Let’s get one this straight in this ‘debt ceiling crisis thingy’.  There is no crisis.  Both houses will vote to raise the debt ceiling.  The worse that can happen is that the president has the power to do so and will.  There is far too much at stake.

What is interesting is how Obama got the republicans to paint themselves into a deep hole… and they have ignored the maxim, “When you are in a deep hole, stop digging”.  However their hatred for the president is so great they can’t help themselves and Obama knows that.  So now he is turning up the pressure.

Let’s look at this objectively.  What has Obama done that has stirred up such enmity in the republicans?  Why is the republican leader in the senate Mitch McConnell voicing such disdain for a democratic president who gives so much to the republicans that even democrats are questioning his belief in the democratic principles?

McConnell says that the sole goal of the republican party is to ensure that Obama is a one term president.  But what has Obama done that is any worse that the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, or the operations of George Bush in his entire presidency?   I mean, there are times when I feel that Obama is an actual carbon copy of Bush.  The conservatives really should love him.  But they don’t.

It all goes back to the topic that America doesn’t want to face.  Race.  Yes, I’ve said it.  Race.  Obama is black and that destroys the myth of white male dominance.

Ok, I can hear the sceptical, ‘c’mon Louis’… so here it is.

The tea party is inherently racist.  I have been amongst them and the racism overt and covert, is palpable. These people are not used to black people, they are uncomfortable with an intelligent black person and they are terrified with a black man in the highest profile of power in the United States.  The white House.

But don’t take my word for it.  Just google racist references made about the Obamas by republican politicians.  There‘s no end to them.

In a blog last year, I had warned what would happen that the tail (the tea party) would start wagging the dog (the GOP).  Well, ask McConnell and Boehner how that is working out for them.

Right now, the GOP is in a mess.  No one seems to be in leadership and there is no unification of message.  Cantor contradicts Boehner and everyone contradicts McConnell.  Chaos.  And Obama is playing them like a drum.

Worse of all, the GOP leaders have already told Wall Street that they are going to raise the debt ceiling… and everyone including Obama knows that.  So what cards do they hold?  None.  Right now they risk the wrath of every major voting group in the US as they appear to be putting at risk, children, the elderly, medicare and social security recipients, government workers, social services, including health, police and firefighters.  And the only ones they are defending, will soon desert them… extremely wealthy people.

We all know that if this was a republican president, we wouldn’t be talking about debt.  And if the republicans win the 2012 presidency, all that talk will vanish.  Afterall, under George Bush they spent like there was no tomorrow.  But the American public has too short an attention span to appreciate this and that the one thing Obama has to fear… that the ‘brilliance’ of the American electorate cannot be underestimated.  That trait is a bottomless pit and when you think American voters can’t be any worse, they will prove you wrong.

I remember being at a polling station years ago where there was an initiative on the ballot not to raise property taxes by a few dollars as against reducing the quality of services such as police, health response, firefighting response, libraries, parks and service.  Most of those who voted against raising property taxes did not own any property.

This is symptomatic of many American voters… to vote against their own interests then whine after.

Think what I’m saying is the product of my demented mind? Not so fast, my friend.   Remember this Daily Mirror headline back in November 2004, when George Bush was re-elected?  “How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?”.  Iiiii ammmmm not alonnne.

But back to the debt ceiling.  The republicans control congress so the democrats by themselves can’t raise the debt ceiling.  But I figure that this is the point where moderate republicans are gonna use this as an opportunity to face off with the tea party.  If not now, when?   The tea party on its own, cannot block the vote if moderate republicans join with the democrats.   So the debt ceiling will raised… and we will see the traditional republicans taking back control of the GOP.

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The more that is coming to light about the Casey Anthony trial the more it bears out the above.  I still don’t know for sure who killed the child.  I can guess but I was never ever going to get too overwrought about this trial.

But now I’m hearing what went on in the deliberation  room, the more I have to shake my head.  The jury decided to make central, an issue that they weren’t asked to… that is, how the child died.  And their findings were based on the prosecutors not being able to prove that.  Wow!  What brilliance.

In many cases of murder, the manner of death is impossible to prove.  In some cases, the state goes to trial without a body.  But the law does allow for certain assumptions based on certain facts.  It was irrelevant how Anthony died.  What was relevant was whether one believed the mother that the child drowned, she went to a party, and disposed of the body without saying anything for months.  A jury of my peers indeed.  Oi don’t think so.

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And while on the subject of the British press. My last blog warned that the News of the World scandal will have its reverberations here in the US.   This before any of the media recognized that it wasn’t just a British thang.  Now they are thinking, especially since senator Jay Rockefeller is asking the same thing.   Remember that Fox News and several British papers under the microscope for illegal activities are owned by Rupert Murdoch.  This ain’t finished yet.

I can reeeead theeeee fuuuuture!  Not really, just plain common sense.

………..

So the police declined to prosecute Deshon Marman, he of the saggy pants on US Airways. Well, well and well.   There was nothing to prosecute and Marman is on his way to a big payday.  Both the police and the airline were being absolutely stupid.  The police should have had the discretion to halt it from start.  Surely, they had better things to do.  Interestingly, when you read the posts on this story, the racists are still out in full… nary a mention of that normal gentleman who previously was allowed to fly on the airline in nothing but women’s underwear.

Racism is stupid and practiced only by stupid people.

………..

To the Arts

Pardon me for not introducing my artist self earlier.

Since getting into photography during my time at the University of the West Indies, I have been intent on producing images ‘Beyond the ordinary’.  With years of editorial and commercial photography under my belt, I started to use my photography to represent my social activism.

I refer to my work as ‘digital constructions’, which is using the computer to create near reality single images from disparate bits and pieces of my own photography. But my art pre-dates computers as back in my birth island of Jamaica, I had been creating strong, powerful, single and multi-layered images sans computer.

I look at the world around me, the inequities, the ‘disbalance’ of societies, the necessity to re-programme myself to survive and even attempt to change a world that has become increasingly hostile to itself.

My work is generally themed around a whole slate of social causes, which includes the environment, nationality, gender, race, religion, homelessness, poverty, exploitation, sexual orientation, discrimination.   My work extols viewers to look at the world around them and even examine themselves and their positions in regards to the positive movement of the world.   My work even forces even me to daily examine my social positions and ask myself the question, “What am I doing about bettering the world?”.

My art lends its voice to the plight of the poor, the downtrodden, to those who have little or no voice in society but whom need the general public to have greater awareness of the world we all inhabit.

Sometimes the messages are subtle, sometimes overt, oftentimes ambiguous.  At times, I do require the observer to think through a piece knowing that doing so will yield them more information and thus greater impact.

My work is always undergoing evolution but from the beginning, I was drawn to creating images ‘Beyond the ordinary’… creating images that evoke the feeling that “I’ve never thought of or seen it that way before”.

The attached image was taken during a ‘gas demonstration’, which I believe was during the 1980s.  I was hit by a coconut thrown at the police by demonstrators, was the target of about six police teargas canisters, and was also detained by a M-16 carrying policeman.  Won’t tell you how I got out of that one.  Memorable, but not necessarily fun.

Next time, I post my professional bio.