By Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Never would I have thought that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas standing up for a black man's right to bear arms for self-defense purposes. To stand requires a spine.
What Thomas has created, however, is a legal defense of the Second Amendment so thoroughly original and starkly race-based that none of the white justices would even acknowledge it, as if it were some blank sheet crafted by an invisible man… Washington Post
In the Gun Rights case of McDonald v. Chicago, Justice Thomas sided with the court's conservative majority in a 5 to 4 vote to give petitioner, Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old black man from Chicago, the right to buy a handgun. McDonald said he needed a gun to protect himself from young black "gangbangers" who were terrorizing his suburban Chicago neighborhood.
The case was joined by the NRA, with thirty-three amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs, filed by U.S. senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R, TX) and John Tester (D, MT) and U.S. representatives Mark Souder (R, IN) and Mike Ross (D, AR) asking the Supreme Court to find in favor of the petitioners and rule that the Second Amendment does apply to the states. The brief was signed by 58 senators and 251 representatives, more members of Congress than any amicus curiae brief in history.
Thomas agreed with McDonald, concluding that owning a gun is a fundamental part of a package of hard-won rights guaranteed to black people under the 14th Amendment. And just because some hooligans in Chicago or D.C. misuse firearms is no reason to give it up.
By the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, Thomas opens can of worms. The Right to Citizenship did not include the Right that Blacks could Bear Arms. There had been too many Supreme Court cases in history where seizure of arms from Blacks was condoned and deemed legal. What did Clarence Thomas have to say about this?
Referring to the disarming of blacks during the post-Reconstruction era, Thomas wrote: "It was the 'duty' of white citizen 'patrols to search negro houses and other suspected places for firearms.' If they found any firearms, the patrols were to take the offending slave or free black 'to the nearest justice of the peace' whereupon he would be 'severely punished.'" Never again, Thomas says.
NEVER AGAIN?
Thomas goes on to say, “Militias such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces and the '76 Association spread terror among blacks. . . . The use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves from mob violence."
From Frederick Douglass, Thomas writes: “The black man has never had the right either to keep or bear arms, and that, until he does, the work of the Abolitionists was not finished.”
Courtland Milloy writes:
This was no muttering from an Uncle Tom, as many black people have accused him of being. His advocacy for black self-defense is straight from the heart of Malcolm X. He even cites the slave revolts led by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner -- implying that white America has long wanted to take guns away from black people out of fear that they would seek revenge for centuries of racial oppression.
Of course, Thomas's references to historic threats posed by white militias might have been dismissed if not for a resurgence of such groups in the year after Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president.
And if their behavior turns as violent as their racist rhetoric often threatens, then Thomas will almost certainly go down in history as the nation's foremost black radical legal scholar.
POST COMMENTARY by Eddie Griffin
From the Supreme Court bench, Clarence Thomas can see clearly the history of African-Americans and their gun rights in the courtroom. However, as an African-American jurist, he is as alienated from history as he is today’s reality.
He has created a spoof, that as a result of this ruling, blacks will go out and arm themselves against white militia. It is not the arm, but its usage, whether legal or illegal. The problem is proving intent, and most of the time a black man using a weapon, whether in defense or self-defense, he will be criminalized or terribly inconvenienced for exercising that right.
A recent case, in Forrest Hill, TX, a black man shoots a thug breaking into the house. He dies, and the man was indicted. After all the stresses of exercising his right to bear arms, he was found no guilty.
Why do we have to go through this, when other people can carry their weapons in the open, and use them when they please? Carrying an unconcealed weapon in Texas is legal. But for a black man, it would lead to an arrest. That’s not law. That’s life.
Gun Right is not a right worth risky all a man's other freedoms.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Day of Prayer: June 27th
Gulf State Governors Call for Prayer- not Repentance:
The waters are troubled and not yet healed
By Eddie Griffin
Friday, June 25, 2010
From the Plano Examiner: “UPDATE! More Governor’s Proclaim Call For Prayer This Sunday”
67 days into the Gulf oil spill crisis, four affected State Governors have now issued proclamations declaring this Sunday, June 27th as A Day Of Prayer.
Texas Governor Rick Perry stated-" It seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join with their fellow Gulf Coast residents and others across the country and around the world to thank God, seek his wisdom for ourselves and our leaders, and ask him for his merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis."
Alabama Governor Bob Riley said-"Throughout our history, Alabamians have humbly turned to God to ask for His blessings and to hold us steady during times of struggle. This is certainly one of those times."
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wrote-" Prayer allows us the opportunity to reflect and seek guidance, strength, comfort and inspiration from Almighty God and citizens of Mississippi are urged to pray....."
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared-"June 27th as a Statewide Day of Prayer for perseverance."
COMMENTARY by Eddie G. Griffin (BASG)
As surely as I write, I knew the day would come when they, collectively, would call upon the God of Heaven to heal their waters. So, I ask: “Who shall pray, non-believers?” They are all non-believers, because they say one thing and mean another.
Only yesterday, it seems, Governor Rick Perry was calling the BP disaster an Act of God, now he request prayer: to wit, “thank God, seek his wisdom, ask for his merciful intervention, and healing.” Yet he rejects wisdom and denies mercy. Why didn’t he pardon Timothy Cole before his life expired in prison? Oh, but he is so sad that the State of Texas allowed an innocent, college student, and veteran die in prison like a dog. And, the blood of Jamie Scott is now upon the head of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.
Let me admonish the governors that the oil is here, and it is here to stay for a long while. It is not an inevitable. It is a fact. Leaders accept facts. Prayer, in this case, is an act of desperation, in lieu of the facts. They want a miracle for nothing, without even having to pay the price of their sins.
Merciful Intervention and Healing: What the Governor of Texas ask, is this not what we poured out our tears over? Is this not why we begged and pleaded with Governor Haley Barbour for mercy and compassion upon humanity, for the release Jamie and Gladys Scott from prison? For an $11 robbery in which no one was hurt, these two young mothers, with no prior criminal records and had no direct part in the crime, were sent to prison in the State of Mississippi, sentenced to double life… seventeen years ago. [See Newsweek story]
Now both women who went to prison at ages 19 and 22 years old are grandmothers, and Jamie is dying from kidney failure. Both have consistently maintained their innocence. And, there is no evidence or proof that either took direct part in the robbery, nor heretofore, either had prior criminal record. Why then is the Governor of Mississippi so hard-hearted in this case.
How can they have the audacity to pray for mercy, when they are so unwilling to show mercy? And anyway, June 27th is already reserved as a Day of Blogging for Justice by ROOTS of HUMANITY, and some of us will be blogging for Justice on behalf of the Scott Sisters.
References from the Previous Communications of Eddie Griffin
September 21, 2005
[In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina]
“Message in the Wind”
Almost everyone who witnessed the events of the Katrina flood and the three-week aftermath speak of these happenings in spiritual terms. They say God sent us a message. But we all did not receive the same message. According to a letter-to-the-editor in the Fort Worth Weekly, some people see poverty as proof of God’s wrath and the flood as his damnation upon the poor. It is quiet a different spiritual perception than those who see the survival of hundreds of thousands as a miracle, a proof of God’s grace and mercy upon the poor.
If the survivors of Katrina have been so blessed to cross over to Texas, the flood may have washed them, but they are not all clean. With the flood and the wave of refugees came the dregs of the criminal elements, along with corrupt behavior. Some would say that the wrath of God was upon these elements, but somehow a few escaped the destruction and doom.
But the winds and flood did not separate the good from the bad, the just from the unjust, the righteous from the wicked. This was not Noah’s flood, in the spiritual sense. It was more like the city of Sodom.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Long overdue Justice may be coming to Mississippi… in the form of oil upon the pristine Gulf casino beaches
And, when they cry to Heaven and utter many prayers, then I, also, would hope and pray for Mercy, first for the Scott Sisters, and then for the State of Mississippi- and not in the reverse.
I need no approval or authority or consent of men. This is personal.
The waters are troubled and not yet healed
By Eddie Griffin
Friday, June 25, 2010
From the Plano Examiner: “UPDATE! More Governor’s Proclaim Call For Prayer This Sunday”
67 days into the Gulf oil spill crisis, four affected State Governors have now issued proclamations declaring this Sunday, June 27th as A Day Of Prayer.
Texas Governor Rick Perry stated-" It seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join with their fellow Gulf Coast residents and others across the country and around the world to thank God, seek his wisdom for ourselves and our leaders, and ask him for his merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis."
Alabama Governor Bob Riley said-"Throughout our history, Alabamians have humbly turned to God to ask for His blessings and to hold us steady during times of struggle. This is certainly one of those times."
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wrote-" Prayer allows us the opportunity to reflect and seek guidance, strength, comfort and inspiration from Almighty God and citizens of Mississippi are urged to pray....."
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared-"June 27th as a Statewide Day of Prayer for perseverance."
COMMENTARY by Eddie G. Griffin (BASG)
As surely as I write, I knew the day would come when they, collectively, would call upon the God of Heaven to heal their waters. So, I ask: “Who shall pray, non-believers?” They are all non-believers, because they say one thing and mean another.
Only yesterday, it seems, Governor Rick Perry was calling the BP disaster an Act of God, now he request prayer: to wit, “thank God, seek his wisdom, ask for his merciful intervention, and healing.” Yet he rejects wisdom and denies mercy. Why didn’t he pardon Timothy Cole before his life expired in prison? Oh, but he is so sad that the State of Texas allowed an innocent, college student, and veteran die in prison like a dog. And, the blood of Jamie Scott is now upon the head of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.
Let me admonish the governors that the oil is here, and it is here to stay for a long while. It is not an inevitable. It is a fact. Leaders accept facts. Prayer, in this case, is an act of desperation, in lieu of the facts. They want a miracle for nothing, without even having to pay the price of their sins.
Merciful Intervention and Healing: What the Governor of Texas ask, is this not what we poured out our tears over? Is this not why we begged and pleaded with Governor Haley Barbour for mercy and compassion upon humanity, for the release Jamie and Gladys Scott from prison? For an $11 robbery in which no one was hurt, these two young mothers, with no prior criminal records and had no direct part in the crime, were sent to prison in the State of Mississippi, sentenced to double life… seventeen years ago. [See Newsweek story]
Now both women who went to prison at ages 19 and 22 years old are grandmothers, and Jamie is dying from kidney failure. Both have consistently maintained their innocence. And, there is no evidence or proof that either took direct part in the robbery, nor heretofore, either had prior criminal record. Why then is the Governor of Mississippi so hard-hearted in this case.
How can they have the audacity to pray for mercy, when they are so unwilling to show mercy? And anyway, June 27th is already reserved as a Day of Blogging for Justice by ROOTS of HUMANITY, and some of us will be blogging for Justice on behalf of the Scott Sisters.
References from the Previous Communications of Eddie Griffin
September 21, 2005
[In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina]
“Message in the Wind”
Almost everyone who witnessed the events of the Katrina flood and the three-week aftermath speak of these happenings in spiritual terms. They say God sent us a message. But we all did not receive the same message. According to a letter-to-the-editor in the Fort Worth Weekly, some people see poverty as proof of God’s wrath and the flood as his damnation upon the poor. It is quiet a different spiritual perception than those who see the survival of hundreds of thousands as a miracle, a proof of God’s grace and mercy upon the poor.
If the survivors of Katrina have been so blessed to cross over to Texas, the flood may have washed them, but they are not all clean. With the flood and the wave of refugees came the dregs of the criminal elements, along with corrupt behavior. Some would say that the wrath of God was upon these elements, but somehow a few escaped the destruction and doom.
But the winds and flood did not separate the good from the bad, the just from the unjust, the righteous from the wicked. This was not Noah’s flood, in the spiritual sense. It was more like the city of Sodom.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Long overdue Justice may be coming to Mississippi… in the form of oil upon the pristine Gulf casino beaches
And, when they cry to Heaven and utter many prayers, then I, also, would hope and pray for Mercy, first for the Scott Sisters, and then for the State of Mississippi- and not in the reverse.
I need no approval or authority or consent of men. This is personal.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
What is the Confederacy doing on This Side of the Potomac?
Glenn Beck’s Use of Mass Psychology
By Eddie Griffin
Thursday, June 24, 2010
What is this folly dreamed up by FOX Network and its puppeteers? Glenn Beck will do a Tea Party rendition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963 March on Washington, D.C.? Will Beck launch into MLK’s “I Have a Dream” on its memorial, August 28, 2010?
Not far removed from the minds of men is vanity, dreamed up by dementia and hysteric as Chicken Little, the world is made into a stage. YEAH, Right. The sky is falling.
Beck has a dream like Pinocchio, the puppet that wanted to be. To take back America, are you sure? From whom, and for whom, is the question. What was taken from Big Banks and Big Insurance and Big Oil, that would he give back, meaning restore America to corporate control?
Take back America for the puppet master, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a man so rich and powerful he cannot be touched neither by gods or men, who buys up every communications network in the world and presents us with the Glenn Beck and the Extremism of Demagoguery.
Not that Murdoch is an egalitarian, hardly would a multibillionaire buy up all the newspapers, television, and other mass media networks, except to control a larger part of what people see and hear on the news and in commentaries.
It is Murdoch and corporate heads that are trying to TAKE BACK AMERICA.
Demagoguery is “an ancient Greek strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectation of the public- typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda…” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogy)
WARNING: The ditto heads are trying to incite us to look like fools. After all, they control a very large segment of the mass media. They can video us at our most embarrassing moments, or elevate the lesser fools to be king of the masses in public perception. REMEMBER: A FOX is a fox.
There was once a man so powerful that he wanted to rule the world. In order to do so, he would have to control all the information that is ingested into the people’s mind. By controlling the mass media, he could determine what people hear and what people think, due to controlling what information they received. His name was Adolf Hitler.
By Eddie Griffin
Thursday, June 24, 2010
What is this folly dreamed up by FOX Network and its puppeteers? Glenn Beck will do a Tea Party rendition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963 March on Washington, D.C.? Will Beck launch into MLK’s “I Have a Dream” on its memorial, August 28, 2010?
Not far removed from the minds of men is vanity, dreamed up by dementia and hysteric as Chicken Little, the world is made into a stage. YEAH, Right. The sky is falling.
Beck has a dream like Pinocchio, the puppet that wanted to be. To take back America, are you sure? From whom, and for whom, is the question. What was taken from Big Banks and Big Insurance and Big Oil, that would he give back, meaning restore America to corporate control?
Take back America for the puppet master, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a man so rich and powerful he cannot be touched neither by gods or men, who buys up every communications network in the world and presents us with the Glenn Beck and the Extremism of Demagoguery.
Not that Murdoch is an egalitarian, hardly would a multibillionaire buy up all the newspapers, television, and other mass media networks, except to control a larger part of what people see and hear on the news and in commentaries.
It is Murdoch and corporate heads that are trying to TAKE BACK AMERICA.
Demagoguery is “an ancient Greek strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectation of the public- typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda…” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogy)
WARNING: The ditto heads are trying to incite us to look like fools. After all, they control a very large segment of the mass media. They can video us at our most embarrassing moments, or elevate the lesser fools to be king of the masses in public perception. REMEMBER: A FOX is a fox.
There was once a man so powerful that he wanted to rule the world. In order to do so, he would have to control all the information that is ingested into the people’s mind. By controlling the mass media, he could determine what people hear and what people think, due to controlling what information they received. His name was Adolf Hitler.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
And the Oil Stayed
In my daily reading from Genesis to Revelation, I came across this phrase in today’s reading: “And the Oil Stayed”. And, I remembered that a preacher used this phrase from 2 Kings 4:6.
It seemed so paradoxical, with what was going on in the Gulf of Mexico, and today’s (Wednesday, June 23, 2010) text [2 Kings 4-6]
The creditor would take her two sons as bondmen for the debt of their deceased father. The prophet Elisha asked what she possessed. “Nothing,” she replied, “except a little pot of oil”.
As she was instructed, she gathered many vessels and poured oil into them, and sold the oil, and paid the debt, and eventually saved her sons from bondage.
IN A PARALLEL DEMENTION
If BP defaults on its liability to the people of the Gulf, the people have the rights to seize property, explore deep oil at its own risk, and collect the profits for themselves. All oil skimmed from the surface of the ocean and somehow recovered should immediately become the property-in-possession of the people of the Gulf.
For as long as the Oil Stays, the people should be enriched from its proceeds.
[To be continued]
It seemed so paradoxical, with what was going on in the Gulf of Mexico, and today’s (Wednesday, June 23, 2010) text [2 Kings 4-6]
The creditor would take her two sons as bondmen for the debt of their deceased father. The prophet Elisha asked what she possessed. “Nothing,” she replied, “except a little pot of oil”.
As she was instructed, she gathered many vessels and poured oil into them, and sold the oil, and paid the debt, and eventually saved her sons from bondage.
IN A PARALLEL DEMENTION
If BP defaults on its liability to the people of the Gulf, the people have the rights to seize property, explore deep oil at its own risk, and collect the profits for themselves. All oil skimmed from the surface of the ocean and somehow recovered should immediately become the property-in-possession of the people of the Gulf.
For as long as the Oil Stays, the people should be enriched from its proceeds.
[To be continued]
Monday, June 21, 2010
Maybe I Eat Tomorrow
By Eddie Griffin
Monday, June 21, 2010
Long overdue Justice may be coming to Mississippi… in the form of oil upon the pristine Gulf casino beaches
There comes a time when a man becomes so angry and frustrated that there is only one place to appeal: And, that is Heaven.
I DECLARE:
I, Eddie Griffin, will not eat or sleep until there is Justice for the Scott Sisters who are in prison, in the State of Mississippi. I may eat tomorrow because Justice may be on its way, in the form of oil upon the pristine Gulf casino beaches where the sin of sins thrives: Injustice.
In 1994, the State of Mississippi sentenced Jamie and Gladys Scott to consecutive double-life terms each for two counts of armed robbery they did not commit. They did not have prior criminal records, vigorously maintained their innocence, approximately $11 was said to have been netted, no one was harmed or injured and no weapon was ever recovered. Witnesses testified that they were coerced and threatened to lie on the Scott Sisters and their unbelievable convictions rest entirely on a combination of contradictory, coerced, and potentially perjured testimony by the victims and two other people charged with the crime who were offered lighter sentences for their cooperation.
For me, it is not an issue of guilt or innocence. It is the magnitude of Crime and Punishment, where punishment is so excessive that it can be called OPPRESSION.
Eddie Griffin (BASG) quietly and discretely petitioned government officials in the State of Mississippi to recognize the legitimate grievances in disparities of justice being practiced inside the courtrooms. Mississippi is not the only southern state that still practices Race Justice.
Our words have had little consolation. But there is some comfort to know that Mississippi will cry to Heaven when the oil hit the coast.
And, when they cry to Heaven and utter many prayers, then I, also, would hope and pray for Mercy, first for the Scott Sisters, and then to the State of Mississippi- and not in the reverse.
I need no approval or authority or consent of men. This is personal.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Truth about The Gulf Oil Spill
Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, “See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:” (Isaiah 30:8-10)
They want to hear “smooth things”, easy on the ear, and soft upon the conscious. They are eternally optimistic, unruffled by fact, and obstinate against truth. They are on a paradoxical search for an answer that is pleasing to their hearing. Woe to those who say otherwise.
“Do you want answers?” replied a defiant Col. Nathan Jessep, in a Few Good Men.
Having push the old arrogant colonel over the edge on the witness stand, Lt. Daniel Kaffee lit into him, “I think I’m entitled to them.”
“You want answers?” shouted the colonel.
“I want the truth,” the lieutenant replied.
“You can’t handle the truth,” Jessep lashed out in the courtroom.
It was one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, the duo between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, with Nicholson portraying the colonel. Although he was guilty of issuing the fatal Code Red, the colonel uttered a secret truth about most Americans. People do not care to hear the horrors of the truth.
I find a similar attitude with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Every day, we sit glued to our television sets, waiting for good news, expecting the best of the worst situation imaginable. We almost insist upon good news. We demand it.
Day 50 is past and no good news yet. The Gulf is turned into a red oily mess, now covering hundreds of square mile. And, the worst is not yet told.
Someone said that we needed to tone down our expectations. Political pundits, operatives, and politicians are trying to gain partisan traction over the handling of the situation, as if to better position themselves in the polls when the crisis is finally over. And, some are taking a swipe at the media for too much coverage, as if to say, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
But the most unbelievable reaction come from those who insist on continuing to drill for oil out in the deep blue, even as they watch the water turn to blood. Have they not learned anything of humility? It is almost like God has not yet forgiven their former sin, and here they are talking about drilling some more.
It reminds me of our biblical theme for 2010:
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)
The ocean and the coastal lands are far from being healed. And, the people are far from repentance.
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
RE: The Gulf Coast
Eddie --
Yesterday, I visited Caminada Bay in Grand Isle, Louisiana -- one of the first places to feel the devastation wrought by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While I was here, at Camerdelle's Live Bait shop, I met with a group of local residents and small business owners.
Folks like Floyd Lasseigne, a fourth-generation oyster fisherman. This is the time of year when he ordinarily earns a lot of his income. But his oyster bed has likely been destroyed by the spill.
Terry Vegas had a similar story. He quit the 8th grade to become a shrimper with his grandfather. Ever since, he's earned his living during shrimping season -- working long, grueling days so that he could earn enough money to support himself year-round. But today, the waters where he has worked are closed. And every day, as the spill worsens, he loses hope that he will be able to return to the life he built.
Here, this spill has not just damaged livelihoods. It has upended whole communities. And the fury people feel is not just about the money they have lost. It is about the wrenching recognition that this time their lives may never be the same.
These people work hard. They meet their responsibilities. But now because of a manmade catastrophe -- one that is not their fault and beyond their control -- their lives have been thrown into turmoil. It is brutally unfair. And what I told these men and women is that I will stand with the people of the Gulf Coast until they are again made whole.
That is why, from the beginning, we have worked to deploy every tool at our disposal to respond to this crisis. Today, there are more than 20,000 people working around the clock to contain and clean up this spill. I have authorized 17,500 National Guard troops to participate in the response. More than 1,900 vessels are aiding in the containment and cleanup effort. We have convened hundreds of top scientists and engineers from around the world. This is the largest response to an environmental disaster of this kind in the history of our country.
We have also ordered BP to pay economic injury claims, and this week, the federal government sent BP a preliminary bill for $69 million to pay back American taxpayers for some of the costs of the response so far. In addition, after an emergency safety review, we are putting in place aggressive new operating standards for offshore drilling. And I have appointed a bipartisan commission to look into the causes of this spill. If laws are inadequate, they will be changed. If oversight was lacking, it will be strengthened. And if laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice.
These are hard times in Louisiana and across the Gulf Coast, an area that has already seen more than its fair share of troubles. The people of this region have met this terrible catastrophe with seemingly boundless strength and character in defense of their way of life. What we owe them is a commitment by our nation to match the resilience they have shown. That is our mission. And it is one we will fulfill.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
They want to hear “smooth things”, easy on the ear, and soft upon the conscious. They are eternally optimistic, unruffled by fact, and obstinate against truth. They are on a paradoxical search for an answer that is pleasing to their hearing. Woe to those who say otherwise.
“Do you want answers?” replied a defiant Col. Nathan Jessep, in a Few Good Men.
Having push the old arrogant colonel over the edge on the witness stand, Lt. Daniel Kaffee lit into him, “I think I’m entitled to them.”
“You want answers?” shouted the colonel.
“I want the truth,” the lieutenant replied.
“You can’t handle the truth,” Jessep lashed out in the courtroom.
It was one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, the duo between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, with Nicholson portraying the colonel. Although he was guilty of issuing the fatal Code Red, the colonel uttered a secret truth about most Americans. People do not care to hear the horrors of the truth.
I find a similar attitude with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Every day, we sit glued to our television sets, waiting for good news, expecting the best of the worst situation imaginable. We almost insist upon good news. We demand it.
Day 50 is past and no good news yet. The Gulf is turned into a red oily mess, now covering hundreds of square mile. And, the worst is not yet told.
Someone said that we needed to tone down our expectations. Political pundits, operatives, and politicians are trying to gain partisan traction over the handling of the situation, as if to better position themselves in the polls when the crisis is finally over. And, some are taking a swipe at the media for too much coverage, as if to say, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
But the most unbelievable reaction come from those who insist on continuing to drill for oil out in the deep blue, even as they watch the water turn to blood. Have they not learned anything of humility? It is almost like God has not yet forgiven their former sin, and here they are talking about drilling some more.
It reminds me of our biblical theme for 2010:
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)
The ocean and the coastal lands are far from being healed. And, the people are far from repentance.
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
RE: The Gulf Coast
Eddie --
Yesterday, I visited Caminada Bay in Grand Isle, Louisiana -- one of the first places to feel the devastation wrought by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While I was here, at Camerdelle's Live Bait shop, I met with a group of local residents and small business owners.
Folks like Floyd Lasseigne, a fourth-generation oyster fisherman. This is the time of year when he ordinarily earns a lot of his income. But his oyster bed has likely been destroyed by the spill.
Terry Vegas had a similar story. He quit the 8th grade to become a shrimper with his grandfather. Ever since, he's earned his living during shrimping season -- working long, grueling days so that he could earn enough money to support himself year-round. But today, the waters where he has worked are closed. And every day, as the spill worsens, he loses hope that he will be able to return to the life he built.
Here, this spill has not just damaged livelihoods. It has upended whole communities. And the fury people feel is not just about the money they have lost. It is about the wrenching recognition that this time their lives may never be the same.
These people work hard. They meet their responsibilities. But now because of a manmade catastrophe -- one that is not their fault and beyond their control -- their lives have been thrown into turmoil. It is brutally unfair. And what I told these men and women is that I will stand with the people of the Gulf Coast until they are again made whole.
That is why, from the beginning, we have worked to deploy every tool at our disposal to respond to this crisis. Today, there are more than 20,000 people working around the clock to contain and clean up this spill. I have authorized 17,500 National Guard troops to participate in the response. More than 1,900 vessels are aiding in the containment and cleanup effort. We have convened hundreds of top scientists and engineers from around the world. This is the largest response to an environmental disaster of this kind in the history of our country.
We have also ordered BP to pay economic injury claims, and this week, the federal government sent BP a preliminary bill for $69 million to pay back American taxpayers for some of the costs of the response so far. In addition, after an emergency safety review, we are putting in place aggressive new operating standards for offshore drilling. And I have appointed a bipartisan commission to look into the causes of this spill. If laws are inadequate, they will be changed. If oversight was lacking, it will be strengthened. And if laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice.
These are hard times in Louisiana and across the Gulf Coast, an area that has already seen more than its fair share of troubles. The people of this region have met this terrible catastrophe with seemingly boundless strength and character in defense of their way of life. What we owe them is a commitment by our nation to match the resilience they have shown. That is our mission. And it is one we will fulfill.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
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