The current social security system is EXACTLY like a ponzi scheme. It transfers money from new “members” and gives it to seasoned “members” who gave their money in the past and are waiting for their payout. As long as there are continually new members brought into the game putting in more and more money, the seasoned members will continue to get their payout.

The problem is that the money being paid out is never saved, because the original members that put their money in had it paid out from the beginning to people who never had to contribute to the game. Plus, the “person” running the game spent all of the extra money on whatever the hell “he” wanted. However, the game has survived because there were alway more and more people being added to the game who could keep the money flowing out regardlesss of the lavish spending habits of the “person” running the game.

However, we are now running out of people to add to the game, AND there are going to be a hell of a lot more people expecting their payouts than there are new people playing the game. THAT is when people start complaining and someone figures out that this PONZI scheme is really just a scam of robbing a few Peters to pay a hell of a lot of Pauls.

If you are truly depending on Social Security for your retirement security then you best be very prepared to live on hope and prayers, cause the money won’t be there.

I prefer to live like an ant. Not a grasshopper. (If you don’t know what that means, look it up.)

Whatever answers there are to the problems that systemically plague the African American community will never come from Black conservatives. There is no consciousness there, no feeling, no empathy, and most certainly no commonsense.
Black conservatives push economic and social polices that hamstring and divide the black community. The social security debate is one example that is particularly revealing. We are supposed to go along with a program that will substantially destroy our retirement security in exchange for a ponzi scheme that could possibly lead to wealth if managed properly by the same people who made Enron and WorldCom possible. Please.

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and come back to reality.

Nawoods, from a brief look at their website it seems clear that their entire mission is to beat back programs which MLK supported. This article in their magazine, http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/mlk3.html, clearly states that MLK would have been pro-affirmative action. But on their website they have links dozens of articles on how evil affirmative action is. Why would they do that other than to distance themselves from MLK? They seem to want their cake and to eat it, too, by not explicitly calling MLK bad for black people, just calling affirmative action, which MLK would have supported, bad for black people.

That paper by Michael King has an interesting header on it:

A New Visions Commentary paper published December 2001 by The National Center for Public Policy Research

National Center for Public Policy Research? Why does that sound so familiar?

Oh, yeah. Now I remember.

I completely disagree with Nawood’s initial impression upon reading the very same article and using the quote he had chosen in his opinion:

 The descendants of those other honorees have not done what the King family has had the audacity to do – demand payment for the  right to use King s image, likeness and name.

What I still do not understand from Oliver is whether he supports the King family’s position of making a dime off of a piece of our heritage, or Project 21′s of informing America of this blemish on his name by a family that lacks the integrity that MLK strove for in life. Or do you despise both???

Perhaps they have the right to object to the King family use of the name for monetary gain on moral grounds. But really, how is this different from the families of other famous people? It’s the American way is it not?

However, the idea that a black American whose family has roots in slavery would be a political conservative seems a little bizarre to me. Not that I think all black folk ought to think alike.

But today’s republican party is riding the coat tails of southern Baptist hysteria. There may be many thoughtful citizens who belong to the republican party. That they are willing to ride the current agenda for the sake of votes and power is frightening.

Whatever the party line, I believe that their current power base has its roots in racism. Black Americans to them are nothing more than so many votes.

One.

And Trevor- what exactly is your solution. It sounds as though you are stuck in the rhetoric of the white liberal power structure. Do you really think that name calling is really going to bother me? Talk about lawn jockeys- when you bow to the party that calls on us every four years for votes and then forgets about us when it comes to including us in the power structure. Do you think John Kerry ever saw the inside of a Black Church before the 2004 elections. But he did make a good speech once he got inside, and said all the right things. And yes, Hillary really knows when to use the word Plantation. And you KNOW what I’M talking about. How much time do you think she spends with the brothers outside of Martin Luther King Day speeches. Think she’ll schedule a few dates in our churchs and do a little shuckin and jivin for votes in 2008? Then IF she or any other Democrat gets in the White House with a few church visits, they can forget about us again.

At least when the President goes to a black churches he actually knows the language and worships with us instead of thinking about his speech. He doesn’t have to make a bunch of pandering promises. He just has to try and do what’s right for the country. Sometimes he gets it right and sometimes he get it wrong but at least it’s not pandering for votes and then disappearing. Funny how he can make black appointments to the courts, to his cabinet, and other positions of power even though doesn’t owe us much in the form of votes. But of course, his appointments are based not on the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Excluding an entire race of people from a political opinion because of the color of their skin?

I can’t remember which particular logical fallacy this is, but it’s the one where Oliver is talking specifically about black conservatives that are part of GOP front organizations like Project 21 and you expand it to imply that he’s talking about all black people.

These particular colored people who have never sacrificed anything except their self-respect, dignity, or the future viability of the black community are the antithesis of people like Dr. and Mrs. King who dedicated their lives to pursuing equal justice, equal opportunity, and democratic constitutional government.

The adherents of the black conservative credo of delusional groveling at the feet of a racist power structure in exchange for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver are growing in prominence and power. Some have even managed to get themselves elected to congress or appointed to the President’s cabinet. Their prestige does not change the essential malevolence of their ideology.

It does not matter what quotations of King they twist out of context.

Theirs is a regime that supports torture, racial and ethnic profiling, and discrimination.

Theirs is a regime that supports unbridled executive power to imprison without charge.

Theirs is a regime that supports robbing women of the right of self-determination over their wombs.

Their regime is illegitimate and criminal and so is their President.

Their regime will ultimately will fall, and when it does, perhaps Dr. and Mrs. King can finally rest in peace.

Yes, liberal blacks do that. All of them. They even need government to tell them when to hit the head.

And you criticize OW for rhetorical excess?

This is infuriating. Why? Because Marty’s comment, is really indicative of the way most conservatives think if you put them under truth serum.

They claim their policies will improve the lives of blacks? Well, they’ve been on that soapbox for years, yet every four years, 90% of the African American population voting populace stays away from them like the plague.

Tax cuts for the richest Americans, and tax giveaways to corporate America don’t appeal to blacks.

Corporate scandals don’t appeal to blacks.

Values that threaten an individual’s right to privacy, and a women’s right to choose, don’t appeal to blacks.

Failed presrciption drug plans don’t appeal to blacks.

Pro-business environmental policies don’t appeal to blacks.

Privatization of the social security net doesn’t appeal to blacks.

There are some aspects of conservatism that I identify with, and appreciate. However, I have never been able to stomach their obsessive need for self-preservation.

JK

The words of praise and genuflection to the memory and legacy of Dr. and Mrs. King were uttered by a number of distinguished Americans. Some of these tributes were heartfelt and magnanimous; others were hypocritical, self-serving, and disingenuous. For while the Kings labored to uplift and unite humanity, others dedicated themselves to keeping the nation balkanized along the fault lines of race and class.

This is the legacy of the current President. He used Mrs. King as a physical prop to give the appearance of her imprimatur to his Administration. While Bush unveiled a portrait of Dr. King to be hung in the White House, his malevolent minions in the Solicitor General’s office sought to challenge the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program and end affirmative action on the college level. This coming from a legacy admit to Yale is simply astounding and hypocritical.

It is interesting that as her era comes to a close, the Alito era begins. We have much to learn as a nation about the fragility of equal rights and equal opportunity. When the fabric of equal justice is rent forever and our nation veers off down the road of racial indifference, perhaps we will see the betrayal of Senate Democrats to filibuster Alito when they had the votes for what it was: A craven act of cowardice to preserve their own power and position.

May she rest in peace.

For those of you panty-wearing Republicans, who continually whine about OW’s inflammatory tone, I say this:

1.) Grow a pair

and/or

2.) offer an oppositing viewpoint.

Shut your whiny GOP “bitter beer faces.” If you haven’t realized what Oliver’s style is by now, and accepted that it’s not your “Grandmother’s Blog, “then you truly are as stupid as the guy who you idolize at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

He’s provocative.

Get a pair. I am sick of the whining from you losers.

JK

And Shuck and Jivers? Pushing conservative policies that are targeted at black Americans? Hmm. A group of conservative black Americans pushing conservative policies that are targeted at black Americans. The OUTRAGE!!

I suppose the CBC, a liberal group of black Americans pushing liberal policies that are targeted at black Americans should piss us off too? You know- all of those white liberal policies that you cling to like a pig to it’s momma teat. (Oh I forgot- you are “Center left.” nix that.)

Who are the real slaves Oliver? Those who depend on the government for their every need or those who believe we are all capable of getting off our asses and getting something out of life DESPITE the fact that there are still an extremely miniscule select few who might have a problem with how we look.

OH WAIT- you seem to think that only Democrats have any answers that are worthwhile. Fine.

But back to my original point. Be specific Oliver- Exactly WHAT of “what Dr. King brought to America” does Project 21 seek to undo? Be VERY specific.

I’ll bet the NAACP was started by a group of blacks and whites, and on Lincoln’s 100th birthday.

http://www.naacp.org/about/about_history.html

Interesting.

“Black Conservative to Rebut NAACP Leader’s Remarks in C-SPAN Interview,” read the press release from Project 21, an organization of conservative African-Americans.

I had read in Reuters that Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, had called groups like Project 21 “make-believe black organizations,” and a “collection of black hustlers” who have adopted a conservative agenda in return for “a few bucks a head.”

So I tuned into C-SPAN with interest to hear what a leading voice in the black conservative movement had to say. But then a funny thing happened: the African-American spokesperson for Project 21 caught a flat on the way to the studio, and the group’s director had to fill in. And he was white.

As the segment began there was an awkward Wizard of Oz moment as C-SPAN’s Robb Harlston  himself black  turned to Project 21′s Caucasian director, David Almasi, and said, “Um…Project 21… a program for conservative African Americans…you’re not African American.”

It was a remarkable moment. A flat tire had led to a nationally-televised peek into what lies behind a murky network of interconnected black conservative organizations that seek ostensibly to bring more African-Americans into the conservative movement. But they’re not just reaching out to the community. They also speak out publicly for conservative positions that might evoke charges of racism if advocated by whites. And while that’s not to say that there aren’t some blacks who embrace conservative values, the groups that claim to represent them are heavily financed by business interests and often run by white Republicans.

Excluding an entire race of people from a political opinion because of the color of their skin?

Sounds like something that Grand Kleagle Byrd would have done in the “good” old days….