Sunday, January 31, 2010

SAVE US JACKIE SPEIER!!!


Promising rumors have been floated recently that Congresswoman Jackie Speier - sick of "dysfunctional Washington" (than what is California???) - has expressed an interest in running for State Attorney General... thereby possibly saving us from "progressive" stall-wart Kamala Harris!

Please God... let it be true!!!


Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, confirmed Thursday that she is considering a run for state attorney general.


"I'm weighing where I can do the most for my constituents in California," Speier said at a jobs conference she co-hosted at the San Mateo County Event Center.


Rumors began to swirl this week that Speier was mulling a bid to replace state Attorney General Jerry Brown after a recent poll showed her to be the favorite for the post among possible Democratic candidates, most notably San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. Brown is expected to run for governor.


Citing frustrations with the legislative process in Washington, Speier said Thursday morning she is indeed thinking about entering the race.


"All I want to do for the next 10 years of my life is serve the people of California, whether it's in Washington or Sacramento," said Speier, 59.


Speier called the atmosphere on Capitol Hill "dysfunctional," and she expressed particular dissatisfaction with the workings of the Senate, where 60 votes are increasingly needed to pass legislation due to filibuster threats.


"Washington is a very frustrating place," she said. "You can get a great bill that passes the House and it can get bottled up in the Senate."


(snip)


As for the attorney general race, Speier will have to make a decision soon, spokesman Mike Larsen said. The period for declaring a candidacy opens Feb. 15, according to the California Secretary of State's office. The deadline to file nomination papers is March 12, though the deadline will be extended to March 17 if Brown doesn't run for re-election.


I have said before that the thought of Kamala Harris as Attorney General is a very scary one - criminals don't need friends with "enemies" like Kamala.

Her D.A.'s office in San Francisco has essentially become a second arm of the Public Defender's Office, an institution that cares far more for the well being of criminals than it does for society at large. Such a "progressive" attitude spread across the State would be a criminal's wet dream.


Speier is no prize pig herself, being a moderate (by Bay Area standards) establishment liberal very much in lockstep with the party line. Many have questioned her credentials, noting that she's "just barely" a lawyer and hasn't done anything out of a legislative context.


But, if you ask me, her "not being a lawyer" is a big point in her favor!

Not a Good Sign: Meg Whitman Panders to Reconquista Trash: Ends Relationship with Politician Who Dared Speak the Truth

This is not a good sign for anyone hoping that the California State GOP had anything resembling a spine.

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has bowed to pressure from the PC police, and has disavowed the support of Congressman Bob Kellar, for remarks that he made at a anti-illegal immigration rally.

The story goes thusly....


Santa Clarita councilman Bob Kellar attended a Minuteman rally on January 16, not just to support the Minutmen, but to make his views on illegal immigration more widely know than it already was. Kellar railed against illegal immigration, but it was his story of another time, perhaps another rally, that has sparked an uproar.


At that time, he recited the words of Teddy Roosevelt, and was consequently branded a racist for doing so. Remember, this is California, and anything that smacks of patriotism or love of borders is deemed racist. Teddy Roosevelt didn’t feel that way.


“We have room for but one flag, the American flag…we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”


Kellar was later approached and labeled racist for citing those remarks. All he said…and this is the controversy, is That’s good. If that’s what you think I am because I happen to believe in America, I’m a proud racist, you’re darn right I am. He was taking their definition of a racist and throwing it back in their face. But, the media being what it is, ran with this National Enquirer style, and now poor Bob is seen as a racist all over the country. That is until you see the context of the statement.


As everyone knows, screaming "racist!" in 21st century America is the equivalent of screaming "witch!" in Salem in the 1600's; it is an accusation for which there is no defense - to simply be charged is to be guilty.


The accused in this case is indeed a heretic, because multi-culturalism is a religion. Much like any other ultra-religious sect from the FLDS to the Taliban, multi-culturalism is a dogma which is unquestioned and robotically parroted as a self-evident good by its disciples. To even mention in passing that something might be wrong with this orthodoxy provokes absolute foaming-at-the-mouth retaliation, and, like a heretic under the Spanish Inquisition, that must person must be destroyed. No apology is ever enough, any attempt at explanation will fall on the deafest of ears.

If you still have a semblance of an open mind and want to actually see for yourself what Kellar said and make up your own mind (while it's still legal to do so), then watch the video.

Leftists like to believe that they are somehow cooler than the rest of us because they are not "brainwashed" by the doctrines of organized religion. They are of course a bunch of lying, hypocritical weasels... holding up multi-culturalism as deeply and unquestioningly as the most fervent religious zealot does for their deity-of-choice.

A commenter on the original article put it well...

This is what it has come to in America: if you believe that America is great and that we should protect her culture, you are a racist. If you think that people who come to this country should assimilate, you are a racists. Somehow it has become wrong to be nativist in nature. Believing that your country is the best country on earth is wrong? These people don’t get it and they never will.

I just signed up on Meg Whitman's page to make sure she gets an earful from someone she obviously feels she doesn't need to pander to. Wonder how many other "proud racists" she'll disavow (and how she thinks she'll become governor without us)?

Monday, January 25, 2010

Another One From The Vaults: Richard D. Lamm's "I Have a Plan to Destroy America"

Still feeling sick, so rather than think I thought I'd let someone else do the thinking.

This is a reprint of an old (well... 2005) speech from former Democratic Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm - given at a FAIR conference after Victor Davis
Hanson discussed his book, "Mexifornia."

As you read this, keep in mind that this writer is a
Democrat.




I have a secret plan to destroy America.

If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let's destroy America.

It is not that hard to do.

History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that "an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide."

Here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual/bicultural country. History shows ... that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. One scholar, Seymour Martin Lipset, put it this way: "The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon – all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France, faces difficulties with its Basques, Bretons and Corsicans.


2. I would then invent "multiculturalism" and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal: that there are no cultural differences that are important. I would declare it an article of faith that the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.


3. We can make the United States a "Hispanic Quebec" without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently, "The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved, not by tolerance, but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically, and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together." I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor. It is important to insure that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America reinforcing their differences, rather than Americans emphasizing their similarities.


4. Having done all this, I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated – I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50 percent dropout rate from school.


5. I would then get the big foundations and big business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was all the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.


6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would "celebrate diversity." "Diversity" is a wonderfully seductive word. It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other – that is, when they are not killing each other. A "diverse," peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia.


Look at the ancient Greeks. Dorf's "World History" tells us: "The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games in honor of Zeus, and all Greeks venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet, all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors ... [the] local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions." If we can put the emphasis on the "pluribus," instead of the "unum," we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo.


7. Then I would place all these subjects off-limits – make it taboo to talk about. I would find a word similar to "heretic" in the 16th century – that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like "racist", "xenophobe" halt argument and conversation. Having made America a bilingual-bicultural country, having established multiculturalism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of "victimology," I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra – "because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good." I would make every individual immigrant sympatric and ignore the cumulative impact.


8. Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson's book "Mexifornia" – this book is dangerous; it exposes my plan to destroy America. So please, please – if you feel that America deserves to be destroyed – please, please – don't buy this book! This guy is on to my plan.


"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and U.S. media and foreign policy critic.



Thursday, January 21, 2010

Voters in MA Speak... but is the Left Listening?

Agggghhh!!!! Too much happening too fast!!! And on top of it, I've been fighting an awful cold for the last two weeks which has really sapped me. I feel negligent in my blogging and feel like there's so much now to try to wrap my head around.

First of all, let's not overlook the positive; Scott Brown's victory in MA was a huge, huge win for the people of America. It has effectively (for the moment) put the brakes on the Obama march to Socialism, and may have stopped it for good (assuming Obama is not elected to a second term).

I'm loving watching the left try to spin this into something other than an utter catastrophe. Here's the SFGate's editorial, with larding done by me in bold...


Aftermath of the Massachusetts Vote

Now comes the big test for President Obama and the Democrats who control both houses of Congress. They no longer have enough votes to ram through a health care plan without Republican support - unless they are politically stupid enough to attempt it before Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass., is seated. Obama, for one, is too savvy for that. "The people of Massachusetts spoke ... he's got to be part of the process," Obama said Wednesday.

So, too, must other Republicans.


One of the many appealing themes of Obama's 2008 campaign was his promise to change the tone in Washington and to break the partisan gridlock that kept our elected representatives from finding common ground on big issues. In his first year of office, Obama veered from that pledge, partly because of heavy tugging from his liberal base and partly out of frustration with the utter refusal of many Republicans to allow him an inch of achievement (and partly because he never sought Republican input, and partly because he's an average corrupt Chicago-style politician and not some divine deity).


"If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., famously declared last summer. On Wednesday, DeMint suggested his call to arms helped rally a rebellion against the bill that reverberated in the election for the seat long held by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.


There are many competing interpretations of what caused this stunning turnabout in the bluest of states, but there was no question that an uneasiness with the Democrat-crafted health-care bills was at least a factor (even the SFGate can't spin that one!). Brown made his opposition a centerpiece of his campaign; Obama appealed to his supporters to keep his vision of universal coverage on track by electing Martha Coakley.


The packages before House-Senate conferees are easy to shoot at, and Brown fired away - from the sheer size and complexity of the plans to the inequities between states resulting from (the usual) sweetheart deals to win votes from holdout senators in Nebraska, Louisiana and other states. California is among the states on the short end; the bills' impact on Medicaid costs led Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pull his support (apparently Obama has not gotten the message yet that we're broke).


While polls show an unmistakable ambivalence, even anxiety, about the health-care reform plans pending in Congress, there remains a widespread agreement that the current system is broken. A rejection of the House and Senate versions, as expressed by Massachusetts voters, should not be taken as an endorsement of DeMint-style obstructionism. This issue is too important to abandon, as long as so many millions of Americans are without health care - and those that have it are paying far too much for it, and finding out they have less coverage than they think when they become sick.

(See... here is where the left loses it. Providing coverage for those without health care on the one hand, and containing costs, streamlining fine print, and insurance anti-trust issues on the other are DIFFERENT THINGS. The people want the latter, while Obama and the left are only concerned with the former. The left showed that it did not care how much it hurt the rest of the country as long as the people on the bottom got the same thing (for free). That is what pisses people off.


There is a word for what the left wants, and there is no two ways around it: it is Socialized Medicine - a Marxist approach to health care. And Americans by and large fucking hate Marxists and for very good reason. Because Marxists suck shit.)


The rising cost of health care is also having a negative effect on what Americans widely agree should be Washington's No. 1 concern: Jobs. (This is a red herring and everyone knows it. You don't create jobs by socializing medicine, capping emissions, or legalizing illegal aliens - you create jobs by letting people keep more of their money).

Obama was on the right track Wednesday when he advised lawmakers to "move quickly to coalesce around these elements in the package that people agree on" (which is what the stupid motherfuckers should have done in the first place!) The one-party approach, which created legislation bloated with (the usual) backroom deals, made it all too easy for Republicans to (very rightfully) attack. Congress should heed Obama's campaign words about the value of open and bipartisan decision making.

If Republicans want to maintain a solid wall of resistance against health care, an issue Americans clearly care about, the electorate's anger just might be directed at them next time.

Pah. You wish.

What the Republicans and Independents are trying to "maintain a solid wall against" is the Marx-ification of America.

Obstructionism is a bad thing only when what you're trying to stop isn't evil and designed to destroy the country.

If Obama and the Democrats want to keep power in November, then they need to stop being such Goddamn fucking Communists... realize that they live in a Capitalist Democratic Republic and not a burgeoning Third World Colony... and realize that they are fools if they think they can trick us into voting for our own deaths.

Okay... breathe, buddy...

All of that said... there are still ways for the Republicans to fuck this up.

Democrats have had some success in painting the GOP as too cozy with Wall Street and Big Business. They succeed in this largely because the GOP IS too cozy with Wall Street and Big Business. In my humble fucking opinion, if the Republicans really want to squander this great opportunity and make the Dems look good again, all they have to do is keep fighting against any form of financial regulation.

There are places to give and places to take, and this is the one issue where Republicans really must make some concessions.

Personally, I don't see what the damn problem is with the GOP. I have NO PROBLEM sticking it to the motherfucking banks and lenders - I think if there is one thing that everyone in America can agree on, it's that the financial sector are a bunch of fucking crooks. If the GOP wanted to show that they truly are on the side of the people, then they will get behind bank reform. Make them stop nickel and diming us to death with fees and loan-shark interest. This, in my opinion, would do far more to boost the economy than health care reform in any incarnation!

I gotta take a nap... I'll be back later...

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Ooh... wait... Was That An Earthquake???

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



(actually, feel free to not visit MSNBC... but I do thank them for this video.)

Brace yourselves, leftists... 2010 is going to be a very bumpy ride!

:)

Monday, January 18, 2010

San Fransanity's State of the Blog Address - 2010

San Fransanity has been plodding along for nearly three years now, and it has been quite an experience!

So I felt it was time to say thank you to all of my readers for your support and for giving this little shout in the dark a chance!


A few facts about San Fransanity: I started keeping webstats about 2 years ago. Since then, over 17,000 readers in 54 countries have checked in to see what's been happening in our little slice of hell! This blog has enjoyed concentrated readership in the Bay Area (of course), Los Angeles, Sacramento, the Eastern Seaboard, and (for some reason) Kansas. Internationally, the UK is our biggest (though still quite small) market, though we've received hits from (literally) all corners of the globe!

THANK YOU!

I will be instituting a few, minor changes to the blog in the coming weeks. Not to worry, the snarky sense of outrage will remain intact.

Firstly, the volume of spam I've been receiving lately has forced me to do something I've been avoiding, which is to moderate comments. Rest assured that I will
not censor any comment delivered here on any subject written by anyone that is not obviously spam. I want to encourage everyone to comment freely and ask questions on any subject, even if (especially if) you don't agree with me. It's the only way we'll learn. Spammers - go die.

Second, I am going to make an effort to tag my posts for subject matter so that you can go into the archives easily and retrieve similar posts.

Finally, I intend to go through the links list and try to make it a little easier to get around and find things. I want to put a particular emphasis on the upcoming November elections, with links to organizations and individuals that reflect our values and are working towards our goals.

This coming year promises to be an interesting one. My main areas of focus will be...

1) November elections: The 2010 elections cannot come a moment too soon. While this election offers great promise nationally, California is still too much of a one-party state to really expect major changes or improvements to the most dysfunctional state government in America - yet there are always ways to stop the bleeding.

First and foremost - it is imperative -
critical - to the soul of this state that criminal-loving race-hustler Kamala Harris NOT be elected to the office of State Attorney General.

I will be giving props, airtime, and links to any and all organizations working to make sure that the truth about Harris be exposed to all voters, and working to see that her political ambitions never stretch beyond the boundaries of San Francisco proper.

I will also try my best to keep up on the little things we can do to wrest this City back from the crazy motherfuckers who are doing their best to bury it. I will help any anti-progressive candidates in the City that I can, and publicize any proposition arguments that bring the City back to where it was before the batshit insane progressive trash ruined it.

2) The Coming Amnesty - Despite the fact that poll after poll has shown that the American people do not want amnesty for illegal aliens, it is an
iron-clad guarantee that amnesty will rise from the dead in 2011, if not sooner. In fact, if the Dems rush a Health Care bill through (and this depends a lot on the outcome of the Mass. Senate race on Tuesday), we could see an amnesty bill by this summer! Now, I and others think that this is unlikely, but it never hurts to be prepared.

The racial pressure groups like La Raza and MALDEF are putting the screws to the Obama administration, and it is a sure thing that we will have to protect this country yet again from those who would sell us out.

But we've done it before. We have the numbers. We have the will. And we have the momentum. And we will stop it again. It won't be easy, especially with the motherfucking mass media firmly in the open-borders camp. But we can do it. What choice do we have?

Again, thank you so much for dropping by. Here's hoping that this coming year brings you all that you strive for, and that health, happiness, and prosperity bless us all.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Where Every Season is the Season of Sacrifice

From Bill Wilson at ALG (emphasis mine)...


Recently reading a left-wing blog, I came across this lament. It is striking in that it conveys clearly the nature of the battle that is brewing throughout America. The blogger who goes by the handle of “Teacherken” wrote:


“Unless and until we can accept – even actively embrace – the idea of shared sacrifice and collective responsibility, unless and until we understand that we cannot hold on to some things we value in isolation from those we know have to change, we will not be able to make the kinds of changes we need to survive as a liberal democracy.”


Where to start? First, and most important, is the fact that America was never intended to be a “liberal democracy.” From Day One, we were a constitutional Republic. What’s the difference you say? A very big one.


The “liberal democracy” our friend so desperately wants, throws everyone into a pot and dictates government policy on the whims of a scant majority. As virtually all the founders observed, such a form of government means that a majority bands together to take from the minority.


Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best when he wrote:


“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb.”


The constitutional Republic our founders gave us was based on the rights of the individual. Government was restricted, in Jefferson’s words “chained down.” But thanks to people like the good Teacherken, those chains have been broken and the voracious beast that government easily becomes is now prowling the countryside looking for victims.


This condition didn’t come out of the blue, it was predicted. Vice President and Senator John Calhoun saw our current state of affairs very clearly 150 years ago when he wrote:


“To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws.”


The second point that Teacherken’s plea makes is one of collectivism. We are implored to take “collective responsibility” and accept “shared sacrifice.” But nowhere in our founding documents are we as a people or a nation submerged into the rancid stew of one big mass. Individual liberty was the watchword and is the goal to which we must now aspire.


Who in Teacherken’s and Barack Obama’s world decides what our sacrifice should be? The majority of course. But that very same majority is comprised of the two wolves looking at the lamb for dinner. That is not “sacrifice,” it is murder. History is replete with examples. The small private farmers of 1930s Russia “shared the sacrifice” of the late, great collective experience and millions were turned into fertilizer. Of course, let’s not forget the “sacrifice” of anyone with more than a grade school education in China during their “Cultural Revolution,” a bloody, mind-numbing plunge into collective hell.


What is “collective responsibility” anyway? First, one must decide what the collective is supposed to be responsible for. If you assume the writer means the welfare of all citizens, then we have destroyed any semblance of individual responsibility. That is a well-worn path to destruction. People, at their most basic level, must be responsible for themselves. Otherwise, they become dependent children. Programs originally designed to “help people get on their feet” have now become programs to enslave. The original goal of so-called welfare state was to get people to be self-reliant. Government and its defenders no longer even pretend they want to see individual self-reliance. The goal now is pure handouts, giveaways, and dependency.


At its core, the differences between Teacherken and his allies, versus those who embrace a constitutional view, is the way in which each views people. How one regards the average citizen, determines which side of this epic struggle he or she falls.


For Teacherken and most of the Democrat Congress and Barack Obama, people are weak, needy and unable to care for themselves. They are pathetic creatures requiring the hand of government to care for them. They are dependent children. Were it not so, the trillions of dollars in welfare spending taken from taxpayers and distributed to those in need would have had a dramatic affect.


But alas, all the spending, all the social engineering, all the authoritarian intrusion into people’s lives has only yielded more need, more demand in their world for more government.


In short, they have forced Americans to subsidize poverty, illness, ignorance, and sloth and have simply gotten more of it. In so doing, they have created the perfect self-perpetuating cycle where more negativity justifies more subsidies, which only produces more negativity.


There is another view of mankind, a view our Founders held, and tens of millions of Americans still hold. It is a view that people are free, independent individuals, capable of governing themselves, making decisions that affect their lives on their own without the dictates of bureaucrats or the “collective” and willing to live with the consequences of those decisions.


As free men and women, they are capable of deciding for themselves how best to use their time, talent and resources. They are answerable for their acts and should reap the rewards of their labors. No busybody need tell them how to live their life. And if they make decisions that I or Teacherken or Barack Obama doesn’t like, too damn bad. It’s called freedom.


This fundamental conflicting view of people motivates the differing views of the increasingly polarized camps. The outcome of the fight will determine if the American people can restore liberty or sink into the swamp of world government known primarily for “shared sacrifice.”


Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government and a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

The True Meaning of Kwanzaa

An oldie but goody from Kathy Shaidle at Amren....


Earlier this season, countless schools and households celebrated Kwanzaa. They lit black, red and green candles (for black skin, red blood, and the green hills of Africa), and sang songs about the festival’s “seven principles,” such as faith, unity and creativity. Already big among blacks in the United States, Kwanzaa is catching on in Canada, too. Held each year from December 26 until January 2, Kwanzaa is increasingly seen as an appropriate multicultural alternative to Christmas, a holiday considered too religious and “Eurocentric” for public schools. But there is one not-so-insignificant problem with Kwanzaa. While many teachers believe it is an ancient African harvest festival, it was not born in pre-colonial West Africa, but in 1960s southern California. It is the brainchild of African-American radical activist, academic and convicted felon Ron Karenga.


In 1969, two rival radical groups were battling for control of the UCLA black studies program: the Black Panthers and the lesser-known US, or United Slaves, led by Mr. Karenga. Both groups sauntered around campus carrying loaded guns. Perhaps inevitably, violence erupted. As David Horowitz recalls in Radical Son, Black Panther John Higgins was “murdered—along with Al ‘Bunchy’ Carter—on the UCLA campus by members of Ron Karenga’s organization.” After the killing, the FBI infiltrated both groups, and the United Slaves turned to fighting “enemies within.” The result: two female members were tortured by their “comrades” in May, 1970. Both alledge Mr. Karenga ordered and participated in their assaults.


In 1999, writer Paul Mulshine published his research into Karenga’s violent past on FrontPageMagazine. Mr. Mulshine found a May 14, 1971, Los Angeles Times report of the victims’ testimony, which read: “The victims said they were living at Karenga’s home when Karenga accused them of trying to [poison] him. . . . When they denied it, allegedly they were beaten with an electrical cord and a hot soldering iron was put in [one victim’s] mouth and against her face. Police were told that one of [the other victim’s] toes was placed in a small vise which was allegedly tightened by one of the defendants. The following day . . . Karenga, holding a gun, threatened to shoot both of them.”


Convicted of felonious assault and false imprisonment, Mr. Karenga was sentenced in 1971 to up to 10 years in prison. “A brief account of the sentencing ran in several newspapers the following day,” Mr. Mulshine writes. “That was apparently the last newspaper article to mention Karenga’s unfortunate habit of doing unspeakable things to black people. After that, the only coverage came from the hundreds of news accounts that depict him as the wonderful man who invented Kwanzaa.” Shortly after his release from prison in 1975, Mr. Karenga (now armed, not with a pistol, but a doctorate) took over the black studies department at California State University, Long Beach, which he runs to this day.


And what about Kwanzaa? The festival’s seven days commemorate allegedly “traditional African” principles, such as “collective work” and “cooperative economics,” each referred to by a Swahili name. “Why did Karenga use Swahili words for his fictional African feast?” asks Mr. Mulshine. “American Blacks are primarily descended from people who came from Ghana and other parts of West Africa. Kenya and Tanzania—where Swahili is spoken—are thousands of miles away. This makes about as much sense as having Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by speaking Polish.” And why would Mr. Karenga schedule a harvest festival near the winter solstice, “a season when few fruits or vegetables are harvested anywhere?”


This month, the religious satire magazine The Door likewise questioned Kwanzaa’s authenticity. “Karenga cobbled together a mishmash of different traditions and languages and blended them with Marxist ideas to reflect a unified African culture that doesn’t exist anywhere,” it reported. Ujamaa, or “cooperative economics”—one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa—is the term the socialist leader of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, used for his disastrous policy of putting tens of thousands of Tanzanians on collective farms.


“People think it’s African, but it’s not,” admitted Karenga in a 1978 Washington Post interview. “I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of ‘bloods’ [Blacks] would be partying.”






Warning: Not for Minors - it's THAT funny!