THE AGE OF TREASON

Members of the United States Congress hold themselves to standards they would have us all believe are of the highest caliber of humanity. In the same vein, they exempt themselves from "high crimes and misdemeanors" the commission of which by any one of us ordinary citizens would result in fines, imprisonment and even the death penalty. I say the time is long overdue to revisit these loopholes of politics and examine the absence of accountability when those "honorable gentlemen" at the highest levels who we trust to serve and protect us as a nation exhibit blatant conduct that jeopardizes not only every American citizen at home and abroad, but the men and women in uniform who willingly sacrifice to preserve the American way of life.

When the Senate Majority Leader pulls a stunt that's tantamount to the likes of Hanoi Jane, the abuse of political power has so overextended the limits of propriety that such heinous acts must be brought to justice. Such atrocities invalidate the spirit and the letter of the law with regard to immunity from prosecution for nothing less than acts amounting to wartime treason.

Speaking the title 'Senator' and the name 'Harry Reid' in the same breath leaves not only a nasty taste in one's mouth, but in light of his openly encouraging our terrorist enemies by proclaiming that President Bush has "lost the war in Iraq," is--to say the least--a reprehensible insult to efforts of the thousands of American military forces already in harm's way. Giving our adversaries cause to believe they have gained the upper hand is an act of treason that demands justice...swift and sure, commensurate with the premeditated, purely political poison. What was perpetrated for the primary purpose of precipitating presidential pressure caused collateral damage that will immeasurably increase the lingering level of liability.

Abuse of position for personal (albeit political) gain, betrayal of the public trust and aiding and abetting the enemy are crimes that call for court martial in the case of a member of the US armed forces. Why should members of Congress be held to any less??

I'm sure Harry Reid is receiving tacit thanks from terrorists around the world and in and around the Iraq Green Zone in particular. Who wouldn't want such a propaganda pal? The blood of every American fighting man and woman since he uttered those words is on your hands, Harry Reid. I hope he can sleep better now, and if he can hold his head up with pride for having said this terrible thing, he is no better than the evil-doers he has emboldened.

Harry Reid is the latest poster child for the Pox that is Politics. He has earned his fifteen seconds of shame. And we're all paying for it.

Okay, I promised myself when I started this blog that I wouldn't let others put words in my mouth. But the following article says everything I had on my mind regarding Imusgate, so I'm going to let it stand for my point of view. It's hard to refute. If you think you can, please contact me and prove it!
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Imus isn't the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need
to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK
Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You've given us (black people) an excuse to avoid
our real problem.

You've given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to
pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight,
is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and
social equality.

You've given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a
nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a
news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we
can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it's 1965 and delude
ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary
than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we're fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock
jock, I'm sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the
Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat
of 50 Cent's or Snoop Dogg's or Young Jeezy's latest ode glorifying
nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain't saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don't
have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real
black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed
our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted,
corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and
behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education,
demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and
wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the
mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It's embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make
racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was
hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white
and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I'm no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica
blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn't do anything outside the norm for shock
jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should've been
the end of this whole affair. Instead, it's only the beginning. It's
an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim
platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on
Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied
fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a
talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week
serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about
the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we're supposed to believe that the comments of a man with
virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers' wonderful
season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the
sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of
outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already
apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is
just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a
distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no
threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and
so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we
do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio
station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more
destructive?

I don't listen or watch Imus' show regularly. Has he at any point
glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated
black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way
that it's cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent?
Does he tell his listeners that they're suckers for pursuing education
and that they're selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I'll get upset. Until then, he
is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when
you're not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the
gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far
bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with
a bad radio show. There's no money and lots of danger in that battle,
so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.