Thursday, June 14, 2007

Martin Luther King died for this?

I would like to think some prankster pizza guy has been spiking the extra-mushroom pies with psychedelic fungi when he delivers to the New Orleans bureau of The Associated Press.

I would like to think that, but I'd be fooling myself big time.

Anyway,
here's a depressing non-hallucinogenic AP dispatch from the City Sanity Forgot:

Supporters of a Democratic congressman charged with bribery and money laundering harkened to their civil rights days on Wednesday as they denounced the allegations against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

The group, including ministers and the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, alleged the 16-count corruption indictment was the work of a Republican White House and Justice Department scheming to target black Democratic leaders and shift attention from legal troubles of Republican congressmen.

"When it's all over, Bill Jefferson will stand up like Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. He will stand up in the South and he will be victorious," said the Rev. Samson "Skip" Alexander.

The news conference attended by about 50 people was a sign Jefferson hasn't lost friends in New Orleans, which re-elected him to a ninth term from Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District in December 2006 despite an FBI probe of his African business dealings.

Prosecutors say Jefferson used his influence as co-chairman of the congressional Africa Investment and Trade Caucus to broker deals in numerous African nations, and that he demanded kickbacks for himself and for family members. He is also charged with bribing a Nigerian official.

He allegedly received more than $500,000 in bribes and demanded millions more between 2000 and 2005. He has pleaded not guilty.

The group said they would raise money for his legal defense and offer public relations help through the Justice for Jefferson Committee.

Washington asked the audience to give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Danatus King, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said, "it's important that all of us keep our eyes on the prize and that prize is one word, and that one word is justice."

Asked to comment on allegations aired at the news conference, Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman, said "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response." White House spokesman Blair Jones also declined to comment.
PART OF ME wants an answer to the question "How @#$*!^$ CRAZY can one bunch of people be?"

The other part just doesn't want to know.

That's because the other part knows that, particularly in New Orleans, racism cuts both ways. That's because the other part of me knows there are plenty of folks like this who hate Whitey so damned much they don't give a rat's ass how absolutely bat-s*** crazy that hatred makes them.

All that matters is feeding the grudge, nourishing the hate. No matter how many damn times you cut off your nose to spite your face.

And Sweet Jesus knows that New Orleans' African-American kleptocrats are in more dire straits than Michael Jackson in that department.

I suppose Bill Jefferson really is as pure as the wind-driven -- never mind . . . that would be a WHITE analogy -- and a grand conspiracy of the GOP, the CIA and the KKK digitally faked the videotape and planted the $90,000 of cold cash in "Dollar Bill's" freezer.

IT'S TIME to say goodbye to the Crescent City, God rest her soul. With idiots like these -- and let us not forget C. (for Crazy) Ray Nagin of "Chocolate City" infamy -- increasingly as the public face of New Orleans, that benighted city's problem will not be Congress' unwillingness to give it another dime but instead Washington's ability to fight off fed-up Americans' demands that the Strategic Command drop a nuke on the place and put it (and us) out of its misery.

Listen well, New Orleans. This is not the jeremiad of someone who hates you, but instead the jeremiad of someone who loves you dearly.

***

UPDATE: Before any of you write to denounce me as a racist who hates New Orleans, I suggest you read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this (particularly this). And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this.


There.

1 comment:

Paul Cat said...

This makes me want to cry.