BadGalsRadio is sponsoring a Black History Month blog carnival. Take a look and submit your entry. There are many categories available.

Here is my entry.

Being a white European, when I arrived in the United States in the middle of the ’60s the widely accepted term for African Americans was Negro. That term of course still keeps popping up every time we hear the “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” slogan from the United Negro College Fund. Some time later, probably sometime in the 70s the more widely accepted “black” made its inroads into our society. The presently used African American designation, although obviously correct and proper seems just a tiny bit pompous to me. I am quite happy to be called “white” for instance and certainly do not insist in being termed a European American,

Fortunately, not everyone insists on the African American label and many of my friends refer to themselves as “black” and I know that they do not do it just for my benefit, but because it just seems natural to them. At the same time, I hear blacks referring to each other by the dreaded “N” word. Could someone explain what this is all about?

I have also been wondering how the black, white, or whatever designation really holds. For example, Tiger Woods has described himself as a “cablinasian” and not black. Barack Obama is half black and half white and has been raised by white people, but he is still called an African American. I know people, whose racial and genetic background is obviously very mixed. Anything from a half and half white and black combination, to a black, white, Asian and American Indian background and even in the case of those, who’s black genes appear to be in a definite minority (no pun intended) they still are considered as being African American.

This seems to be an almost uniquely American way of handling things. Those, who have spent some time in Latin America, have probably noticed that the populations in many of those countries are of a very racially mixed variety. There are terms for these combinations. For instance: A mulatto is a person of black and white ancestry. A mestizo is a person of a white and Indian blood and so forth.

We never seem to use those terms here in the U.S. Are they insulting to some? I don’t believe that they need to be perceived in that way.

In short: I assume that it really is the case of each particular person’s preference. If one feels that racially and culturally he, or she is black, that should be the determining factor. And the same holds for whites, Asians and others. The important thing is that this should indeed be each person’s choice and not a formalized, pseudo-scientific and/or bureaucratic mandate. After all, these were the tools that slavers, racists and others have used in the past and now, especially after January 20, 2009 we are way beyond that. Or are we?

Technorati Tags: african american, black, experience, history, negro, racism, slavery, US, white

After all of the warm feeling and the excitement of having the first African American president of the United States elected, inaugurated and twice sworn-in, it is time to establish some ground rules and pick apart the first week of his presidency.

Barack Obama has been characterized as another right of center, liberal, corporate chief executive. We would tend to agree.

The very first official act of his administration was to sign an executive order prohibiting any restrictions on using taxpayer’s money to continue bailing out Wall Street. That alone should point where his real priorities lie.

He has also issued other executive orders, among them a ban on torture, closing of the Guantanamo prison and others.

Has (along with Hillary Clinton) named special envoys to the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan and a climate envoy. Has issued orders to draw down and eventually end the disastrous Iraqi adventure. Unfortunately, increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is being planned – a totally wrong approach to the problem – and CIA’s Predators continue to strike people (guilty and otherwise) across the border in Pakistan.

Mr. Obama’s economic team consists of relative fiscal conservatives – if you can call them that – the same people, who were already deeply involved in the failure of the Wall Street and in the deregulation efforts. As an example: Larry Summers was very closely involved with Alan Greenspan and was one of the people, which has spoken against regulating the “derivatives” trading. The new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the former president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. If that isn’t enough to raise some red flags, what is?

There’s also been talk of making the Federal Reserve the overseer of the financial bailout, stimulus, or whatever you want to call it. Is that any different from naming the fox as the guardian of the chicken coop, or having Wall Street as the “trustee” of the Social Security system?

It’s been only a week, and the score sheet definitely shows some mixed results. Lets wait and see how things look down the road.

Technorati Tags: assessment, corporate, first, liberal, oath, obama, presidency, right of center, roberts, second, week

The U.S. Federal Reserve, also called the U.S. Central Bank only seems to appear in the news, when it lowers, or raises the banking interest rates.

But what is this institution in reality? Even though most people assume that the Fed is another U.S. Government agency, the reality is that the Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank with 10 private members. At this point the citizens of the United States owe these people at least $10 trillion.

And who might you ask are these 10 private members? Here’s the list:

Rothschild Bank of London

Warburg Bank of Hamburg

Rothschild Bank of Berlin

Lehman Brothers of New York

Lazard Brothers of Paris

Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York

Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy

Goldman, Sachs of New York

Warburg Bank of Amsterdam

Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

All are by a strange (?) coincidence owned by the Rothschilds.

A central bank existed in England as far back as 1694. The Rothschilds completely dominate the banking system. It is estimated their wealth goes into the trillions.

Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild boasted at one time:

“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”

Well, baron, it appears that it isn’t just the British money supply. Is it?

How did it happen that the Federal Reserve got weaseled into the U.S. financial system? As it turns out it is really quite simple.

The idea came about at a meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in 1910. The bankers in this country, especially J.P. Morgan, created a currency panic in 1907 in order to get the American people to accept the idea of a central bank and in 1913 that idea has become a reality.

The American people pay hundreds of billions of dollars per year to the much-hated IRS, which is the collection agency for the Federal Reserve.

In 1916, three years after he was duped to allow the creation of the Federal Reserve President Woodrow Wilson was saying:

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world-no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small amount of dominant men.”

There are also many statements uttered by earlier presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others on the subject of having a central bank. Not surprisingly, every one of them was very much against creating such a parasitic institution.

Maybe it is time not to create hugely expensive bailouts (who are we bailing out with our money, anyway?), or equally huge “stimulus” packages, but re-evaluate our dependence on the Federal Reserve and it’s affiliates.

Much more extensive information on the reality of how the U.S. Central Bank operates can be found elsewhere and you should look up this information on your own, if you are interested. The myriad and numerous details would be beyond the scope of this short article.

In the meantime, you might be interested in viewing this longish, but very informative video and draw your own conclusions:

Technorati Tags: banks, control, federal reserve, foe, foreign, friend, jp Morgan, loans

After Chief Justice John Roberts’ flub on Inauguration Day, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office again. The same Roberts delivered the oath to Obama again on Wednesday night, this time at the White House. Notice that this time a bible is nowhere to be seen. That’s refreshing in its own right.

The unusual event came about because of Tuesday’s much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little out of order, forcing Obama to follow lead, although he obviously noticed Roberts’ flub and stumbled a bit. The White House says not to worry, because Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day.

Nevertheless, Obama and Roberts went through the drill again out of what White House counsel Greg Craig called “an abundance of caution.”

This time, the scene was the White House Map Room in front of a small group of reporters, not the Capitol platform before the whole watching world.

“We decided that because it was so much fun ” Obama joked to reporters who followed press secretary Robert Gibbs into the room. No TV camera crews or news photographers were allowed in. A few of Obama’s closest aides were there, along with a White House photographer.

And after fortifying his presidency with the second “just in case” oath, President Obama proceeded to fulfill his pledges by breaking forcefully with Bush policies, ordering major changes  that he said would halt the torture of suspects, close down the Guantanamo detention center, ban secret CIA prisons overseas and fight terrorism “in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.”

In addition, Barack Obama has named former Senator George Mitchell as his special Middle East envoy and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pretty amazing for just two days in office. Don’t you think?

Technorati Tags: elections, oath, obama, roberts, second

We have received a very nice award and comment from one of our favorite blogs BadGalsRadio.

“Your Blog is Really Great.

I find myself coming back to your pages daily;

to enjoy the fascinating writing, and interesting everyday topics.

Thanks for the Great Read”

Thank you. It is nice to be appreciated!

Technorati Tags: award, gets, politcus, US