Web Commonerpolitics, social commentary, and ramblings on pop culture

The first Matt Damon tongue lashing that I had the pleasure of witnessing came nearly three years ago when John McCain first introduced Sarah Palin to the world. In a heavily circulated interview on the Internet, Damon accurately described the absurdity of the media circus surrounding Palin’s nomination for Vice President, comparing it to a “really bad Disney movie,” and indirectly submitting an unofficial script proposal for a spectacularly horrible straight-to-DVD movie featuring the folksy hockey mom. My personal favorite swipe, though, was Damon’s desperate and rather simple plea to the media, asking that somebody, anybody, find out if she, “really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago.”

Fast forward to 2011, when the country is no longer threatened by the prospect of a Palin presidency but continues to deal with the toxic Tea Party movement that she helped shape during the 2008 campaign. This time, Damon is forced to contemplate the absurdity of those who argue in favor of continued tax cuts for American millionaires and billionaires while military, domestic, and entitlement spending gets slashed. Interviewed in Washington DC at the Save Our Schools march protesting education policy, Damon laid into the conservative mindset that increased taxes on the ridiculously wealthy is a bad idea.

Lest we forget, Matt Damon is an actor, and nobody should assume that he spends his days scouring the Internet or news networks in search of truth. Still, you don’t have to be a politico or newshound to know how much the Bush tax cuts, which have been in place for ten years, have benefited the upper class and sacrificed everyone else. Indeed, you only need to be poor, out of a job, or incredibly rich with a conscience, like Damon.

His observations, while well-intentioned, are not completely accurate because there was a time in the last century when the wealthy paid exorbitant amounts in taxes. Throughout the last thirty years, the top tax rate rested between 28% and 35%. Before the presidency of Ronald Reagan, though, the wealthy paid nearly double that amount under numerous Republican and Democratic presidents. Given this historical context, Damon’s argument that, “so little is asked of people who are getting so much,” could not be more accurate concerning today’s rich. According to the IRS, tax payers making more than $33,000 annually are expected to pay nearly 100% in income tax while those making more than half a million dollars pay nearly 60% less.

Finally, as Damon notes, there is no reason to believe that the wealthy are so-called, “job creators.” One only has to examine the total number of jobs created under the Bush administration to know that.

That’s right, folks. It would appear that our president is human after all … not a superman, not a robot, and not a deity. Just a complex, interdependent, and structured mass of flesh and bone. In a moment of bold and sincere honesty, he let his guard down and revealed himself in a manner that might seem shocking to some Americans:

“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

This response came from Barack Obama after a reporter asked, in a nationally televised press conference focusing on the president’s healthcare proposals, about the recent arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge and what it says about race relations in America. Gates is a literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, and editor with a number of notable achievements under his belt, including honorary degrees and awards. He sits on the boards of various arts, cultural, and research institutions, serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, directs the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and, finally, he is a personal friend to the Obama family.

It took only seconds after hearing that word, “stupidly,” before I realized the political firestorm it would muster. I could hear the media blitzkrieg that would follow as radio blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity took to the airwaves the next day. They would tear the president to shreds on their syndicated “talk” shows, fulfilling assumed roles as civilian officers and arresting Obama for his criticism of the nation’s good men and women of law enforcement. They would brand him a crony for favoring an esteemed intellectual who they likely consider, at least under their breath, to be just another “affirmative action baby” and, as loudly and surely as they accused Sonia Sotomayor, they would label the president a racist. It would come swift, it would come hard and, most importantly for them and their party, it would stir their base into a feeding frenzy, serving up the perfect storm of criticism that would toss a looming cloud over the president’s entire agenda.

Regardless of what the pundits might say, the harshest criticism actually came in the form of a rebuttal from Gates’ arresting officer. In multiple radio and TV interviews, Sgt. James Crowley told the local press that he supports the president “110 percent,” but believed that the president should not have waded into a local issue without knowing the facts. Those “facts,” available on the filed police report, which quickly surfaced on the Internet, indicate that the officer arrested Gates outside his home after he exhibited “loud and tumultuous” behavior. The report states that Gates, seemingly understanding his rights, refused to step outside his home when first prompted by Crowley, who identified himself and indicated that he was investigating a reported break-in. What followed was a back and forth exchange between the two men inside the home, with Gates accusing Crowley of being a racist before finally approaching the officer outside and subsequently being arrested for disorderly conduct.

Admittedly, not knowing the facts of the case and, apparently, not having personally read the police report, Obama would have been smart to steer clear of dispatching judgment so quickly concerning the arrest, but he is our first African American president. I don’t blame him for doing it. More than any presidential candidate or president in recent history, Barack Obama has addressed the subject of race, racism, and the racial divide head-on in speeches to any number of varied populations, from massive, diverse crowds of constituents to middle easterners, Europeans, and Africans to African Americans. Where other presidents, since the years following the civil rights movement, fell short of addressing racial tensions in proper historical context, this president confronts and acknowledges it with the same attention afforded an actual elephant in the room. Hypotheticals flooded the mind as I pondered his and Gates’ current situation. Would circumstances be different if Gates was a white man? What if Obama was white? Would the reporter still ask him about the incident?

The reality of this matter is that, in the eyes of many Americans, Barack Obama is an African American first and a president second. Since race remains a divisive issue in the United States, Obama is forced to address it in manners that other presidents could easily avoid. Still, some pretend to ignore this reality, expecting the president to act as if wearing some sort of impenetrable force field that serves to repel discussions of race and inequality. It’s not fair and, as long as racial discrimination flourishes, we should not expect Barack Obama to ignore it. Minorities are too often driven to the brink of paranoia by their daily experiences in America, constantly being surveyed and seen as different. Evidence of undue racism rears its ugly head on a personal level constantly, and the country experiences it in bulk all too often. It may be watching the American judicial system acquit four LAPD officers after brutally beating a man in broad daylight, or television coverage of thousands neglected in New Orleans after Katrina makes landfall. It might be watching white mothers who kidnap or kill their children only to pass the buck on to the usual scapegoat and stereotypical violent, black male, or seeing nooses strung over tree branches in the wake of racial injustice in Jena. Finally, it might be listening to Republican party supporters fulfilling their personal want or need to holler racial epithets aimed at a presidential candidate in political campaign rallies across the country.

Racism against minorities thrives in America, even in 2009. It’s still here, still real, and still dangerous. The same is true with racial profiling and, for these reasons, I am not surprised to hear our first minority president impulsively jump to conclusions and express relative concern for a friend and fellow African American, whose experiences in this country are uniquely bound and shared to the point of understanding an all-too-often ignored oppressive force that comes at them from every angle. Nobody knows for sure how much race actually played a role in Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s arrest last week but, I’m personally sure about one thing … what Gates said to Mr. Crowley and his Cambridge neighbors as officers led him away in handcuffs is correct. This is what happens to black men in America and, if I walked in his shoes, I might think twice about an officer’s motives as he passed through that threshold between his world and mine. Until the country reaches a point where all Americans can walk its streets without being stopped by an officer or gawked at with little more reason than the color of their skin, I will continue to sympathize with Gates’ and Obama’s concern or, more appropriately, their frustration.

Republican talking points seem ablaze after the weekend brought news of the Iranian government’s violent attempts to curb protests ten days after a presidential election left voters questioning the validity of their recently cast ballots. Today, Arizona senator and former presidential rival, John McCain, took advantage of an opportunity granted to him, ironically, by Barack Obama’s veep during last year’s campaign when Joe Biden told a group of donors, “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

“The world is looking,” Biden continued. “We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Immediately, McCain fired back by saying that Biden’s statement irresponsibly invited such a test, yet he now seems poised to engage the president in a war of words that suggests an irrational desire to set the wheels in motion for Obama’s “test” to finally flourish. Yesterday, he publicly called into question the president’s response to the conflict in Iran. The president, while condemning the use of violence to quell the protests and expressing deep concern over reports that the election might be fixed, took a neutral stance on dealing with it by stating that the US will speak for the opposition’s fundamental rights to assembly and free speech, but stopping short of military intervention or further sanctions that would serve to enhance the Iranian government’s justification for the use of more violence.

Reading an AP article on protest crackdown before Congress, John McCain, whose knee-jerk reaction to last summer’s Russian invasion of the democratic country of Georgia would have had us launching an invasion the next day, grievingly focused attention on a young woman killed by Iranian authorities while protestors captured her murder on video. The woman, known to the world as “Neda,” was quickly designated a martyr by those sympathetic to the cause of Iranian protestors, but might as well be dubbed, “Neda the Plumber,” in McCain’s own circle. The Arizona senator shamelessly used the Iranian woman’s story as a backdrop to demonstrate his leadership in calling for the president to take a stronger stance against Iran.

However, Barack Obama seems poised, instead, to heed the advise of former president, George Herbert Walker Bush, who recently expressed caution against enflaming tensions with the Islamic republic over the protests. In 1991, Mr. Bush learned the consequences of encouraging homegrown resistance and subsequently failing to follow through on military aid, which led to the massacre of Iraqi revolutionaries. Regardless of influence, there is no denying that Obama continues to demonstrate an incredible capacity to keep cool under immense pressure. Only 154 days in office, no issue on his plate is more toxic than the nightmare of nuclear proliferation, and John McCain seems bitterly fixed on using the conflict as an opportunity to demonstrate a judgmental weakness on the part of the president. Of course, this comes from a man who displayed disturbing lapses in judgement throughout last year’s presidential campaign, including the choice to nominate a highly unqualified running mate and hasty decision to inject himself into congressional negotiations concerning the economic meltdown with no useful insight.

McCain’s motives may be wrong, but Joe Biden’s statement was right. The crisis in Iran is the international test that he anticipated for Barack Obama, and the president’s patience in dealing with it is paramount to his success. Our relationship with Iran has been on shaky ground for decades, with example after example of diplomatic missteps that gave Iranian authorities opportunities to propagate the politics of hatred and mistrust among their citizenry. Then, the Bush administration cut off diplomatic ties with the country entirely. Today, its leadership progresses towards the development of a nuclear weapon that threatens the prospect of peace everywhere and, as usual, Barack Obama must practice reasonable restraint under mounting pressure from the irritable and irrational, whether it’s coming from characters like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or John McCain.

Meanwhile, a new generation of highly motivated Iranian citizens, who matured under false pretenses of freedom, are expressing disapproval over an oppressive regime that they helped muster. It’s their fight, and increased rhetoric from the party that gave us George Bush and Dick Cheney will only lead us down the path towards political and diplomatic self-destruction. Put plainly, it’s ‘dem fightin’ words that John McCain, his party, and the extremist Iranian dictatorship expect from Barack Obama, and their flawed logic follow familiar tones that draw from mistakes made in the past. They are part of an old-school train of thought, which could neither anticipate or fully comprehend the idea that the Internet might play such a significant role in shifting the tides of change. The president knows better than to lead by their example, and understands that the way forward is by learning from past mistakes in order to fully embrace the promise of progress. By exercising reasonable restraint while aligning himself and the American people with the plight of those who stand their ground in the fight for freedom, he will pass the test with flying colors.

In January, shortly before Barack Obama took the oath of office, legendary Hip-Hop pioneer KRS-ONE phoned into the Alex Jones Show and offered an interview. Jones hosts a syndicated radio program and he is a conspiracy theorist who propagates warnings to his listeners daily. These warnings predict that the world will fall victim to a global restructuring of power, a New World Order. Currently, there exists a sect of followers in the world who blindly submit to such theories, and the primary prerequisite for this class of individuals, it appears, depends mostly on the group of people they seem to hate (or fear) the most. It could be foreign entities, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, socialists, communists, or capitalists.

Regardless of who they believe is piloting the black helicopters that they claim are flying overhead and transporting weapons in preparation for a government take-over, they are content to recess into the cracks and crevices of civil society and stockpile weapons arsenals and ammunition. They exist in all shapes and sizes, but the one specific message that seems to reign consistent across all of their rhetorical musings is revolution by force. They are your paramilitary militias, neo-Nazi skinheads, Underground Weathermen, Black Panthers, Branch Davidian sympathizers, Oklahoma City bombers, anthrax mailers, Minutemen, and even your modern-day tea baggers.

While Alex Jones may not align himself with any of these specific groups, the whispered undertones of his message remain the same. He sits within a circle of conspiratorial shock jocks who willfully pollute the airwaves with piercing propaganda, and he is among a privileged few radio personalities who rose to great heights by lying for a living, utilizing the power of language to manipulate vulnerable minds. Previously, I wouldn’t dream of associating KRS-ONE with this same category of misfits, but his recent alignment with Jones on the subject of New World Order conspiracy theory made me think twice.

It can be unsettling, at least, to learn that a single interview might crumble the perceived understanding a person has of someone they admired for so long. To some degree, I believe that Jones used KRS-ONE as a prop to embellish his own distaste for so-called “bad” Hip-Hop and its “shoot ‘em up” culture. Despite his praise of the emcee on the air, it seemed apparent the guy was not a familiar fan of KRS-ONE’s work, referring to DJ Scott La Rock as simply, La Rock, and fumbling to get KRS-ONE’s own stage name right, calling him KSR on several occasions.

In the interview, I was surprised to learn that KRS-ONE dismisses Barack Obama as a mere puppet. Last year, I was proud after stepping into the voting booth and casting my ballot, not for an African American, but a person who I felt represented me and my generation better than any politician before him. Barack Obama is young, intelligent, educated, humble, aggressive, cultured, and admittedly imperfect. He had a reputation for standing up against strong and powerful forces, and he knew how to organize people into action. He was my candidate for President and, like many others, I did whatever was in my power to ensure his election.

When Obama’s administration took office, they inherited the largest deficit this country had the misfortune of experiencing, which was the unfortunate bi-product of a pro-capitalist, anti-socialist regime that raped tax-payers, nullified the Constitution, and metaphorically crapped on the world’s carpet as they tromped through its house uninvited. Nobody in their right mind would want to be the person responsible for cleaning this mess. Still, rather than offer the man some benefit of the doubt, the legendary Blastmaster gave Americans, specifically blacks, his harsh assessment of Barack Obama as a cunning agent of the devil. At this point, I’m positive that I could hear my neo-conservative, fanatically religious in-laws cheering loudly within the deep recesses of my brain.

I get it, man. I really do. The rich don’t care about the poor, Barack Obama is just another politician, and young people won’t get anywhere by placing hope in anyone but themselves. It’s a message that all people should heed, but there is something inherently wrong with encouraging young people to stop the violence in one ear and telling them to have their guns ready for the revolution in the other. It’s a counterproductive and damning message, which implies the country cannot overthrow the incredible forces of industry through non-violent means. Nobody argues that democracy is perfect, but when it works the way it should, suddenly a nation of millions have clean water to drink, health labels on their food, traffic lights at dangerous intersections, and maybe even clean air to breath. These things only happen when people have faith in their ability to govern, and that is Obama’s message.

In the Jones interview, KRS-ONE compares the presidency to a management position at Burger King, which is ultimately beholden to the franchise owner. In America, he says, the banks and corporate executives own the franchise. This is where I respectfully beg to differ. In the real world, it is the American people who hold that title and the inherent problem lies in the fact that too many of us don’t care, understand our potential for influence, or take advantage of the powers granted to us by the Constitution. The evidence lies in the number of citizens who actually vote, and how often they contact their so-called representatives.

Barack Obama is “our” president because we put him there. African Americans are one of many groups that elected him and, for the first time in their history, a great majority of blacks now share the awesome burden of holding their President’s feet to the fire. KRS-ONE points out in the Jones interview that Americans should not stand idly by and “mindlessly” follow Barack Obama. An excellent point. Still, he doesn’t seem to offer any useful advice for newcomers to the system that lies outside the realm of conspiracy-driven doomsday scenarios that predict a New World Order.

I once read that KRS-ONE dreamed of taking over a small town and building it into a Hip-Hop City. I’m curious to know who would manage that city, and how they would tend the store. How would they work with their neighbors to accommodate the flow of commerce and exchange of ideas? Would they publicly repudiate technology, apparently a tool of the New World Order? This is really what the new world fear is all about. Globalization is, as KRS-ONE would say, “truth.” Human beings populate the Earth at an exponential rate, and cultures collide as a consequence. Yes, it is frightening, but it’s also reality. Ignoring lavish theories about a looming New World Order, the problem we actually face today has everything to do with how we construct a system that maintains our sovereignty while responsibly addressing the influence we have on those outside our borders.