As IF Times

link African-American lawmakers blast budget plan as step back for civil rights – The Hills Floor Action.

If I had a nickel for every time a white person complained that public policy laws were racist against them, I’d be two short of enough change for a dime.  According to the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, coincidentally all Democrats,  the proposals by the Republican members of Congress to curtail spending are destined to roll back civil rights advances. 

While this appeal may reasonate with a certain crowd, the logic and validity of the argument are as absent as the missing 14 Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers.  Actually, this notion is insulting to people of many constituencies.  At its root, the logic seems to be that only people of color, namely blacks would be adversely impacted by budget cuts.  It’s truly giving false credit to those lawmakers that apparently are able to  direct legislation to isolate only blacks and exclude other ethnic minorities.  Do these proposed budget cuts somehow not affect Latinos? Chinese? South Asians?  How are they able to do that?

If in fact this is the case, the racism claim is valid since that means only blacks have been specifically excluded from access to prosperity.  This implies that all other racial subgroups have somehow managed to exclude  blacks as well since they don’t seem to be lobbying against budget cuts.  It’s intriguing to me that there are not more vocal black groups complaining about how they are specifically kept out of the grocery store business, or the laundry business, or the gardening business, or the restaurant business.  Those damn ethnic cartels are likely running closed shops.  How are they able to monopolize this slice of American business?  It must be racism.

What’s truly remarkable is that these other visible minorities can hold such influence within the economy without the benefit of significant racial representation in the Federal government.  There is no Congressional Chinese Caucus, no Mexican, Cuban or Central American Caucus.  There is no South Asian Caucus. 

The real racism here is from the Black Caucus itself, which by virtue of its very existence influences policies that have been detrimental to that minority.  The usefulness of this subgroup of lawmakers is very questionable since the world has changed dramatically over the past 50 years.  It’s hard to believe a legislative body exists only to forward the cause of one racial subgroup in an ‘inclusive’ society.  In case anyone hadn’t noticed, the present President is a person of color.  It is the height of hypocrisy to claim that the success of many blacks are due to individual effort while attributing failures to systemic racism.  When failure is rewarded, it perpetuates the culture of dependency. Ask any parent who has a 30 year old living at home.

If anyone needs help, it’s the contingent of Americans who are willfully non productive.  We’ll call it the Congressional USELESS Caucus which stands for  Union of SEdentary,   Lazy, Entitled, Sanctimonious Slobs.  This would work only if you could convince anyone in this group to run for office.  And besides, there already is a Democratic Party.

link Oscars | Page 8 | Liveblog live blogging | Reuters.com.

And the winner is….THE UNIONS!  It’s not our imagination.  Only last month in another of the litany of self congratulatory love fests, the SAG awards show was notable for the frequent mention of the unions in the acceptance speeches.  In the Oscars presentation last night, the unions were thanked again by at least two winners.  Heck, Christian Bale couldn’t even remember his wife’s name, but some had the presence of mind to thank the unions.  Who knew they were so instrumental as artistic muses?

I can’t recall ever during the history of the Academy Awards when a political figure was featured during the ceremonies.  But this oversight has clearly been rectified as a large image of the current president, Kim Jong Il-like,  smiling benignly at the audience was on big screen display during one of the presentations.  Even Bill Clinton, the much loved darling of the Hollywood crowd didn’t receive that honor during his tenure.  

From earlier times when the Oscars represented artistic achievement, the show conveyed a certain dignity and audiences were entertained by the impressive and articulate acceptance speeches by the deserving winners.  During those earlier times, Hollywood was still able to create the aura of glitz and glamour and even though it was in the spirit of make believe, the public enjoyed it.      When Bob Hope, the best awards host of all time by a long shot was alive, it was all about the industry.  All humor and comments were directed at the entertainment crowd.   He would never stoop to commenting on the events of the world outside.  He knew this was all about a fantasy world and supporting the mystique.  TV sponsors of the event were likely involved in the beauty or fashion business such as Revlon, L’Oreal or Max Factor.   That was then.

Now, it’s the Academy Awards brought to you by, The AFL-CIO! Also by the TEAMSTERS!  With a special word from Dear Leader!  If you’re of the mesmerized masses, you may not even notice this, but for those who just tune in for simple entertainment they may be surprised and offended by the not so subtle partisan messages that have taken over.  My beef is that these political entities should at least take out and pay for legitimate sponsor roles so that people can get up and go to the bathroom or get a beer.  When the messages are weaved into the programming, it’s annoying at best and smacks of state propaganda at worst. 

The owners of the Academy awards are chagrined that their ratings decline year after year.  Well that may be because no one wants to watch political propaganda masquerading as entertainment.   (Interestingly, in real life, there are entertainment shows masquerading as political shows).   We don’t need to hear about the politics of the actors.  Let’s just go back to just it being about art.  Bugs Bunny used to say it best during his opening musical intro entitled, “This Is It”:
Overture, curtains, lights,
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtains, lights
This is it, you’ll hit the heights
And oh what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it

Tonight what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it

It’s about entertainment.  Even a cartoon rabbit can figure that out.