Thug Life: Yo you talkin to me?
Daryll Issa is a Menace to America
Why wasn’t I surprised to discover that before he became a Congressman Daryll Issa was a car thief, a liar and a repeat offender? Because he is still a liar, a bully and runs his committee like a gangster. The way he conducts his committee is so outrageous that Attorney General Eric Holder, a mild mannered gentleman not given to hyperbole, called his behavior “shameful” to his face. And he is still a thief; now he is trying to steal the last election by misusing the investigative powers of his committee to nullify the Democratic victory by tying up key components of the government in an attempt to make it impossible for President Obama to govern; to do the job the people elected him twice to do.
Instead Issa is engaging in a transparent attempt to create an atmosphere of hysteria designed to produce the preconditions for the impeachment of the President on bogus charges. Hence I am not surprised that he has a criminal past because he has a criminal mind. In essence he is still a liar and a thug.
When you look at the nature of his crimes they clearly denote basic issues of character that are not easily overcome. For instance it was brought to our attention by Martin Bashir – A transplanted broadcast journalist on MSNBC who brings a nose for scandal among the high and mighty typical of the British press – that Issa has a vocal accuser who is not shy about going on the record.
Jay Bergey, who was in the same army troop with Issa, says his most enduring memory of Congressman Issa was when Issa stole his yellow Dodge Charger during December 1971. When he heard through the grape vine that Issa was the thief he says “I confronted Issa, I got in his face and threatened to kill him, and magically my car reappeared the next day abandoned on the turnpike.”
Three months later, on March 15, 1972, after mustering out of the army Issa and his older brother was arrested in Ohio and charged with stealing a red Maserati from the showroom of a car dealership in Cleveland. However since Issa was a veteran and had enrolled in college before the case came to trial, a sympathetic judge dismissed the case. And he did so despite the fact that Issa, a habitual offender, was arrested on an illegal gun possession charge while the Maserati case was still pending. On December 1, nine months after the Maserati bust, Issa was pulled over by police in Adrian Ohio who discovered a 25 caliber automatic pistol, a box of ammo and a tear gas gun with cartridges for it.
In court Issa argued that he was carrying weapons to protect his car and defend himself. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, but pleaded to the lesser charge of possession of a unregistered gun, paid a small fine and was sentenced to six months’ probation. There is a familiar scenario here, Issa got “the white boy pass;” which means that he was allowed to walk for a violation that many young black men have been sent to jail for!
This is this kind of white male privilege that contributes to the arrogance of white boys like Mitt Romney, who was allowed to get away with things that Barack Obama would have been crucified in the press for; things such as refusing to disclose tax returns or making the dealings of his Cayman Island bank accounts and dummy corporations in Bermuda public. And if Barack had ever been a member of the Nation of Islam, the press would have allowed us to forget it…not to mention if he were still an unapologetic Minister when he ran for President.
Yet mum was the word on Mitt’s religion despite the fact that Mormon theology regarding black people is a mirror image of the Black Muslim theology on whites: Mormons preached that blacks were spawns of the devil and the NOI preaches that whites are the devil! Looks like six on the one hand and a half dozen on the other to me.
This vast disparity was apparent to all careful observers, and the decision to give Mitt a pass on this when nobody in black American believes that they would have remained silent if the shoe was on the other foot, contributes to an almost paranoid attitude about the intention of the “white media” regarding Afro-Americans. Which is why the press Prima Donnas who are wailing like banshees, because they were investigated by the US Attorney General, is finding little sympathy in the black community.
The major media has been even worse in their reporting of Issa’s criminal past. The watch dog organization Media Matters has studied the coverage of this man who heads one of the most powerful committees in Congress and they report that “In 11 interviews since Election Day, no network or cable anchor has asked Issa about the allegations against him. Their study covered the period from November 3, 2010 to January 201l.
In print publications during the same period Media Matters examined 15 articles that dealt with Issa in major journalistic publications and only one even mentions his criminal past! Among the publications examined were: The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, et al. Does anybody believe that if Congressman Cummings, a black Democrat from Baltimore who serves on Issa’s Committee, had such a criminal record everybody wouldn’t know about it?
Darryl Issa is one of the worst politicians to ever chair a Congressional Committee, and given the collection of charlatans, scoundrels, fools, thieves, slave masters and Indian killers who have sat in that chamber this is no picayune charge. He is a shameless hypocrite and malicious thug who consistently places his party’s interests over the national interests. The hearings Issa is presently holding on the Benghazi killings is nothing more than vulgar exploitation of a national tragedy to gain a partisan political advantage.
His fained outrage over the misuse of the investigative powers of the IRS is a transparent sham; for he was silent as a lamb when the IRS employed those very same powers in a malicious attempt to intimidate the NAACP into silence on George Bush’s invasion Iraq. That’s why Julian Bond, the former President of the NAACP and legendary activist for justice in the US, has come out strongly in support of the IRS action.
Although a dear friend who is also abrilliant and indefatigable tutor in matters of tax law thinks the IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lori Lerner, who took the Fifth at Congressman Issa’s hearing, should be jailed for her actions at the IRS; I am persuaded by the Arguments of Lawrence O’Donnel – a journalist, Harvard trained lawyer and former Congressional staffer who was tasked with interpreting IRS regulations in drafting legislation – and Eleanor Holmes Norton, a long time Washington lawyer and member of congress representing the District of Columbia.
Both of these observers feel the IRS was fulfilling the law, and that a regulation added by unelected government bureaucrats cannot trump the basic statute. This is a matter that will be passionately debated and obviously I am not qualified to resolve this growing legal dispute, but I am one heart with them in this matter.
Hence I think Ms. Lerner treated Devious Daryll exactly the way he deserves to be treated: Like a verbose asshole who is unworthy of his exalted position and does not deserve a serious commitment of her time and effort. In a terse statement she said:” “I have not done anything wrong; I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”
Let him hear what she has to say in court, since he has already decided she is guilty. This half-baked hustler from Cali apparently does not even understand the Constitution that he is constantly citing. His response to her decision to invoke her constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment is scandalous; a real scandal, not the fake scandal lust the Republicans are perpetually promoting. But sham and deceit have long been favored tactics of Daryll Issa.
A Malignant Cancer in Congress preventing the ability to govern
The harm this clown is doing could injure millions of Americans
The Much Maligned IRS
Issa met his match in Lori Lehrer
Issa was also investigated for suspicion of setting a fire in the warehouse of his own company in order to collect the insurance money. He became a suspect when a secretary told investigators that all the blueprints and other documents necessary to resume the company’s business were mysteriously move to a vault in another location before the fire, and he greatly increase his insurance coverage.
And the fact that the inflammable substance that started the fire was poured in the one area of the building that was not covered by the sprinkler system led investigators to conclude that the fire was started by somebody who knew the design of the building. All these factors made Issa a logical suspect in the arson but they never managed to tie the fire to him. Once again the rascal slipped away unscathed, and all the richer for it.
Issa began his involvement in politics as a lobbyist for business interest, and he was a supporter of reactionary pro-corporate Republican polices from the outset. In a long and revealing article by Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker, we are told:
“In 1994, according to one version of Issa’s official biography, he “received Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award.” He began to work with consumer-electronics trade associations, made trips to Washington to lobby for the industry, and started to get involved in politics. In an increasingly Democratic state, he soon became one of the biggest donors to Republicans. He helped fund Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot initiative that would ban affirmative action in public institutions. It passed with fifty-five per cent of the vote. He helped bring the Republican Convention to San Diego in 1996 and got to know the Party leaders. “It was an evolution of involvement,” Issa told me.”
Alas this moral chameleon and deluded egotist, who seems devoid of shame or compassion that now chairs the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which the rules of the House says “may at any time conduct investigations of any matter.” This means that Issa has the power to subpoena anyone. The result is the fiasco we see now. These bullshit sideshows posing as serious Congressional hearings would have embarrassed the architects of the US Constitution. Although many of them were just as morally depraved as Issa, they at least understood the need to govern, and that governing is a serious business!
However the Issa clown show, a tragi-comic farce directed by a poot-butt pretender posing as the guardian of American democracy, will go on because the Obama administration has offended the pompous, prissy Prima Donnas of the press, who in their unbridled egotism and self-importance think their right to scoop the competition, even if it imperils the lives of American operatives trying to prevent another 9-11, should be defended at all cost.
So while they are whining about being investigated, right-wing nuts are doing their best to bring the machinery of government to a halt, makes them de-facto enablers of the cretins like Darrell Issa. It is no wonder that when Issa got out of the service he went into business and got rich selling alarms to foil car thieves….it takes one to know one.
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Playthell G. Benjamin
Harlem, New York
May 23, 2013
Our Oracle Shuts the Door
Posted in Book Reviews, Cultural Matters, Guest Commentators on May 16, 2013 by playthellThe peerless scribe and Master Teacher at work
A Brief Tribute to Professor Chinua Achebe
I wouldn’t like to describe Professor Chinalumogo Achebe as an Iroko tree. No, he was mightier than that. In a thick forest of copious trees, one tree always stands out: the Uzi tree. It is taller than the Oroko. The Uzi is always rare; sometimes, only one appears in an entire forest. But there could be many Irokos in a forest. They even stand on the streets, everywhere. No, Achebe was not that common. He was loftier than his fame.
The bark of an Uzi tree is medicinal. Many herbalists, experienced and upcoming, approach it with machetes to cut off a portion to cure diseases, yet the tree stands unscathed. It does not shed its leaves. It does not bleed. It only exudes its sap when the herbalists immerse the shredded bark in a keg of alcohol or water, in order to have the medicine seep out. During windy, fierce hamattan seasons, irokos could have their branches broken. This deficiency does not apply to Uzi. And whenever there is need for wood, people hack irokos down, but the Uzi is revered, with its lush, swanky green leaves attracting a large pilgrimage of avian animals. Achebe’s fiction is medicinal, undeniably sacrosanct.
It has cured the world of many diseases of the mind: racial discrimination, religious intolerance, mental slavery, subjugation of thought, entrapment of black intellects, disdain for Africa’s indigenous cultures and religions, among others. Chinua Achebe, through his extraordinary defensive literature, gave Africa a new positive interpretation. Africans became proud of Africa, although there are still islands of mental and religious slaves around the continent. His rare shrewdness detected every prejudice against Africa, no matter how nuanced, and he reacted appropriately.
As a young boy growing up in rural, southeastern Nigeria, I did not have the privilege of reading foreign books. Even as a toddler, I never read illustrated children’s books. They were not available in the village. I depended on indigenous African literature, which I didn’t buy, couldn’t buy, but I read as much as I could borrow from friends and neighbours. I realised that each time I went borrowing, I was offered a Chinua Achebe book. One of my primary school teachers once lied to me that the Bible was written in heaven and flung down to the world.
I started to wonder whether Achebe’s books were among those things that God had created in the sky and thrown down, because the books were ubiquitous in the village—and understandable. When I went to the stream to fetch water, students from secondary schools discussed Achebe’s fiction with joy. I could identify with the things written there: our village foods, our masquerades, our family system, our method of farming, our animals and many other native valuables embellished in his stories. It was as though the stories were set in my own village. It became normal, for me, that one must read Achebe so as to be considered educated.
In the village, the ability to speak a speck of correct English was applauded. We, the village children, gathered around city boys and kids who had returned home for Christmas, listening to their English, willing ourselves to speak asupili supili like them, a fact that made us almost detest our native Igbo Language. Our inability to speak English early enough caused a sort of inferiority complex in us. We spoke English with fear and conservative dignity because we thought it difficult, full of strict rules of grammar that one could not break. I later figured out, my ribs bashing with amusement, that the city people’s English was odiously ungrammatical, a local contrivance to achieve fluency: pidgin. Achebe, through his books, demystified the English Language for me. The books are simplified with supple details. Achebe made English approachable, configured it to taste like Igbo in my mouth.
I comprehended that one could speak English with a stocky Igbo mouth, found out that English is not better than Igbo; they are both equivalent in all ramifications. As an adult, I did not have the grace of meeting him, face-to-face; it was not necessary because I meet him daily through my stack of his books, my treasures. The human mouth is full of lies, but Achebe’s fiction is full of truths, undeniable facts. The immortality of his writings is unquestionable. Some men shouldn’t die!
Today our oracle has shut the door, but he still remains inside the holy shrine. In Africa, people don’t catapult themselves to unknown destinations when they die; they stay (in the spiritual world) around their families to plan and supervise the affairs of the mortals, sheltering the humans with divine protections of all sorts. Chukwu chebe muo gi!
Professor Chinua Achebe has joined the league of worthy ancestors, a dynasty of international literary forefathers and mothers whose works remain perpetual: Eudora Welty, William Shakespeare, Cyprian Ekwensi, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, Zora Neale Hurston, Amos Tutuola, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, Thomas Hardy, Flannery O’Connor, Willa Cather, and many others. Achebe will stay in the land of prestigious African ancestors to inspire new pieces of fabulous fiction in the new generation of African writers. We are all waiting for his inspiration.
Writers don’t die. Has Chinua Achebe died? No! The Uzi tree does not die like that. The Igbo say uwa bu ahia—the world is a market: you come, trade and step aside, and not necessarily die. Achebe lives in every creative mind, solidly.
Father of a Tradition
He set the standard for African Novelist
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Jekwu Anyaegbuna
03/26/2013
Originally published in the Massachusetts Review. Reprinted with permission of MR.
Jekwu Anyaegbuna is a Nigerian writer. He won the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa. He has just completed his first novel. His story “The Waiting Stool” appears in the current
issue of MR.