Rick Raw: Gang Rape Endemic of Broader Sociological Problems

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

The shocking gang rape and beating of a 15 year old high school student outside a school dance in Richmond, California is endemic of broader and disturbing sociological problems among today’s youth culture. At least 10 teenage boys participated in the rape, while 20 young bystanders watched and did nothing to help the girl or call 911. The rape went on for two and a half hours before the cops got wind of the crime.

Two days later, five suspects were arrested with more arrests pending. The chief detective working on the case said that as soon as they got each boy alone in an interrogation room, they soon understood the gravity of what they had done. They crumbled, confessing and implicating the others. He suggested that during the incident, a mob mentality developed, exacerbated by the cheering crowd.

More disturbingly, many kids in the Richmond high school were blaming the victim, saying she had it coming. The girl was on her way to meet her father who was waiting to pick her up when her friend suggested they go to the back of the school and have a drink. She was lured to the planned rape. The most telling part of this crime is, the boys who were watching didn’t think there was anything wrong with their friends raping this girl for an hour and a half.

So how do we unravel the broader sociological reasons for this crime and who is to blame for the failure of the parents to teach their teenagers morality? Indeed, the parents and the pervasive violent images to which young people are exposed are partially to blame.

Many of these kids are raised by single mothers who work two jobs and are never home. These kids spend hours playing violent video games and watching rap videos that portray women as whores and bitches, shaking their asses up against the rappers’ crotches.

Sexual suggestive images are everywhere in our society, from billboards to magazines. With no parenting to speak of, young boys have no respect for young women. High school students live in an unrealistic subculture that is far removed from consensus reality. Even the girls are guilty of bullying other girls.

In the apartment complex where I live, I recently observed a 12 year-old boy with a toy gun. He was walking along pointing the gun at me and other people going about their duties. He was saying, "This is a stick up."

Clearly, this boy was rehearsing his plan to hold up a convenience store. Where did he get this idea that it was acceptable to even fantasize about committing a crime? Where was his fundamental morality? It was lost in the violent world of video fantasy in which he lives.

Despite many so called experts who argue that violent video games are not harmful, I vehemently believe that graphically realistic games like "Grand Theft Auto" glorify a criminal lifestyle. The theme encourages a "badass" mentality of violence and taking what you want, as opposed to working for it.

Male teenagers are very susceptable to this macho idea of gangs and guns. It permeates their youth culture. If they steal to get money, then it follows that they will rape to get sex. Today’s youth culture is broken and in need of a reality check. Where are the adults to teach these kids society’s rules and laws? Many teachers have attempted to instill morality in their students, but the kids have tuned them out. Unfortunately, many of these kids never make it to the real adult world. They end up in jail serving long sentences.

As long as kids are absorbed in violent video games and rap videos, they are being conditioned to react to situations with violence and to disrespect women. They react to their raging hormones and accelerated sex drive by harboring rape fantasies. It’s part of their antiworld of amorality and acting out their angst.

Rick Raw: For God’s Sake, Obama, Make a Decision

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

Frankly, I’m disappointed in President Obama for taking an inordinate amount of time to make key decisions. It shows me that Obama is being overcautious and wishy-washy. By wavering on key decisions, Obama’s leadership is in question.

In regard to sending more troops to Afghanistan, Obama has been meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff for weeks. His head general in Afghanistan, Gen. McCrystal has been begging for more troops for months. For God sake, Obama, give him more troops.

Never mind all the complex ramifications of sending more troops. Gen McCrystal needs more troops for one important reason–to insure the safety of his other troops already outnumbered by the enemy. Give him the troops and worry about all the other issues later.

Just today, Senator Kerry was saying that we need to establish a stable government before sending more troops. Hogwash! Stabilizing the government of Afghanistan could take years. Meanwhile, our troops are dying because they are weakened by the lack of reinforcements to take over hot combat positions.

Every day, the enemy is overwhelming our patrols and planting endless IEDs. Every day more U.S.soldiers are blown-up by these cowardly devices. We need more bomb disposal personnel to defuse these makeshift bombs.

Indeed, Obama and his advisors can talk about the complexities of sending more troops ad nauseam, but the fact is, he needs to make a decision. Obama may have won Noble Peace Prize, but he’s not showing strong leadership. The Noble Prize is like a ball and chain around Obama’s neck.

More significantly, Obama hasn’t made good on his campaign promises, such as ending "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" in the military. He promised the gay community that he would end this policy right after he was elected. Then he waffled like a weak leader. Sure, when he makes a decision, there are consequences, good and bad, but he can’t make everyone happy. So just do it.

Like the disastrous policies of President Johnson and his Secretary of State, Robert McNamara during the Vietnam war, Obama is trying to micro-manage the Afghan War. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Let the generals run the war. They’re on the ground and in touch with their squad leaders on up the chain of command. We must give the troops more of everything to fight his important war.

This is a new form of warfare that requires all our resources to take the battle to the enemy. These evil bastards killed over 3,000 of our citizens. They are not going to stop killing Westerners, especially Americans. They don’t mind dying. And their radical cause is growing in Pakistan.

Since 9/11, there have been numerous terrorist attacks in Great Britain, Spain, and African countries. If we don’t kill the jihadists in their homeland, then they will just move to other countries like the Sudan, that is a lawless land of warlords and strife–a perfect setting for al Qaeda to operate freely.

Recently, in our country, the FBI broke up cells planning attacks on soft targets like shopping malls and sports events. They’ll keep coming until they’re all dead or driven into hiding.

This war against terrorism requires new thinking and a new outlook. We can’t think in terms of winning or losing a war. This is a global struggle. We must think only of exterminating these vermin. As long as they are alive, we will never win anything, except individual battles. We must track them down and kill them where ever they exist-- in America or foreign lands. We’ll probably be fighting them into the foreseeable future.

Rick Raw: Bailout My Ass–Where’s Our Money–TARP Infested with Fraud

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

After the unprecedented $700 billion bailout of the big banks, there was never an accurate accounting of exactly where the money went or how it was spent. The banks took the money and did what they wanted with it. CEOs took big bonuses, and shared the booty with their top executives. Hot damn, it’s party time.

AIG threw a big bacchanal in Vegas with strippers and wild sex parties. Their mantra was, "let the good times roll," as the middle class disappeared under the fallout of the economic apocalypse.

Now, bailout Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky says that the public wasn’t told about the lack of financial responsibility of nine of the bailed-out banks. He said that the Treasury Department officials painted an overly rosy picture, creating unrealistic expectations. Yeah, there was gold in them there hills and the greedy CEOs rushed to get their hands on it. The government opened the doors to the Treasury, and let these thieves inside.

More seriously, the FBI and Treasury agents have opened 35 ongoing criminal investigations of blatant fraud committed by bank executives that received the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds. And still, no one can say for sure how the money was spent. The investigation could uncover massive fraud among the bailed out banks if the forensic accountants can trace the money trail to complex shell corporations in the islands.

TARP turned out to be a fiasco–a rush to save the banking system and Wall Street by throwing money at it. During the last weeks of the Bush administration, Congress voted no to the TARP bailout. Then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and other former bank CEOs made a secret backroom deal and the TARP bailout passed.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this secret deal lined many pockets and setup many CEOs to gain windfall bonuses. Yes, the money train was arriving in board rooms across the land.
There is also a separate criminal investigation into the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger led by the New York Attorney General’s Office. While the masses suffer unemployment and foreclosures of their homes, the bailout crooks are raking in the avelanche of TARP funds faster than Obama can say the bailout will save the ecomony.

The TARP bailout now has a derogatory connotation. We, the screwed over taxpayers, have lost faith in the bailout’s ability to save our economy. Funny, enter Allan Greenspan, whose doctrine of laissez faire got us into this mess to begin with. He said that unemployment would rise above 10% before things got better. Shut up, you old sod. No one’s listening to you anymore. But I think he’s right.

This substantiates my fear that a cabal of wealthy crooks brokered the TARP deal for personal gain and to enrich their cronies. Hank Paulson is one of these alleged masterminds who met behind closed doors. He was CEO of Goldman Sachs before he was appointed Treasury Secretary. He, like the other cabal members, conspired to force the TARP on the American public under the pretense that if we didn’t release the $700 billion to the big banks, the entire economy would collapse. Well the economy did collapse despite the bailout.

The bottom line to this outrage is the bailout did nothing to help our economy but it did make some big time players filthy rich. Now the banks are raising interest rates on credit card holders, slapping large overdraft penalties on customers, and denying loans to eligible appliers. The banks are no better than Mafia loan sharks. We the people must rise up in anger and stop these injustices before the wealthy few take over the country. In most ways, they are already in charge.

Rick Raw: Bill Clinton Says Right Wing Conspiracy Still Exists–Now Directed at Obama

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

Ah yes, remember the good old days when Clinton was president. Indeed, Clinton did a great job as president, but he also entertained us with his tryst with Monica Lewinski and long time affair with Jennifer Flowers. His denial was hilarious when he said, "I did not have sex with that woman!" In the end, he left the presidency with a surplus, which George W. Bush squandered on the Iraq war.

As president, Clinton justifiably claimed that there was "a vast right wing conspiracy against me!" Of course, his stupid sexploits played into the right wing’s hands. But, despite their vicious campaign to discredit Clinton, and his subsequent impeachment, he managed to survive the onslaught of negative rhetoric and did his job well.

Today, as a busy ex-president and Secretary of State’s husband, Clinton has become an elder statesman and philanthropist. He has moved on to make his mark on the world stage. Still, his past haunts him, although he has redeemed himself by his altruistic endeavors and statesmanship.

Now, Clinton claims that the ultra-conservative right wing movement is attacking President Obama in the same way they savaged him. On NBC’s "Meet the Press" Clinton was asked by David Gregory if the conspiracy was still there?

"You bet. Sure it is. It’s not as strong as it was because America’s changed demographically, but it’s as virulent as it was," Clinton said. Of course, I asked the obvious question, "is he right?"
Absolutely, the right wing has gone off the reservation with untra-conservative propaganda from the motor mouths of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talking heads and commentators. Limbaugh is the most extreme, calling Obama a Fascist and anything else that pops into his Vicodin addled brain.

Another provocateur is TV commentator, Glenn Beck who is out there rabble-rousing the right to protest anything Obama says or does. His frenzied fans are staging rallies holding up signs that say, "Stop Obama’s Spending Spree," "Save Freedom Stop Obama," "Hey Obama-Care, Hands Off MY Body."

Beck is playing to the underlying anger of the ultra-conservative zealots, giving them a platform to instigate Clinton’s dogged right wing conspiracy, now unleashed on the Obama administration. It’s the same old gibberish we heard against Clinton. But Clinton gave them plenty of ammunition with his dumb sexual escapades. But, he somehow overcame that dark time.

In the vast media arena, Beck’s brand of blabber is mild compared to Limbaugh’s. However, both blowhards are tapping into the deep seeded racism of people who still hate the idea of a black president. They dare not say it, but it’s implied in their actions. Beck is like an evangelist, evoking the power of God to heal the masses with his unsubstantiated opinion and agitator style.
Like with Clinton’s administration, this right wing movement started to discredit Obama almost the day after he took office. And, they’ll be on his back his entire tenure. They will never give him credit for changing things for the better. The ultra-conservative movement is a runaway train of negativity crashing through Obama’s parade.

So, like Clinton, Obama has to move on and ignore the right wing’s cacophony of whining and veiled racism. Obama is on the right track with plenty of supporters, including me. As things get better, and they will, the chorus of right wing criticism will get drowned out by positive change.

Rick Raw: Conservatives have Adopted a Holier-Than-Thou Attitude, Digging in for A Great Battle

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

Every time I witness conservatives making commentary on news shows, they adopt a holier-than-thou attitude, insinuating liberals are reckless spendthrifts and godless purveyors of anti-family values. They imply that they have God on their side and liberals are evil, wicked people who are unpatriotic ex-hippies who smoke pot and rave at the moon.

Well, I’m sick of hearing this unmitigated falderal. I’m proud to be a liberal, and I’m respectful of other people’s point of view. To hear these conservative taking heads babble their gibberish, I get the feeling that they are hypocrites and using this pro-life / pro- family propaganda to tell other conservatives what they want to hear. They are promoting a right wing agenda that implies superiority. They’re right and liberals are dead wrong.

Then there are the ultra-conservatives who listen to Rush Limbaugh’s line of unsubstantiated vitriol. Limbaugh is a provocateur–a gadfly on the far right who loves to stir up controversy by calling President Obama a Nazi and using scare tactics by saying the new health care bill has a provision that will allow the government to get into individuals private bank accounts. This is just not true. Only the IRS has that ability.

Of course, Limbaugh’s diatribes are all a load of crap, but he’s got over 20 million listeners and he can say anything he wants in the context of free speech. Bully for him. He’s got his soap-box microphone. But if anyone thinks Limbaugh is uttering the truth then they’re idiots. Admittedly, some of Limbaugh’s ravings are so outrageous, they’re funny and entertaining.

Still, there are those conservatives who still harbor deep-seeded feelings of racism at having a black president. Now the conservative movement is marshaling their forces to defeat the democratic majority and take back the House and Senate with a smear campaign. It’s politics over common sense.

Indeed, these professed God-like beings vehemently disagree with the Obama administration’s policies. Fine, it’s their right to do so. But, the conservative movement is pursuing this as a battle royale based on their bitterness at losing the election.

Instead of cooperating with Obama for the greater good, these anarchists are bitter and angry and have thrown out bipartisanism in favor of drawing a line in the sand. They never wanted a reformed health care bill. They never wanted to bail out the collapsed economy. But they have never offered any alternatives to Obama’s plans to end the recession.

In their minds, Obama won the election and they didn’t. So, they went to war to gain back what they lost, instead of working with the president to make things better in our country. They’ll fight the president at every turn.

Yeah, but that’s the kind of people they are, espousing their doctrine of church going, superior ideology, when in fact, they are hiding behind this facade of holiness. These are the hypocrites who cheat on their wives and make illicit deals behind the scenes feeding their greed. To me, conservatives are liars, crooks, weasels, dimwits, philanderers, and power mongers.

I never trusted anyone who claims to be righteous and without sin like these new age conservatives. Of course, any politician will say anything to get elected and then they do what they want. But it seems that conservative politicians do it while claiming to be morally right and have God on their side. Screw them, and the lily white horse on which they rode in, claiming to be wise holy men. Watch your back when these assholes start spewing their cascade of lies.