You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘South Carolina’ category.
It is an amazing thing to watch… the dismantling of the Confederate Flag. These 9 murders have had an effect far reaching than any event I can remember since 9/11.
It is as if we always knew they all had to go… by we I am including vast, vast majorities, almost everybody; but because one shrill element was loud, obnoxious, and obstinate, no one really wanted to take them on… Reminds one of dealing with a bully at school…. One could probably take him out with several properly placed punches, but in that process you’d get hit hard, suffer damage yourself, and so the status quo of accepting an undesirable outcome, was better than striving for a more perfect world. Everyone knows that the bully is wrong, but no one wants to invest in the personal cost it would take to permanently fix the problem, despite all secretly wishing someone else would….
That is racism in America. The big problem which if we try to address it by tackling it on the edges, we get besieged, almost attacked, by a vocal shrill anti-social element representing the excrement of society: those of us who simply hate for hate’s sake.
Yet, they are easily outnumbered. But since they yell and punch and we stay silent because we don’t want to bog ourselves down, they win.
But with one killing spree. the bigots lost it all. With one killing spree, everyone is no longer afraid to throw the bigots in social jail, and lock the key. With one killing spree, the bigots are being finally beaten down like the bullies they are.. by superior force…
I am reminded of a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr i once read… which said that the true legacy that Martin Luther King Jr. left us, was to no longer be afraid to stand up for justice… After Selma, the next day freedom fighters were singing a capella gospel in the jails… After Selma, the next day the wounds of the batons, dog bites, and fire hoses… hurt half as bad as the day before, and tomorrow would be half as bad as today…. Everyone looked around at each other and said… “Gee, that wasn’t too bad; we can do that again, and again, and if we do, we can win this”… and they did… Once you beat fear, anything is possible.
I think that is what is happening today… In sort of an impetuous response to the impetuous act committed in a church basement in Charleston… the flags are coming down… The omen of slavery is being removed from the state capitols and governor’s offices across the entire South. Confederacy has lost its legitimacy. And that fight which we were all afraid of… which we all lowered our eyes and looked the other way to avoid, which we all thought was better to leave those old flags up there, than take them down, get beaten up, lose the public opinion battle, and have to reinstate them,…. really wasn’t that bad after all….
All of what we feared was a paper tiger… nothing more… nothing less…
Now that we’ve done this… we must not stop on the first step. Now let us take back our nation not just in race or sexual identiy… but in economics as well…
If everyone who commented on social media, who ostracized racists making them extremely fearful of speaking out for once, if everyone who gave their opinion actually voted every election, this nation would get back on track immediately… Instead of everyone racing out to vote, we got apathy in 2014, setting our nation backwards from where it could be by at least, the minimum of two years; because of the overall apathy, we have a minority with which no one agrees, controlling Congress, running this nation into the ground simply because more of them went out to vote….
We won this battle over flags… It wasn’t free… 9 people died… but we won… The world is wide open to us… If we vote on election day, like we respond on social media… what now seems impossible…. America running on 100% renewable energy… Global cooling instead of warming…. decent minimum wages… more spending money… lifetime health, .. is in our grasp…
We just have to vote like we respond on Social media whenever we see evil rise up and knock down good…. We can do this America… and it isn’t hard at all… Get active… Join something. We have enough votes to allow America to improve, if we all go out and vote… And as we saw with flags coming down… exercising our power really wasn’t that hard…
Our ultimate power, is our vote… Vote like your own money depends on it… It actually does.
We live in the age of the internet… Most of you have seen clips from the speech with which Obama eulogized the gunned down Rev. Pickney in Charleston, South Carolina… But being the age of the Internet, I bet only a handful of you have watched the full 45 minute speech in high definition….
That is because 45 minutes is too long for us to focus on one thing… But we can read on the Internet for hours… Why? Because every word is new and thus engages our brain far more sharply than a video presentation…..
This eulogy is just one of many our commander in chief has given… All of them far more eloquent than other presidents were wont to give. But this one will probably be read by our grandchildren, and great grandchildren, as are three of the speeches once uttered by Martin Luther King, Jr.
For that reason… I wanted to put it up in print… Where most can read it in less than 15 minutes, instead of the 45 no one ever has time for…..
College of Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
2:49 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Giving all praise and honor to God. (Applause.)
The Bible calls us to hope. To persevere, and have faith in things not seen.
“They were still living by faith when they died,” Scripture tells us. “They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on Earth.”
We are here today to remember a man of God who lived by faith. A man who believed in things not seen. A man who believed there were better days ahead, off in the distance. A man of service who persevered, knowing full well he would not receive all those things he was promised, because he believed his efforts would deliver a better life for those who followed.
To Jennifer, his beloved wife; to Eliana and Malana, his beautiful, wonderful daughters; to the Mother Emanuel family and the people of Charleston, the people of South Carolina.
I cannot claim to have the good fortune to know Reverend Pinckney well. But I did have the pleasure of knowing him and meeting him here in South Carolina, back when we were both a little bit younger. (Laughter.) Back when I didn’t have visible grey hair. (Laughter.) The first thing I noticed was his graciousness, his smile, his reassuring baritone, his deceptive sense of humor — all qualities that helped him wear so effortlessly a heavy burden of expectation.
Friends of his remarked this week that when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it was like the future arrived; that even from a young age, folks knew he was special. Anointed. He was the progeny of a long line of the faithful — a family of preachers who spread God’s word, a family of protesters who sowed change to expand voting rights and desegregate the South. Clem heard their instruction, and he did not forsake their teaching.
He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. He did not exhibit any of the cockiness of youth, nor youth’s insecurities; instead, he set an example worthy of his position, wise beyond his years, in his speech, in his conduct, in his love, faith, and purity.
As a senator, he represented a sprawling swath of the Lowcountry, a place that has long been one of the most neglected in America. A place still wracked by poverty and inadequate schools; a place where children can still go hungry and the sick can go without treatment. A place that needed somebody like Clem. (Applause.)
His position in the minority party meant the odds of winning more resources for his constituents were often long. His calls for greater equity were too often unheeded, the votes he cast were sometimes lonely. But he never gave up. He stayed true to his convictions. He would not grow discouraged. After a full day at the capitol, he’d climb into his car and head to the church to draw sustenance from his family, from his ministry, from the community that loved and needed him. There he would fortify his faith, and imagine what might be.
Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that was neither mean, nor small. He conducted himself quietly, and kindly, and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone, but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes. No wonder one of his senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as “the most gentle of the 46 of us — the best of the 46 of us.”
Clem was often asked why he chose to be a pastor and a public servant. But the person who asked probably didn’t know the history of the AME church. (Applause.) As our brothers and sisters in the AME church know, we don’t make those distinctions. “Our calling,” Clem once said, “is not just within the walls of the congregation, but…the life and community in which our congregation resides.” (Applause.)
He embodied the idea that our Christian faith demands deeds and not just words; that the “sweet hour of prayer” actually lasts the whole week long — (applause) — that to put our faith in action is more than individual salvation, it’s about our collective salvation; that to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity but the imperative of a just society.
What a good man. Sometimes I think that’s the best thing to hope for when you’re eulogized — after all the words and recitations and resumes are read, to just say someone was a good man. (Applause.)
You don’t have to be of high station to be a good man. Preacher by 13. Pastor by 18. Public servant by 23. What a life Clementa Pinckney lived. What an example he set. What a model for his faith. And then to lose him at 41 — slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each at different stages in life but bound together by a common commitment to God.
Cynthia Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lance. DePayne Middleton-Doctor. Tywanza Sanders. Daniel L. Simmons. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Myra Thompson. Good people. Decent people. God-fearing people. (Applause.) People so full of life and so full of kindness. People who ran the race, who persevered. People of great faith.
To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African-American life — (applause) — a place to call our own in a too often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Over the course of centuries, black churches served as “hush harbors” where slaves could worship in safety; praise houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah — (applause) — rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad; bunkers for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement. They have been, and continue to be, community centers where we organize for jobs and justice; places of scholarship and network; places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harm’s way, and told that they are beautiful and smart — (applause) — and taught that they matter. (Applause.) That’s what happens in church.
That’s what the black church means. Our beating heart. The place where our dignity as a people is inviolate. When there’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel — (applause) — a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founder sought to end slavery, only to rise up again, a Phoenix from these ashes. (Applause.)
When there were laws banning all-black church gatherings, services happened here anyway, in defiance of unjust laws. When there was a righteous movement to dismantle Jim Crow, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached from its pulpit, and marches began from its steps. A sacred place, this church. Not just for blacks, not just for Christians, but for every American who cares about the steady expansion — (applause) — of human rights and human dignity in this country; a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all. That’s what the church meant. (Applause.)
We do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pinckney and eight others knew all of this history. But he surely sensed the meaning of his violent act. It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random, but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress. (Applause.) An act that he imagined would incite fear and recrimination; violence and suspicion. An act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.
Oh, but God works in mysterious ways. (Applause.) God has different ideas. (Applause.)
He didn’t know he was being used by God. (Applause.) Blinded by hatred, the alleged killer could not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group — the light of love that shone as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger to join in their prayer circle. The alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they saw him in court — in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of forgiveness. He couldn’t imagine that. (Applause.)
The alleged killer could not imagine how the city of Charleston, under the good and wise leadership of Mayor Riley — (applause) — how the state of South Carolina, how the United States of America would respond — not merely with revulsion at his evil act, but with big-hearted generosity and, more importantly, with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life.
Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood — the power of God’s grace. (Applause.)
This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace. (Applause.) The grace of the families who lost loved ones. The grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons. The grace described in one of my favorite hymnals — the one we all know: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. (Applause.) I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. (Applause.)
According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God — (applause) — as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Grace.
As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind. (Applause.) He has given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves. (Applause.) We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other — but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. (Applause.) It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge — including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise — (applause) — as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. (Applause.) For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now.
Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought — the cause of slavery — was wrong — (applause) — the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. (Applause.) It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace. (Applause.)
But I don’t think God wants us to stop there. (Applause.) For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. (Applause.)
Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. (Applause.) Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system — (applause) — and leads us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias; that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure. (Applause.)
Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don’t realize it, so that we’re guarding against not just racial slurs, but we’re also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. (Applause.) So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. (Applause.) By recognizing our common humanity by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin or the station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American — by doing that, we express God’s grace. (Applause.)
For too long —
AUDIENCE: For too long!
THE PRESIDENT: For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation. (Applause.) Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day; the countless more whose lives are forever changed — the survivors crippled, the children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school, the husband who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire communities whose grief overflows every time they have to watch what happened to them happen to some other place.
The vast majority of Americans — the majority of gun owners — want to do something about this. We see that now. (Applause.) And I’m convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others, even as we respect the traditions and ways of life that make up this beloved country — by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace. (Applause.)
We don’t earn grace. We’re all sinners. We don’t deserve it. (Applause.) But God gives it to us anyway. (Applause.) And we choose how to receive it. It’s our decision how to honor it.
None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. (Applause.) None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires — this is a big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates. Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete.
But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. (Applause.) Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual — that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society. (Applause.) To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change — that’s how we lose our way again.
It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits, whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.
Reverend Pinckney once said, “Across the South, we have a deep appreciation of history — we haven’t always had a deep appreciation of each other’s history.” (Applause.) What is true in the South is true for America. Clem understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other. That my liberty depends on you being free, too. (Applause.) That history can’t be a sword to justify injustice, or a shield against progress, but must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past — how to break the cycle. A roadway toward a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an open mind — but, more importantly, an open heart.
That’s what I’ve felt this week — an open heart. That, more than any particular policy or analysis, is what’s called upon right now, I think — what a friend of mine, the writer Marilyn Robinson, calls “that reservoir of goodness, beyond, and of another kind, that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things.”
That reservoir of goodness. If we can find that grace, anything is possible. (Applause.) If we can tap that grace, everything can change. (Applause.)
Amazing grace. Amazing grace.
(Begins to sing) — Amazing grace — (applause) — how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. (Applause.)
Clementa Pinckney found that grace.
Cynthia Hurd found that grace.
Susie Jackson found that grace.
Ethel Lance found that grace.
DePayne Middleton-Doctor found that grace.
Tywanza Sanders found that grace.
Daniel L. Simmons, Sr. found that grace.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton found that grace.
Myra Thompson found that grace.
Through the example of their lives, they’ve now passed it on to us. May we find ourselves worthy of that precious and extraordinary gift, as long as our lives endure. May grace now lead them home. May God continue to shed His grace on the United States of America. (Applause.)
END
3:28 P.M. EDT
Amen, and Amen.
The reason he won.
Number 1….
Gingrich shoots down corporate media……
Number 2
Gingrich accurately defines the SOPA and PIPA battle.
Number 3
The consensus on stage, is that on most issues in which Newt lead the dicussion, he was right.
My friends on the left are gleeful at Newt’s coronation as the Republican candidate. They seem to be unaware that Newt is right on these libertarian life themes. Obama is not. It is not cool to say your were a proponent of SOPA or PIPA, before you were against it…..
It could be a very tough race for my friends on the left.
Bain Capital; good? or bad?
Has anyone asked anyone from these companies Bain has taken over?
Why, yes! They have…
Meet Senor Hayler… He ran a photo book shop for Bain in South Carolina.
So how does Bain achieve its turnaround profits?
Managers from Bain sent Hayler, a vice president for manufacturing at Holson Burnes, to run the new Gaffney factory soon after it opened. He was under orders to cut the unit costs of production, either by ramping up volume or by reducing labor costs.
To the uninitiated, this may sound horribly immoral. However, that is how most business is done in America… Bills don’t get paid, people get cut for no reason, and contracts don’t get fulfilled until a court of law requires them to… I would say 99% of America’s business is handled that way. It is our dirty little secret.
That may be a way to run a business, where if you get fired, you can always go to another… But, America seriously needs to understand what will happen to it, if it decides to be run the way of Bain Capital Enterprises…..
It may seem nice for a couple of hours, but the herpes last forever…….
Whoever wins South Carolina, goes on to win the nomination.
If an EMP went off right now, what would happen? Let’s say it was caused naturally, and not from an earthly application… Just stop for a second and imagine if in one split second, all electronics got fried…
What could you do? You would initially do just what you do when the power goes out. You would get up, open the door, look at all your neighbors opening the door looking back at you, say a few words, and go back into wait for the power to come on…
You might get suspicious when your cell phone wouldn’t turn on, or not being primed to consider what the possibilities were, you might just think your battery picked that interlude to die…. You might likewise get suspicious when your car wouldn’t show life. You might curse your luck that the power went off, your cellphone battery died, and your car now needs a new battery, all in the same afternoon… You couldn’t get a hold of anyone to help, and so you walk over to your neighbor. He’s out back trying to get his generator started. It won’t work either. He’s mad as hell and is taking it back to Lowes where he bought it.. and he finds his Ford Pickup battery has died too… Oh the terrible luck …
So you walk to the store and see no one is open, everything is temporarily closed until the power kicks back on….
Only it won’t come on… ever.. I mean ever… Well at least in your life time…
Why? simply put, every electrical component, every magnet, every fuse, every connector, will have to be replaced from your house to the nearest power plant. .. Even if somewhere a power plant opened, and produced, that would leak all over the country unless someone actually got up and cut the wires to keep that power from dissipating and becoming too weak to do any good…
So new power plants would have to be built. New wires strung, new transformers built, forget about the ones on the shelf for emergencies, they’re shot too. Everything would need to be rebuilt from scratch…
And we would have no access to the information that told us how to rebuild….
This is how civilizations disappear rather quickly.. They become so specialized, that no one can put everything back together. It mimics the Tower of Babel accounting.. “There once was a great civilization, that evaporated instantly” is how most scholars view the accounting of that story today…
To survive, you would have no heat.. unless you had either a fireplace of wood stove. Everything else is electrical unless your unit dates back before 1990…. You would have no transportation. You couldn’t buy a working car. The first cars to be made would have to be created from scratch, at a factory, that unfortunately had no power.
Your world would shrink to where you could walk. There would be no news, unless someone walked to tell you what they saw in Wilmington. And what someone from Philadelphia had told them when they had walked from there, and rumors that had been told from those who had walked from New York, and from New Jersey, and up south from Washington and Baltimore…
Was any of America working? NO one knew… Once a military fighter roared overhead, and it was the first sound heard since the event, and all raced outside to cheer… But that was it.. Hope was that someone, somewhere out there, was in charge, and was working to make our lives return to normal…
But years went by…. Most people moved from the cities. Many died of disease, and starvation, and life became involved of defending oneself and ones property from those that wanted to take it… To live, you really had to sell yourself to an Overlord, who was intimidating enough that no one moved into your neighborhood because of him.. Most of what you made, he took as payment for protecting you. It included your children.
The once great civilization, was erased. No one knew about Rome. No one knew about Babylon. No one knew about Greece… unless it was from the old Bibles kept in decorative cabinets. Some books existed, but most had been burned to keep warm that first winter…
Just like that… Our huge skyscrapers, began to fall, one by one, each time covering the streets with an overbearing dust cloud.
Nature began to reclaim her own. The ice caps grew back. The seas lowered. The flora and fauna multiplied as people perished. The children heard stories, about the world being round, and names like China and Japan that could be found on old artifacts. But, without any reinforcement, they gradually faded from all knowledge…
The question I want to raise is this. Is our education system as it stands now, capable of continuing civilization as we know it, in and if, such a natural event were to occur? Or non natural event?
Do we currently teach enough basics so anyone can build a computer, build a electronics kit, and repair cars, generators, home electrical appliances, were such an event to occur?
It is not hard; the hard part is that no one knows how to do it.
If everyone knew simple basic electricity, and how things worked, we’d have power in some places within a week, and withing three months, we’d be 50% back to normal. We would be back to normal within three years.
Our current educational system is teaching us the wrong things…. We are focused on the wrong items. We test for the wrong items. We do not teach the basic knowledge our life needs right now…
It should be: A: fixing your phone/ and or computer.
B: fixing your generator.
C: fixing your vehicle.
This knowledge is vital for national security. It needs to be taught to every man, woman, and child… 3 x 6 equaling 18 doesn’t do much.. Nor does Black History Month, or proper English Grammer, or American History, or Economics, or ………….
Our first grade needs to begin…. “Ok, kids…. this is a 1… this is a 0…… All of life revolves around those two numbers…”
kavips 