Thank You Progressive Bloggers For Preparing Me For My Trial

Note from Tuesday July 14 - I was going to make one long post about my experiences with some friends on last Friday night as we were debating. I instead will break my experience down into several smaller posts:



Last night I agreed to hang out with the boys. I have a close friend who's job, it seems, is to wheel me around to various progressives so that they can team up on me and get me to yield to their Progressive, Pro-Democratic and thus, "Pro-Black" ways. When I agree to hang I know in advance where the discussion is going to end up, regardless of how much I try to talk about anything else. Last night me and my key friend were in the company of a old college buddy who lives in town but who I hadn't seen in about 2 years.

I won't bother to go into the details about the entire debate. Instead it is far more important to make note of patterns of argument that I detect when I debate Black progressives. I have the difficult task of answering the question at hand, understanding how they are attempting to ensnare me (it's "all about debating me rather than solving problems within the Black community" after all) and redirect the conversation back to the KEY POINT that most African-Americans would agree are the priorities of our political activism:

• Safe Streets
  
• Quality Education
• Thriving Local Economy
• Healthy Lifestyles

I have learned over time that these key points are disarming to those who have any credibility within them. Where as they would like to have a "Democrat vs Republican", "Progressive vs Liberal" debate, there is no assurance that any of it will have any correlation to what is going on WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY. These points being made the key reference is effective at recasting the debate. I told you before that if you go into an unstructured debate with a Progressive - they are going to always win based on "popularity". The debate must be turned into one of effectiveness and thus have them stand accountable for that which they now control. Their goal is to "keep conservatives on trial", however. They think that they are arguing from the "Authentically Black" position and that I am a rogue and an exception. The more that they can tie me to George Bush, it seems, the stronger their argument and thus "they have won". My mission is to prove that "THE THE COMMUNITY IS LOSING despite their wins". Its all a matter of WHAT they are working on behalf of.

The conversation started out about Steve McNair and then we shifted to discussing Africa because our waitress was from Eritrea. This all lasted for about 25 minutes. I even pulled up a picture of east Africa on my PDA to show him were Eritrea is relative to Ethiopia, Egypt and other nations.

Then abruptly the other guy switched the conversation over to politics. From this I realized that they had talked about their plan for me prior to my arrival and were planning yet another tag team match. I struggle to understand how, If my views are out of line with Black America's prevailing views: Why are they are so interested in having political conversations with me?

They were operating off of the phenomenon that I had pointed out previously: "Keeping Conservatives On Trial". They tried hard to make the conversation about "ME". I was trying to make the conversation about the Black Community and where we presently stand.

The first question was "Did you vote for Barack Obama"? - NO. I did not vote for John McCain either. I voted "No confidence" to both of them. I voted to keep the machine that ALREADY runs our schools, controls the police forces in the areas where we live in our highest concentrations and controls the local economic policies from fusing their power NATIONALLY. If I had voted for Barack Obama you could rightfully call me a "sellout" because in doing so I would have had to tucked nearly all of my beliefs in economics, social policy and theory of government in general to vote for "the Black guy".

"Did you vote for George W. Bush?"
I actually voted "AGAINST the Black establishment" who wanted me to ignore their failures in administrating the key institutions in the places where we as Black people live in our highest concentrations as they sought to allow the machine that they have latched onto to gain national control.

I was then asked to justify how I could do such a thing when Bush had

1. Ran up the debt, having destroyed a surplus
2. Ran up the unemployment rate

I then talk my friend that I am requesting a forbearance in my answer of about 3 and a half years. If he is willing to note that Barack Obama has run up both of these elements as compared to Bush then I will agree that I was wrong. Of course he said that he would hold Obama accountable if the conditions were so in the future. I noted to them that Michael Eric Dyson has already made up his mind on who he was going to vote for in 2012 and that it hard for me to believe that they are any more open minded than he.

Touche'

Then they went on the track of asking me how I could "vote no confidence" in Obama but not do the same in 2004 against Bush. This inconsistency proved that I was a "Republican". I stated that my consistency was in VOTING AGAINST THE BLACK ESTABLISHMENT that has growing control over our local institutions.


LOCAL POLITICS AND NATIONAL POLITICS ARE NOT RELATED

So many of the tactics that I have previously observed and then applied a label to were on display last night. In addition to "Keeping Conservatives On Trial" (so they don't have to defend their own positions and the results) there was "Looking Past Local Democrats To Pursue National Conservatives".

It was clear that both of my friends were conspiring to debate ME rather than to come up with any particular conclusion that might benefit the Black community. I told them that my politics radiates from my house and then into my community, my city, my county, my state and then the nation. Thus the fact that I am satisfied with the conservative principles of my local government which has my Black kids receiving a good education provides a sufficient justification for my acts. When I see other, more "progressive" counties to the north which don't do a good job educating their children - it would be inconsistent for me to look past the IDEOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS and theories of government that are contrasted in both places and agree to support the offending MACHINE at the national level.

They saw that I was cleaving to my LOCALISM.
Thus they had to undercut the importance of LOCAL POLITICS!!!

Then their new talking point became "the local politics and the national politics are not related".

I rebutted, making the case that the key "Black Permanent Interests" listed above are centrally focused at the local level, how is it that they can make such a ridiculous statement? The fact is that the national political machine receives its power from an aggregation of many individual local constituencies that, when grouped on the city and then state and then regional level translates into the national power.

Black people are being harmed by what is going on at the local level - in our schools, on our streets, in our homes.

This is what frustrates me about some people. They are willing to put aside what they know to be true because they want to score upon a larger political point.

At this point my close friend said "The local issues are CULTURAL, not POLITICAL in nature. If the Republicans were in power over our communities would things be any different?"

I said "NO. Not if there is no underlying change in the people's consciousness".

I then turned in around on him: "Since you believe that these are CULTURAL rather than POLITICAL issues - the next time some Democrat stands before Black community and sells the masses upon the notion that their ascencion into power is going to fix some of the local issues that are not political, as you say, I want to see you PREEMPTIVELY stand up against him and tell him to stop USING the people".

This is another tactic that I see them use. They seek to disarm me with a set of arguments......that they are not willing to apply proactively against those that they favor. They want me to "put down my weapon" so that they can continue carrying theirs, blasting me and anyone else who dares disarm.

They want an aggregation of power but no accountability for that power.

If you want to hear of a "Strong Black Establishment" challenge my friends as to who holds the prevailing views in the Black community. They will tell you that the Conservative has little traction or credibility with Black people.

If you want to hear them talk about a "Weak Black Establishment" point out how favorable people now run the key institutions in Black America and thus they should be accountable for the results. Then they will point to all of the EXTERNAL forces (as well as history) that is "Holding a Brother Down" still today.

Does everyone see what I have to deal with on a constant basis?