Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

Some things make the soul ache. Lies, greed, genocide, war, hate and hunger for starters. And let’s not forget about the media.

Here we are in the midst of all these things and the so-called civilized media wants to talk about Edwards’s private life ad nauseum faking compassion for his wife Elizabeth and his children.   If they cared about either they would have stopped talking about it a long time ago. Pisses the black woman off.

Or they give airtime to lying authors and don’t call the bullshit what it is.  From faux news this is standard.  Why in hell do outlets like CNN give air to lies without sunlight?

John frigging McCain owns eight or nine houses and he gets to paint Obama as out of touch?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

"These are the times that try men’s souls."  Thomas Paine knew what he was talking about. It is interesting to the blackwoman how quickly the lessons of history elude us.

When Mr. Paine wrote it was at a low point during the revolution.  His words served as encouragement for those folk whose struggle for independence was a long hard slog.

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

The blackwoman is thinking that maybe we need to remember this in the here and now.

Politics in this country have been so corrupt, so vile for so long that there are those who cannot remember it any differently.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

Let me see if I understand what’s going on.  Obama is an arrogant, celebrity for no reason American hating black man who is also stupid enough to play the race card in America.  Did I get that right?

He also gets the good press and a free pass from the media because...?  Oh yeah right, because they say so.  Forget the Pew study that says he gets a lot of airtime and that about 72% of it is negative.  Guess the old saying that bad press is better than no press is the important point to remember.

I would rather remember that these are the same people who lied on Al Gore and are unrepentant for selling shrub and loosing him on the world stage. I cannot forget how they allowed Kerry to be smeared and then claimed that it was his responsibility to speak up and not theirs. These are the same folks who sold the war and take no responsibility for their careful and cavalier attempts at manipulation. Same folks who tried to hide shrubs incompetence until Katrina and it’s images made that impossible.  The press.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

This week has been interesting.  I’ve been trying to maintain my groove because I know just how much crap is on the political horizon.  To that end I have reduced the input of cable news.  I watched today just to see Barack Obama give his speech in Germany.

I can’t tell you just how proud I was of this man.  I loved his speech, loved the sight of American flags waving overseas.  I was just fine until the onslaught of the haters and their back-assed hatery.  Where do these fools come from?

I was ten seconds from some serious pisstivity when I heard a republican operative claim that Obama was just like...wait for it....george w bush.  At that point I could only laugh.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

Lately, even though the blackwoman has been trying to maintain her summer groove, she found herself wondering how the conversation on race devolved into who if anyone, can use the ‘N’ word.

Back in the day Richard Pryor did a routine about never again using the word after he returned from a trip to Africa and came to the realization that for him the word spoke of degradation that he was no longer willing to assign to black folk in America.

More recently Chris Rock riffed about the difference between black folk and niggahs.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

In my lifetime I have been asked if I am a Voodoo Priestess.  My responses varied as it depended upon who did the asking. A re-tired Admiral was asked if his penis had fallen off as a response to his apparent mocking. His question showed a complete lack of respect in that he thought he was offering an insult.

To a lover who asked the same question my response was "I hope so."  The most common was "I wish".

I must confess to ignorance about spells and such.  I’ve read a few books but came away with a different take on what magic spells look like.  Couldn’t feel the rooster blood stuff.  Loved the I am in control of my life aspects though.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

When the blackwoman first moved to the Pacific Northwest she did so with the idea that she would be writing a book about Thomas Jefferson.  Well, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings.

I’d done my research and had a fair idea of what I wanted to communicate. Having a three year olds attention span, I kept finding new strands and more information until I didn’t know where to begin. I had so many questions about Mr. Jefferson, how his mind worked, how he saw life and why he seemed so content flaunting the conventions of his time. He was both brilliant and flawed.

Needless to say I did not write it.   The tangle of his life was more than I wanted to take on in the end.  Still Tommy (as I grew to think of him) remains very much on my mind, never more so than this time of year when we celebrate the founding of this country.

Although Kos has declared 2010 primary season on corrupt Dems, Kevin Powell is jumping the gun a bit. Powell, an author and community organizer who might be best known nationally for his turn on the first season of MTV's The Real World, has decided to mount a primary challenge against Edolphus "Ed" Towns [NY-10].  Towns is one of the pharmaceutical company's best friends in congress and is also the man who handed the Bush administration a victory a few years ago by casting the decisive vote to pass CAFTA.

Towns has been in office for 25 years and represents a safe Democratic district in Brooklyn, so ousting him would send a powerful message to some of the less progressive members of the caucus to get their acts together.  Towns' defeat would also demonstrate the strength of the people powered political movement that Barack Obama is building.

But how can Powell defeat such a powerful incumbent?  Follow me below the fold.

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

The blackwoman took some time off.  I left the idyll of my sweet country existence and spent the week with a longtime sistathgirlfriend in a small farming community where there are no shadows cast by cell towers.  It was wonderful.

My sistahgirlfriend has a lavender farm.  Hers is an organic life. Her environment represents an investment she made in her own growth.  Like her it is magical.

On paper no one would expect our friendship which at this point spans three decades. She of blond hair and blue eyes and me of not.  She of an easy grace and gentle spirit.  Me of fire breathing possibilities. She of tiny stature long side my Amazonian presentation.

Commentary
Dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

This sunday was fathers day and made me think of my own father. He grew up at a time when "repectable" people didn't think people of color were as smart as white people. Growing up in Jamaica he learned that the british had a huge burden they civilized the world. Much like Obama my dad was abandoned by his dad, see his father was white and his mom was black.

When he passed away my grandparents wouldn't except him or my grandmother, the government refused to give her any of his pension. My grandmom was poor so at first she tried to have a friend raise my dad. My poor dad  because as a five year old, he watched this poor women pass away in the dead of the night, he had to walk home 3 miles past midnight to reach his mom. My father was given up for adoption, my grandmother was too poor to raise all her children. As a "high" yellow child it was easy to be adopted by a wealthy black family.

But they really wanted a live in servant, my father was forced to call his adopted brother and sister, sir and ma'am.

For those of you who are familar with my diaries you know I'm very carefull about calling a person a racist. I find it's more like to end conversations then to start them. But I find this story from the NYT is loaded with politics and racism masked as concern. I have developed a deep loathing for the word CONCERN in politics. More often then not it's a code word, because it's never elaborated on. Concern about what?  Concern usually masks racism, sexism, politics, or homophobia. The reasons expressed for this concern always seem flimsy.

In this case the CONCERN is over the large number of black people registering to vote in Louisiana. You see the Democrats’ Vote Drive in Louisiana Stirs Concern. Why is it stirring concern?