RADICAL CHIC

Nobody's helping out on this Obama thing -- not a single comment explaining to Kelso that he's all wet and Obama is the Martin Luther King, Jr., of his generation. So, we'll assume we're right and that Obama is as much the Trojan Horse as we've believed all along. And we're going into the WaybackMachine...[tenderfoot advisory: this post will be racist and those who might be offended ought not to read this]...

Does anyone out there remember the phrase "radical chic"? Did anyone run across it in a "United States History World War II-to-the Present" class? No? OK. May I have the attention of the class? "Radical Chic" is a phrase first used by Tom Wolfe (the shitty Southern writer who still breathes air, not the good one who's dead) and essentially means the same thing as "P.C." does today. As Kelso recalls it, Wolfe made up the phrase to attack Leonard Bernstein for hosting a fund-raiser for the Black Panthers sometime in the early 1970s. Wolfe felt that Bernstein had been traitorous to his country for the sake of being -- ohwhatthefuckever -- down, oh because the Panthers had a radical agenda of overthrowing the U.S. government and would do whatever the Black Panthers used to do.

And some names come cascading back to Kelso: H. "Rap" Brown, Stokely Charmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, those were your celebrity Black Panthers of the day. It is possible one or more of them are deceased, a couple found "Jesus," and Seale may still be a United States Representive from somewhere in Illiois. They were the charismatic frontline of the Black Power movement through their roles in the Black Panthers. Presumably, they all to a greater or lesser degree would have liked a change to their government and society and were not shy about it. They advocated armed resistance at the very least, but overthrow was not a problem for them. Various Black Panthers published books. A number of neighborhoods got tidied up and a bank or two got robbed. This is all from a child's memories, mind you. If the history of the Black Panthers interests anyone, there's no shortage of primary and secondary source material out there.

Kelso is, however, interested in posing this question, had the rank-and-file been offered this certainty equivalent in exchange for abandoning the movement would they do it? The certainly equivalent would be the beggaring of the U.S. dollar and the effective sale of control of America to "Red" China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and "Europe" in order to finance a warrior and fatherland security state that could crack in half under its own weight within two generations of the formation of the Panthers, but at a cost of two-plus generations of calcified Black misery about as bad as that which obtained in 1967, but at a cost of Black lives that could be measured in the 1000s, as opposed to the pending millions the urban rioting hinted at. In other words, the strong probability of a future overthrow of the U.S.A. with no immediate violence required and a loss of life in the greater community over 1/3 generation (all GWB years + 2 HRC years) at about 2 1-2 times the normal rate. Kelso's guess is that the vote would be about 70/30 in favor of this outcome among the rank-and-file and the above stars as well.

Well, what do you know? That's where America finds itself today. And who are the Eldridge Cleavers who were essential in making this happen? Why none other than this generation's radical Black Panthers: Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas. This proud little troika had stronger stuff than Brown, Carmichael and the rest put together. So, Radical Chic, indeed. Every fucking time someone White hosts a rubber chicken dinner with any of those cold-blooded traitors and murderers as the featured speaker, he or she has done way, way worse than Leonard Bernstein ever did way back when. To appreciate the ersatz "bootstraps" story of any of these three is the REAL "RADICAL CHIC."

And, again, Kelso invites anyone to set forth why Barrack Obama -- full to bursting with religion and bellicosity and without a drop of the milk of human kindness* -- is not another dark-skinned right-winger ready to join the radical white right in the murder and burial of the great republic formerly known as the United States of America.

[*Kelso knows what you're thinking and can only respond thusly: Obama may love his wife to pieces but he voted FOR Bush's successful bankruptcy measure, not even fucking Kerry did that. Obama may or may not have "been opposed" to Iraq2 while debating improvements to sewage pipes in Cicero or something, but as of this moment he holds the most hawkish view of Iraq of all of the Democratic contenders including Senator Clinton.]

So, please, go ahead and vote for Obama if you like. But be aware that you are not voting for Stokely Carmichael. Or maybe you are.

Preakness, Stanley Cup and French Open tennis later this week.

Kelso's Nuts love you.