Like Judge Thurgood Marshall before her, we have an American Descendant of Slavery (ADOS) who's not ashamed of that fact -- SITTING ON THE HIGHEST COURT IN THE LAND! And no, Clarence Thomas doesn't share in those honorifics because though he is ADOS from Pinpoint, GA -- he's apparently ashamed of that, given his disrespect for Black women like Anita Hill, his rigidly conservative views and rulings on cases that come before him involving not only us, but other people of color. {SMDH}
I'll be adding SCOTUSBlog to my list of blogs to follow just so I can keep up with what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is doing. And, good or bad -- I will have thoughts!
With the backing and support from a host of supporters, Mr. Brown dug in his heels, trying to fight off the jackboots trying to take his daughter away from him. Together with the Native American Fund, he immediatelyfiled a request to the U.S. Supreme Court for a postponement of the S.C. Supreme Court ruling -- at least until a "best interests of the child" hearing, covering the time Veronica has lived with him, could be held.
But after learning two disturbing pieces of information from Suzette Brewer's afore-linked piece (Suzette, thanks so much for your in-depth reporting on his case -- without your tenacity, the "other side of this story" would have never seen the light of day!), I could see the under-belly of power and privilege beginning to rear its corruptible head. I learned that:
1) Chief Justice John Roberts, an adoptive parent himself who sided with the majority against Brown, oversees emergency petitions for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes South Carolina.
2) Sources in Washington have pointed out that Alvino McGill's role in Adoptive Couple is more than that of a spokesperson for Christy Maldonado. As it turns out, Chief Justice Roberts and former solicitor general Ted Olson, both of whom sided with the Capobiancos, attended Ms. Alvino McGill's 2006 wedding to Matthew McGill who, coincidentally, was a clerk for John Roberts in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore, given the cozy nature and small world influence in the Capitol's legal circles, observers say it was no surprise when Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl was granted petition of certiorari in January. (emphasis mine)
“Dusten Brown never had a chance,” said the source. “His biggest sin was that he got on the wrong side of the billion dollar U.S. adoption industry and he was winning. [The Supreme Court] knew this when they took cert on this case, otherwise, why would they bother with a custody dispute that should have been nipped in the bud four years ago?... But it is a system that was stacked against him from the beginning.
Come on people, there are obviously no coincidences here. And while the first is not a good sign for Mr. Brown (Roberts wouldn't be the only "Supreme" making the final decision) -- the second is quite simply foreboding. I don't know about you, but it's clear as day to me -- that plenty in this milk ain't clean (pun intended)! If you don't see it, it's because you don't want to. But let me help you. No sooner had the Capobiancos filed their answer to Mr. Brown's request, did this happen: Challenge to child’s adoption fails. Yep, in no time flat, the Roberts-led court, in their hubris, issued this 3-sentence decision:
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2013
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
13A115 BIRTH FATHER, ET AL. V. ADOPTIVE COUPLE, ET AL.
The application for stay of judgment presented to The Chief
Justice and by him referred to the Court is denied. The motion of the Guardian ad Litem for leave to file a response with exhibits under seal with redacted copies for the public record is granted.
Justice Ginsburg and Justice Sotomayor would grant the application for stay.
As I told you in Pt. 1b, Mr. Brown is again deployed for 30 days of National Guard training as of July 23. However, on Sunday, August 4, the Capobiancos were supposed to have had a court-ordered visit with Mr. Brown and his child (apparently scheduled before the final ruling came down). Understandably, because he was working out of town in Iowa, he didn't show up.
In preparation for his training duty, Mr. Brown had signed over his rights to his wife and parents, anticipating, I'm certain, either the Oklahoma courts would block the physical transfer of the child to South Carolina (he and his family have until August 23 to request a hearing which is two days after his training is over) or, that their already scheduled hearing in tribal court on September 3 would result in a successful challenge to South Carolina's jurisdiction over a case involving a Cherokee child.
Well, according to this piece in the Charleston CityPaper -- by Monday morning, the "mob" had begun circling their wagons in earnest around theirwhite woman's tears:
A Charleston judge on Monday ordered the immediate transfer of 3-year-old Veronica to her adoptive parents and called for action from state and federal authorities after the girl’s birth father failed to appear for a court-ordered visit the day before.
The decree by Family Court Judge Daniel Martin suspended a transition plan intended to gradually re-introduce the toddler to Matt and Melanie Capobianco of James Island. It also requests assistance from Dusten Brown’s commanding officer as he finishes a 30-day training mission with the Army National Guard ... (emphasis mine)
Though I'm hearing faint strains of "urging for calm" in his last sentence below, on the first, I wholeheartedly agree:
As much as we here in Charleston fail to recognize it, for the Cherokee Nation this is a racial issue and the recent court orders bring up memories of decades upon decades of mistreatment at the hands of the white man. Here's hoping that outrage doesn't manifest in some truly horrible manner. (emphasis mine)
Before a South Carolina judge demanded that she be returned "immediately," Baby Veronica's biological father, Dusten Brown, offered to share custody with her adoptive parents...Brown said the offer would have let Veronica spend summers and holidays in Charleston, where she lived with Matt and Melanie Capobianco for the first two years of her life. The rest of the time, she would have stayed with her biological family in Nowata, an hour north of Tulsa. (emphasis mine)
Smelling blood in the water, the sharks Capobiancos bare their very well-funded, politically connected teeth and declined, saying:
"After all this time, the begging and the pleading we did, we never got to see her," Melanie Capobianco said Wednesday in an interview with Charleston's Post and Courier.
"Now that we were at the point where they knew the adoption would go through, they offered this as if they've been thoughtful and considerate to us all along."
"Pssst, Hey Melanie -- they had no reason,whatsoever to be "thoughtful and considerate to you all along." First, you conspired with the birth mother and The Christian NightLife Adoption agency to BUY his child; then, you hired a PR firm, to make him look like an unfit parent when you couldn't keep her, even though he's been fighting for her since she was four months-old; then, you called inyour white-privileged favors to doggedly pursue him in the courts (and either arranged for, if not paid for, Ms. Maldonado to do the same)-- all over a child that carries his DNA, not yours! Do you see where I'm going here?
No? Well let me help you. That you are barren is most regrettable -- but that does not give you a right to this man's flesh and blood, particularly since he wants, and is taking care of his child. Your fight is with Ms. Maldonado. Sue her for lying misrepresentation! Oh, I forgot. Aside from the fact you've spent all this money to facilitate this "sale" -- you were in on the lie too! Kinda bars you from any recovery on that end, I would think. But who knows? You do, after all, have quite the cadre of judicial and legislative henchmen in your pocket on your side! Stranger things have happened!"
So, in order to not look unreasonable (though they've been nothing but unreasonable over this man's child from day one) here's their counter-offer:
"But the Capobiancos said they' re still committed to allowing the Browns to play a role in the girl's life - if they honor the adoption order."
The Browns are skeptical, saying the adoptive parents have never offered joint custody or visitation rights in a way that would be legally binding, the Browns said.
The arrogance of these people just "makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands!" Interesting to watch the flexing though, now that the ball's mainly in their court, no? If I were the Browns, I'd be skeptical too.
Below, Mr. Brown's parents and wife explain their skepticism with emotions that run the gamut (and no, before anybody throws up the "she's white too" strawman -- she is not counted as one of "their" white women because first of all, she's a "race traitor" who stooped to marry "one of them." Secondly, she's speaking up against them, for "the enemy" (You can pretend these dynamics aren't in play here, but I won't):
"Civility, in the face of such intellectual dishonesty, is counterproductive in the defense of liberty ... for it grants the dishonesty the false appearance of legitimacy"
I cannot, for the life of me, remember to whom that quote should be attributed, but I've never forgotten it. But t's so apropos for this situation though, because I am just undone, and so tired of the way this society talks out of both sides of its mouth, with both conversations painting the "hunter" as some, "White Knight," riding in to save the day -- theyarenot. They are opportunists -- always coveting what is not theirs and alwaysmisappropriating what they cannot create (and yes, Mrs. Capobianco, I'm talking about you there).
On the one hand, in 1978, the ubiquitous "they," in a weak defense of their barbaric inhumanity said:
We know that your children have been disproportionately taken from you (with the willing assistance of Christian, church folk) -- not only because, as Bill Means of AIM stated, "because there was a very, shall we say, stereotypical image that Indian children were neither black nor white, therefore, they were most desirable," but because the Missus couldn't create an heir for the Mister" -- but it got out of hand. So, after all we've taken from you, and all you've given us, theleast we can do, is leave you your children."
Now, post-1978, they say:
"Yeah, we know we initially said you have a right to your children (as if they, according to the laws of the universe, have a right to grant such a thing in the first place. Oops! Forgot their made-up, white supremacist, "Manifest Destiny" madness!) -- but what we meant was -- only when and how we say so.
"And since you chose not to follow those parameters, Mr. Brown, we intend to put the full weight and force of our state and federal, politically connected, well-funded power on your neck to make you remember who's actually running things -- even though you're a member of a "sovereign" Nation. I'm tellin' you folks, you just can't make this stuff up! -- Baby Veronica's biological father faces arrest after failing to return her to South Carolina 'immediately':
Nearly 500 miles from his daughter, Baby Veronica's biological father could be arrested Sunday morning when he reports back to duty at a military base in Johnston, Iowa.
The warrant came from even farther away - 1,100 miles east in Charleston, S.C., where a Family Court judge is trying to force Veronica's return to her adoptive parents.
Officials issued an arrest warrant Friday after Dusten Brown failed to meet the judge's order to bring his 3-year-old daughter to South Carolina "immediately."
He lives in Nowata, an hour north of Tulsa, but was in Johnston, Iowa, for a month of training with his Oklahoma National Guard unit.
He was off duty Saturday, spending the day at a hotel with his wife, Robin Brown. But commanders told him they can't prevent local authorities from taking him into custody when he returns to the base, she said.
A South Carolina official described the warrant as "checkmate," likely to end an epic custody battle that started when Veronica was 4 months old.
And wasting no time at all -- the jackboots landed. Now, they knew exactly where he was and what he was doing. So aside from flexing, their obvious intent is to not only humiliate him (even as he's serving this damned country on duty!), but to put his income in jeopardy. It appears too, that Judge Martin's request for "assistance from Dusten Brown’s commanding officer"was heard loud and clear and, given the snide "checkmate" comment, I think we can all agree with Robin Brown -- for the Capobiancos, it's all about winning." I don't know about you, but I sure feel that heel grinding deeper into his neck.
~#~#~#~
A brief aside:
Commenter D. Hammond - Phoenix, AR posted this comment on the above-linked piece:
The presiding SC judge who issued this order is Daniel Martin. He is a reputable higher court judge who specializes in family law. If you remember, the Native American Rights Fund filed a civil suit last week naming Judge Martin as defendant. The suit says that Martin denied Veronica a "best interest" hearing. I wonder if Martin is strong arming because he is angry with NARF and the Cherokee Nation for challenging his power.
And Sandy Macauley - Tahlequah responded:
He should remove himself from this case since he is a named defendant in the NARF case
A weekend of high tension surrounding the custody fight over Baby Veronica culminated in a Monday press conference called by Matt and Melanie Capobianco, vowing that without action from state and federal law enforcement, Matt would board a plane and pick up the three-year old that a Charleston County court has said belongs with his family...
...In front of a neighborhood gazebo near the Capobiancos house this morning, Matt and Melanie issued a plea to law enforcement involved in the case, asking "Where are you?" wiping away tears as they explained their anxiety over the girl's safety, saying their daughter "has been kidnapped." In an interview with the South Carolina Radio Network, Melanie said, "We've tried to work so hard to make this a smooth transition," saying that she thought the Browns were "using our kindness against us." Via an emailed statement this morning, the Capobiancos' spokesperson Jessica Munday called it "outrageous that nothing is being done to bring this child home to her legal parents" after two and a half days, "Where's the Amber Alert?" she said. Though the Capobiancos say they are reluctant to take matters into their own hands, Matt Capobianco said today that he would fly to Oklahoma himself, lamenting efforts to abide by legal channels throughout the process over the past two years, telling his daughter, "Veronica, little stinker, daddy's coming."
People, please go to that link and watch that video -- it is quite the performance. It turned my stomach so badly, I just couldn't post it.
I won't editorialize on it too much, but I just have to point to a few things that stick out for me. Replete with the obligatory crocodile tears, and melodramatic flourish, they turn this latest development into a "kidnapping" (classic, "paint the Other" as dangerous brute behavior -- the child's with her family!); then they start with finger-shaking at the "authorities" for waiting so long to bring the child back (it'd been two days); then, rolling out the, "we fear for her safety" apparition again, they throw out the veiled threat that, "if anything happens to her there will be enough responsibility to go around"; then they trot out their PR person who keeps the false, "he abandoned her" meme going strong while she calls for, of all things, an Amber Alert! Family, this absolutely reeks of white privilege run amok.
The father of a Cherokee Indian girl at the center of an adoption dispute turned
Mugshot from Sequoyah Sheriff's Office
himself in to authorities Monday but refused extradition to South Carolina, further complicating a case that raises questions about jurisdictions and a federal law meant to keep members of Native American tribes together.
Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was charged over the weekend with custodial interference after failing to appear at a court-ordered meeting in South Carolina, where the adoptive parents live. He turned himself in about 10 a.m. Monday in Sequoyah County in far eastern Oklahoma and paid bond, Sheriff Ron Lockhart said.
But Brown refused extradition without a governor's warrant from South Carolina.
This is "in the best interests of the child?" This is the country for which Mr. Brown dons that uniform he's wearing. {smdh}. Check out the video below and see these two families side-by-side. Listen to the very Deep South narrative floating on the surface of it all ("a little-known Federal law??" -- Please).
Mr. Brown, hold fast young man. I salute you for your fight and I stand in solidarity with you and your family. That little "mirror" named Veronica that you hold in your arms is yours, no matter the "things" they can give her. When all is said and done and your daughter revisits her life, laid bare on the internet -- she'll swell with pride knowing her Daddy did everything he knew how to do to keep her in his life. And the Capobiancos won't be able to dispute any of it. And since he refused extradition without a governor's warrant, according to this, Governor Nikki Haley (she, the child of Sikh immigrants born in Bamberg, SC) immediately drew one up and overnighted it to Oklahoma!
This man is battling so many of their "friends in high places" -- I don't know how he's not buckled under the pressure. {smdh} Stay tuned folks -- the wheels are spinning fast and furiously on this case and I want to make sure as many "voices" as possible are heard as it develops.
In a 3-to-2 decision, South Carolina’s Supreme Court has ruled that the Native child whose case went to the US Supreme Court will be placed back with the white family that sought to adopt her.
In its ruling, the US Supreme Court held that Dusten Brown, and his daughter, Baby Veronica—who are both citizens of the Cherokee Nation—were essentially not protected under the Indian Child Welfare Act. As such, the case was bounced back to the South Carolina court. After the ruling, Brown ironically attempted to adopt his own daughter in Oklahoma, since the high court didn’t recognize his rights as a parent. But Oklahoma declined to hear the petition, claiming that South Carolina retained exclusive jurisdiction of the case, since that was where the potential adoptive parents resided.
The South Carolina court agreed Wednesday to terminate Brown’s parental rights, ruling against him and Cherokee Nation. The ruling means that Matt and Melanie Capobianco,the white couple that sought to adopt Veronica, will now regain custody and finalize the adoption. (emphasis mine)
Before I launch into my feelings about the "taking" to which I referred here, I just have to own, that my initial, sizing-up of Justice Sonia Sotomayor appears to have been a little hasty.
After the Changeling nominated her and then, had his puppy-dog underlings very publicly check her on her "wise Latina" comment and she acquiesced, saying it was a "poor choice of words" -- I thought, "No need to expect anything but the company line from her." But it seems that, rather than taking a page from the Changeling's book, pretending to be wise and actually standing for something (other than himself and the string-pullers), once selected -- she actually was wise, doing what my mother taught us regarding the whole, "integration" illusion. Dana Lone Hill succinctly reiterates that lesson in her First Nations, White Privilege & the Red Struggle post:
“I will follow the white man’s trail. I will make him my friend, but I will not bend my back to his burdens. I will be cunning as a coyote. I will ask him to help me understand his ways, then I will prepare the way for my children, and their children. The Great Spirit has shown me – a day will come when they will outrun the white man in his own shoes.”
Tasunke Ota, Oglala Lakota
After reading her absolutely, stingingdissent (scroll down 3/4 of the way down to read it in its entirety), I've come to realize that unlike the Changeling, once she was selected, she refused to bend her back to their burdens and instead, she used that "trail" for someserious truth-telling. Below, she lays out an excellent primer in how she learned to "understand" their ways and,"outrun the white man in his own shoes," skewering what Pascal Robert describes here, as the "Politics of Redemption" --
...The reader’s first clue that the majority’s supposedly straightforward reasoning is flawed is that not all Members who adopt its interpretation believe it is compelled by the text of the statute, see ante, at 1 (THOMAS, J., concurring); nor are they all willing to accept the consequences it will necessarily have beyond the specific factual scenario confronted here, see ante, at 1 (BREYER, J., concurring). The second clue is that the majority begins its analysis by plucking out of context a single phrase from the last clause of the last subsection of the relevant provision, and then builds its entire argument upon it. That is not how we ordinarily read statutes. The third clue is that the majority openly professes its aversion to Congress’ explicitly stated purpose in enacting the statute. The majority expresses concern that reading the Act to mean what it says will make it more difficult to place Indian children in adoptive homes, see ante, at 14, 16, but the Congress that enacted the statute announced its intent to stop “an alarmingly high percentage of Indian families [from being] broken up” by, among other things, a trend of “plac[ing] [Indian children] in non-Indian . . . adoptive homes.” 25 U.S.C.§1901(4). Policy disagreement with Congress’ judgment is not a valid reason for this Court to distort the provisions of the Act. Unlike the majority, I cannot adopt a reading of ICWAthat is contrary to both its text and its stated purpose. I respectfully dissent. (emphasis mine)
Certainly far more "respectful" than I could've been under the circumstances (being "respectful" in the face of disrespect is counterintuitive to me -- particularly when the constant onslaught of microaggressions and overt racism are in play). She continued:
ICWA commences with express findings. Congress recogonized that “there is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children,” 25 U. S. C. §1901(3), and it found that this resource was threatened. State authorities insufficiently sensitive to “the essential tribal relations of Indian people and the cultural and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and families” were breaking up Indian families and moving Indian children to non-Indian homes and institutions. See §§1901(4)–(5). As §1901(4) makes clear, and as this Court recognized in Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490 U. S. 30, 33 (1989), adoptive placements of Indian children with non-Indian families contributed significantly to the overall problem. (emphasis mine)
Working back to front, the majority then concludes that §1912(d), tainted by its association with §1912(f ), is also inapplicable; in the majority’s view, a family bond that does not take custodial form is not a family bond worth preserving from “breakup.” Because there are apparently no limits on the contaminating power of this single phrase, the majority does not stop there. Under its reading, §1903(9), which makes biological fathers “parent[s]” under this federal statute (and where, again, the phrase “continued custody” does not appear), has substantive force only when a birth father has physical or state-recognized legal custody of his daughter.
When it excludes noncustodial biological fathers from the Act’s substantive protections, this textually backward reading misapprehends ICWA’s structure and scope. Moreover, notwithstanding the majority’s focus on the perceived parental shortcomings of Birth Father, its reasoning necessarily extends to all Indian parents who have never had custody of their children, no matter how fully those parents have embraced the financial and emotional responsibilities of parenting. The majority thereby transforms a statute that was intended to provide uniform federal standards for child custody proceedings involving Indian children and their biological parents into an illogical piecemeal scheme. (emphasis mine)
The hypocrisy of this "scheme" is egregious, and veers dangerously close to the approval of child trafficking, if the "buyer"is white, and has enough money -- and the Capobiancos obviously fit both those requirements. From the birth mother and her attorney (hired and paid for by the Capobiancos), to the agency handling the "adoption," to the faux adoptive parents and their attorney -- this case stinks of spiteful baby-selling. The majority's wholesale acceptance of their"facts," despite evidence to the contrary, makes them complicit in the crime.
The birth mother, about whom I chose to exercise some restraint in my first post, should be ashamed. There's no doubt she got a boat-load of cash -- up to, and after the birth -- now she says, if the Capobiancos don't get Veronica, she will fight the termination of her parental rights (given up at her birth) if the couple’s adoption doesn’t go through. À mi hermana morena, I say -- thisis all you were ever about:
Though this case is primarily about Native American, biological fathers, it should send chills up the spines of any ethnicity of biological fathers, whom the haves routinely denigrate as "not wanting to take care of their own children" -- including their own.
Justice Scalia, joining Justice Sotomayor's dissent, makes plain the majority's hypocrisy saying:
While I am at it, I will add one thought. The Court’s opinion, it seems to me, needlessly demeans the rights of parenthood. It has been the constant practice of the common law to respect the entitlement of those who bring a child into the world to raise that child. We do not inquire whether leaving a child with his parents is “in the best interest of the child.” It sometimes is not; he would be better off raised by someone else. But parents have their rights, no less than children do. This father wants to raise his daughter, and the statute amply protects his right to do so. There is no reason in law or policy to dilute that protection. (emphasis mine)
And the majority's not alone in being hypocritical about this issue, our society is as well. For all the talk in society about fathers not wanting to take care of their children, here we have a father who wanted to marry the mother of his child and live as a family -- fighting to do just that! But Capobianco supporters rally around their "right" to this man's flesh and blood, while most of American society pays no attention. Where's the flood of support for Mr. Brown? Is society only interested in the perceived "rights" of the haves? This is not their child!!!
I'd been seeing commercials for three upcoming episodes of Oprah's Lifeclass on "Fatherless Sons" and "Daddyless Daughters." In it, she's crowing about, "I'm so glad we started this discussion!" Please. She may have started that discussion on OWN, but it's been going on long before then (guess you can tell, just like Obama-love, I'm not awash in Oprah-love either -- and for a lot of the same reasons). I do, however, like and respect the opinions of Iyanla Vanzant. As I think about this little girl, this one rings particularly true:
“What is it that would make a creature as fierce, majestic and powerful as a lion is, subject itself to the intimidation of a man a whip and a chair? The lion has been taught to forget what it is.”
― Iyanla Vanzant, Peace from Broken Pieces
I watched the "Daddyless Daughters" episode last weekend and it was interesting to hear how her opinions stacked up against the trauma being inflicted on this child by the Masters degree and PhD in Developmental Psychology-havin', faux adoptive mother, who develops therapy programs for children with behavior problems and their families! {smdh} I wonder how Miss "O" and her team would spin what is happening to Veronicaand her DADDY?Look at the photo that introduces this post. That child is a mirror of her father! Do you think she won't know that the white man, who makes hay of cutting her umbilical cord isnot her father? What LIES will they tell her when she asks (and she will ask!) about her "real" family and why she doesn't look like EITHEROFTHEM (Money talks, and bullshit walks is all I can think of right now)?!
As the case was kicked back to a South Carolina Court, where this sham adoption was already denied by the Family Court and then affirmed by the State Supreme Court, I just couldn't shake their continued, We want what we paid for protestations. I never believed they cared a whit about "the best interests" of this child. In this local Post & Courier piece, they tell the reporter -- "Their worst fear was making it harder for other families to adopt!" And the more I read, the more obvious their motives become:
The Capobiancos realize that Veronica might call someone else Mommy and Daddy. But they know Veronica still remembers her first home.
In her room, the bed she once slept on is still set up as a crib. Matt Capobianco kneaded the arm of a padded chair tucked in the corner.
“When she couldn’t sleep, I would read to her in this chair,” he said. “Now when we come in here, it’s mostly just to run the vacuum.”
If Veronica returns, the couple thinks she’ll remember allofthis — the Himalayan cat ZuZu, her toy grocery cart, the Santa, snowflake and candy cane stickers she adhered to a leg of the dining room table during the Christmas just before she left...
...Brown doesn’t want anything to change.
He, his wife, Robin, and Veronica vacationed in Branson, Mo., this weekend. But Brown thinks Oklahoma is where his daughter belongs.
It’s where she dons a traditional dress, dances, sings and bangs on a drum. She’s learning the language used in Brown’s Cherokee Nation.
It’s where she rides a Jet Ski with Brown and learns to doggy-paddle in a pool.
It’s where the pets she helped name — Cookie and Chip the guinea pigs, Cowboy and Boogers the dogs — mosey through the yard (emphasis mine)
Now it could just be me, but with the exception of Mr. Capobianco saying he read to her at night, those two descriptions of Veronica's life, B.A. (Before Alito) and A.A. (After Alito) -- seemed all they ever had to offer Veronica were, THINGS -- bearing out Justice Sotomayor's most important statement in her dissent:
“We must remember that the purpose of an adoption is to provide a home for a child, not a child for a home.”
Coming home from the schools and the cities and the milatary (sic) services the Indians of the new generation loom larger in their own self-esteem. It is this contagious pride that they have brought back with them to the reservations. Moreover, they now know more than merely how to speak the language of the conquerors. They know how to speak it in a way that the white man knows how to listen to. And it is this, their articulate voices, in swinging and university-toned English, which they have brought to the tribal elders, that more than anything else has scaled down the size of the unmountable mountain.
The effect of this change on the Cherokees of Oklahoma was told by Clyde Warrior: 'The unrest and resentment has always exsisted through all the age groups of Indians. But the elders did not think anything could be done.
"Now they have young people coming home who are somewhat verbal [in English], who have some knowledge of how the mechanics of government and American institutions work. They have begun to utilize these rebellious young people. It's a kind of happy meeting of elders, with power in the community, and these young people who have some idea of how urban America works."
In this way the young Indians are becoming the spokesmen for the unspoken thoughts of their fathers. So many things unsaid and uncommunicated for years have begun to be voiced with that "vehemence" and that "expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous, and bold" eloquence that James Adair heard two hundred years ago.
And yet the white man, long soothed by the seemingly supplicant and seemingly stoic Indian, is reluctant to give up that comforting image. He prefers, of course, not to listen.
The tribal Indians are undergoing so intense and complex a process of rediscovery of their beliefs and strengths that they do not know how to make their voices heard. Nor do they know what to say. Young Vine Deloria, Jr., of the National Congress of American Indians, thought his own path of self-discovery that had led through two universities and governmental offices and Congressional hearings and national politics was not atypical.
His path "was just a little longer," Deloria, Jr., said: "In the college where I went there was a professor who had just discovered the 'crisis of identity.' He would sit in seminars and ask us: 'Do you have this "crisis of identity"?' What he meant was, 'Do you have a crisis in identifying with the mainstream of my way of life?' He should never have asked that question!
"There were a number of us, young Indians, who thought about it and discovered that we did not identify with his way of life. We identified with our Indian way of life.
As will "Veronica." I'm certain Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation will stop at nothing to curtail "The Taking" -- and they should not. This child belongs with her father and if that does not happen, she will forever be a "Daddyless Daughter" -- I don't care how much money the child-trafficking Capobiancos have.
Before delving into that very eye-opening trip back home that I mentioned in the previous post, I thought I'd share some ruminations first. Your two cents are more than welcome!
~#~#~#~
"Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes."
Antonin Scalia
Now see, if the Black Misleadership Class (BMC) had been on their job for all these years they've been supposedly -- leading, Young Ben over at the NAACP wouldn't have been sending out solicitations for cash (which is where I got that Scalia quote from), or petitions at the 13th hour trying to get folk "to stand with the NAACP to say that voting is a right, not an entitlement." I mean it's not like they didn't know this shit was coming before the Supreme Court this year. Hell, the case is Shelby County, Alabama , Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General, et al!! And the et al, wait for it -- includes the damned NAACP! And I won't even mention the number of amicus briefs filed by CBC members, to include Rep. John Lewis. {smdh}
Do follow the chronology of Shelby Co. v. Holder here, and then tell me why the BMC sat on their damned hands all this time. Too busy screaming about how racist the Republicans have been treating the poor Changeling I guess (as if any of that's a damned surprise). Or in the case of Young Ben, too busy "seminar-cruising to Canada and New England" aboard The Nation Magazine's, "floating palace of populism." His photo's not yet among the rest of the alabaster brethren/sistren -- and neither are any Colored People's (except maybe David Zirin) -- but according to an email I got today, he's already signed on):
That's how Jim Hightower -- a guest on numerous Nation cruises -- once characterized it. Now is the time to book your trip with us on our 16th annual seminar cruise to Canada and New England. And if you book before May 1st we'll give you a $100 discount! Some of the special guests who have already signed on: Naomi Klein, Nation Columnist and author of The Shock Doctrine Laura Flanders, Nation Contributing Writer and host of The Laura Flanders Show Dave Zirin, The Nation's first sports columnist Benjamin Jealous, President of the NAACP Dan Perkins, aka political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow ...with more to come.
Yeah, donate to the NAACP for that shit; based on the above -- "You get what you pay for." {smdh}
As for Scalia, I think Mr. James Baldwin sums up pretty well, how his Sicilian-cum-white background helped perpetuate his ownposition of "racial entitlement" in On Being White...And Other Lies.
President Obama made good on the promise of his second Inaugural Address on Thursday by joining the fight to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Since he declared that marriage equality is part of the road “through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall,” we can’t imagine how he could have sat this one out.
The administration’s brief to the Supreme Court was a legally and symbolically important repudiation of Proposition 8, the 2008 voter referendum that amended California’s Constitution to forbid bestowing the title of marriage on a union between two people of the same sex — a right the California Supreme Court had found to be fundamental under the State Constitution.
Like the arguments made by the lawyers for those who seek to overturn Proposition 8, and by a group of prominent Republicans earlier this week, the government’s brief says any law attempting to ban same-sex marriage must be subjected to heightened scrutiny because it singles out a class of Americans, historically subject to discrimination, for unequal treatment. (emphasis mine)
See how this works Family? When pressed, he promises you something -- and you get it. If he's not pressed, he doesn't promise you a damned thing (even though you are "a class of Americans, historically subject to discrimination, for unequal treatment," as in the example directly above ) and that's just what you get -- not a damned thing.
Somebody please explain this to me (**Noticed the Post deleted its video, so I replaced it with a link to another from KOMO News). The school said the child could use either the staff bathroom or the one in the nurse's office. The parents say, "using anything other than the girl's bathroom would stigmatize their child." The father said, "It just sets her up for bullying and harassment and it's not fair." I don't get it -- what do they think having the child use the girl's bathroom will do? Not only to their six year-old child, but to the other six year-old children? The child is anatomically male!
A week before mandatory budget cuts go into effect across the government, the Department of Homeland Security has started releasing illegal immigrants being held in immigration jails across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday.
Gillian Christensen, an ICE spokeswoman, said ICE has reviewed “several hundred cases” of immigrants being held in jails around the country and released them in the last week. They have been “placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release,” she said.
Christensen said the agency’s “priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety.” She did not say how released immigrants were selected or what jails they were released from.
Tuesday’s announcement of jail releases is the first tangible impact of the looming budget cuts for DHS.
So Chocolate Jesus, with a wave of the hand, anointed "Mosette" Napolitano with the power to, "Let my people go." {smdh} Family, please stop talking about what the Changeling, can, and cannot do! He could do more for our Black asses if he chose to -- he just doesn't choose to. Wake the hell up, please.
This, "all in the game" move didn't have jack to do with "looming budget cuts." He's screwing with Republican wing-nuts who fear Latinos for a host of reasons (beginning with their numbers), while he screws over Black folk who make up a measly 13% of the population. Rather than Caribbean Blacks being “placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release,” he and "Mosette" are first, criminalizing THEM, then shipping them the hell out in droves!
Hell, given our over-representation in the Prison Industrial Complex, you'd think they'd save a ton of money by releasing low-level, "nickel-bag boys" and other Black, non-violent offenders (if this move had something to do with budget cuts, that is). Haven't heard anything about him doing that shit have you? Gotta keep those fat-cat, for-profit, private prisons afloat somehow I guess. And, not only is the government playing money "games" with them at our expense, so is this prostitute of an "educational institution" {smdh}
In a disappointing decision, the United States Supreme Court today enshrined in law a dog’s wide latitude to determine Americans’ constitutional right to be free from unwarranted search and seizure. In siding with the dog in Florida v. Harris (No. 11-817), the Court misses the point. An alert by a “trained” or “certified” drug detection dog by itself should be insufficient to establish probable cause, as the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) argued in its joint amicus curiae brief to the Court in this case. (emphasis mine)
So-o-o, you thought you had the protection of the Fourth Amendment regarding "unreasonable search and seizure" right? You don't. And in this case, even though the first part of the headline is ridiculous as hayell on its face (what if some doggie treats in your car, as I routinely carry for my road-dog, Blanca on cross-country trips, gets the K-9's nose sniffing?), it is the second part that screams loudest about the punitive nature of the decision. You gotta pay their asses either way! Damned if you, damned if you don't. Kinda like my confusion over all the hoopla over New York's ruling that "stop-and-frisk" was unconstitutional. Yeah, the Black mis-leadership class (along with those of you who believe they're actually giving a damn about Black folk, in particular, being unconstitutionally profiled and harassed) acted like they'd done some-damned-thing. But Judge Shira Scheindlin (a relation of Judge Judy's? More than likely) put the kabosh on that shit last Tuesday: NYPD can temporarily continue unconstitutional stop-and-frisks:
Her ruling in early January had been celebrated by civil liberties groups like the NYCLU, who brought the suit against the police over searches carried out during sweeps of “Clean Halls” apartments. Operation Clean Halls, established in the 1991, gives police permission to stop and search individuals in and around New York apartment buildings in high crime areas. In 2011, according to the NYCLU , police stopped 1,137 of the 1,857 “Clean Halls” residents in the Bronx.
On Jan. 8, Scheindlin ruled that numerous searches in the Bronx buildings had violated the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. She ordered an immediate end to stop-and-frisks in instances when officers have no reasonable suspicion.
Scheindlin agreed to halt immediate enforcement of her earlier ruling to end the stop-and-frisks following a city request. As Bloomberg reported, “the city said that unless its request was granted, the NYPD would be required to take the immediate and burdensome step of having to retrain its police officers.” The city persuaded the judge that it would be both expensive and burdensome to immediately enforce a ruling that could be undone in appeals court. (emphasis mine)
Baby please! There is no intent in these alleged United States -- at all -- to ever treat us like human beings. "Clean halls" indeed!
Just like most of the rest of the country, I was waiting to see what the "Supremes" would do with the Changeling's so-called signature legislation. And when the word came down from on high--I said to myself, "Self, there's plenty in this milk that ain't clean!"
And as I trawled the internet to see who was saying what, so I could formulate what I believed should be a necessarily scathing condemnation of the "games people play" at other's expense--I came upon Arthur Silber's, Choosing Blindness and Stupidity, and About Helping "Some" People,and he'd said everything I was thinking, and more.
So, once I finished reading all of it, I emailed Arthur and asked his permission to cross-post the piece. And no, it's not because I'm lazy. It's because he hits all the nails on their proverbial heads when it comes to addressing points about this decision that should be considered when one critically thinks; it's all about who's doing what, for whom and most importantly, why.
Take some time and read it slowly (internal links and all). I'm certain if you allow yourself to, you'll find way more truth here, than anywhere in the mainstream media. Do enjoy!:
The self-satisfied smugness and self-congratulation now exhibited by many liberals and progressives is abhorrent and nauseating. In addition to the general argument I made earlier today, I want to address two further issues.
In a brief article, John Stauber captures the essence of the Supreme Court ruling with full accuracy:
It was a brilliant move by far Right (but oh so likable) Chief Justice Roberts to side with the Dem-appointed Justices and uphold ObamaCare. After all, this is a massive victory for corporate power, forcing citizens to buy an expensive insurance product that won’t serve our needs very well but will profit industry, in lieu of receiving real health care. ...
He and his Dem-appointed colleagues have given huge new powers to corporations, and further reduced the rights of citizens. ...
Any real reform — call it single payer, or medicare for all — is doomed in bipartisan fashion. The “pragmatists” who are for Obamacare are duped if they think it is going to be expanded to single payer. From this point on, it will only be picked over and further reinvented to empower the insurance and drug industries.
In my post from December 2009 -- "How Bad Is The Fuck You Act?" -- I closely analyzed some of the extraordinary mental contortions and distortions engaged in by Digby. I began by noting the following:
First, and this merits strong emphasis, the "health care reform" legislation will fatally undercut all the goals set forth by Democrats and progressives themselves. To restate the point: if the Democrats and progressives are sincere and genuinely committed to what they say their goals are, they should be working day and night to defeat this abomination. That most of them are doing the opposite is deeply revealing. And they are doing the opposite for the most transparent and pathetic of reasons: they are desperate for something they can call a "win" as an alleged demonstration of perceived political power."
After examining Digby's "argument," which is fully representative of "the Horror Hall of Mirrors of the fatally corrupted world now inhabited by the 'leading' progressives" (and not only with regard to this subject, but in connection with every issue of significance), I said:
And the people who won't be helped are precisely those people these same Democrats and progressives endlessly told us they so desperately wanted to help when this wretched, abysmal process began.
This is the very definition of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. In certain respects, it is not possible to go any lower. If you're willing to give up this much -- and as far as "health care reform" is concerned, they've given up everything that matters -- is there anything at all you won't give up? This is the inevitable result of engaging in this manner with a fundamentally corrupt system:
Thus, the lesson: when you choose to
be a critical part of a system that has
become this corrupt -- and the endless
corruptions of our corporatist-
authoritarian-militarist system have
been documented at great length here
and in other places -- you will not
ameliorate or "save" it. The system
will necessarily and inevitably corrupt
you.
That last point is absolutely critical, and it must never be forgotten.
I want to stress that it is a huge error to believe that liberals and progressives who are happy about the Supreme Court "victory," and who generally support Obama and view his reelection as vitally important -- despite the fact (among other similar facts) that Obama asserts that he can murder anyone he wishes, anywhere in the world, for any reason he chooses or invents -- will somehow recognize the truth and come to their senses. I'm not referring here to those Americans who barely follow politics and who vote automatically and without any measurable degree of analysis and consideration beforehand, if they vote at all -- but to those liberals and progressives who follow politics even somewhat closely. And I'm especially referring to liberals and progressives who are active in politics, including writers and bloggers.
It must be understood that they cannot and will not grasp the actual meaning of the Supreme Court ruling, just as they will not grasp the meaning of Obama's other numerous, heinous acts. I explained some of the reasons for this phenomenon in a post from almost five years ago: "Blinded by the Story." I noted the self-proclaimed inability of leading progressive bloggers (including Atrios, and Digby once again) to understand why the Democrats acted as they did, and then wrote:
I suggest we take these leading lights of the progressive blogs at their word: they most certainly do not get it, and they absolutely cannot "for the life of [them] figure out why the congress is doing this."
I also note that, following the Senate cave-in, Atrios has dubbed Harry Reid the "Wanker of the Day." Will all this diminish in even the smallest degree Atrios's, or Digby's, or any other leading progressive blogger's efforts to ensure a huge Democratic victory in 2008? Of course not.
The reason for that is very simple, and it goes to the progressives' central articles of religious faith: The Democrats aren't really like this, not in their heart of hearts. The Democrats don't actually favor a repressive, authoritarian state. The Democrats are good, and they want liberty and peace for everyone, everywhere, for eternity, hallelujah and amen.
People who continue to believe this have evicted themselves from serious political debate, and they have willingly made themselves slaves to their enthusiastically embraced self-delusions. They confess a comprehensive ignorance of history, a stunning inability to understand the political developments of the last century, and a desire to place the story they have chosen, primarily because it flatters their own false sense of vanity and self-worth, above every relevant fact.
None of this has changed in the five years since I wrote it; to the contrary, developments have proven the truth of these observations repeatedly.
But one derivative aspect of this sickening business has changed, and I also described that aspect in the earlier entry:
Whenever a preexisting and preselected narrative assumes primary importance in this way, the longer one clings to the preferred story, the stupider one becomes. This is why the truth or falsity of the stories we tell is so critical, and why our methodology matters so much. If a story that is central to our view of ourselves fails to comport with the facts, and if we refuse to give up or even question the story, this necessitates that we block ourselves off from more and more information that might "undermine" that story ... Rather than eagerly seeking out further facts and trying to find out if a given story remains accurate or needs to be significantly revised (and sometimes even jettisoned altogether), we will lower our heads, narrow the scope of our inquiry, and progressively restrict the kind of data we permit ourselves to examine and even acknowledge. As time goes on, our intellectual curiosity steadily decreases. We won't want certain facts and information, because we might have to wonder whether particular cherished beliefs are correct.
With regard to these issues, people do not stay the same. The intellectual framework within which they operate either increases or decreases; to put it informally, they become smarter or dumber.
In those cases where the preexisting and preferred narrative is crucial to a person's self of self-worth (and often, when it is critical to their livelihood), it is close to impossible that a fundamental reassessment of that narrative will be permitted or seriously considered. The only direction psychologically is steadily downward: the frame of reference constantly diminishes, and the person becomes less and less able to address any issue accurately and truthfully. Neither "side" has a monopoly on this fundamental failure -- and even though both conservatives and liberals furiously deny that they act in this manner, their own commentary and behavior reveals the truth on a daily basis.
The other issue I want to discuss is a contention that was frequently offered during the debate over the health "care" bill, and I'm certain it will put in another appearance in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. A certain kind of commentator would ruefully note the bill's numerous shortcomings (including the fact that it was bought and paid for, and sometimes written, by the major insurance and pharmaceutical interests), but go on to support the bill anyway -- because, they claimed, it would help "some" people.
This is one of the most awful arguments imaginable. I discussed it in detail here: "Concerning Those Who Manufacture and Eat Shit." My particular target was Paul Krugman, but many others proceed in the same manner. So I will simply offer my analysis again:
I would not argue and, in fact, I haven't argued that this bill won't help anyone. I've seen lots of analyses that force me to conclude that the bill will help far less people than its supporters claim, but time will tell as they say. I think it's going to be very ugly, and I also think partisans like Krugman will never acknowledge just how ugly it is.
But the fact that this bill will help some people is a ridiculous, completely asinine standard. It is utterly illegitimate as a matter of analysis, as well as being vile in moral terms, to use the fact that it will help some people as justification for its passage. Think about it for a moment. Any bill in any political system will help some people. This is true even in a dictatorship, and even under totalitarian rule. As I feel compelled to remind people when they appeal to the "sanctity" of "the law" (which I noted only yesterday I myself shit on insofar as what most people mean by such vacuous blather is concerned), even dictatorships have laws. Hey, I'll make it easy for you to ignore this argument by violating a singularly idiotic prohibition. They had laws in Nazi Germany. And guess what? All of those laws helped some people. In some instances, perhaps it was only sadists who enjoyed torturing and murdering other human beings -- but some of Germany's laws certainly helped them do that.
Or to pick a less confrontational example: many laws in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia indisputably helped those who were members of the ruling clique or well-connected to same accumulate wealth and/or power, or benefited them in any number of other ways. So the laws helped some people. Take a more obvious aspect of the same issue: in any corporatist system (such as ours), legislators receive all sorts of payoffs for enacting legislation that benefits certain interested parties. When the legislation is passed, it's passed because it helps those interested parties. That's true of any major piece of legislation you care to name (and almost all minor ones as well). You need only trace back the effects of the legislation far enough, and you'll find an interested party that sought to have it passed. And the payoffs help the legislators themselves. So some people are always helped.
That cannot ever be the standard for judgment. The standard must focus on the primary or major effect of the legislation: on what lies at the heart of the bill. What lies at the heart of the health "reform" bill is a massive transfer of wealth from "ordinary" Americans to an already hugely wealthy and powerful insurance industry via the mandate system, which is made still worse by being a subsidized mandate system (which means that taxpayers are robbed at gunpoint twice). As a result, the legislation in its totality is, right, a piece of shit.
And that's all I have to say about that.
For the moment.
~#~
And when that moment has passed Arthur, I'll be reading. I don't know about anybody else, but I need commentary, critically thought-out (as opposed to what passes for "news" in this country), in order to continue doing my "first works over" as James Baldwin so wisely advised us, so very long ago. Thanks again--very much.
I'm no attorney, but I think I'm safe in saying that - had Congress passed that pesky Paycheck Fairness Act (about which I wrote here and mid-page here)instead of Lilly Ledbetter, the "Walmart Women" would have had some real muscle behind their fight for equality.
Pelosi and the Changeling, with their respective, bamboozle-cum-hoodwink little jigs, had so many women believing he'd rode in on his white horse and saved the damned day, that Ms. Magazine got this absolutely hilarious cover out -- PDQ (Come on now, tell the truth and shame the devil -- how many of you ran right out and made them a lot of money buying their little poster?).
Congress and the Changeling, with the Supremes bringing up the rear with this ruling, have told women - in no uncertain terms - "We will do nothing to change the status quo so - just stay in your damned place!
