The Shunning of Bill Cosby in America – Reasserting White Cultural Standards in the Media?

Perhaps this current mess with Bill Cosby is a mistake. Or PC has caught up to the past when there pretty much were no rules when it came to sex and or sexuality in America.

I seem to think that social networking among other things takes a lot of shared ignorance out of the closet so to speak and shed some light on matters in a modern global capacity.

That sins like masturbation on the Church list, mortal sins mind you, that they are pretty much considered body function anymore and not sinful but just something normal in the life of the man beast race that remains half ape and is still half imagining the other half is angel. Which is why the guys in dresses at the Vatican don't have a clue about anything sexual - still preaching from the same old everything is a sin textbook as genuinely "moral" - yeah right.

Getting back to Cosby. I always thought he was a grade A phony. If you look at the old “I Spy” detective shows where he was a so-called breakthrough part for an African American on prime time TV in the mid-1960s. The show was on at 10 P.M. when school children were supposed to be already off to bed in Beaver Cleaver white America. 

If you see these old shows, they are poorly written and full of a lot of direct and veiled sadistic violence. Not good fare for mom and pop watching them. But then again few choices then for three TV channel America.

I remember a show with Cosby being a gym teacher which actually fit in with his Temple U degree in Philly for P/E.

Over and above his moderate visual success on TV was his dirty comedy records which to many was his real source of income.

I remember around 1971 when he was on the David Frost show making a big deal about retiring from Show Business and going off to Massachusetts to get his PhD in education. Why? Because he wanted to be an outstanding model for his race and in education etc. PR PR PR  BS BS BS Whatever became of his academic career? But the bait and switch entertainment marketing scam worked well to create demand so well that Frank Sinatra, a has been night club singer retired two or three times before his many comebacks. Whatever.

Then there was that bizarre Cosby fantasy show of a successful Harlem Doctor and his cute black middle class gentrified family that it was somehow successful even though I had no desire to watch it. I knew black people and I knew Harlem and the last place any successful black people I knew in New York - they did not want to live and or work in Harlem.

Which kind of leaves us now with the present and all these bimbos coming out of the woodwork wanting an out of court settlement from a filthy rich black entertainer who for better or worse has not managed his private tastes too well. Or these women, groupies in their younger days or whatever never heard the adage that in getting ahead in Show Business is the same as in Wall Street – it is not who you know, it is who you blow to get ahead in life.

I have often thought that the death of the hypocritical White Town Square standards in America was the start of the culture wars in the 1980s forward to establish those old standards that were pretty much set by the local town newspaper owned by the local white establishment.

That when someone like Madonna came onto the scene with her skank nouveau marketing model, that the old white standard bearers, the newspapers and national TV media could not shame her or shun her or make an example of her slutty appeal to the rising younger female buying demographic market.

That now with six corporations controlling the top tier (1%) of the information and tech pyramid, I look at this current Bill Cosby sideshow with mild disinterest but realize that Cosby is collateral damage of sorts of the six year plus Fox News TV and Limbaugh radio hate campaign against Obama and trying to reassert the old white standards in the obsolete in a global town square sense, of the old American Town Square. The white GOP’s Neanderthal base is going to lynch this guy, in virtual-osity, in the social media. 

So much for doing their Ted Cruz - Joe Wilson style of protecting our white women in the burbs from “those people”. That Rafael Cruz courtesy of the Heritage Foundation endorsement of Cuban white hatred of all blacks including black cubans - and Joe Wilson's "You Lie" white trash talk to the WH Nigger from the inbred crowd in South Carolina has a butterfly affect on the all Racist Revival of the old loser Confederate States even in a global age of tech and information movement. 

I say this because today, even the casino in Arizona run by the Tohono O'odham Indian nation outside Tucson is cancelling Bill Cosby’s scheduled performance in February. That the nation that sells tobacco and liquor untaxed by the Feds and caters to gambling addicts are pimps of sorts or good capitalist businessmen depending on your POV – but the point is that they feel comfortable enough in judging Bill Cosby in the social media maelstrom that eats and chews ppl out faster than whatever.

The media sucks. 

Good luck Bill in your virtual retirement as an ideal model of whatever it was that you were in your fifteen hours of fame. 

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Consensus Avenue - Global Town Square

Main Street America - circa 1918

Old time religion was about a cohesive social unit. It was not particularly political. The rural past of America and going back to the middle ages centered around the local church building. Families were neighbors and also members of the community church.

The local town square, if the town was big enough for such a thing, was on the secular end of the same avenue facing the local church. Sacred or secular decisions for the community got discussed, a consensus found and decided on Main Street USA.

It is the main street in the Disney theme parks that harkens back to the idealized late nineteenth century era and up until WWI American world. Here, the separation of church and state, more or less worked as a blueprint for the stabilization of the community and the nation. We all have a fixed idea in memory of an ideal setting from youth. Walt obviously had his too.

What does the global town square (G.T.S.) look and feel like? It is as varied and diverse as the Internet is right now. What it stabilizes into, is recognized as, gels into universal perception as, will slowly happen in the next decade or two or three. It will depend on the flow of culture and history in that as yet unpainted future.

The global culture idea is at this moment, and in my opinion, about bogus “global village” concepts, decades old, that put ideas out on the airwaves and onto the Internet. That old time touch me, look me in the eyes, and trade me your horse, town square sense of cohesion is missing or has gaps in it.

Before we in America get to the future, we should more fully understand who we are, consider where we have been and where we are going. We need consensus. We also in many ways need compromise. If we do not know or try to understand our neighbors locally or globally, then we fail as Christians and we fail our community as well.

“We” is the important part of the preceding statement. Nationality may disappear in the next decades in some corners of the globe but geography and local-ness will not.

We either as a group become more local and or more universal. Whatever factor dominates our future thinking needs a balanced approach to dealing with reality. If the local culture is important, then the universal global culture has to be recognized and respected but not necessarily served blindly.

The globalists have to recognize and respect local customs – period! Culture in the global age has to be a two way street.

I may sound more secular than cultural with my Christianity here but look at the world of Jesus. You had the Romans and Herod and the Temple Priests and their politico crony parties. You had the dispossessed in the new Romanization of the Holy Land. It was a global situation and after the time of Jesus, it failed. It failed miserably.

Jesus coped with and inspired a local flock that included all levels of that local and global community. The words, teachings and message of Jesus are now as important as ever. I believe that he among the many facets of his unique character and mission – I believe that he truly was one of the first to act locally and think globally. Turn your cheek, go the extra distance, love you neighbor (even if he is a Roman).

Communication and consensus in local matters and looking over your shoulder at that global thing coming at us is something I as a cultural Christian give consideration to everyday. I hope we all, of many belief systems, are doing the same.

- mm 17/06/08

http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2008/06/consensus-avenue-global-town-square.html

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American Town Square – Sense of Community – Lost in the Modern Age?

I was totally struck by the statement in Russell Brand’s youthful POV in his Guardian article, about the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher and how she broke a “Sense of Community” along with the Coal Strikers in 1980’s Britain.

That the solidarity that got Britain through a World War with Satan and his minions literally breathing down their necks was the sense of community and sacrifice and blind hard work for the cause.

The Brits turned out Churchill after that war because they did all the heavy lifting in that war and created a sort of socialist state for the benefit of the many and or the all.

That ideas of Marx were not exclusively communist but like the earliest traditions of the Christian faith, a community based on common survival and shared sense of all.

I have written somewhere here or there how I thought of Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the Air Traffic Controller’s union as Conservative ideologue and not as fellow American being the root why we could not protect our skies twenty years later on September 11, 2001.  

That losing experience and sense of camaraderie and common purpose and sticking one’s neck out left us with a scooped out pale reflection of an air controller’s network that could have been an asset in our national defense but instead had been turned into some hollowed trophy of Conservative dogma.

That Ronny fed off of Margaret’s actions in Britain and vice versa in their one upmanship of ways to break humanity in favor of profit and all at the loss of a sense of national purpose or on a local level a sense of community that used to exist in the American town square.

That so much rhetoric these days serves as politics and PR drivel as the ship of state fades from greatness and into the deep forgotten abyss of history like all past empires etc.

Spilled milk? Or a sense of purpose to redirect our personal goals if we are a basic Christian and our national goals if our combined sense of ancestry and common ethic can be re-galvanized into something like the idealized forum and town squares of our youth?

Is the eventual global town square going to be a great place to meet and hang out with your global neighbors or is it going to be one cold stone faced plaza that nobody cares to frequent?

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Occupy Wall Street’s Moral Victory – Defining the Dividing Line of Humanity - the 1% vs the 99% - Birth of Our Global Town Square

I have been reading a lot in the press lately about what ever happened to the Occupy movement.  Quite frankly, it can not go forward on a physical plane until millions rise up and overwhelm the blue shirts and the mercenary armies of the present evil Empire of America.

Occupy’s defining moment was in not seeking a leader but rather a consensus, something that was once the cornerstone, foundation stone of the American Town Square, now in limbo.

The idea of consensus and group solidarity is a reflection of the virtual world now enveloping both our individual and group culture.

Occupy Wall Street in New York City, Liberty / Zuccotti  Park defined the reality of money and capital and its dividing line in the sand between the haves and the have nots.  That imaginary dividing line, that non-verbal definition of reality got put into words.  If you are not part of the 1% then you are part of the rest of us the 99%.

Not a class struggle but a rallying call to make the future better if we know the deal and can push back on the media whore PR and bullshit sent our way to belittle and rob us of the dignity of our humanity born of a divine spark within, the temporary staging area and potential of an eternal soul.

The global town square and the definitions of that global town square defining the consensus of the future united global culture, 

- the stone the Wall Street Fat Cat Bankers have rejected, becomes the cornerstone of the future. 

A body without a soul is not a person (1%) - it is just a corporation. 

 A Park without People (99%) is Not a Park mister Zuccotti (1%)

The global town square and the definitions of the foundation materials of that global town square, defining the consensus of the future united global culture 

- the stone the Wall Street Fat Cat Bankers have rejected, becomes the cornerstone - of the future.

pax populus

*   *   *

Minimalist View - Cultural Christian

I know I can be a grumpy judgmental reactionary son of a gun from time to time. But I cannot but help feel hurt and betrayed by what I have expressed in the term “the God business”.

The politics in the USA is such that church and state are wrapped around one party more so than another and in terms of simple discussions, simple discussions are not possible in some cases, most cases. The mythical town square of my youth is not practical in a virtual age. I am perhaps obsolete with my memories and ideals of that once in many ways real American Town Square.

While I never directly experienced the tent revival kind of religion that many in the heartland experienced in their youth, I am suspicious of all things not from the middle of the road or with a traditional church community mindset. Very WASPish and very snobbish of me, would you not say?

I have seen the media big top business go from people like A.A. Allen to the Bakers and Swaggart who blatantly betrayed humanity for the sake of mere power and greed. And yet people are gullible and keep funding what I consider a lunatic fringe which is the backbone of the almost extinct GOP – the party of Pat Robertson.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why old men with feeble minds are in charge of our national morals – our religions. Truth is, they are not and never have been. It is more like the myth of the town square, while still in the past a real physical town square, that kept the glue and adhesion of our society pasted together. It was also the myth of our religions that somehow we had more control over our lives and our destinies beyond this life.

It is strange how politics has worked in this country for two centuries. A two party system may have worked for a while, but of late, I do not see two distinct points of view. Everyone at the top of politics would seem to want to conform to a poll or a paid sponsor/patron. And if anybody is spouting wool coat fiscal responsibility or middle class stability, they sure as hell do not vote that way once they achieve office.

From the lowliest elected civil servants to the fat cats in the U.S. Senate, American seems not to be represented by any one sane, civil or moral voice. America, though diverse from the beginning of time, always seemed to have some abstract ideal standard that everybody tried to conform to. That standard used to have its base in religion for most people.

The secular world which sprang up out of our consumerism buried religion a long time ago. Religion as it used to be in terms of the age of computers was never user friendly. That fear of death and God and more importantly fear of life is what keeps the old institutions grinding on to the bitter end. No doubt there might be a revival but religion, monotheism across the board, Judaism, Christianity, Islam are all operating in other centuries – in other mindsets.

If you conform to the words written many centuries ago and do not question them in a modern world, then you must stagnate with the old words and not see a new revelation in the modern potential of text or in original intent. While I would be minimal in my beliefs as a Cultural Christian, most people just seem to sit or stand there in a fog of time and kill time here until death.

We are an age at many crossroads. The Internet helps to inform and it also adds fuel to any fire, religious or civil. “It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.” What we hold onto in terms of beliefs, becomes more private and specialized into a custom fit – to suit ourselves. That may be good in one sense. But to use one more cliché – “no man (or woman) is an island”. I do not know if we are blending into together better than the media implies or reports. But somehow, the human mess, the human race survives one more day.

No point in trying to analyze it. It just is. In many ways I think God just is as well. What we make out of the abstract of creation is either good or bad. It should be good for one and all – win win – or the cork may blow out of the bottle of our man made civilization. Whatever.

New Mindsets are needed. New ways of thinking must replace obsoleteness of thought. And that so long as humanity does not get factored out of the new equations of the present and into the future.

Dies Irae - Day of Wrath - Notre Dame

Dies Irae - Day of Wrath – Day of Judgment

At Notre Dame, belief in the sanctity of life, a Sacred, a genuine heartfelt belief by many, would seem by the very nature of the modern age to has been corrupted, co-mingled, marshaled to champion politics, the Profane.

More so than the death of innocents through abortion is the death of Civility in the American Town Square, once real and now virtual. It would seem that there is a culture of death of sorts on both sides of this matter.

Dies Irae as a hymn is part of the ancient pre-Vatican II Mass for the dead.

On these matters that I would prefer not to touch with a ten foot pole, I turn to art, music, poetry...



I choose this very modern poetic translation of Dies Irae from the very dead language of Latin.

The day of wrath, that day
which will reduce the world to ashes,
as foretold by David and the Sybil.

What terror there will be,
when the Lord will come
to judge all rigorously!

The trumpet, scattering a wondrous sound
among the graves of all the lands,
will assemble all before the Throne.

Death and Nature will be astounded
when they see a creature rise again
to answer to the Judge.

The book will be brought forth
in which all deeds are noted,
for which humanity will answer.

When the judge will be seated,
all that is hidden will appear,
and nothing will go unpunished.

Alas, what will I then say?
To what advocate shall I appeal,
when even the just tremble?

O king of redoutable majesty,
who freely saves the elect,
save me, o fount of piety!

Remember, merciful Jesus,
that I am the cause of your journey,
do not lose me on that day.

You wearied yourself in finding me.
You have redeemed me through the cross.
Let not such great efforts be in vain.

O judge of vengeance, justly
make a gift of your forgiveness
before the day of reckoning.

I lament like a guilty one.
My faults cause me to blush,
I beg you, spare me.

You who have absolved Mary,
and have heard the thief's prayer,
have also given me hope.

My prayers are not worthy,
but you, o Good One, please grant freely
that I do not burn in the eternal fire.

Give me a place among the sheep,
separate me from the goats
by placing me at your right.

Having destroyed the accursed,
condemned them to the fierce flames,
Count me among the blessed.

I prostrate myself, supplicating,
my heart in ashes, repentant;
take good care of my last moment!

That tearful day,
when from the ashes shall rise again
sinful man to be judged.

Therefore pardon him, o God.
Merciful Lord Jesus,
give them rest.

Amen.

(http://www.globalserve.net/~bumblebee/diesirae.html )

Consensus Avenue - Global Town Square

Old time religion was about a cohesive social unit. It was not particularly political. The rural past of America and going back to the middle ages centered around the local church building. Families were neighbors and also members of the community church.

The local town square, if the town was big enough for such a thing, was on the secular end of the same avenue facing the local church. Sacred or secular decisions for the community got discussed, a consensus found and decided on Main Street USA.

It is the main street in the Disney theme parks that harkens back to the idealized late nineteenth century era and up until WWI American world. Here, the separation of church and state, more or less worked as a blueprint for the stabilization of the community and the nation. We all have a fixed idea in memory of an ideal setting from youth. Walt obviously had his too.

What does the global town square (G.T.S.) look and feel like? It is as varied and diverse as the Internet is right now. What it stabilizes into, is recognized as, gels into universal perception as, will slowly happen in the next decade or two or three. It will depend on the flow of culture and history in that as yet unpainted future.

The global culture idea is at this moment, and in my opinion, about bogus “global village” concepts, decades old, that put ideas out on the airwaves and onto the Internet. That old time touch me, look me in the eyes, and trade me your horse, town square sense of cohesion is missing or has gaps in it.

Before we in America get to the future, we should more fully understand who we are, consider where we have been and where we are going. We need consensus. We also in many ways need compromise. If we do not know or try to understand our neighbors locally or globally, then we fail as Christians and we fail our community as well.

“We” is the important part of the preceding statement. Nationality may disappear in the next decades in some corners of the globe but geography and local-ness will not.

We either as a group become more local and or more universal. Whatever factor dominates our future thinking needs a balanced approach to dealing with reality. If the local culture is important, then the universal global culture has to be recognized and respected but not necessarily served blindly.

The globalists have to recognize and respect local customs – period! Culture in the global age has to be a two way street.

I may sound more secular than cultural with my Christianity here but look at the world of Jesus. You had the Romans and Herod and the Temple Priests and their politico crony parties. You had the dispossessed in the new Romanization of the Holy Land. It was a global situation and after the time of Jesus, it failed. It failed miserably.

Jesus coped with and inspired a local flock that included all levels of that local and global community. The words, teachings and message of Jesus are now as important as ever. I believe that he among the many facets of his unique character and mission – I believe that he truly was one of the first to act locally and think globally. Turn your cheek, go the extra distance, love you neighbor (even if he is a Roman).

Communication and consensus in local matters and looking over your shoulder at that global thing coming at us is something I as a cultural Christian give consideration to everyday. I hope we all, of many belief systems, are doing the same.