Friday, October 13, 2017
Thursday, May 25, 2017
My Fight is Over with Roger Ailes by Eddie Griffin
You
may know I was very upset with Roger Ailes, if I might put it so kindly, before
he died last week. Not only had he created this huge right-wing propaganda
machine at FOX News, against which we had to tangle, and the fact that he used
his influence and power to lord over the political arena, more egregiously he
enticed pretty women into his employment to secretly exploit sexually behind
closed doors and to gag and enslave them by a non-disclosure, confidentiality
agreement--- meaning they were legally bound to keep silent about what happened
to them in private at FOX.
I
remember my FB postings about Roger Ailes and the cult of rich dirty old men,
which included his friend Donald Trump. But some people chalked it off as locker
room “boy” talk. Well now, the crown prince of rich dirty old men is dead, and
I cannot just blasé over it without a word. But my upbringing taught me that “if
you can’t say anything good about the dead, then don’t say anything at all.” I
am not God and I cannot pass final judgment.
But
there is something to be said, for sure, about this man who boasted to a
potential prey “if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the
big boys.” Big Boy is now sleeping in his grave and nobody is laying with him.
But the cult of dirty rich old men lives on, unabated by his death.
How
did he die? That’s what I wanted to know. Did Old Roger do all these dirty
things, get $45 million from FOX for going away quietly, and then make a sudden
exit from this life scot free, without retribution or punishment? Then I noticed
the Cause of Death was “Subdural Hematoma”. (A subdural hematoma is most often
the result of a severe head injury, in fact “among the deadliest of all head
injuries”. It reminds me of how close I came to death when I feel and broke my
neck in May 2016)
At first report
of Roger’s death, it sounded like Fake News. They say he fell on May 10, 2017.
It did not make the news, until after he was pronounced dead a week ago, on May
18. What was happening during those eight days that the news did not report?
And why couldn’t they save his life during that time?
Then I read the
rest of my research on Subdural Hematoma--- Bleeding fills the brain area very rapidly,
compressing brain tissue.
So I
see, Roger fell and bashed his head and started bleeding on the brain. For
eight days, his brain bled and his head swelled. Then I thought about his epitaph,
written by his own hand in his 2013 book “Roger Ailes: Off Camera”. He wrote: “I’ve
been prepared to face death all of my life. When it comes, I'll be fine, calm.
I'll miss life, though. Especially my family.”
We
miss Roger, too. My fight with Roger is over and I am calm, and even relieved
that he is not lurking in the background waiting to launch another propaganda
machine.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
RE:
Demoted officer: Fort Worth chief’s
allegations ‘grossly inaccurate’
From the Perception of a Marion Brother:
There
is a reason the Marion Brothers marched to the beat of a different drummer in
the 1970s. We realized that inferior leadership make tactical errors, such as
the one that led to the demotion of two African-American officer who were
members of the command staff.
First:
Who would have foreseen when FWPD Chief Joel Fitzgerald sent Deputy Chief Abdul Pridgen and Deputy
Chief Vance Keyes to dig
into the situation of Ms. Craig and her daughters’ arrest that these two
trusted officers would wound up being put into the hot seat? Personally, I would
have trusted no one else more than these two high-ranking African-American members
of the FWPD Command Staff, due to the racist allegations against Officer William
Martin.
But who could have foreseen
their demotion? And who would have even asked them to jeopardize their jobs?
One
thing I learned, as a Marion Brother, was to study a situation before reacting
to it--- hence the difference between reactionaries and revolutionaries. There
are always more interacting opposing forces in a contradiction. And if we do
not correctly assess those forces, we will make mistakes in practice on how
best to deal with those forces. (For example, while we were studying theoretical physics,
we come to understand a postulate in the Theory of Chaos, that there is Order
in Disorder. In understanding that, we could find order in the midst of natural chaotic forces inside a riot to make it where we could gain control over the
situation. That was the key: Gaining Control and Mastery over Competing Forces).
On the other hand, lack
of foresight is the hallmark of "Inferior Leadership". Most people have no idea about
gaining control of a any situation, let alone a volatile situation. At best and at most, they do the same thing, the same
way, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did half a century ago--- march and pray--- and expect a different
result. Moreover, those who scream the loudest and protest the hardest have
never been to jail. Ms.
Craig and her daughters have. The rest of you need to show me your scars.
This
is the reason Eddie Griffin told the protest organizers that “We got this”, and why I asked them
to “Stand Down”. I felt
that nobody understood Fort Worth better than I, and how to resolve problems
with the police department. Inferior Leadership can only shake
their fist at city hall and chant, “Burn it down.” And then they criticize me
for not being militant enough.
I
have heard it before, from Sandra Bland’s sorority sister: “Burn it down”. My
advice to the youth in Ferguson, MO after the death of Mike Brown: “You are not
militant enough.” And those who were too militant got entrapped in a
police-crafted terrorist sing operation, and some arrested for their angry inflammatory
rhetoric. This is why I don’t listen to Inferior Leadership. They are too inexperienced not to inflict wounds upon themselves and their followers. (Look at the Willie Lynch effect in the African-American community over this controversy, as destructive as playing Russian Roulette)
When
people sent their problems to us, the Marion Brothers, we took ownership. We
took control of the problem. The buck stopped with us. In taking control of the
problem, we took responsibility for its solution. When you take control of the problem and responsibility for its solution, there is no scapegoating. Like the time when activists
on the streets wrote to The Brothers in prison about the problem of elderly people buying and
eating dog food during the 1970s, because it was cheaper. We did not complain to the government.
We drafted a Community Survival Plan, with the concept of Block Gardens, to feed the elderly.
We
never cried about one problem. While others cried about Police Brutality, the
Marion Brothers declared it nothing more than a fair fight. And getting killed in the process was part of the risk that comes with the price of admission. Otherwise, we refused to be labeled a
victim, and always found a way to win the fight. We understood the Law of Forces and the
Theory of Chaos and found Order within Disorder, to shift the Balance of Power
to our favor. (And some of them don't even know what I'm talking about)
To
my friends who protest the loudest, but have never been to jail, there is no
such thing as Unfair and Police Brutality. You either survive it or you don’t.
If you survive it, then it was a Fair Fight. I can only empathize with the more
delicate and fragile species, and those who have been publicly humiliated like
Ms. Craig and her daughters. But don’t try to tell Eddie Griffin about pain.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt me anymore.
I was the man they tried to freeze
to death, and nothing hurt like cold. I can tell you when I heard the crunch of
frost forming on my eyeballs, one blink from freezing to death with my eyes wide
open in a strip cell. They pushed my threshold for pain
to the point where nothing hurt me again, not even a wounded pride. I can take a punch and turn the other cheek, because I became immune to pain. NO, I will not sob for myself, nor
confess my pain to anyone but God in heaven.
So,
give me a break. Disagree with your peers. Don’t disagree with a season
warrior who earned the stripes of a 5-star general.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
