The Official Blog of the Grateful Web

THE NEWSPAPERS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE NEWSGUARD

As Newpapers around the globe go defunct, I can't help but feel at once both wistful and thankful at the changing of the guard.

Nothing will replace the dawn slap of paper and car swerve of my delivery sounding each morning outside my window, and the private time with coffee and hard print instead of a computer to mull the mishagosh as I turn each page to follow one story or another. Whether its about a story in my home town or events around the world.

But another part of me says good riddance to old newsguard in its paper form that missed the evil underpinnings of grotesque capitalism fuming and bubbling all around us for years. Who seldom printed on page 8 about the CEO who made hundreds of millions of dollars while stockholders watched life savings steam away into the air. Worse, papers who played the heartstrings of hate and lies to help lead the industrial military/oil complex's plan for its new, profitable cold war to finance itself for another century.

What replaces these dinosaurs? Will the new NEWSGUARD serve any better? One thing missing from OBAMA's overhaul is cleaning up the new NEWSGUARD. Let's work on that.

Barney Moran

Grateful Word

It doesn't matter if you've been alienated by past election cycles or by the rigidity of the two-party system. It doesn't matter what kind of president Barack Obama becomes. What matters is that yesterday, we collectively pushed past 200 years of oppression and prejudice to elect our First Black President.

When Obama's presidency becomes part of history decades down the road, I will be so proud to tell my grandchildren that I voted for the First Black President in American history. I'm pleased with our citizenry, and I bet the rest of the world is heaving a sigh of relief and reflecting that perhaps Americans are not as stupid as they've suspected these past eight years.

 

I was only being sarcastic and agitating when I wrote that anyone who votes for McCain is a racist . . . in part. I feel this election was less about politics and more about a social and racial enlightenment in America. I hope it will engender an intellectual revolution and I have only positive hopes for our future; war, economy, and healthcare aside.

 

At the risk of sounding like a sappy idealist (and trust me, I'll be kicking my own lame ass later) I believe that we can finally become one people under the leader we've chosen together. I have to go wash the maudlin off me, but first I must say: Oh Yes We Did.

Mindy Jamiel, Grateful Web

America's Hero

Get on your knees, kiss the ground, and give humble thanks to the Hero that made the Obama Presidency possible.

Only the genius of Karl Rove could bring America so low that a white man in North Carolina would push the presidential switch for a black man, or stubborn blue collar states like Ohio would actually sit down and

think about what 's important for once.

By running the Republican Party and the Country on his brilliantly crafted policy of division, Rove got them to power without ever needing to actually 'run' the country these past 8 years. And so they won, and the wheel on the Bridge of this ship called America has been spinning free of democracy for 8 years, while those in power enriched themselves as the rest of us watched the ship go down.

Bush? Rove could have picked any one of a thousand silver spooned idiots like Bush to be the figurehead, the genius was behind the figurehead.

If Republicans heard the voices of their Eisenhower brethren, voices of command and empathy, Obama would not be president elect. Instead, Republican hatred for a Clinton administration that stole 

the very best of their ideas (also called 'inclusion', or 'unity') bred the new Republican environment of 'win at any cost.' And Rove was their man.

In destroying America's Economy, Military, Society, and its Beacon for the world, Rove and his willing Republican troops laid the very groundwork for Obama to be our leader, no other evil genius could have prepared America better for this historical and game changing election.

God Bless you, Karl Rove, America's Real Hero!

Barney Moran

Grateful Word

Bangin' on the QWERTY System

I'm listening to a Jay-Z remix of a Dead Prez song called “Hell Yeah (” that just kills in every way: lyrically, rhythmically . . . and some other academic music criticism that's over my head. Suffice it to say it's a bad-ass song and I highly recommend it. The lyrics tell to what a man may be driven by racial disparity in order to survive.  

 

Their pledge of allegiance in chorus:

 

If you claimin' gangsta 

Then bang on the system

Show that you're ready to ride

 

It's a daily struggle 

We all gotta hustle

This is the way we survive

 

I generally rise, in my nerdy way, to the clarion call of the title. "Hell yeah! Bang on that there system . . . fellas." I mean, I know first-hand, as so many do, what it means to struggle in poverty. I believe the system is designed to support the extant haves while it delivers band-aid assistance to the have-nots as an afterthought rather than providing a step up as a matter of priority. We neglect our asset-less citizenry, and a majority of the neglected is inner-city minorities. And it is true that sometimes people are driven, out of desperation, to reckless behavior. There we have the old steal-a-loaf-of-bread-to-feed-your-family quandary that helps us understand how relative morality can be. 

 

But today I listen to the following verses: 

 

We gonna order pizza 

and when we see the driver

We gonna stick a .25 up in his face

. . .

 

White boy in the wrong place at the right time

Soon as the car door open up he mine

We roll up quick and put the pistol to his nose

By the look on his face he's probably shittin' in his clothes

 

Then Jay-Z adds:

 

As long as there's 

Drugs to be sold

I ain't waitin' for the system

To plug up these holes

 

And I think, "Really? Really, Jay-Z?"  I'm inclined to give him and DP such a finger wagging. Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread; he didn't poke a .25 in a baker boy's scared-pale face or sling rocks for loaf money. I suddenly fail to see the honor in violence and drugs as a means to beat the system. Frankly, the gangsta lifestyle only leads the urban lower-class to wallow in the mire into which it's been cast. 

 

But what do I know? I'm a little white girl. I just grew up in the projects with a single mother. We lived on government assistance. I periodically spent time in foster homes. There was a time we both stayed in a battered women's shelter. Our car was the bus. The cops, when they showed up to our neighborhood, treated everyone, the few white people included, like ill-mannered children who needed to fight it out amongst themselves. They would leave, having done nothing, with an air of disgusted exasperation. Hence, I don't trust cops and I get teased for my "ghetto" attitude. Can I get a little street cred here before moving on? No? Whatever. I'm gonna say it anyway. 

 

Yes, I admit I have a college degree and a heap of debt to show for it. I no longer live in the projects. Is it because I'm white or because I refused to resign myself to my environment? I can tell you that my mother is still broke as a two-party system while I succeeded in graduating alongside many inner-city minorities who had to do more than "hustle" to get an education. Will a degree-holding black male have greater difficulty getting a job than a white person? It's possible, but he won't need to debase his community through drugs and violence to get by. 

 

Jay-Z and Dead Prez, what the hell? I find it hard to believe that after all these years black people are still expected to swallow the thug life as an alternative to poverty. Where is the next Martin Luther King, Jr? After all these years, has no one been born of the passion, the indignance, the perseverance, the faith to push us past gangsta glamour mentality? Is it you, Barack? Why not you, Jay-Z? Why do you have to peddle the yoke as a means to freedom, Jigga Man? It's a slap in the face to people from the 'hood because selling crack may have been how you got by, but it's not how you got out. 

 

I still like the song, but its message disappoints and I’m hungry for the next titan of hope to walk among us. 

I look forward to the first black(ish) president and I hope he encourages the minority and impoverished communities to educate, not retaliate against a system in a way that causes the buckles on the chains that bind to snap shut.  

 

And just to make sure you're still reading, I'm going to say it: Anyone who votes for McCain is a racist.

Mindy Jamiel, Grateful Web

Sarah Palin, Antichrist.

 

I’ve run the Antichrist scenario against presidential contenders since I was 8, and found that glorious little white paper leaflet in my neighborhood back in the late 1960’s.

 

It was stuck in the doors of houses, a little comic book picturing a guy having a martini one minute, heart attack the next, then its judgment day and on the last page he’s burning in hell. Wow, I love and absorbed that comic. Fast paced and dramatic, whoever printed and passed those babies around, was working some of the best Christian mythology ever.

 

Nixon? Nah, too smart, too paranoid. The devil would not enjoy inhabiting tricky dick. Carter? Jimmy had me going for a short time, he brought a subtle religion from the left direction, something very new for them, and for a brief time as a young man I thought Carter would make a fine anti Christ. Time and the fact of his selfless devotion to humanity tell me Mr.666 would want a younger vessel.

 

So what’s going for Sarah the Antichrist? First and foremost, the very real image of Sarah’s manicured fingernail on the nuke button. This works considering her ‘depth’ of knowledge about the bad commie’s (who bail out their troubled companies with their taxpayers money) she’s physically seen across the water from her Alaska home, but never visited, who needs to visit the Russians to understand?

 

Any question Sarah won’t be in the president’s seat if McCain/Palin win come November 4^th, defies both the law of averages and McCain’s medical history.

 

Then there’s the lipstick on the pig of issues Palin turns on their heads, i.e. she was ‘against’ the bridge to nowhere, she’s a good parent, or she would never abuse her elected position to screw anyone who got in her or her supporters/families way.

 

I’m sure the continued revelations from the surprisingly working mainstream media will continue to shed light on this bride of McCainenstein’s shotgun ride from PTA to Prez, but the coup de grace is the chant Sarah’s minions sing whenever she appears: “Drill Baby, Drill.”

 

Steven King could well use “Drill Baby, Drill” for his “The Stand’s Las Vegas crowds, as they urge on the driving of screws into the crucified. “Drill Baby, Drill” says it all, mother earth is here for us to rip open and make another day just that much easier.

 Barney Moran

Grateful Word

Grateful Web at the DNC!

Grateful Web DNC correspondent, Damian D’Apolito

Stay tuned for our take on the DNC vs. the RNC. Mother Nature, it seems, has something to say!

Polygamist Compounds Key to American World Domination

Needless to say I was worried as hell when Texas barrelled into its teeming Polygamist Youth compound in April and shut down one of the most productive reproductive cells America had to replenish our Military at this critical time.

I'm relieved to report other states are going on the offensive, assuring American's their States Polygamist cells are still protected and fully operational, producing offspring well above the numbers of the rest of a complacent American population.

You have to be a fool to think America can continue to force democracy on the world with violence without strong young men (and women!) to fill the ranks of our military forces. John McCain has advised we are talking 100 years of forced democratization on the barbarians abroad, and America needs flesh and blood kids growing now and in the future to man this critical task.

Polygamists working away in these protected cells remain our greatest American's, putting aside the materialism of society and focusing on the critical task of seeding and reseeding the American population for the war effort in record time, shortening the time from birth to reproduction in well documented time.

Let's give thanks that in America, still, we have these freedoms!

Barney Moran
Grateful Word

Oratory Hunger

Why is Obama beating Hillary?

Where did he come from? Why are people who've never voted before voting for him?

What's the deal?

Cut from an Obama victory speech to Bush talking about Fidel's resignation. Or bailing out the recession. Or anything. What's the difference? Bush cant speak.

Americans are starving for the dream, for some hope, yes, for someone who can speak to them. Forget the politics. Its been years since we turned on the TV, radio, YouTube, or streamed from the Internet and heard a voice  speak to us.

We've had almost 8 years of broken, guttural meanderings, and meanwhile, America meanders. Hearing Obama, its like our ears have been turned off all these years, and something just turned them on.

I'm not taking sides here. Listening to Hillary explain why she voted for the war not knowing the outcome, but had she known..., listening to McCain say, 'My friend's in his aging voice, I am going to sleep again, meandering in my living room. America will always need a powerful, meaningful speaker, humanity does. Take this away for any length of years, and we will be back with a vengance.

Barney Moran

Grateful Web

Grateful Web on TownHall

Yes, I am fully aware Grateful Web's founder, Barney Moran, is quoted on the first page of TownHall's Letters to the editor. Yes I know its in their just released February 2008 Magazine version of their famous conservative blog community where Grateful Web has a voice.

I'm proud of it. Why?  There is something I dislike much more then someone's views disagreeing with mine: Censorship. Townhall has founded the perfect open forum vehicle for all voices to be heard. Sure its founded by conservatives who seek to find ideas and a common purpose for the movement. But, what is wrong with that, even if you disagree with their views?

Who's side am I on? The side that gets things done instead of yelling. It's in the big fat American middle, where every day people are trying to work hard and carve out a life for themselves and their families.

Liberal and Progressive movements can take a pointer from TownHall, and remember the American way is for all voices to be heard.

Barney Moran
Grateful Word

Grateful Web Democratic Party Endorsement: Obama

Grateful Web's choice of Obama for Democratic nominee to run for president of America is not an endorsement against a woman president.

Hillary is not a woman. Hillary has become a female old white boy. The years in politics have taken their toll on Hillary,  stripped away the woman. Hillary is a man, dressed as a woman. The victory of having a woman running America would remain hollow, for all a woman could bring to the presidency was taken from Hillary in her years of struggle against the formidable interests who truly run America. For this, we forgive Hillary.

Still, SpyDye understands for the old guard, War remains an option before last resort. Believing America can bully its way with no regard to our limited resources, remains an option to fuel the industrial/military complex pulling the strings behind America's status quo politics. Bully our way against science and reality to keep fueling crippled and incompetent  oil based transportation interests.

The option America and the world needs is forceful reason and intelligent design. Not by a deity, by us. Obama is young, and still believes in these things. Will Obama be crushed by the private interests who still run America? It is his and our destiny to find out.