Monday, June 6, 2011

They Are Who We Know Them to Be: Walter Williams' Libertarian Pandering and the War on Black America



This is a great way to start the week.

As a black pragmatist, and one who holds the feet of the ign't classes up to the fire because I have rejected the soft bigotry of low expectations, my belief in the wisdom of D.P. Moynihan (I like that abbreviation because the elder God is made to sound like a gangsta rapper) is unshaken. Moreover, I always double down on how Billy Cosby was right and correct in most of what he said about the self-destructive behaviors of the ghetto black underclass(es).

Nevertheless, I bristle when I see black conservatives such as Walter Williams and their related ilk. One, he can do better. But, Williams has figured out that simplistic explanations to complex problems pay great dividends. Two, he is a full time bootblack and lackey for the anti-black and brown New Right colorblind neo-liberal GOP. Thus, Walter Williams is utterly insincere in his analysis, as well as in the origins from which his critiques flow. To borrow from a previous post, black folks like Williams would easily rationalize owning their own kin and selling them down the river in the interest of profit maximization. Ugliness of that sort is timeless and consequently should not be a surprise.

Williams is not to be disregarded. Structures matter: but he denies them. A strong case can be made for the very same macro-level forces contributing to white poverty. Yet, Williams overlooks them. In total, simplistic explanations about the economy and labor market trump nuanced understandings about socio-political reality and how individuals negotiate truncated life chances.

Walter E. Williams' explanations and his libertarian yearnings about the role of the State in destroying black families is as much truth as it is a fiction. There, lies are mixed with truth. In the Right-wing echo chamber of self-fulfilling memes and mantras, that combination is a toxic mix which is hard to overcome. But there is a vulnerability: like the exhaust port on the Death Star, the naked pandering of black conservatives and libertarians is easily exposed and thus made an easy target. The challenge then is learning to trust the Force as we place a well placed proton torpedo deep into the heart of their shaky arguments.

Truths mixed with lies are tough pool my friends. They always have been. They always will. And that is not going to change any time soon. The solution: never expect the liar to be anything but what his or her essential nature dictates:

16 comments:

Constructive Feedback said...

My dearest friend Chauncey DeVega -
how are you sir?

Walter Williams is from Philadelphia.
I am from Philadelphia.

Last week I was in Philadelphia.

What started out as a mission to visit dear ole mom and dad and then check out my siblings who have jetted out of Philly - over to the great state of New Jersey - ended up being a reenactment of DuBois' "The Philadelphia Negro".

Mr DeVega - can we both agree that large segments of the Black community is in CRISIS?

I have a vision of Philly from 25 years ago when I lived there and when I return it is like a PIMP SLAP to my soul.

To see the places in West and SW Philly that were dying commercial districts NOW brought back to life by Chinese, Korean, Indian/Paki, Dominican retailers I was stunned beyond belief.

I just listened to the 5 minute mark of the video CD and I have to tell you - WITHOUT IDEOLOGICAL bias - I WAS THINKING THE SAME THING as I sat with my father listening to him tell me about the condition of young Black males in Philly.

He witnesses to them about their salvation. He is also into sales of:
* Health supplements
* Lower cost phone and electricity providers
* Water filters

As he tries to hit them with the duel consciousness of "get your spirit right and get your finances right by developing skills" with the ultimate goal of having them able to BE RESIDENT FATHERS for their young children - the reality shows forth:

THEY NEED MONEY RIGHT NOW.
They don't have TIME to build up their SPIRIT or their RELATIONSHIP WITH CUSTOMERS.

Mr DeVega - I do not hate you.
In fact you and Filled Negro are vital to my research efforts at understanding.

As you give off your rote response to Dr Williams (against his supply side analysis about wages) YOU seem unwilling to ponder how the previous failures to BUILD UP INFRASTRUCTURE for our people to prosper is now coming back to haunt us. We chose POLITICS instead.

Mr DeVega - 69th Street and then Lansdowne Ave served as 2 key reference points that showed the STATE OF THE "Negro In Philly 2011".

69th street a main shopping district on the west side has gone from Jewish and Armenian(?) store owners over to KOREAN and Indian and Dominican. The BLACKS remained as CONSUMERS in the 35 year span that I have been intimately knowledgeable of the area.

On Lansdowne Ave, returning at 10pm from watching the NBA game I was stunned to see the contrast that the COVER OF NIGHT brought forth. MOST STORES WERE CLOSED. The one's that were OPEN provided those of us with analytical eyes the opportunity to do what DuBois had done a century earlier.

The stores that were open were all CHINESE stir fry - corner stores - all who sell BEER after the state liquor stores had closed. All were adorned with BULLET PROOF GLASS to make sure that each party remained on their respective side of the transaction.

Mr DeVega - IT IS TRUE - the economics in the NEIGHBORHOODS of Philly, Atlanta, Chicago are NOT going to be reformed UNTIL our people are engaged in WORK - and - at least temporarily the WAGE RAGE sacrificed until enough ORGANIC power is developed.

By the way - before I run out and pick up my latest edition - HOW MUCH do you believe that the NOI members that see the "Final Call" make per hour? Is there a MANDATED minimum wage OR are they working on behalf of a GREATER VISION?

WHY haven't more VISIONARIES engaged more Black males and gotten them to focus on "The MISSION over PROFITS"?

Signed - Editor of The Garbage Pail Kids Korner

Oh Crap said...

Leave it to a duncecap like Constipated Facepalm to try and take the post off topic, to his own area of crankage/"research".

Walter Williams and CF are exactly the kind of Isaiah Montgomery types employed by the people who HATE us, to articulate and reinforce those people's misrendered, supremacist view of themselves. More on Montgomery.

It was not until too late, and the money in the bank, that Montgomery finally recognized the people who propped him up did so in the service of squashing the entire race. Isn't that always the case with self-identified garbage pail scum.

Plane Ideas said...

I am not felling Moynihan not now nor when his racist report was headline chatter decades ago..Sorry CD but an elitist white sociologist's myopic narrative which indicted Black families and ignored causation variables does not work for me...

Nor does the pc nonsense that flows out of the mouth of Mr.Jello( he stopped being funny decades ago??)now have currency??

Yet I agree 10000% with your take on Williams..

Constructive Feedback said...

[quote]Leave it to a duncecap like Constipated Facepalm to try and take the post off topic, to his own area of crankage/"research"[/quote]

Oh Crap - With An Avatar Of His Ideological Enemy:

Can you document how "I" -

* a Black man
* With a 25 year view of Philly
* A graduate of Philly Public Schools
* with a college degree
* With 15 years of experience as a "Knowledge Worker"
* Who is now paid by my corporate tether to go into meet with EQUAL HUMAN BEINGS that are on a MISSION to achieve certain profitable ends - as they are congregated under the guise of a CORPORATION but are still HUMAN BEINGS none the less...............

is UNQUALIFIED and too INFERIOR to make observations about the people of Philadelphia - just as WEB DuBois did 100 years ago?

WHAT about my post is OFF TOPIC?

WHO "HATES US" more than the BIGOTS who lead us along the way - but in their own BIGOTED BLINDNESS were unable to see the OPPORTUNITY that the BLACK COMMUNITY had right under its nose?

TO-DAMNED-DAY the IMMIGRANT MERCHANT who vision is not clouded by embedded hijackers like YOU are providing demanded goods and services from our people. WHILE YOU continue to run your damned mouth - having us to focus on the TEA PARTY THREAT - which would not DARE to walk down Market Street - like I DID as I made my observations.

Constructive Feedback said...

[quote] ignored causation variables does not work for me...[/quote]

Mr Greg Thrasher of greater Detroit. It seems to me than in your hold out for CAUSATION to be provided to you in a manner that you want it - you are unable to make note of the new generation of Black children that are being inculcated in the "Mission Accomplished zones" where the previous STRUGGLE has lead favorable people to you into power over the key INSTITUTIONS.

For some strange reason - though they sit in the same chairs of power that the ENEMY who injured YOU used to sit - their present day services upon our young people will NEVER be accepted as EQUAL INJURY in your eyes.

Thus I am forced to ask you if YOU see an EQUAL SUPERINTENDENT and MAYOR sitting in the seats as compared with the past?

[quote]
Nor does the pc nonsense that flows out of the mouth of Mr.Jello( he stopped being funny decades ago??)now have currency??
[/quote]

Another Black degreed man - STRIPPED naked and beaten because he dared to challenge the progressive-fundamentalist orthodoxy. Dr West is in good company. This orthodoxy can be found in written form in a glass case stored in Denby High.

[quote]
Yet I agree 10000% with your take on Williams.[/quote]

Yet another Black man with a professional degree stripped down to a "Ninja" on the street.
For some reason I get the feeling that a "Hip Hop Voice Of The Street Pirate" who's lyrics take us all on a tour of the gutter provides you with sufficient CAUSATION to satisfy your spirit that we have been DONE WRONG - Mr Thrasher.

WHERE is this LIVING WAGE going to come from?
WHO has denied you it thus far?

IF YOU DO manage to VOTE your way into a iron clad infrastructure of SOCIAL JUSTICE REDISTRIBUTION to your liking - can you tell me one thing?

IS ANY OF THIS transportable to ANYWHERE ELSE where our people are resident in the DIASPORA?

Show me the ORGANIC COMPETENCY DEVELOPMENT that these INSTITUTIONS that have been struggled over for the longest of time NOW GENERATE - Mr Thrasher, Mr Oh'Palin and Mr DeVega?

Beyond the CAUSATION there is the issue of GROSS SQUANDER of our human capital as IDEOLOGICAL BIGOTRY which brought the onset of BLINDNESS - enslaves another generation of our people into the same fate DESPITE the HAPPINESS that can be found in these masses come ELECTION DAY.

WHO is WINNING - and when will you close your legs so they don't SCORE at your expense any longer?

Oh Crap said...

@Congested Fistula

Oh Crap - With An Avatar Of His Ideological Enemy:

Can you document how "I" -

* a Black man
* With a 25 year view of Philly
* A graduate of Philly Public Schools
* with a college degree
* With 15 years of experience as a "Knowledge Worker"
* Who is now paid by my corporate tether to go into meet with EQUAL HUMAN BEINGS that are on a MISSION to achieve certain profitable ends - as they are congregated under the guise of a CORPORATION but are still HUMAN BEINGS none the less...............

is UNQUALIFIED and too INFERIOR to make observations about the people of Philadelphia


Leave it to the dumbest conservative in the history of the internet to cram words in my mouth I did not say.

I want people like you to keep looking at ridiculous pictures of that dumb bigot you admire so much and are so quick to defend, as if she gives a damn about you.

Stare at it until you start crying.

As for the rest of your predictable crybaby twaddle, nowhere have I said you are "UNQUALIFIED or too INFERIOR" to comment on Philadelphia. The story wasn't even about Philadelphia. Quit being a recepticle for the anti-Black filth those Confederate flagwavers you and that slavecatcher Walter Williams have thrown in with.

Oh Crap said...

Look at this crap

TO-DAMNED-DAY the IMMIGRANT MERCHANT

How dumb is the Black person who buys into the same old white, anti-immigrant xenophobia.

Oh wait, it's a conservative, waving his daddy finger of conservative xenophobia at the liberals, conservative immigrant-hate and envy which has never, EVER done anything for Blacks.

But yeah, keep crying because someone else pokes fun at your dumb, conservative bigoted heroes and won't stop. Boo hoo.

Plane Ideas said...

CF,

I have tried on this site to even fashion some utility of Herman Cain under my premise that Black folks need to be everywhere our interests are in play and in peril..

I will still hold out hope for you despite your inability to evolve you are are like Williams, Sowell, Steele, McWorthless and others who have simply not advanced in their thinking or constructs..

Yet people like you want to matter at my expense and other Black progressives that does not work for me..Therefore I will keep hope alive while I crush your artificial persona..One day you will thank and respect my fellowship towards you..

Constructive Feedback said...

[quote]I want people like you to keep looking at ridiculous pictures of that dumb bigot you admire so much and are so quick to defend, as if she gives a damn about you. [/quote]

Oh'Palin:

Let me give you MY view of Pailin (and Obama) instead of your masturbated view of what I believe.

1) I have no personal use for Palin. HOWEVER I marvel at her as a target by the "Non-White White Supremacists". Take a look at the various Black Quasi-Socialist Progressive-Fundamentalist Racism Chaser blogs whenever she says anything. She is POWERFUL because she appears on these blogs more than they care to discuss:

* Black Unemployment and how it impacts our people's long term interests
* Squandered Black Education opportunity as our people are not made into the Professional Service Agents.

Do you wonder why Snarling Fox Ed Schultz invites the happy Mr DeVega on his show to talk about The Tea Party extension of Palin? WHY DOESN'T Mr Shutlz and Mr Maddow ever ask Mr DeVega on their show to talk about why Street Pirates are murdering Black people - with the subtext of Mr DeVega blaming THEIR WHITE CULTURE and HISTORY as the primary (wait let me scroll up and see what Thrasher called it) CAUSATION VARIABLES?

If DeVega ain't QUALIFIED with his arguments blaming WHITE and CONSERVATIVE for our problems - HIS PHONE WOULD STOP RINGING.


2) PRESIDENT OBAMA must be APPLAUDED.

* He took down the "Tavis Smiley State Of The Black Union" franchise that used to meet every January

* He got the "Black Racial Services Machine" to STOP "SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER" lest THE POWER'S poll numbers might take a hit and imperil his reelection

* He GOT BLACK-AFRO-CENTRISTS to not say a DAMNED THING as the USA joined with 3 African Colonizers to BOMB THE HELL OUT OF LIBYA in Africa.

Prez Hayes initiated the "Compromise Of 1877" to become PRESIDENT.
Commander In Chief Obama ushered in "The Compromised Negroes Of 2011" so that they traded their SILENCE to assist the President in the upcoming election.

Constructive Feedback said...

[quote]How dumb is the Black person who buys into the same old white, anti-immigrant xenophobia.
[/quote]

Oh'Palin:

Please detail where my post was ANTI-IMMIGRANT?

I APPLAUDED THEM for having the VISION to see POTENTIAL in Black Communities where the people who have been CONDITIONED by Embedded Confidence Men LIKE YOU to see abandonment and Tea Party fingerprints.

These people DESERVE EVERY PENNY THEY HAVE EARNED!!!

The focus of my argument is about PEOPLE LIKE YOU who believe that our people are damaged goods from long ago - even when they are inculcated into society, institutions and schools dominated by people like YOU.

This is the source of their damaged CONSCIOUSNESS.

Constructive Feedback said...

Mr Thrasher:

Take your last post and apply them to a more LOGICAL argument.

YOU are selling Black people the BLUE PILL, which you say will cure us if we ingest enough.

Even though the salesmen of the RED PILL are few - you appear to be far more pissed off that THEY would dare try to sell their concoction to Black people than you are inclined to ask Black folks to stick out their tongues as you note that it is BLUE from the gelatin coating that makes the pill taste good.

How do you continue as you do?
Please consider this argument which is a metaphor for the flaws in yours:
http://functionalculture.blogspot.com/2011/06/racism-chasing-journal-you-cant.html

Your lack of interest in QUANTIFYING the force that is against you might be the reason why you are unable to defend against it. Not that it is your interest to actually defeat this force as it would cause you to become responsible for your own future.

Why is it that your ENEMY WITH NO POWER (Cain) is more of a concern for you than a man who GOT NEGROES TO PURCHASE T-SHIRTS on his behalf and are now SILENT in their will to criticize him?

Plane Ideas said...

CF,

Cain is not my enemy he is just another brother lost in the sauce and stained by the pathology of white racism/supremacy etc..

Just like are YOU are..I understand the damage Black folks like You and Cain have sustained..I know how it creates wounded Black folks, Black folks who then expressed a contempt for their own self worth and intellect and then seek a mission to disarm people like me..


Have the courage to engaged in a self examination of your own demeanor and worth..You feel enbolden and validated when you act out your need to check and restrain Free Black Men like me and others..You live an entire internet life of seeking to douse the flames of iconic living legendary Black me like me..

Instead of fueling the genius of Black folks like me and others your wounded twisted nature has even put in peril your own self worth..

Yet I will not discard you as road kill or make your being aimless and unworthy..You have potential for greatness..I will assist you in Freeing the Black man you are...I will keep hope alive my brother just for you whenever we interact...Just sayin

CNu said...

Not his best work, but Feed acquitted himself adequately. You can pretty much rest assured that anytime the freeloading black man shows up and commences to beating his plaque and tartar infested gums, things are gonna be looking hella shaky for the progressive team...,

sheeeeeeeeiiiiiitttt.......,

black folks like Williams would easily rationalize owning their own kin and selling them down the river in the interest of profit maximization. Ugliness of that sort is timeless and consequently should not be a surprise.

I'd sell the freeloading black man and every single shiftless oxygen thief like him m'dayyum-self - if - I could find a single taker willing to part with a plugged nickel or a bitcoin in exchange for his useless monkey behind...,

Oh Crap said...

@Dumbest Person on the Internet

The focus of my argument is about PEOPLE LIKE YOU who believe that our people are damaged goods from long ago - even when they are inculcated into society, institutions and schools dominated by people like YOU.

Pardon the old song lyrics, Mensa Member, but I went to YOUR churches, YOUR schools/indoctrination centers/holding pens, and am a direct product of YOUR failed lifestyle, which I was fortunately able to escape.

Keep on looking for where I've said our people are damaged goods, but you will not find it; in fact you will find the exact opposite.

Though, I would not expect you to recognize that, since up is down and down is up in your warped conservative, paranoid world that has you seeing yourself in a mirror of UNQUALIFIED and INFERIOR where ever you turn.

All you yammer on about is everything wrong with Black people, Black men in particular. Lol as if your broken-down, amoral, blunt-object lifestyle choice is some kind of role model to emulate. LOL!

No, the only damaged people among us are the conservative self-loathers like yourself, so wrapped up in defending the personal integrity of the Confederates, Nullificationists, and picket signs of us portrayed as waffle-eating monkeys you feel it's your duty to run and protect them from someone like me, who harms no one.

So don't feed me that lie you have no use for these people you've chosen to over-identify with, and thus get all nervous whenever someone pokes fun at their daily folly. So what, learn to love it.

Oh Crap said...

Not his best work, but Feed acquitted himself adequately.

Haha, love me some Bruce.

CNu said...

@OC - you know I'm just instigating.., that, and getting in some gratuitous swipes at the freeloading black man...,