I have been meaning to write this, but, once again Blogger was not cooperating.

On October 27, 2006 Indymedia journalist and videoblogger Brad Will was the killed while covering the teacher's strike in Oaxaca. He was known to have supported the protesters and their cause New York City Independent Media Center reported that Will was shot Friday in the stomach while he was documenting the assault on the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) at the barricade by armed paramilitary forces. He died on his way to the hospital.

shooting occurred today in Oaxaca City, Mexico, leaving New York City Indymedia journalist Bradley Will dead after being shot in the chest by paramilitaries. He died before reaching the hospital, according to La Jornada.

Milenio Diario reported that one of their photographers, Oswaldo Ramírez, who was standing near Will, was also shot and injured. Oaxaca's state prosecutor's office officially reported that there were two others, including a protesting teacher, were shot to death and several people were wounded during the shootings.

Illustration: D.R. Latuff

Reporting for Narco News, Diego Enrique Osorno reported that the Mayor of Santa Lucia, Jaime Martínez Feria, confirmed that the armed men who were dressed in civilian clothes were "police acting in legitimate defense against the threat of an occupation of City Hall." According to Osorno, the murders were a coordinated by armed individuals reportedly working for the state political parties, calling themselves "neighbors." Although it has been reported in the US media that the identified murderers were from the local police, what is being excluded is who is behind the assaults. El Universal recently revealed who took part in the murder of Brad will. According to El Universal, those involved in the murder of Brad Will were the chief of police (Seguridad Publica) of Santa Lucia del Camino, Avel Santiago Zárate, the chief of personnel of the PRI affiliated City Council, Manuel Aguilar, and a local elected Delegate of the PRI, David Aguilar Robles.

Before the slaying of Will, John Dickie, a British filmmaker based in Oaxaca, reported that he had heard an anonymous person on Oaxaca's clandestine radio station, Citizen's Radio (Radio Ciudadania: 99.1 FM), tell their listeners that Brad "was an armed terrorist, and there is more to this than meets the eye" and "Indymedia is a branch of the APPO." As to why the government would make such a claim.

This is a critical time for President Vicente Fox as he has one month left in office before he turns it over to his successor Felipe Calderon. It is nor hard to connect some dots as what has transpired over the weekend. For those who have not been following the situation in Oaxaca, the two significant events that have took place in the past few days. The first was the killing of Brad Will and the two innocent souls. The other, over the weekend thousands of police armed with automatic rifles, riot shields, tear gas, armored vehicles, and helicopters invaded Oaxaca and pushed back protesters through sheer force.

After the violent take over of Oaxaca, La Jornada reported there were three casualties, Jorge Alberto López, Fidel García, and an unidentified 14-year-old.

It is interesting, that after five months of complete apathy, Fox finally decided to act to "restore peace." Did Fox finally find his excuse to in federal police? The situation that is currently taking place is very reminiscent of an event that happened over ten years ago.

Back in 1994, when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) launched its campaign to fight for the rights of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas, the Mexican government had utilized an array of tactics to discredit the movement in the press, to torture, rape, imprisonment and outright murder. In Feb 1995, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo deployed 70,000 troops into the jungles of Chiapas also to restore government control, what was widely known as "low intensity warfare."

Narco News has published Will's final moments captured on his camera.

Brad Will (1970-2006): Final Report

Technorati : APPO, Brad Will, Felipe Calderon, Felipe Calderón, Mexico, Oaxaca, President Vicente Fox
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Ice Rocket : APPO, Brad Will, Felipe Calderon, Felipe Calderón, Mexico, Oaxaca, President Vicente Fox, Vicente Fox

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To paraphrase Shakesphere, "Alas,...poor YouTube! I knew them well." Jeff at NewsCloud (via The Raw Story) is reporting that YouTube is removing all of Comedy Central Clips based on DMCA claims. This would include all Daily Show, Colbert Report and South Park.

I received a couple of emails from YouTube this afternoon (see below) notifying me that a third party (probably attorneys for Comedy Central) had made a DMCA request to take down Colbert Report and Daily Show clips. If you visit YouTube, all Daily Show, Colbert Report and South Park clips now show "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

Jeff makes an interesting point as to why YouTube would be taking down all of Comedy Central's clips.

With Google purchasing YouTube, ComedyCentral figured there was now an opportunity aka profit center to target. And they've assumably made these DMCA requests to YouTube.

So assumably, with less interesting content, YouTube is a lot less interesting now and perhaps not worth the billion dollars Google paid for it – though they knew exactly what they were getting into. It’s even possible that Apple or Viacom pushed ComedyCentral to take this step since they earn revenue from the shows.

Me being me, I decided to investigate it. I thought there was one of two possibilities as to why this would take place. One, I have notice that Jon Stewart has suddenly brought on more right wing pundits to his shows, such as John Ashcroft, Lou Dobbs, James Baker, Dennis Miller, Trent Lott, Pat Buchanan, and Ed Gillespie are some right off the top of my head. Sort of makes you wonder if the right wing base has been putting some pressure on Comedy Central in an indirect way since Comedy Central is owned by media conglomerate Viacom.

Back in March, it was rumored that Tom Cruise had put pressure on Viacom - who also owns Paramount - to pull an episode South Park that not only caused Issac Hayes to leave the show, but it also ridiculed Cruise and Scientology. The episode made fun of Scientology and featured Tom Cruise refusing to come out of the closet. It was said that Cruise threatened to cancel all publicity for Mission Impossible:3 if they didn't. Not surprisingly, Cruise denied ever making such a threat.

This is not the first time something like this happened to "South Park." In July, CNN reported that the creators of "South Park" had blasted Comedy Central not only for removing that episode but also for blanking out the image of Muhammad of another episode.

"So there are two things we can't do on Comedy Central: show Muhammad or Tom Cruise," Trey Parker said during the MTV Networks portion of the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour.

Parker and Matt Stone said they had no doubt that the "Trapped in the Closet" episode was yanked as a result of Cruise's starring this summer in "Mission: Impossible III," the movie from Paramount, Comedy Central's sister company.

That is only South Park; you also have Steven Colbert who has lawmakers very wary about participating on Colbert's sarcastic skit "Better Know a District." And let's not forget about his performance as featured speaker at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

It that were the case, then why would Comedy Central punish for the sins of "South Park" and "The Colbert Report"? Jon Stewart did increase his ratings for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" after he hosted the Oscar. In fact, his new episodes averaged 1.6 million total viewers per night.

I don't think that is the reason YouTube removed all the clips from Comedy Central.

It most likely has to do with Google's recent purchase of YouTube. Earlier this month, Google purchased YouTube for "$1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction." Google claims nothing will change with YouTube and that they will continue to "operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community."

Before the purchase, the was a bit of competition between Google Video and YouTube. Even though Google Video is similar to YouTube the sense of being a free video sharing web site by letting users upload, view, and share video clips, there was a difference. The difference between the two video sharing web sites, not all the videos were free on Google. At the beginning of the year, Google started offering a Google Video store at the beginning of the year. The purpose of the Google Video store was Google's way of handling the copyright issues that were creating problems for Google and YouTube. The Google Video store allowed viewers to rent or buy from Google's media partners, such as CBS, the NBA, The Charlie Rose Show, and SONY BMG. In fact, YouTube was constantly being threaten by lawsuits from angry copyright holders.

Back in August, Google had "teamed up with Viacom to provide video clips to websites that are part of Google's AdSense Network."

Ad-supported video continues to gain momentum online. Google has teamed up with Viacom to provide video clips to websites that are part of Google's AdSense Network. Viacom is the parent company to MTV, VH1, CBS and a number of other premium networks. The deal will be positioned as a revenue generator for Google, Viacom, and AdSense partners. All three will split revenues derived from the tie-in of advertising and content.

It will work like this: publishers (bloggers, big media, etc.) can elect to embed shows such as MTV's "Laguna Beach" or Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob Squarepants" on their own web pages in a manner similar to how YouTube supports embedded video (for an example of how this works with YouTube, see this post on Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam). The clips themselves will contain advertising sold not by Google, but by the networks' own ad sales teams. Those networks will share a portion of this revenue with Google, which will in turn share a portion of that revenue with the publishers themselves.

Now that Google bought YouTube, it was inevitable that YouTube would take down those clips. How would Google, Viacom, and the AdSense partners generate a revenue if you can get the clips for free at YouTube. To view any media shows from MTV Networks - such as Comedy Central - on Google Video, you will have to go through their online store and pay (i.e., South Park).

[Update] Before the buyout, YouTube had attempted to defuse some of their copyright concerns by announcing a content and advertising agreement with CBS, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group. It looks like this is Napster all over again. The New York Times reported that the deal involved giving those companies an equity stake in YouTube.

Three of the four major music companies — Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony and Bertelsmann’s jointly owned Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and the Warner Music Group — each quietly negotiated to take small stakes in YouTube as part of video- and music-licensing deals they struck shortly before the sale, people involved in the talks said yesterday. The music companies collectively stand to receive as much as $50 million from these arrangements, these people said.

Just days after the purchase, it seems, some companies are looking into YouTube's copyright violations as way to profit from Google.

...lawyers for the group of media companies, which includes News Corp., General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and Viacom Inc., have concluded that YouTube could be liable to copyright penalties of $150,000 per unauthorized video, people familiar the matter say. Viacom believes that pirated versions of video clips from its cable channels -- including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon -- are watched 80,000 times a day via YouTube. At that rate, potential penalties could run into the billions of dollars.

None of this is really new. Since the late 90s, file sharing has always been a thorn in the side of the media industry and the Napster case was its first big attempt to stop it. The companies that are looking into suing Google are the same companies - Warner, Universal, BMG, Sony and EMI, also known as "the big five" - that have been trying to take down the "file-sharing" movement for over a decade.

Even though Napster was taken down, other file-sharing systems like Grokster, Morpheus, and KaZaA came on the scene to take the place of Napster. Another round of lawsuits came as 28 media companies sued the distributors of Grokster, Morpheus, and KaZaA for copyright infringement. However, the federal court ruled against the "big 5." The court ruled ruled that Morpheus and Grokster are closer to VCRs and photocopy machines than to a centralized file-sharing service like Napster.

The fact is, the media industry doesn't want us, the little people, to cut into their profits. Don't worry folks, there will be another file sharing YouTube clone in the near future. Like I said all you have to do is look what happened to Napster. The file sharing movement is too strong to take down.

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I would have done this a lot sooner, however, Blogger has become more of a thorn on my side this past week, since Blogger had a significant number of unplanned outages. I could putt on my worn out tinfoil hat and say that the outages are part of the Google conspiracy. But no, they are not working with the NSA to silence bloggers, they are doing it for themselves. Its Google's way of letting people know they want people to switch to their newer version of Blogger, since none of my problems I experienced affected the new version of Blogger. Only problem, I will not be able to switch everything into the newer version. It is not as if I haven't thought about switching to a new blog that would give me the creative freedom to design the blog the way I like to see it. Truthfully, I started thinking about back in June. I started with Blogsome, but like the new version of Blogger, I am unable import all my post to the new blog. So I looked into Wordpress because I knew I could my import posts, but the only problem, I was unable to customize my theme. Therefore, I gave up on the whole idea. Now I thinking about it again after my little experience this week, but I don't know how to go about it. Why can't I have my cake and eat it too? Anyway....

I have been "tagged" by Nezua to do an image meme. I figure if Nezua could come out of his anti-social shell to do it, so can I. The meme is to find or create images of eight things I find amazing in picture form. (Click the read more view.)

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This picture was emailed to me by Miguel Delgadillo back in June when he came across my blog. He was giving me a heads up on a video he directed. The song is "Libertad" by Los Angeles' Maria Fatal. The video for "Libertad" was based on the recent immigration marches. If you have a chance to see it, please do. The video and the song are very powerful.

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There is something about that picture of Ann Richards I find very comforting. It is hard to put it into words. Maybe because it is hope that is almost lost here in Texas.

Rest are self-explanatory.

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Here in Texas, Lt Gov is the office you if you want to run Texas Gov, even though on the books it considered the second-highest office in Texas. It is considered the most powerful post because the Lt Gov controls the work of the Texas Senate and controls the budgeting process as a leader of the Legislative Budget Board. The Lt Gov is elected separately from the Gov, rather than on the same ticket; so it is unusual to have the Gov and the Lt Gov to be from different political parties.

David Dewhurst, who was elected Lt Gov in 2002, is running for re-election. Dewhurst will face Democrat Maria Luisa Alvarado, a veteran's issues research analyst and the winner of the April 11 runoff primary, in the November general election. However, one of most mysterious Republican candidates is Dewhurst.

So far, Dewhurst has raised more than $3.4 million against his much-underfunded opponent. That still doesn’t mean it is a cake-wake. Recently, I have been noticing he has been coming out with his televisions ads, which makes you wonder in Alvarado has been stomping on some his cakes. It was reported that he only has $905,000 left. Most of his money has gone towards his $4 million television ads for the closing weeks of the campaign.

Dewhurst was at the forefront of implementing and defending the GOP's radical re-redistricting assault on democracy. Other than that, it is tough to say what he has really been doing. So who is Dewhurst?

His biography states was born and raised in Houston attended the University of Arizona, enlisted and served as an officer in the Air Force, and was "CIA agent" that spoke fluent Spanish and was stationed in Latin America while with "the agency". This information is not based on some wild "conspiracy theory," one can even find his information on his website.

Dewhurst began his business career in the mid-1970s after serving as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. State Department. He founded Falcon Seaboard, a Texas-based diversified energy and investments company. An early developer in the mid-1980s in the electric cogeneration business, he has earned a reputation as an innovative and successful businessman.

He worked as a CIA agent in Latin America from 1970-73 from there, he worked with the state Department. It's not hard to figure out, given the fact his bio states that he founded Falcon Seaboard in the mid-eighties. Therefore, it is safe to assume right after the CIA he worked for the State Department. Dewhurst has always downplayed his role in Bolivia, claiming he was nothing more than a glorified clerk who read newspapers and wrote reports for the CIA. That is what makes Dewhurst secretive nature unusual.

It was during this time as a CIA agent and a government man, the countries in what is known as the Southern Cone of South America underwent one of the worst human rights violations that region has ever seen. These were the days of the infamous Operation Condor, led by Chile and included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Condor represented a striking new level of coordinated repression among the anticommunist militaries in the region led by the US. Condor allowed the Latin American military states to share information and to track down, seize, and execute political opponents in combined operations across borders. It has also been reported that top US officials and agencies, including the State Department, the CIA, and the Defense Department, were fully aware of Condor and its operations from the time it was established.

During Dewhurst's time in Bolivia, Bolivian President Juan José Torres was overthrown by Gen. Hugo "El Petiso" Banzer in a bloody coup d'état soon after Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests and expelled the Peace Corps. It has reported that Air Force Major Robert Lundin provided Banzer's forces with communications equipment.

Banzer plotted a comeback. According to a report in The Washington Post [Aug. 29, 1971], Banzer crossed back into Bolivia frequently during his exile to confer with U.S. Air Force Major Robert Lundin. That August, Banzer led a second coup attempt, which Lundin aided. When Banzer's communications broke down, Lundin made available the U.S. Air Force radio system and the coup-makers won.

The right-wing revolt coincidentally took place four months after Dewhurst's arrived in Bolivia. It is widely known that General Hugo Banzer was trained at the notorious School of the Americas (SOA) - the paramilitary school in Fort Benning, Georgia, that trained future Latin American dictators and strongmen how to torture civilians and overthrow democratically elected governments, all paid for by American tax dollars. The SOA was conveniently renamed to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC or WHINSEC) in 2001. WHINSEC was re-opened on January 17, 2001, after Congress officially closed the SOA in December 2000.

Back in Oct 2001, when David Dewhurst was Texas Land Commissioner and a candidate for Lt Gov, Gov Rick Perry appointed him as chair of the Governor's Task Force on Homeland Security. Perry (Subscription required) told reporters he choose Dewhurst because of his "experience as a former CIA agent, former State Department official and former Air Force officer."

"The experience speaks for itself," the governor said. "I know no one in state government who has his background relative to this specific issue." (Houston Chronicle, 10/02/2001)

Soon after his appointment and starting his campaign for lieutenant governor, Dewhurst purchased a full-color, four-page advertisement in Texas Monthly magazine touting about his new role as Texas' homeland security chief. The ad ended up raising many eyebrows. The ad depicted a military officer standing in front of an American flag, with the caption:

"As chairman of the Governor's Task Force on Homeland Security, David Dewhurst encourages you to support President Bush and the brave men and woman of our Armed Forces as they fight to eliminate terrorism and work to restore confidence in our economy."

What made it worse, the military officer pictured in front the American flag in the Texas Monthly ad was a German Luftwaffe officer. The Dewhurst campaign was quick to call it an "accident" and confirmed that it was a German, which the graphic artist and had been "dealt with appropriately." CIA talk, perhaps? Although his critics accused him of trying to use his position in the security task force as a way to improve his image as a candidate for lieutenant governor, one does have to question how much of it had to do with his role a CIA "case officer."

During his time in Bolivia, while the coup was occurring, Gen. Banzer was receiving advice from a former Nazi SS and Gestapo Klaus Barbie, the war criminal vastly known as the "Butcher of Lyon." Barbie was wanted for the torture and brutal killing of more than 4,000 Jews, many of them children, between 1942 and 1944 when he was Gestapo chief in Lyon. Barbie's presence in Bolivia and his work with the Bolivian government are part of our nation's dirty little secret.

In 1983, in an investigation conducted by US State Department's Allan A. Ryan, it was revealed that US intelligence officers had smuggled Barbie out of France and into Bolivia in 1951 through a "rat line." US Army intelligence had used and protected Barbie and other known Nazi war criminals in return for their help in the Cold War. Once in Bolivia, Barbie was employed by the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) because of his "police skills" and anti-Communist zeal was a valuable asset in protecting Cold War West Germany. While he was living in Bolivia, Barbie went under the assumed name of "Klaus Altmann."

Dewhurst's only comment for being in Bolivia has always been that he was there to promote democracy. Where have we heard that line before? When Banzer came to power in 1971, he relied on Barbie's expertise to maintain his unpopular rightist regime. That year, Banzer

"gave total powers to Klaus Altmann [Barbie] to concentrate on the creation of internment camps for his [Banzer's] political opponents ... torture and executions were common in those camps." Many of Banzer's enemies were Communists and Barbie probably saw no discontinuity between his activities in Lyons and La Paz." (Le Monde, May 16, 1987)

Are these the types of people we spend our time and money to put into power?

Back in November of 2001, Michael King of the Austin Chronicle had asked Dewhurst what were his views about the Banzer government, but in typical CIA fashion, Dewhurst replied:

"The Banzer government replaced the Torres government, which was considered a thorn in the side of the U.S. I left Bolivia in 1973. I have no informed opinion of President Banzer's [administration], other than that during the late 1970s, the U.S. State Department and international banking interests applauded Bolivia's strengthening economy. That apparent accomplishment has been clouded by numerous and repeated allegations of human rights violations."

Let's review. Dewhurst was in Bolivia between 1971 and 1973; he founded Falcon Seaboard in 1981, therefore, he had to be working with the State Department from 1973 to 1981. We also know that the State Department was consistently involved in Operation Condor.

On March 6, 2001, the New York Times reported on a recently declassified State Department document revealing that the US was part of the classified program known as Operation Condor. The report was among the 16,000 State, CIA, White House, Defense and Justice Department records released in November 2000 on Washington's role during Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile.

Dewhurst may downplay his short-term career at the CIA, but it is obvious it has left an impression on him. In 1994, former Senator Bob Dole appointed him to serve on Clinton'spresidential commission to reorganize the intelligence community. The same commission former CIA Director Porter Goss served on.

These distinguished Americans will join the eight members appointed by the leadership of the 103rd Congress. They are Tony Coelho, David Dewhurst, Representative Norm Dicks, Senator James Exon, former Senator Wyche Fowler, Representative Porter Goss, General Robert Pursley and Senator John Warner.

According the bio, it cites that Dewhurst "was recently elected to the National Board of Directors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs," the same pro-Israeli think tank whose board includes Vice President Dick Cheney and former CIA director Admiral James Woolsey.

This is not the first time Dewhurst's past has been raised; this issue came up back in 1998 while he was campaigning for land commissioner and during the 2002 Lt. Gov election. In 1998, Dewhurst told the Houston Chronicle that he was not involved and reiterated that he was not a spy. It is hard to obscure the facts, when there is a paper trial. Recently, there has been a surge in interest in privacy. Generally, when people talk of privacy, they oftentimes express they would prefer to keep their information about them from being available to others. The fact is, we are at a juncture where there is more information at our fingertips than any generation before. Dewhurst may have been able to dance around the issue, but as more information becomes available, it becomes easier to connect the dots.

Dewhurst is running for re-election, the most powerful position in Texas. It is no secret he has his eye for Texas' top spot - Gov. It was easy for him to avoid his past in the last two elections. However, the accessibility of the news back then is not same as it is now. Questions regarding his role in Bolivia will be brought up eventually.

Unfortunately, people have written this race off because his challenger is practically an unknown, Maria Luisa Alvarado. She may not be a well-seasoned politician; however, she did win the Democratic nomination over Ben Grant, a former state representative who also served as justice of the Sixth Court of Appeals. It would be wrong to assume Alvarado won because us "stupid Hispanics" chose her because she was one of our own. Currently, she has no major endorsements from any major publication and it must be noted, during this campaign season, Texas Democrats have solely been focusing their attention on electing Chris Bell, while leaving Ms. Alvarado to fend for herself.

When Dewhurst ran the fist time for Lt Gov, he too was though of being "inexperience" and had a "lack of political savvy." He showed his critics wrong. If provided a chance, Ms. Alvarado can rise to the level of expectations.

In state where the GOP has been destructive, we need transparency in our government, not covert undertakings and secret work histories.

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Elections are just around the corner here in Texas. I figure I will give my endorsement two cents worth this year and see how it goes.

Ever since the defeat of Ann Richards in 1994 and the overwhelming dominance of the Republican Party in TX politics over the last several years, everything has gone down hill. The truth is, Texas government really does need a change. This is not say that the Democratic dominance was not corrupt. There is a big difference between the post-Reconstruction Democratic Party and the post-Civil Rights Democratic Party, which is something present day Republicans tend to leave out as they try to appeal to minority voters. Democratic hegemony in Texas began at the end of Reconstruction. The party was dominated by white interests dedicated to maintaining segregation, using racial appeals, patronage, and the suppression of black voters to maintain their hold on elections and government. In fact, the current Republican Party is very similar to the post-Reconstruction Democratic Party, which was dominated by the party's conservative wing. It was in the 1960's when things changed within the Texas Democratic Party.

Beginning in the 1960s that ratio became inverted – increasingly more people voted in the general election than in the Democratic primary, a sign that intraparty tensions were eroding the Democrats' electoral lock on Texas government. As decades of dominance by the party's conservative faction gave way to pitched battle between old-line conservatives and newly-mobilized liberals, many longtime Democratic conservatives found a new home among the growing ranks of Republican Texans.

The current Texas GOP is filled with far right wing conservatives that have gone out of its way to steamrolled every extreme measure they want through the legislature. The corruption that occurred with the pre-1960 Democratic Party is the same corruption that is occurring with the current Republican Party, same type of people, just different party name. Texas is in a dire situation that needs to be fixed right away. Molly Ivins is correct when she eloquently called Texas the National Laboratory for Bad Government.

Now for my endorsements.

There has been a major focus on the governor's race and the candidates are Rick Perry, Democrat Chris Bell, independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman, and Libertarian James Werner.

The governor of Texas does not have much power, but the office does provide the governor a bully pulpit to speak on whatever measure the gov would like the legislators to tackle, the power to veto legislation and the power to make appointments.

My endorsement goes to Chris Bell. Not because he is a Democrat, but I genuinely believe he can initiate change to this state. Bell has served five years on the Houston City Council, which I, as a constituent, thought he was very effect. As city councilman, he served as chairman of both the Council Committee on Customer Service and Initiatives and the Ethics Committee. He also was very effective in passing laws that limited the use of soft money in city elections. He also made government more accessible to the public. Believe me, before he came along it really was a mess.

Before re-districting, he also was my Congressman, representing Texas District 25 in Houston and had he won his re-election would have continued to represent my district. Bell's District 25 was redrawn and resulted in District 9, a district intended for minority representation. As Congressman, Bell was the one who filed the ethics complaint against Tom DeLay, which the House Ethics Committee unanimously admonished DeLay.

I agree on every one of Bell's issues except for one. Bell has said he plans to provide health insurance for all TX children, increase minimum wage, and bring back true diversity to government appointments.

On Texas education, Bell has said he is dedicated to increase spending for the Texas public education system, raise teachers' salaries, and end high-stakes testing. He also wants to help schools acquire and retain quality teachers and stop textbook censorship. And on Texas higher education, he plans to end Rick Perry's tuition deregulation, which caused a 23% average increase in tuition at Texas state schools.

The one issue I disagree is Bell's stance on immigration. Bell supports the use of National Guard troops along the US-Mexico border, "as long as we are very careful not to turn the border into a militated zone."

"One tough Grandma" Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is running as "Republican-lite." Even she alleges to be an independent and that is something sorely disingenuous. She is a three-decade Austin insider who had two sons in the Bush administration, Scott McClellan, former Press Secretary to Dubya and Dr. Mark McClellan, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If she expects to pass herself as being an Austin outsider, it did not work.

As to why I will not waste my vote on Kinky Friedman (sorry jobsanger). My problem with Kinky is not that he comes out as a maverick or entertaining, such as calling in the Polish army for his martial law stance on the border. Nor is that I think he lacks experience, I personally believe people can rise to the level of expectations. I am pretty sure he could a good job, learn the ins and outs if he surrounded himself with good people. My problem with Kinky is that voted for a mass-murdering fabricator. I suppose I could be labeled as a purist because I do consider voting for someone who voted for Bush in 2004 to be unconscionable. Some many think voting for Kinky is a vote against the status quo, in this case, in my honest opinion I do not think so.

The fact is, after seeing that Iraq was a lie and a deathtrap for our soldiers, and after the world realized Bush was a fanatic, God-talking nutcase, Kinky proclaimed that Bush's foreign policy is a success because he is friends with Bush.

SM: So does this idea of the honorable cowboy have anything to do with why you threw your support behind President Bush in this last election? You did, didn’t you?
Friedman: Yes. I did in this last election, but I didn’t vote for him the first time.
SM: Who did you vote for in 2000?
Friedman: I voted for Gore then. I was conflicted. . .but I was not for Bush that time. Since then, though, we've become friends. And that's what's changed things.
SM: So it's your friendship with him that's changed your mind about having him as president more than his specific political positions?
Friedman: Well, actually, I agree with most of his political positions overseas, his foreign policy. On domestic issues, I’m more in line with the Democrats. I basically think he played a poor hand well after September 11. What he’s been doing in the Near East and in the Middle East, he’s handling that well, I think.

According to Kerr County voting records, Friedman voted in the 2004 presidential general election but not in any other contest since 1994.

More importantly, if Friedman can't see how poor a choice Bush was in 2004 after his horrendous first term, what the hell does it take? Why give him the keys to the Governor's mansion? More importantly, what would he have to do for you to hold him to account for his obviously clueless discernment?

I commend Kinky for his work with animals and promising biodiesel transportation, but that is not enough to win my support.

This is just my personal thoughts about this election. Tomorrow, I will break down the Lt. Gov race.

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Back in Oct 2005, the US Department of Education (ED) had published a decision that forbids educators (teacher unions) affiliated with a troubled school to offer remedial services to struggle students.

Decisions in Florida by the U.S. Department of Education, if implemented nationwide, would bar groups affiliated with school systems rated "in need of improvement" from participating in the tutoring program mandated under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Entities likely to be barred from the program--worth an estimated $2 billion a year in federal funding--include teacher unions, child-care centers, after-school programs, voc-ed or computer centers, and parents' groups.

Even since then, corporations have been profiting from a $2 billion-plus per year in federal education funds only to weaken troubled public schools at the same time as it underwrites the development of private and parochial educational services.

This weekend the Los Angeles Times reported on Neil Bush's educational software company, Ignite! Learning and his product, Curriculum on Wheels (COW) - the purple multimedia machine on wheels that offers interactive video presentations on a range of topics in social studies and science, was first created in 2005.

The Times reports that COW has been placed in 40 US school districts and at least 13 districts of them have used federal funds from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 to obtain the program.

This is not the first time Neil has been under the microscope. First, a brief history about Neil Bush.

Neil Bush
Back in 1990, Neil was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and was banned from banking activities due to his role in the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal, which cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. The Resolution Trust Corporation Suit against Neil and other officers of Silverado was settled in 1991 for $26.5 million.

Being a Bush, Neil never paid the fine. A Republican fund raiser was set up where close friends and relatives contributed to help Neil pay his fine for in his S&L dealings. According to Jeffery St. Clair, Neil went on to run TransMedia Communications, a venture capital firm based in Houston, TX.

But Neil Bush moved on, this time to TransMedia Communications, a cable TV venture headed by Bill Daniel, a longtime funder of Neil's father's political campaigns, who had been lobbying furiously for the deregulation of the telecommunications industry. For his services, Neil was remunerated to the tune of $60,000 per year, even though TransMedia's president, Dick Barnes, later admitted that the younger Bush knew nothing about the cable business.

Then in 1994, Neil ran Houston-based Interlink Management Corp, a venture capital firm that raised and invested $60 million in high tech and biotech startups. St. Clair notes:

In 1994, he started a company called InterLink with Tom Bridewater, a Utah tycoon and rightwing politician. The plan called for Neil to act as an intermediary to help grease deals between US and Asian companies. According to his recent divorce settlement, Neil earned from $180,000 to more than a $1 million a year from InterLink alone. In fact, it is alleged that Neil was paid $1 million to arrange a private meeting in New York City with Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian. The charge was leveled by James Soong, leader of Taiwan's opposition party. Bush admitted to meeting Chen, but denied that he received any money from the Taiwanese leader. Meetings between officials of the US and Taiwanese governments have been prohibited since 1979, when the US normalized relations with Beijing.

On July 19, 1999, Neil experienced one of his greatest triumphs. He made $171,000 in a single day by buying and selling shares of the Kopin Corporation, a display panel company, which on that very afternoon announced a surprise deal with Japanese electronics giant, JVC, causing the stock to soar. ... Kopin had been one of Interlink's early clients and Neil had recently arranged a deal where Telecom Holdings, a Hong Kong company, invested $27 million in Kopin. As a reward, Neil received stock options in the newly beefed up firm. It was merely a coincidence, Neil told the Associated Press earlier this year, that he exercised those options on that July morning and sold them later in the same afternoon, following the momentous JVC deal.

None of this would not have come out, if it wasn't for his nasty little divorce with Sharon Bush.

Ignite! Profiting From Public Education
Less than a month after Dudya took office, the Austin Business Journal published that Neil's Ignite! Inc had been "raising at least $10 million in second-round funding." According to the business newsweekly, Bush had already raised $7.1 million from 53 investors underwriting Ignite! Inc, an educational software company.

According to The Times, thirteen districts were using federal funds from NCLB to obtain Neil's program, which he was charging each school district $3,800 apiece despite that the fact there is a problem purchasing Neil's program. According to federal law, the funds are supposed to be used for disadvantaged students to improve their performance in reading and math. Neil's program does not offer reading and math instruction. In an e-mail to The Times, Neil writes:

"As our business matures in the USA we have plans to expand overseas and to work with many distinguished individuals in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa," he wrote. "Not one of these associates by the way has ever asked for any access to either of my political brothers, not one White House tour, not one autographed photo, and not one Lincoln bedroom overnight stay."

True it may not be the Lincoln bedroom scandal, but it is a scandal worth looking into.

The Bush administration has championed the transfer of public funding to private bank accounts right from the outset, but in its second term, the process accelerated. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the administration used these disasters to advance their cause to transferring public school students to religious or corporate education programs.

The Con
Neil's business venture with the school district started to unravel back in March when the Houston Chronicle reported that Former First Lady Barbara Bush had earmarked donated money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with directions that it be spent on educational software created by her son Neil's company.

Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.

To cover up the contributed funds, she instructed that the money should be sent on a non-Katrina related program, in which that program is to apply the money to purchase eight Ignite software programs for "Harris County schools with large numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees." This is how the con works.

The same business who "invested" in Ignite! Learning would either make grant and/or gift to the school district with the requirement that the money be used to buy Ignite! Learning products.

According to The Times, 2003 US Securities and Exchange Commission documents showed

Neil Bush had raised about $23 million from more than a dozen outside investors, including Mohammed Al Saddah, the head of a Kuwaiti company, and Winston Wong, the head of a Chinese computer firm. Most recently he signed up Russian fugitive business tycoon Boris A. Berezovsky and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.

Other investors have come from Saudi-owned Aramco Services Co, Apache Corp, BP and Shell Oil Co, and from The Washington Times Foundation, an organization backed by the Rev Sun Myung Moon, head of the Unification Church.

According the Austin Business Journal, in 2002, Neil had laid off 42% of its workforce in order to sign a $15 million deal with Grupo Carso Telecom SA allows Ignite, Inc. "to outsource software production." The Mexican telecommunications giant "would assume all nuts-and-bolts production" to "help Ignite's bottom line."

Grupo Carso is a conglomerate that owns a majority stake in CompUSA Inc. and Teléfonos de México SA and oversees MSN Latin America. Its chairman, billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, sits on the board of San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc.

It must be noted that Ignite had been on shaky grounds before Neil inked the deal.

The current deal arose after earlier talks with Grupo Carso to form a joint venture had fallen through, Leonard says. The talks collapsed because of Ignite's precarious financial position and the shaky equity markets, he says.

The Bush strategy to education is simple, transfer federal funding out of public schools to private entities like his brothers. The ultimate outcome is predictable – Education delivered by corporations will be strengthened; education in public schools will be weakened.

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I had received an email from the Crawford Peace House (reprint posted on jobsanger) about a Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf. The email is from a report by the DEBKAfile.

the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group steamed into the Persian Gulf to join the US naval, air and marine concentration piling up opposite Iran's shores. It consists of the amphibious transport dock USS Nashville, the guided-missile destroyers USS Cole and USS Bulkeley, the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, the attack submarine USS Albuquerque, and the dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island.

DEBKAfile mentions that Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) will be joining two other "strike groups," the USS Eisenhower and the USS Enterprise in Persian Gulf by Oct 21, which was yesterday. Therefore, I did a little checking around considering, since, this Administration and their minions are good at spinning their kind of information to make progressives look bad. What did I find? It is all true.

It seems Iwo Jima ESG began training in Kuwait since Oct 1, according to Stars & Stripes. The marines and sailors who are deployed with the Iwo Jima were there for about a months worth of training. According to S&S, the strike group will be deployed for six-months. The strike group also includes the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, NC, as well as supporting units from Beach Master Unit 2, Assault Craft Unit 4, and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 26 at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Little Creek, Va.

Some have suggested that the timing of these "strike forces" may be the October surprise people have been waiting for to occur. If an attack were carried out how much of an influence, would it have on the outcome of the November congressional election where Republicans are current on the ropes? Back in the September, according to Dave Lindorff in his article, "War Signals?" in The Nation magazine there were reports that several angry naval officers within the Eisenhower Strike Group have contacted antiwar retired officers, such as Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, that their ships are being sent to launch a military attack against Iran.

Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly, October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise." This point was also made in the Time article [What Would War Look Like?].

This is the strange part, the Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for 6-years, but on October 3 it received orders to depart to relieve the USS Enterprise and three other Norfolk-based ships, but it doesn't seem possible if the Enterprise is suppose to be part of the two "strike forces."

Lindorff also mentions that the Eisenhower is considered a nuclear aircraft carrier. The idea behind this is to bomb Iran's nuclear sites its cruise missiles. If so, then one is the military is planning on using it's nuclear bomb "Divine Strake", which is "specially designed" for use on Iran.

Divine Strake is a 700-ton bunker-buster style bomb that is designed to explode above a tunnel structure. The test's objectives are to study ground shock effects on deeply buried tunnel structures and to study the airblast produced by a buried charge and its modification as it propagates over the local terrain.

Divine Strake is designed to be a nuclear bunker buster is that is deeply buried, such as Iran's nuclear facilities. It was suppose to be tested, but it was reported that the Defense Department decided to delay testing "indefinitely." It was later reported by Associated Press that testing was rescheduled for Sept over the Nevada Test Site. However, in August, the Louisville Courier Journal reported that DoD was considering testing it over a Southern Indiana quarry.

One question we all have to take serious, how far is the US willing to go knowing that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez already threaten to cut off oil supplies to the US if the US decided to attack Iran.

During a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr Chavez warned the world of dire consequences if his ally was attacked by the US.

Mr Chavez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the US if provoked.

This, he explained, on top of Iran shutting off its oil exports, could send oil prices soaring to well above $100 a barrel.

Washington is using Iran only to exaggerate fears about a possible nuclear attack, but this is just another attempt to extend US hegemony. How far is the US willing to continue to put the US in danger? Is this really worth it?

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In a recent Washington Post article, the Post reported on a study conducted by Vanderbilt economist Joni Hersch where she found a correlation between skin color and income earnings among immigrants. Hersch found that Hispanic, Asian, and white immigrants with darker skin color earned less money than their fair-skinned counterparts.

Immigrants with the lightest complexions earned, on average, about 8 to 15 percent more than those with the darkest skin tone after controlling for race and country of origin as well as for other factors related to earnings, including occupation, education, language skills, work history, type of visa and whether they were married to a U.S. citizen.

This information is not new, it was already understood among African-Americans that preferential treatment is given to those with lighter skin, which is referred to as "colorism."

Some people are under the impression that Hispanics do not encounter color-based racism, but this idea is very wrong. Most are either uninformed or perhaps harbor some personal agenda that limits their perception of reality. The sad thing is, the issue has only been addressed by a few scholars, and for the most part, it has been neglected. When it comes to discussion about skin-color, it has generally been discussed in terms of a Black/White dichotomy. However, similar issues concerning skin color also exist within the Native American and Asian-American communities.

Despite all the adulation of having an indigenous past, the sad reality, color-based racism has been lodged firmly in the subconscious mind of too many Hispanics due to it's Spanish-colonialization heritage. In different regions of Latin America, color-based racism continues to have an impact in the way people interact with each other. In fact, if anyone were to examin any US-based Spanish language media networks, such as Telemundo and Univisión, one would definitely find a large presence of blondes than their English-language media counterparts.

As a Xicano, I do have to accept, perhaps there are no other ethnic group so self-conscious and irresolute about its self-worth. To get a firm grasp of this madness, one must understand the historical impact and the psychological effects of Spanish colonization it had on the indigenous population. In Guillermo Bonfil Batalla's book, Mexico Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization, Batalla notes:

A basic characteristic of every colonial society is that invading group, with a different culture from the dominated, ideologically affirms its immanent superiority on all areas of life and denies and excludes the culture of those colonized.

According to Batalla, even though Mexico achieved Independence from Spain, Mexico never completed the decolonization process. The internal colonial structure was never eliminated since groups, who continued to hold power, even after the Mexico's Independence, never abandoned the distorted view where "whiteness" was rewarded and "Indianness" was stigmatized.

The desire to shed one's native identity was one of the most devastating consequences regarding Mexico's colonization. Batalla calls this type of transformation "de-Indianization."

De-Indianization is a historical process through which populations that originally possessed a particular and distinctive identity, based upon their own culture, are forced to renounce that identity with all the consequent changes in their social organization and culture.

This process of shedding one's indigenous identity is coupled with the desire to improve one's socio-economic condition, which ultimately meant, the indigenous remained the poorest, most subjugated group in Mexico - a process that started in 1492.

Interestingly enough, it appears, African-Americans were also subjugated to the same process during and after the end of slavery. According to Hersch:

Within the South, the likely causal link of preferred treatment of light skinned blacks was through kinship, as slave owners bore children with their slaves. These advantages persisted after the end of slavery, with mixed-race individuals holding leadership positions in the black community and establishing segregated societies within the black community.

Discrimination within black communities on the basis of skin tone was generally not subtle and was apparently widely practiced. It influenced residential housing, membership of social clubs and churches, entrance into historically black colleges and universities, and membership of fraternities and sororities.

In Hersch's paper, she also found a direct link between wage earnings and skin-color for "non-Hispanic white immigrants, and for Asian immigrants." In our minds, we often equate race to skin color, so, one would wonder how is it possible for white folks to discriminate other white folks based on skin color. But in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it wasn't so, there was a distinct belief that people who came from Northern Europe were far superior than those from Southern and eastern Europe.

During the 1920s, the US passed several restrictive immigration laws. In 1921, the Emergency Quota Act, which discriminated against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, and in 1924 the National Origins Act, which completely excluded Japanese and other Asian immigrants and further reduced those admitted from Southern and Eastern Europe. It was at this time, there was a large interest in eugenics.

U.S. eugenicists also supported restriction on immigration from nations with "inferior" stock, such as Italy, Greece, and countries of eastern Europe, and argued for the sterilization of insane, retarded, and epileptic citizens.

Unfortunately, Hersch did not identify what countries the non-Hispanic whites originated. She does make an interesting finding. She notes:

There is also considerable support for the possibility that darker-skinned respondents may have likewise faced discrimination in their originating countries, and for that reason may have ended up with inferior market-related characteristics ... A preference for lighter skin occurs not only among blacks in the U.S., but in India, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. What appears to be skin color discrimination affecting immigrants to the U.S. may instead be a continuation of discrimination already experienced in their home countries. On the other hand, positive self-selection among immigrants would offset negative effects of skin color discrimination experienced in their home countries.

For those who persist in claiming discrimination is a thing of the past, why is there a large number of people in the US who have the desire to appear as white as possible?

(Hat tip to JV for pointing out Belle Waring's post at Crooked Timber)

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The quandary in this country, classism has become sort of a no-no in America to speak about because there is a myth that this country is assumed to be classless. We are constantly bombarded with the notion that this is the "land of opportunity." And if you didn't "make it" it was your fault for not taking advantage of all the tools that are there for the taking. We are reminded of this everyday, whenever we enter a business, an educational institution, and/or government facility and see the equal opportunity clause posted for us to see that states: "We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation..."

Racism is not manifested solely through a persons attitude or act toward another. It is deeply embedded in our system and structures through instruments of power and control, which is not consistently achieved or maintained through numerical strength but through the construction and preservation of a biased system.

According to research written by Alan Berube, Overcoming Barriers to Mobility: The Role of Place in the United States and UK, in the US, it is becoming increasingly less socially mobile. The reality is, in today's society, if you are born into poverty, you are most likely end up dying poor. If you are born into riches, you will remain wealthy. If your parents are middle-class, the chances of you moving up on the economic ladder have now become nearly impossible.

During the 90s, roughly 40% of US families remained in the same income bracket in which they began at the completion of the decade vs 36-37% in the 1970s and 1980s. More than half the households at the bottom remained there after 10 years.

He also stated that the location within the city played a major role in social mobility. A person living in a deprived area is kept poor in several ways. Poor neighborhoods tend to separate people from their work geographically; schools are less likely to offer high-quality education; crime rates are higher, particularly for violent crime; and health care is poorer. Social expectations to hold a job, stay away from crime and avoid risky behaviors are lowered in poor neighborhoods, too.

Poverty is regarded as a consequence of an individuals' decisions, attributes and/or moral failings instead of being seen as the exploitation of the working class by the business elites. To understand how classism was taken out of the racism picture, we have to know the history and role of white privilege in this country. White working class people are considered as both oppressor and oppressed. They are oppressed by non-working class white based on class, gender and sexuality, and based on religion, culture, ethnicity, age, physical abilities and politics. At the same time, they are privileged in relation to people of color. Sharon Martinas provides an excellent summary how white privilege was developed:

In the early 1600's, 50 wealthy Englishmen bought stock in the Virginia Company of London. Their stock options included large parcels of (indigenous) land in the new colony of Virginia, as well as the right to govern the colony.

These English gentlemen did not intend to work their lands in Virginia. To get workers, they contracted with English merchants who delivered impoverished English teenagers and kidnapped African people.

Workers were regularly whipped, nearly starved to death, denied days of rest, and were refused permission to marry. ... Under these conditions, African and English servants struggled to survive and resist their common oppression. They traded together, they made love together, and they made war together against their masters. Most servants were armed, since the wealthy used their servants to protect the frontiers against "hostile Indians."

Virginia records document ten servant revolts in the mid-1600's, culminating in the famous Bacon's Rebellion of 1676. African and English servants, free workers and farmers, demanded land and pay for their labor. They burned down Jamestown, the colony's capital. ... Colonial land-owning legislators responded with a series of Slave Codes, enacted from 1680 through 1705. These codes legalized chattel slavery ... and severely restricted the rights of free Africans. The codes equated the terms "slave" and "Negro," thus institutionalizing the world's first system of racialized slavery.

As the codes tightened the legal noose around enslaved Africans, they simultaneously loosened the legal bonds on English indentured servants. English or "white" servants were granted specific forms of *privilege* or *preferential treatment* which was specifically denied to slaves, or "Negroes."

All these "privileges" were specified as being available only to "white" people. However, if any poor whites acted in solidarity with any Africans, they would be physically branded, and their privileges removed. Thus the term "white" became synonymous with "privilege"* in colonial law.

Basically, it was a method used by the business elites to dupe the poor white working class into believing that they have non-monetary privileges in society therefore, indoctrinating them into believing that they are better than the ethnic minorities - giving rise to the concept of "White privilege."

Journalist and Professor Robert Jensen further explains, white privilege is not that straightforward but complex – a unspoken caste system among whites:

White privilege, like any other social phenomenon, is complex. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one's identity (in my case, being male gives me other kinds of privilege).

In a society as thoroughly and violently racialized as the US, working class whites and people of color are not seeing what is seriously at stake - the challenges of creating a true united anti-racist force that can resist the contemporary racist strategies of divide-and-conquer. In other words, there is a constant competition among different social groupings for who is "more oppressed."

What is taking place now, the primary benefits many working class whites enjoyed are disappearing - such as wage increases and the instability of full employment because of outsourcing - therefore, leaving an uncertainty in their children's future, since it has been clearly assumed that a "child is expected to do better than their parents." Secondary benefits are also diminishing, such as limited financial resources to pay for educational opportunities for white working-class youngsters because of college tuition rates continue to rise and the constant cutting of federal grants. Existing social services that used to be in place to create social mobility - medicaid, medicare, TANF - are being reduced. The impacts of these diminishing privileges are endangering the legitimacy of the white supremacy system, and the system is now relying on scapegoating to maintain order.

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At this point, I would not be surprised that some white people are getting bent out of shape. Before moving on, here are a couple of questions white people should consider before getting defensive - Do you think that in the United States being white has advantages? Have any of you ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? If so, if we live in a world of white privilege - unearned white privilege - then how does that affect the notion of a so-called existing level playing field?

Still not convinced? The answer these questions: What was the company or government agency, or contractor to which you had applied for a position or contract, which you believe discriminated against you?

Second, when did you apply for this job or contract?

And, finally, who was hired or given the contract ahead of you, and what evidence do you have that they were less qualified, objectively than you for the position?
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Until we start defining equality in terms of opportunity rather than in terms of moral responsibility, capitalist America will continue to provide the working class with the illusion of equality while it proceeds to exploit them.

The racism many white people feel are not from minorities, but from other whites - the wealthy, which explains why white privilege complex. The subjugation that is being rendered is more subtle, by the creation of private spaces - First Class accommodations, country clubs, five star restaurants, and other private spaces. Why do you suppose the wealthy are willing to pay a hundred dollars a plate or pay more to fly class? Why are they willing to pay more to live in secluded neighborhoods?

In the US, the idea of individualism is a much-celebrated theme in the national myth, this focus on the individual extends beyond rightist libertarians to the Right as a whole. The Right provides two misperceptions to continue this hoax. When it comes to racism, the Right most often dismiss the very idea of racism and consider it as having no merit, strongly affirming that racial incidents and outcomes are solely a problem between individuals. For the most part, the Right alleges, "racism is a thing of the past."

liberal programs as affirmative action have little to do with fighting racism; rather, they are aimed at camouflaging the embarrassing reality of black failure to meet merit standards of academic achievement and economic performance. One of my main conclusions is that even though we now have substantial numbers of Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Easterners in this country, racism remains primarily a black-and-white problem. Many people may not like Korean or Mexican immigrants, but there is no systematic belief today that holds these groups to be inferior. Yet four centuries after blacks were brought to this country against their will, the suspicion of black inferiority persists. This suspicion helps to keep racism alive and so hinders progress toward a race-neutral society. Only by recognizing and confronting cultural pathology and becoming fully competitive with other groups, I argue, can African Americans discredit racism and join whites and other ethnic groups in claiming the fruits of the American dream.

When it comes to portraying the white working class, it is always the old stereotype of the white supremacist or the non-educated white trash hillbillies who refuse to get over the South’s defeat of the civil war. For the past 40 years, white (particularly non-Southern white) liberals, progressives, and others on the left have mistakenly assume that white supremacy were only a matter of ignorance. That once they were educated, things would become the liberal paradise. It did not work out that way. It is such an easy meme for progressives to repeat. It puts the problem outside of New York or Massachusetts or California or any time progressives might actually have to work on the polite forms of fascism.

But why do so many otherwise clear thinking people on the left share the misperceptions? Why is West Virginia and Alabama first on the list whenever the KKK comes up and not Michigan or California? Folks in Michigan know that the KKK is there, and folks in California know about the neo-Nazis among them. Who are these snake oil salesmen? The obvious answer is, the extremely wealth, the political elites, the ones who want to keep the status quo and the mass media is their tool to continue this division.

Any time you turn on the TV, you continually see junk shows like The Jerry Springer which reinforces these stereotypes. Springer's show has gone out of its way to reinforce our view on white trash or the uppity minority.

The same goes for the news. When it comes to stories dealing with the rural areas or the inner city, reporters are always interviewing people to who fit the stereotype.

The same thing can be view with primetime TV shows like "My Name is Earl" which depicts male rednecks as lacking an education, ignorant, uncouth, poor hygiene, etc. And when it comes to female, (urban and white trash) they are portrayed as sexually promiscuous (Dukes of Hazards).

There is a fundamental reason class is "America's forbidden subject." It is time for white people to go beyond good intentions and begin to face, and to tell, the truth how how the privileges that come with being white gives you advantages, some subtle and some obvious, some overt and some covert, some material and some ideological.

I have said this in college and will proceed to say it over and over again. Since poverty is not concentrated among one group of people it serves as a starting point for healing the racial divisions in America. Once people are willingly to accept these facts, it is then the status quo will change.

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I am starting to notice that I am attracting more unwarranted comments of the bigoted kind. I really don't mind criticisms, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, especially if your purpose is to engage in intelligent conversation. But when a few dipshit racist/white supremacists decide to venture out of their roach motels toting their predictable rhetoric over here, well, enough is enough. My policy was not to engage and let the racist rhetoric comments stand for the whole world to see their self-delusional lunacy. Because of these actions, I have decided to take a couple of actions. Depending on how far fetched they are, I will either edit and mock comments, such as Gringo Warrior's comments. Such comments are meant to attack the person and not the argument.

Second, I will moderate any debate that consists of any type of incoherent form of epistemic relativism because the aim is simply to win a debate since the premises is that all truths in principle open to challenge.

Thank you for your understanding.

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It is funny how the GOP loves to use Martin Luther King Jr's "color-blindness" line from the 1963 March on Washington when it comes to race issues. In fact, the Party recently has been actively recruiting minorities just to show how serious their efforts are to end racism. However, it is not hard to see how white supremacist groups have learned to play the system.

Oh sure they are quick to criticize Dudya when it comes to immigration issues. But don't be fooled, they do share the same right-wing template when it comes to issues of race, immigration, losing their country, and the so-called decline of "civilization."

In Texas, it seems the Wise County GOP has been a breeding ground for white supremacist. Recently, DKos diarist TxSharon exposed the blatant racism within the Wise County Republican Party. It seems that the local Republicans want to make sure that their constituents know that their candidates are white, more specifically, "American European."

The Republican Party in Wise County loves white folks, but not just any white folks. They are very specific in which white folks are acceptable especially when considering those who are running for political office. On their website, they listed the candidates and included the race of each which, without exception, were "American European."

This is the same county where folks from the Wise County Minuteman Project enjoy socializing with the women at the Wise Republican Women's meeting and where county commissioners hung a Confederate flag in the courthouse.

Some people find it surprising but in reality, this is not new, not in my neck of the woods - Texas. It must be noted there is a known neo-Confederates group around Wise County, League of the South. One thing, white conservative Texans love to do is to live in past so long as it's a past that makes them feel good and venerates them as heroes.

If you were to ask the Wise County commissioners why they decided to wave the Confederate flag, they would insist it was merely honoring their Southern heritage. Yet, if you were to ask them about ask them about the issue of slavery, most likely, their answer would be "it's all that was in the past."

Neo-Confederates have a bad habit revising history by shrilling that the Confederate Battle has nothing to do with slavery or racism. Modern day confederates insist that the battle flag only represents the noble and gallant efforts of their ancestors in their fight for "state's rights." However, they ignore the primary reason Texas seceded from the Union.

The notion that the Confederate States fought for such noble principles as defense of homeland, or regional pride, or other similarly abstract notions only speaks to their own self-delusion.

Under the Texas Ordinance of Secession, it stated that Texas had been admitted to the Union

as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery -- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits -- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

The Texas secession delegates went even further than those in most other Southern states, by declaring:

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. That in this free government all white men are and of right to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both the desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.

They even went so far to specifically refer Native Americans as "Indian savages" and Mexicans as "murderous" bandits.

For modern neo-Confederates to try to pass off their iconography soul purpose of defending "state's rights" with no racial overtones is an attempt to rewrite history, and is akin to saying that the Holocaust did not occur.

Most frightening, this is not just a Texas phenomenon. Organizations such as the League are also involved with other white supremacy groups, such as the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) - a group that propounds its bigotry in the guise of conservative advocacy. One League's founding member, Jack Kershaw, is also a member of the white supremacist CCC.

One of America's dirty secret in American politics is that significant sections of the Republican Party “base” have ties with organizations that consist of racists and neo-fascists. The CCC has been able to maintain its strong connections with extremists by appealing to widespread resentments and successfully attracting prominent conservative politicians within the GOP, such Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott and Georgia Republican Rep Bob Barr participate in their events.

Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, who had spoken to the group five times, once telling its members they "stand for the right principles and the right philosophy," claimed he had "no firsthand knowledge" of it.

Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, who touched off the brouhaha by delivering a keynote speech at the CCC's national convention in June 1998, said he had "no idea" what the organization stood for.

Lott was forced to step down as Senate Majority Leader after he praised long-time Senator, now deceased, Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign, when he split with the Democratic ticket to run as a third-party candidate on a segregationist platform.

Members from the League and the CCC are also involved with other white supremacy group, American Renaissance, who share the same concern that multiculturalism and immigration as being the gravest threat to white societies in America and Europe.

It is not hard to see the dangers that these groups posed to our democracy by hard right forces such as dogmatic religious movements, regressive populism, and White racial nationalism also are attacking democratic values in our country. The immigration issue does bring out the nationalism in these groups. It is no surprise that white supremacists have been eager to use the Sept 11 terrorist attacks to further their own goals. In fact, some of them have turned Sept. 11 into a marketing tool.

The US has been a majority-white country and immigrant labor in the early part of this century was white, although, as we have seen, ethnic, national, and religious distinctions were critical in that time as the basis for defining immigrants as different, inferior morally and intellectually and, thus, threatening. The current influx from Third World countries faces the added dimension of race, a powerful factor throughout US history. Thus the current sentiment is as much the political twin of the racist history of exclusion of the Chinese as it is the resistance to white immigration.

Truth be told, whenever racism is brought up, these sanctimonious group that quick to brand minorities with the victim mentality label. Such whites insist that minorities are being encouraged to adopt a victim mentality, and to view themselves as perpetual targets of oppression. It is the conservatives who then take on a paternalistic attitude, which they are able to parade themselves as friends of minorities, only concerned about freeing them from the debilitating mindset of victimization that liberals wish to see them adopt.

White denial does not only deal with conservatives or white supremacists, in fact, it has become a widespread phenomenon nowadays. A recent survey from the University of Chicago found that most whites are unwilling to entertain even the mildest of suggestions that racism and racial inequity might still be issues. The survey asked two questions about Hurricane Katrina and the governmental response to the tragedy.

The first question asked respondents whether they believed the government response would have been speedier had the victims been white. To no surprise, more Blacks than whites agreed that the federal government's response would have been faster if the victims of Katrina in New Orleans had been white. However, the next question that was weakly worded was more telling. The second question asked respondents if the Katrina tragedy showed that there was a lesson to be learned about racial inequality in America, only 38 percent of whites agreed.

The differences of perceptions based on an event to which the entire nation was exposed in living color, are staggeringly instructive. Blacks and whites saw the same images, but perceived them differently. The Dawson poll, which included approximately 500 whites and 700 Blacks, shows a 64 percent difference between Black and white perceptions on the federal response to Katrina, and a 52 percent divide on the disaster's significance in terms of racial equality in the United States.

At times, it seems nothing has to do with race nowadays in the eyes of white America. Even the media seems to play down race. For the first time in CBS' Survivor, the contestants were divided into four tribes by race. The only ones who really made an issue came from the minorities groups. A large majority of white folks felt that is was "no less arbitrary to group people by sex than it is by race."

It seems the only time some white people will take a person of color seriously is when they think they are in their face, which some see it as counterproductive because it perpetuates an image of people of color as angry minorities who just want to bitch and gripe. But it is the bitching and griping that actually have a positive effect. In the case of CBS’s Survivor, the firestorm actually ended the ethnic experiment quickly. After two episodes and no explanation, producers quickly abandoned their little segregation experiment and merged the black, white, Asian and Latino tribes into two groups.

Often, deeply felt issues raised by groups whose numbers are in the minority have the power to convert, while issues that theoretically should be in everyone's interest never take hold. It is therefore essential that we address several fundamental questions right now: To point out those overt expressions of bigotry is all fine, but what about the underlying mindset, which gives rise to such acts? And the institutional inequities that make such a mindset seem rational? And which crimes are the ones we should punish anyway: the retail versions perpetrated by lone bigots and hate groups, or the wholesale versions which form the basis of institutional racism, and are the very fabric which comprise the tapestry of American society? And, finally, how are we to take back this country if our issues only receive lip service and are not even widely represented in the movement's leadership and decision-making structures?

We can only take back this country again, unless and until people in the US come to see people of color as their brothers and sisters in a common struggle for economic justice and human dignity nothing will change, or at least, not for the better.

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