham Lincoln--
"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built."
--Eleanor Roosevelt--
"The character of every act depends upon the circumstance in which it was done."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes--
Every four years we have a presidential election where at least one candidate runs on the "character" issue. Yet, during the past two presidential election cycles at least one of the candidates has resorted to a scorched earth, divide and conquer, do anything to win strategy in an effort to get elected and no one seems to think that is not indicative of that candidate's character. I think it is time that somebody raises the character bar.
I have never cared about a candidate's personal life. I do not care whether a candidate is faithful to his/her spouse. I do not care whether a candidate is a good father or mother or husband or wife. I do not care which church (if any) that the candidate attends. However, I do care whether the candidate runs on policy issues or "wedge" issues that are designed to divide and conquer.
You can not win a kingdom by burning down the land? You can not gain a crown by destroying the throne? If in the process of winning the game you destroy the sport, you are not a champion. You are a cheat. You are a fraud. And you are a traitor to the very thing that you strive to gain. The same is true about the Office of the President of the United States.
It takes character to run for the highest office in the land, to attempt to become the leader of the free world, to attain the most powerful office in the world and still have limits to what you will and will not do in order to get it. Anyone can lie their way into office. Anyone can prey upon all of the dirty prejudices, images, and fears that people may have in this country in order manipulate us into voting for them. Anyone can divide a great nation for personal political gain, but only a rare states person will risk losing an election in order to preserve a nation. That is character. That is character that I look for in a candidate. And that is character that I have rarely found in a politician.
I will not be a liar and a fraud. I must admit that I am a supporter of Barack Obama so I am in no way an objective voter. However, the reality is I am shocked and disappointed with John McCain. I do not agree with him on most of the issues, but I always thought that he was a man of principle and integrity. I guess I was wrong.
The real test of character of a political candidate is the campaign that he/she conducts. And maybe it is about time the McCain campaign is challenged to show some character and start discussing issues instead of slinging mud, because if he wins by slinging mud then his legacy will not be about the Iraq war or the economy. It will be how to divide a nation in order to gain the Presidency.
Posted by Average Brother on October 08, 2008 at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
--Andre Malraux--
“We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.”
My first reaction is to answer the latter question in the negative. The answer to the first question seems obvious to me. I will explain.
I must address my implied assertion that people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are de facto politicians. People like Sharpton and Jackson may have been true leaders in our community in the past but they have become too close to the political establishments to be truly independent agitators for change in our community, which is what is needed to be a community leader. Both of them ran for President. Both have declared party affiliations and are a part of the party apparatus during Presidential elections.
It is not my intent to disparage or insult Jackson or Sharpton or any other local preacher or self styled community leader that has his/her hands in politics. That is not the purpose of this article. The purpose of this article is to raise the issue that once a person becomes a part of the partisan political process then they can not be a true leader in the community. I want to be very clear. There is a big difference between supporting a politician during a particular election solely based on that person’s positions on the issues as opposed to supporting a politician based on party affiliation or personal access.
The reason a partisan politician (de facto or otherwise) can not be a true leader in the community is that a community leader’s priority has to be the community. It can not be a party. It can not be a career. It can not be a personal agenda. It must be the community. And the only way to look out for a community is by addressing issues, which means that it is very unlikely that any particular political party will always be a friend. Therefore it is not wise to get too comfortable with any political party.
It is about time that someone has raised this issue because our community just like the rest of our country has mistaken politicians for leaders and publicity for leadership for far too long. The simplest definition of a leader is a person that has followers. That is what we have had in our community for too many years. Now we are finally starting to require more from people who are supposed to be our leaders. We must not stop. We must continue to challenge our alleged leaders to represent our interests instead of their own.
The truth is that the number one priority for a politician is to get elected. Some politicians will sink lower than others in pursuit of that goal, but the priority is the same. The same is also true for political actors. The more votes that a political actor can deliver the more access he/she will have to politicians in power. Access means power. Power is usually the goal not the advancement of community agendas.
In order to get elected and remain in office a politician must compromise. He/she must say and do things that they do not believe in or do not believe in as much as they lead “us” to think. That is the nature of politics. However, what happens when a question must be asked that will likely anger a strong voting block? What happens when a position on an issue must be taken based solely on principle instead of political feasibility? Is it reasonable to expect a politician or a political actor to take that stand or ask that question? I think not.
That is where the biggest difference between a community leader and a politician is exposed. The community leader will push for unpopular issues based on what is best for his/her community, while a politician will try to avoid having to deal with unpopular issues. Our community and our country need both community leaders and politicians.
Our community seems to have the politician thing down. Now we must start to develop more community leaders.
Posted by Average Brother on July 29, 2008 at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
“An executive is a person who always decides; sometimes he decides correctly, but he always decides.”
“The more alternatives, the more difficult the choice.”
--Robert Fritz--
Although the
I could write a short book on who would be the best running mate for Barack Obama, but this is an article not a book. I will attempt to be brief in my analysis. Most, if not all, presidential candidates choose a running mate because the running mate will give the nominee a better chance to win the general election than he/she would have on their own. That usually means that the presidential candidate needs their running mate to help him/her win a key state or a few key states in the general election. That is conventional wisdom.
Conventional wisdom dictates that Barack Obama should seriously look at the following four people as potential running mates: (1) Ted Strickland, (2) Hillary Clinton, (3) Ed Rendell, and (4) Kathleen Sebelius. I will discuss each potential candidate.
The next President of the
The election may come down to what happens in
That is why Ted Strickland is probably the best choice for Barack Obama as a running mate. Ted Strickland can provide a two edge sword to help win the general election. He can help to provide a much needed win in
Although Hillary Clinton may not be in as good of a position to help deliver
Ed Rendell would likely mean that Obama is a lock to retain
Many pundits have mentioned Governor Kathleen Sebelius as a good running mate for Barack Obama. The electoral math does not support that theory. However, the popular math may change that dynamic. The long bitter primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has left many older white women with some bitter feelings toward Barack Obama. He will need their vote in many states like
I also feel compelled to at least mention two other intriguing candidates. They are Claire McCaskill and Tim Kaine. Barack Obama should run pretty strong in
Posted by Average Brother on May 29, 2008 at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.”
--Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.--
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
--Abraham Lincoln--
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.--
When history books are written about this election cycle many historians will write about how the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary made history and may have even shattered barriers. Volumes will be written about how Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s candidacies broke open barriers for African-Americans and women. I look forward to reading or even writing those volumes, but the truth is that the country has missed golden opportunities to deal with subjects and issues that are long overdue for attention. And the main reasons the opportunities have been missed are due to our cowardice and the media’s lack of back bone.
This election cycle has already presented a golden opportunity to face at least two ugly realities in our community and our country. One reality is that there is little to no diversity and courage in our media. The other is that we as a community and a country are easily manipulated by both major political parties as well as individual politicians because we punish the people that raise issues we do not want to hear when it is necessary to hear them and reward people that tell “us” what we want to hear when that is the last thing we need.
We as Americans are cowards at times because many times we do not want to face harsh realities about ourselves. The harsher the reality the less willing we are to face it and the media is more than willing to help us avoid it by telling “us” what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear. Our knee jerk reactions are used against our better judgment to manipulate our emotions to vote based on fear, prejudice, and hubris instead of wisdom, experience, and strength. Haven’t we finally learned the lessons of manipulation from our country’s decision to go into Iraq?
The number one culprit in the knee-jerk reactions derby is the media. The media is littered with too little diversity and too much cowardice. The media usually presents many faces, but only one perspective. When I say lack of diversity I am not referring just to the racial, economic, or gender make up of the media. I am referring to the lack of diversity of perspectives. The media seems to suffer from a bad case of the group think syndrome. Many times members of the media act as if they can not fathom any other perspective regardless of how legitimate it may be. It is not about who is right or wrong. The issue is whether the people need to hear different perspectives. In almost every case I think the country is always better off by being exposed to a diversity of perspectives.
The controversy surrounding the comments by Rev. Wright is a perfect example of the media’s lack of diversity of perspective. Rev. Wright is perceived as an un-American, hateful, and deeply flawed person because the media never addressed the glaring question of whether Rev. Wright’s comments accurately depicted his views or was manipulated to give a false message. The reason I call the media a coward for refusing to raise the possibility that the comments were taken out of context is that is what they normally do in a situation where there are controversial comments. The media will usually air the comments in order to stir up ratings then try to objectively place the comments within the context that they were given. Then the media will allow both sides of the debate to address the comments. Today on Meet the Press the media did that with the ad that the DNC is airing against John McCain that gives the impression that he wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years. The ad shows McCain stating that the U.S. could be in Iraq “for maybe a 100 years” but Tim Russet quickly pointed out McCain’s assertion that according to the transcripts from the town hall meeting where McCain made the comments that the comments where taken out of context. That was the correct thing to do. That was the professional thing to do. That was the informative thing to do. I do no think that was ever done for the comments by Rev. Wright. Why?
I believe the media has not extended the same objective coverage in the case of Rev. Wright because of fear of a backlash from people that will hurt their ratings. There is a war of ratings that is being waged between the three major cable news networks: MSNBC, CNN, and Fox. Fox news is on its own program. It is clear that they have bias political coverage against democrats and liberals. That is nothing new so I do not blame them for their bias coverage that was way over the top against Rev. Wright. However, MSNBC and CNN are another story. Both networks addressed the issue by having debates between the right and the left on the issue. I did not see anyone from the networks take an objective view of the comments and parse fact from fiction regarding the entire sermons and the real message. The media has instead chosen to continue to give a three to five second snippet from an hour long sermon and pretend that the misinterpreted comments are an accurate depiction of Rev. Wright’s message on that particular day. That is why the controversy is still alive and well because no one in the media has taken the time to separate the myth from the fact.
I have seen several guest commentators such as Roland Martin, Jesse Jackson, Rev. Sharpton, or Joe Madison that raised the perspective that the comments were grossly taken out of context and manipulated in order to prey upon some deeply rooted prejudices and suspicions about black folks in hopes of attacking Barack Obama. The only problem is that those commentators’ views are easily dismissed because the rest of the main stream media seem to embrace the perspective that Rev. Wright’s comments were controversial and therefore wrong, instead of manipulated, misunderstood, or misinterpreted.
However, there is still time for someone from the media to show some courage and address the comments in the context that they were given instead of the context that they have been edited.
Posted by Average Brother on April 27, 2008 at 09:34 PM in Reflection | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
“Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
--Friedrich Nietzsche--
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
--Voltaire--
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”
--William H. Borah--
We have heard a lot of talk from both candidates for the Democratic Nomination for the Office of the President of the United States of America about the need for government action to address the mortgage crisis that is sweeping across this country. However, I have yet to hear about a part of the solution that must be included in order to give relief to millions of home owners. That is an immediate repeal or amendment of the Bankruptcy Act of 2005.
Both candidates for the Democratic Nomination have talked about the need for a bail out for home owners that have sub-prime loans where their payments have exploded to levels where they can not afford to make them and pay the rest of their bills. I do believe that something must be done to specifically address the issues that were created by an industry that wanted to prey upon a simple need to own a house. However, there are plenty of home owners as well as renters that are being pushed to the wall of homelessness or forced to retreat back home with their parents or other family members because they can not afford to pay all of their bills and they have no workable recourse under the law. They have no recourse under the law because the current Bankruptcy Law favors creditors and makes it difficult to discharge debt especially if you are a home owner.
Due to the current law people are locked into a debt structure and have no opportunity for relief so they could be forced to choose between paying their mortgage payments or their grocery bill. People are losing their homes because they can not afford to make their mortgage payments and the rest of their daily bills. One good way to give people permanent relief is to give them a chance to get out from under their debts if it becomes too much for them to bear. That is why the current Bankruptcy Law must be changed.
Under the current Bankruptcy Law many hard working people that can no longer pay all of their bills are forced into a Chapter 13 repayment system that may still saddle them with a repayment plan that they still can not make. This should be changed immediately!!!
A few changes to the current Law could mean relief for millions of people that are being forced out of their homes because they can no longer make all the payments on their daily debt. 1) The Law should be changed to provide a federal homestead exemption of at least $25,000 or the state exemption, whichever is higher. The homestead exemptions could also be increased at the state level by the state legislatures. 2) The Law should be changed to shift the burden of proving fraud from the filer to the creditors by eliminating the means test. 3) The Law should be changed to remove the prohibition of people with “high incomes” from being able to file bankruptcy under Chapter 7 when they have high non-dischargeable debts such as student loans and/or child support. 4) The Law should be changed back to valuing property by what it could be sold for at an emergency sale. 5) The Law should be changed to remove the requirement that people that file bankruptcy under Chapter 13 have to give a portion of their income to the IRS, instead of just submitting a repayment plan to the trustee.
The American people should require all of the Presidential Candidates to address the Bankruptcy issue along with the mortgage crisis. We should also make every senator and representative that voted for the current Bankruptcy Law to explain their vote. They should also be required to explain why they voted for a law that was labeled as The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, but instead was the Credit Card Industry Protection Act of 2005.
The Banking and Credit Card Industries gave more than $100 million dollars in political donations to lawmakers between 1999 and 2005. The credit card and banking industries said they needed the changes because they were saddled with annual losses of $3-4 billion due to well-off consumers taking advantage of loopholes in the old law to rack up and walk away from unpaid loans. Yet, they still retained enough profits to be able to make such huge political donations over a six year period. The reality is that the lawmakers that voted for the current Bankruptcy Law chose moneyed interests over the best interests of the American people and now we as a country are suffering the consequences. Maybe it is time that we as a country turned the tables and forced our lawmakers to correct their mistake.
Posted by Average Brother on March 28, 2008 at 11:54 AM in Government | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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