THANKS TO RACHEL MADDOW FOR SPOTLIGHTING THE UGLY BEHAVIOR TOWARD PRESIDENT OBAMA by USA CITIZENS - "TRAWLING FOR ASSASSINS"

TO USA CITIZENS

DOMESTIC BIGOTS ARE NO BETTER
THAN FOREIGN TERRORISTS

I have plans to write another letter to President Obama, expressing my feeling of being let down by his not matching his words and actions since President to before he was President - regarding genocide and the extreme situation for the Darfuris and southern Sudan.

Then I saw this on television tonight:

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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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I agree with the message in this video.


I still will write my letter to President Obama, but I will keep in mind that I must write with the respect that he merits, while reserving no truths from being expressed from my heart.

This ugly head rearing of racism in this country has been going strong towards Barack Obama since his Presidential campaign started. And it is not lessening, but getting bolder and bolder.

It is blatant. It needs more attention that the Rachel Maddow show, but thanks to her for doing what she can.

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Strange Fruit sung by Billie Holiday.
This video uploaded by MonsieurBaudelaire

Text from the same song of BedsUniversity at Youtube:

As a child brought up in financially impoverished community, the artist remembers creating makeshift toys from the discarded items of others; old tyres being a particular favourite. Often such items were decorated in an attempt to personalise them.

In many cultures the "tyre swing", is associated with childhood memories of play, often being found in woodland clearings or near water.

The upheavals in 1980-90's South Africa witnessed the establishment of the 'tyre necklace', a punishment which involves placing a tyre soaked in petrol around the victim's neck and setting it alight.

These things, amongst others, inform the making of this work. The title of the piece and soundtrack references a dark period in American History.

"Strange Fruit" is a song most famously performed by Billie Holiday that condemns American racism, particularly the practice of lynching and burning African Americans that was prevalent in the South at the time when it was written.

In her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, Billie Holiday suggests that she, together with Lewis Allan, her accompanist Sonny White and arranger Danny Mendelsohn put the poem, written by Abel Meeropol, to music.

The "strange fruit" referred to in the lyrics are the bodies of African American men hanged during a lynching. They contrast the pastoral scenes of the South with the ugliness of racist violence. The lyrics were so chilling that Holiday later said "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake. There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping."

Lyrics of Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Project work by 2006 graduate Terry Massiah.

I am not what I consider a religious person. But I do consider myself a deeply spiritual person and one who tries to live with love and compassion for myself and for others. So, it is rare I quote Bible scriptures, but here I have included a passage:

Matthew 7 - Jesus speaks here

A Tree and Its Fruit

¹⁵"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. ¹⁶By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

²¹"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' ²³Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

The Wise and Foolish Builders

²⁴"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

²⁸When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

Wikipedia includes this topic -Racism_in_the_United_States

There are regular radio and television commentators who would not be unhappy if President Obama was assassinated. Some have been routinely using rhetoric to incite and inflame such an idea.

What is Happening in the USA is Directly Related
to the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis in Rwanda

The radio was majorly used as an instrument to incite neighbors to use garden tools and 10 cent Chinese machetes to kill approximately one million human beings in 100 days. See the Media Propaganda section for basic information on this issue: wikipedia Rwandan_Genocide

Here are the first and second sentences from the section:

Media propaganda

According to recent commentators the news media played a crucial role in the genocide: local print and radio media fueled the killings, while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground.^[9] The print media in Rwanda is believed to have started hate speech against Tutsis which was later continued by radio stations.

^[9]

1. ^ http://www.comminit.com/en/node/189378/36

My first letter to President Obama is read in this video:


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Dear President Obama - A Letter Sent March 12, 2009
Uploaded by ilovemylifesblog

When I was set up to receive comments on this video, I received comments that were self-absorbed at best. I was told I would never receive a response by one poster.

I received a reply July 25, 2009 and two more replies to more of my letters. I have sent several letters regarding Darfur and his inaction. I am sure any more of my letters will simply reap the same letter in response, as I have three copies of this letter so far. Two from USPS, addressed to Dear Friend. One of those with an envelope with my name and address typed on it and the latest with my name and address handwritten on the envelope. In the email response to my email letter to him, the response greeting included my actual name, not "Dear Friend". All of the letters are the same text.

The first letter of response from President Obama:

Click to enlarge
Any bigoted comments will be deleted.
As explained in an earlier post, this is my home online
and just like in my virtual home,
I don't allow bigoted comments.

I figure if you want to express yourself anyway you want,
you can do it on your own blog.

Just not here.

Shalom.

U.S. HATED BY MORE THAN TERRORISTS ~ "HOPE" THINGS CHANGE in 2009

When I first traveled to Europe, I was in Europe when President Nixon resigned. I was so warmly welcomed by the people of Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain for the six weeks I was traveling alone. Since I have taken many trips to Europe. But I got more than a "cold shoulder" when I was in Italy in November 2005. Not so "cold" in Austria and well, Germany was not pleasant. But the German I sat beside on the way over the Atlantic, told me that I would find the Germans not so polite ~ well she wasn't even that nice about her descriptions of Germans. She was going back home to visit family, as she lived in the USA. Not everyone was as mean to me as the man behind the counter in the Munich tourist office. And the three weeks apart of the two times I encountered this man, his second time of blatant disdain was an equal match to the first time. But the second time I walked around and gathered my courage and thoughts and returned to tell him politely that "kindness is kindness in any language". After telling him that he was rude three weeks earlier, he questioned me that it was him. When someone is mean to me, my memory is quite reliable.

Bush thinks he is right with his "decider" record. A man so right can be wrong. When 911 happened he made a statement that he didn't know why we as Americans were so disliked. And NOW, we are in a whole new category of "dislike". We are hated and I don't mean by terrorists. I mean by ordinary citizens of the world. Reasonable, rational people hate us. This is not good for United States citizens' security. No war, threat of war or arsenal of nuclear weapons can protect us and coddle our national security as much as having the respect of the world via our policies, national respect for justice and behaving as a democracy. And torturing is frowned upon even when we do it as the USA.

How can we not be sullied by the continuous stream of bad behavior and decisions from the Bush administration? Bush can act blind to this stuff. But the world pays more attention to us than we pay to them. The world is watching. And they see the dirt. More than we do. I get some of my best information about what is happening in the USA from foreign websites.

I have written about this before, but when I found this article it just reinforced what I have experienced in Europe. I have enjoyed traveling in Europe so many times. But the last time was a markedly different experience, especially in Italy, a country that was one of the "coalition of the willing". Turns out the Italians themselves weren't willing. Remember when he said "you are either for us or against us"? Well, most are against us, NOW. Bush has hurt us and the U.S. in the world more than our populace has a clue. We are not in good standing. And this fact does not serve us well.

Here is an except from the Newsweek article:

America’s Bad Rep

Bush’s Austria trip has underscored just how much Europeans dislike the U.S. president.

By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jun 21, 2006

(Richard Wolffe, in Salem, New Hampshire January 6, 2008, while covering Barack Obama)

Good news can fade fast. Last week George W. Bush enjoyed a slight bump in the polls—and, perhaps more importantly, a morale boost—with news of the death of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a surprise trip to Baghdad and word that Karl Rove will not be charged in the CIA-leak investigation. But as Bush arrived in Austria on Tuesday night, the world looked very different. Although he's the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country in 27 years, one of the first things Bush saw from his speeding motorcade was a group of protesters flipping him the finger and struggling to unfurl a massive handmade sign. GO HOME, it read.

Indeed, Bush’s public-relations problems back home are nothing compared to his unpopularity here in Europe. Ahead of Bush’s whirlwind visit to Vienna—where he is meeting with leaders of the European Union—and Hungary, recent surveys show disdain for Bush and Americans in general are at all-time highs. A survey released last week by the Pew Research Center found that, with the exception of Great Britain, a majority of Europeans polled have a mostly unfavorable view of the United States.

Yet it’s more than just simple dislike. A Harris Interactive/Financial Times survey released Monday found that 36 percent of Europeans view the United States as the world’s greatest threat to “global stability.” By comparison, 30 percent of those polled named Iran as the biggest threat, while 18 percent named China.

In Austria, that unpopularity is particularly acute: a recent poll by the Vienna-based News magazine found that 72 percent of those surveyed found Bush to be unlikable and a danger to world peace. Throughout the city’s downtown area, lampposts and tree stumps have been plastered with anti-Bush signs. One features a black-and-white photo of Bush waving, with the palms of his hands stained blood red. On Wednesday, several thousand people marched near Bush’s hotel to protest his visit during a rally that featured an appearance by Cindy Sheehan, the U.S. antiwar activist whose soldier son was killed in Iraq.

But it’s not just the American president feeling the brunt of unpopularity here in Vienna. When a group of reporters attempted to hail a cab outside the Hilton Vienna hotel (where the White House press corps is staying) on Tuesday night, one driver waved the group off with a string of anti-American expletives. Calling Bush a modern-day “Hitler,” the driver told the reporters they were “nasty Americans” and said he wouldn’t permit them to step foot into his car.

Why do Americans have such a bad rap in Europe? While a significant percentage of people continue to oppose the war in Iraq, the outrage seems more centered these days on other developments, including incidents of prisoner abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, charges of a civilian massacre in Haditha and the “renditions” of terror suspects to secret CIAprisons to countries outside the United States.

And the article ends with: Pointing to the polls, Bush said, “People will say what they want to say, but leadership requires making hard choices based upon principle and standing by the decisions you make. And that’s how I’m going to lead my country.”

Bush hasn't so much "led" the country as metaphorically raped our reputation as well as the U.S. Constitution.

The remainder of this article can be found here

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Link to Keith Olbermann and Richard Wolffe

Related post

Another related post

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Special Comment
by Keith Olbermann including Bush's lack of integrity

A sneak peak at the HBO documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.

If you have the courage to see the truth go to this link:
Abu Ghraib
Text from the Youtube poster, journeymanpictures :
Shocking pictures have come to light revealing the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib - and it's much worse than anyone imaged.


The photos depict new incidents of homicide, torture and sexual humiliation and indicate a broader pattern of abuse than was previously understood. "We now know there was systemic and widespread abuse", states ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh. She hopes the photos release will lead to a proper inquiry.