Sunday, October 06, 2013

Obama versus the Redskins, out of his mind now?

In the midst of this financial Congressional and Executive administrative chaos, President Obama has chosen this as the time to challenge the name of D.C.'s longtime football team, the Washington Redskins.  The closest team to me in southern Virginia, they were a favorite from the age of 5.  I never once thought about the name, and we were a family that never used the "N" word or had any problems with those who were poor or of different race.  In fact my mother would take me on trips around town as a child to deliver any excess food that we had to homes that shocked me, the extreme poverty even scared me at times.  We never had that much since we had not so much money, and ethnicity was not an issue.

I have read much about "Native Americans" on the "Daily Yonder" website and sympathize to a large extent with Native American problems, their lapses of federal funding and heath aide but  many of their issues unfortunately seem to be traditionally self-inflicted.  Yet as the "Yonder" points out, more federal help could deal with this if it were welcome and available, but in some cases it is not.  The violence, rape, and division of wealth in many of these reservations, especially those with casinos, is like something out of a bad Islamist country.  The one closest to some "wish to not be" relatives of my wife, the Onondaga reservation is a mess.  It does not even have a casino, but a drive through shows a ghetto despite all of the federal assistance.  There are still those there that play damn good lacrosse, but would even that statement be seen as politically incorrect these days.

So are "Native Americans" insulted by being called Indians, or Blackhawks, or Braves, or any other moniker of their names dating from the arrival of the English in the 1600's.  I personally have no idea about the majority of Native Americans but do know that their leaders will exploit anything for profit and attention, and do think that this "politically correctness" could be overdone.  What if today's young  native Americans actually like it when one of their teams does well?  No idea here.  Obama thinks he knows all.  I definitely do not.  Change can happen, but is now the time to focus on this?  Change-em if they insult, but Obama has been in office for five years and in these crucial few weeks is it the time to raise the issue? ABSURD.

The main thought here is that Obama is out of his mind to take on an issue like this attracting attention to himself while refusing any discussion about compromise on the budget and debt ceiling, and the compromises being asked for now are extremely modest at best and some important in the near term.  These compromises are not unprecedented over the last hundred years.  Obama's refusal to even talk to the opposition on a few serious matters is. 

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