SCOTUS Victimized By "Do Nothing" Congress

I was listening to a radio segment from the Christian group Focus on The Family as they expressed obvious disappointment with the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage.

I keep hoping for someone, anyone, who can offer a measured dissent that doesn't describe the majority opinion as mysticism or applesauce. What I really don't want to hear is another Supreme court justice crying about living during these days of Do Nothing.

If the founding fathers can be credited for one very important thing, it's having the wisdom to recognize the wicked heart of man. By virtue of their recognition, disagreements by moral compass and disagreements by political tactic are masked motives that don't have to cripple our democracy. According to justice Antonin Scalia, "Any country that lets 9 unelected officials create laws, hardly deserves to be called a democracy". Would that be the case if the 5-4 decision was in your favor Scalia? Was it the case when that same nine sided with you in deciding that a cruel and unusual lethal injection capital punishment is now nothing more than "we know its bad, but do you have something better?"

A few of us out here had questions about America's democracy label long before the recent decision on marriage, but I can feel your pain Scalia. I would like to ask, how can the congressional representative's in our republic consider themselves caretaker's of democracy while way too afraid to do their jobs in fear of adding to Obama's legacy?

Inaction from Congress has catapulted Obama into the hero republicans hoped to avoid instead of sharing some good stuff with the current Congress, which just so happens to be a majority republican.  Something similar is happening to the judiciary branch who showed their hands long ago when initial concerns over the ObamaCare, "established by the state" language first arose, and the SCOTUS worried that Congress would quibble instead of do the normal work of clarifying laws with language adjustments and amendments.

Somehow, the SCOTUS was supposed to pretend that political forces weren't trying to use them and a loophole to circumvent a law that congress can overturn with their current majority.  It would require an override of Obama's certain veto, but it would also signal to America that Congress understands and intends to use the fullness of their legislative powers: power that the Supreme Court prefers in the hands of legislators, a loose description for America's current Congress.

Did anyone notice that Congress isn't threatening to override the Supreme Court's decision on marriage the same way that they threaten ObamaCare? They could if they thought that the Supreme Court went too far. Focus on The Family think so. They teased that aforementioned program so well, that I couldn't wait to hear why the rule of law had truly been compromised instead of another angry dissent. Ten seconds into the program and the host says this:

"First of all, it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court recognizes as marriage. What matters is what God recognizes."

End of story. I changed the radio station to a baroque symphony so I could post this reminder that executive orders and Supreme Court laws supporting same-sex marriage come when civil, productive congressional discourse doesn't. 

And that's all by design.

Mother Emmanuel Taught Love That Cast Out Fear

Whenever I get too angry, there is an underlying fear driving me to focus on pain and not love that conquers pain. True forgiving, the kind that also forgets, is so elusive to the human experience that we often need reminders. Well, maybe that message was sent only for me to change.

Mother Emmanuel has changed America in a way that we are barely coming to terms with. Years of preaching and praying, protesting and prodding barely produced integrated schools or anything better than an offset confederate flag near the capital dome in South Carolina, but one reflective act of evil changed everything.  Suddenly, every person who has a confederate flag or promoted its existence had to stop and stare in the mirror.

In retrospect, smart people can deduce that Roof did what he thought the Confederate flag told him to do just as it had inspired his white ancestors. It might make sense to keep your anger against racial mixing limited to your dinner table and weapon purchase 'just in case', but it never was reasonable for every young white southern confederate to assume the war against white people was over when the flag never came down, and when everyone they talk to, regardless of race,  reminds them of their shrinking power in a world they once fully controlled.

The conditions that created the original confederate fear and the flag that followed are the same or worse depending on your perspective.  White people, then and now, understand that they have never proven the dominant gene even if they dominate so many other things.  Race mixing was a fear then just as it is now, because not a lot will change where the flag of fear flies freely.

White fear made race mixing illegal after all other measures were dismantled, and then it raised a flag as a reminder when freedoms weight proved too heavy for anything more politically overt.  Every household might not have added the hate part into their explanation to the growing kids, but recognizing fear is  inert just as patterning the behavior of fear is inert. Black families afraid of race mixing gave similar fear messages to their children until they started accepting that light skinned niggers are niggers just like them, and happiness in marriage is way too demanding to avoid testing the confines of segregation.

One day, those who don't love love unless it's conforms to their own sense of righteousness, must reconcile with the limited role of sex, especially when married with children, compared to all the other parts of life and family that don't demand one gender or the other, or care about bedroom behavior. Is a child raised by one parent who is occasionally promiscuous more healthy than a child of monogamous homosexual parents?  Show me the love and I'll give you an answer. Love wins in life just as it does in any family structure, and will overcome the challenges of both family and parenting.

Period.

The evidence is clear. And whether we are fighting gay marriage today, or race mixing like the Confederate flag hoped to resist, we are focusing on fear and not the love that overcomes all circumstances including race mixing, if in fact race mixing is of divine concern in the first place. A combination of interracial marriage and the tanning industry have long since blurred the lines on race, yet, love has been working to fix that problem for man as well.

Love like Mother Emmanuel displayed to Dylann Roof and to the watching world.  We Christian's understand that love can conquer anything but are increasingly amazed at just how HE gets it done. Does it require the loss of loved ones?   Loss is relative, for God gave his only begotten son, not for a loss but as a gift towards everlasting life. If we give thanks for the gift of Christ, we might need also to thank him for the blessing of the lives he allowed to be taken to further this cause of freedom. 

Our flag stands for freedom because the greatest gift of all is freedom, and there is no greater freedom than the freedom from fear. Mother Emmanuel didn't shrink in fear or reach for a gun. She stood in the face of fear and forgave.  In doing so, she forgave every guilty white person who might have minimized the dangerous message of the Confederate flag and the fear it invokes in everybody.

EVERYBODY!!!

Absent the anger and fear, America would have never needed another flag. Emmanuel- God With Us- reminds each of us (not just me) to let go of fear, forgive and forget so that our hearts are a worthy  dwelling place for the Lord and for the unity to truly call ourselves the United States of America.

Obama Speaks On Grace, Race In Pinckney Eulogy

At last, black foke got the speech that they've been waiting for.

In reality, it was always unrealistic for blacks to expect Barack Obama to survive two terms in office being the head Nigga in Charge, given the level of opposition that faced him from day one.  He's done his best to add a little Al Green and a significant ebonic drawl to his eloquent speaking, but his policies have left most left leaning blacks wondering if any politician is much different in the long run.

In reality, Obama has done so many good things for America that it is hard to accept them in the face of the things he didn't do that you were hoping for, whoever you might be. So he might not complete immigration during his 2 terms, and he hasn't championed the cause of racial equality, yet most rational thinking people realize that any good leader is probably pissing off everyone on an equal level.  So far, Obama has done this too well for his own good or for his own public opinion polls.

President Obama's greatest strength is in line with a quote of Rev. Clementa Pinckney that the president himself used during his eulogy of Pinckney.  The quote went as follows: "Around the south, we have a good understanding of history.  Unfortunately we don't often have a good understanding of each other's history".

Barack Obama not only recognizes the power of history, it seems to be a guiding force in each of his decisions and his speeches.  Because of a keen sense of history, Obama's done a great job at limiting the big errors that would have impeded his ability to accomplish so many big things. At the same time, he's seen as way to cautious by those who felt he was purposed to create a new history while blazing new trails. You will never be able to deliver your song if you can't find a way to get and stay on stage. That's what I took from MSNBC host Al Sharpton, who was able to recall a story in which the great James Brown told him that,(paraphrased) no matter what you do in life, fight like crazy to get on that stage.  But once you're there, you gotta sing.

Today Obama sang.  Well technically, he sang again, but this time it was different.

He sang amazing grace, but he hoped to remind the world of the power of grace.  Knock on wood, because it was probably grace that allowed Sasha and Malia to avoid the front row of a funeral as someone else eulogized their father while residing as president.  Had Obama assumed a posture of black power and retribution for the years of mistreatment, he might have shortened his tenure in Washington and on earth.  Until today, Barack Obama stayed far away from the raw truth of race in America, fearing no one wanted to really deal with it in the first place, so why make his wife a widower?

Today, he said it the way blacks have been trying to say it for so long that we started to sound like that proverbial wolf crying little boy.  It took one too many recorded killings of black people- including the recent loss of the Emmanuel 9- to free this president to point out the obvious.  Confederate flags don't cause deaths, but they might cause hiring managers to "give a call back to John instead of Jamal" as the president reminded us in his eulogy.

We've come a long way, but moments like these are divine blessings- grace if you will- to press further into the struggle of decency, or return to the status quo.  In this address, president Obama urged America to seize this opportunity to advance our conversations, but most importantly advance the cause of decency towards one to another.  Mother Emmanuel is a shining example of  what it means to give undeserved decency, or grace if you will, much like the kind that Mother Emmanuel extended to the same man that terrorized their church.

Through the death of these 9 people, the confederate flag will come down and president Obama was finally given the reason to be black without excuse.  No one could question the vulnerability that this act of terror caused, even to those who don't stay in church a little longer than normal.  If the black church is the spine of black people, it could very well be the spine of America given the role blacks have played in advancing the cause of freedom's flag. Today was another chance for black people to advance the cause of freedom in America
, and our president stood up.

Freedom has a flag already, and it isn't the one that sought to maintain slavery.  However courageous the effort of any soldier, some of them are enlisted in the wrong army and for the wrong cause.  The only guilt and shame any person should feel towards the error of their ancestors should come from the persistence in that error.  Confederate flags are the height of a persistent error masquerading as family pride, and any state that sponsors the confederate flag is trying to mask the insecurity of shame and guilt with immense pride, yet, at the expense of those who have been oppressed by this symbol, and at the expense of our actual flag which stands for freedom and unity and decency as a birthright for all.

Does The Flag Stand For Grace?

Today our president gave a passionate address about the importance of being unified and decent towards all American's after the Supreme Court invoked federal right's allowing same-sex couples to marry.  And then he flew to South Carolina to eulogize a young black community leader, slain as a political act of terror.  The grace to be free and honest about race and grace was given to Barack Hussein Obama today, and he did not waste the moments.

Clementa Pinckney Might Be Eulogized Beneath Same Confederate Flag That Killed Him

Great men evidence themselves by the reverberation of their life and the lives they move when suddenly they're gone.

South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney was the pastor of the church that Dylan Roof terrorized, killing Pinckney and 8 others. No terrorist deserves to be memorialized or even remembered outside of the information WE can gain about ourselves in their confessions. The 8 people who died with their pastor deserved to be remembered. They, alongside their pastor, are the lives that shook the ground beneath the South Carolina legislature who are moving like the wind to make sense of the loss of a loved one. If they fail and some special accommodation  is not made, pastor Pinckney will be buried beneath the flag that killed him.

Never before, in the face of so many previous tragedies, have we seen solidarity behind change like we are seeing with the Confederate flag conversation. Pastor Pinckney shows US that God's messengers will be called to unusual places to break stubborn chains, occasionally to the state Senate, but sometimes even home.

This conversation is making me feel like I need to make sense of the conservative soul that under girds my proactive socialism platform. I love God and country just like the next red-blooded American. Apple pie is not my favorite because some people don't know how to properly cook the apples, but that's nothing that vanilla ice cream can't fix, regardless of the apple texture.  I also can't wait to replace my old Chevy pickup that I inherited when my dad died. Eventually it died too, but don't blame that truck for my former lack of automotive prowess. Like any real conservative American man, I've learned to fix a lot of stuff on my Made In America Jeep, mostly because I know dad would be proud, even though my American truck is not a Chevy anymore.

The bust of the Klan's founder is in the state house of Virginia
and on the 1-65 Highway entrance into Tennessee along with
several confederate flags

I wish America would have boldly conserved God as a confessed, guiding part of our daily lives including school and government, and not just the mystic, androgynous small print on our money that we curse or call to during times of tragedy. Mother Emmanuel is a shining example of what you can overcome when keeping God first. I'm also conservative enough still to hate the necessity for abortion, but not for any religious guilt reasons as some of my fellow conservatives. I just dislike what the necessity of abortion says about the degradation of the family, which is scary enough to encourage more abortion's than ever before. That being said, young people protect themselves better when they have sex these days. I'm not conservative enough to equally hate abortions as much as those liberal condom distribution programs that some conservatives protest just like abortions, but I understand the chastity argument too.

Virginia is banning confederate flags on license plates,
but this Klan statue will welcome you to Virginia instead.

I  admit however, that I might have given in on insuring that heterosexuals are the only people miserably married, but I'm  still strongly in support of the free market.  I just don't know how to make sense of the imbalance between profit and wages any better than the next conservative.

I struggle reconciling my conservative leanings during these pivotal moments in history that demand change instead of  conserving a tired way of thinking. Maybe black, God loving conservatives like me need to  take some blame for letting the crazy crackers keep the Confederate flag alive for so long. Quietly, it sort of made sense to quietly allow flag rebellion masquerading as pride because it helped to quiet my own retributive hate.  For me, continuing to say, "you hated first" is an immature response to being hated, so I tacitly accepted the hate and the flag as justification for my own sour heart. 

And then one day I lost my twisted white hatred and found a way to be polite or rude to people of all colors equally. Polite people of opposing color have been quietly hating while smiling in each other's face for a long time because freedom allows for things we know exist, but never know in who.  From all reports, pastor Pinckney was  more than just a polite person, he was someone everybody knew as a man of deep integrity and conviction. Just the kind of man who could lead an historic church and a battalion of its soldiers into the army of the lord to do what the Union army couldn't complete after the Civil War.

Mississippi State Flag

If you don't believe that God is still in the miracle business, look at these weaponless soldiers from Mother Emmanuel AME church of South Carolina, lead by General Pinckney, who are posthumously storming the stairs of state capitol building's nationwide to finish the war against General Robert E. Lee, that the Union had previously won, but with an asterisk. In Mississippi, republicans are hoping to invoke a ballot initiative to shield their campaigning conservatives from having to do the right thing with their confederate flag, which is a part of the state flag. Soon, more states will follow.

The founder of the Klu Klux Klan is revered in Tennessee. 

Until recently, I had no clue like most people who actually honor this flag, that this was the flag of Lee's N. Virginia army, not of the entire Confederate army. The modern use of the image was created and adopted in memory of the confederacy by people who celebrated and honored this image with cross burning and lynching and defiance of America.  Those folks who made it a rallying image that inspired the killing of black people, did this under popular support that existed not so long ago if you check the history or the memorials that continue to be inspired by the confederate movement.

The terrorist themselves and the people terrorized by these Confederate flaggers are not all dead and gone, nor is the memory of the flag's connection to terrorism.  Moreover, the fight to get rid of the flag never died either, but it started to feel like one of those fights that take so long you start to forget what you're fighting for.

That was the fate of the debate before a black president made hate emerge from the shadow's and rise up to kill a friend that he must now eulogize.  Should America continue to allow states to wave the flag that emboldens the racist cause right along side our red, white and blue, which one murderous confederate chose to burn in private?

Waving an enemy flag should be a  personal and private act protected by America's respect for free speech, not one supported by the government of the people, by and for ALL people.  As obvious as that seems,  it took pastor Pinckney to deliver one more reverberating message- that's still rumbling throughout the entire congregation and beyond.

Lay your burden down pastor. This message is being written for you.

Domestic Terror Is An Old Flag For Black America

No matter how rational or irrational each or these despicable violent killers proves to be, they have to rationally recognize the TERROR that their heinous acts are about to inflict upon society.

Why This Time, Why This Way?

Motives are usually so inflated with supposition, that most people eventually buy into their own theory and discard the others as supposition.  The death of the perpetrator typically leaves us to staring at each other and wondering where did we go wrong, supposing someone else is to blame.

Now that a few of these terrorist have survived, we've taken to the practice of pointing fingers even when the criminal tells us exactly why they behaved as they did. Not so long ago, it was Batman inspiring death and mayhem. In this case the killer wanted to incite a race war, so he inspired himself with the kinds of things you need to get fired up for a black church mass killing- white race hate rhetoric and symbols supporting his notion that a race war could soon follow a calculated attack at the underbelly of black life.

The fact that the confederate flag- a flag of the losing army that fought to destroy the union- is still flying in South Carolina, may not be added inspiration to the Roof's of America who honored that flag and not the US flag, but we know for certain that it stands for white purity and supremacy to a great deal of people in South Carolina and across the South.  The fire that burns to hold on to that flag is enough evidence of the racial animus that still lingers more than it represents undying pride in an institution that should have died with the war.  If ISIS gets to keep their flags raised even after the world defeats them, it might be hard to recognize the victory.

We all know that Roof, and the Klan and every other race hate killer are off track if they believe that a civil society would discard civility just to feed into the kind of hate we are trying to heal from.  What we don't know is exactly how many other fiddler's like Roof' are waiting to join the war.  Somehow it seems too easy to rest on the statistics of how infrequent these things tend to happen given the fact that the frequency is increasing at a rate so alarming, we barely have time to wash that colored dye out of the hair of the last terrorist, finish his trial and grieve before another terrorist comes along.

The bigger question of the day, is whether or not we can pass off this murderous racism as crazy like we might do with James Holmes (the Aurora theater shooter) and miss or dismiss the fact that race hatred is also on a dangerous rise?  Even worse, might we be missing the impact of mental illness integrated within a nation that is polarized to the extent of arming ourselves? As we speak, churches across the land are considering undercover, armed guards to be able to address the kind of criminal that terrorized Mother Emmanuel AME Church in South Carolina.

Some of those churches will be catching up to the ones who've already armed themselves against the wiles of the devil and against a well armed America that buys more weapons every time one of these incidents occurs.  Although mature and responsible human beings who understand the power and danger of a gun should always have access to them, they are they only ones qualified to endure the enticing power to pull, that the trigger of a gun possesses.  Everyone else, even a few on our police forces across America, needs to be kept away from such life controlling power.  Since this seems a near impossible dream, the counter solution has been to inundate the landscape with so many guns as to make criminals unsure exactly who has them.  Peace by intimidation if you will. The results are both mixed and debated.

A similar approach was employed many moons ago when man discovered the powerful might of a nuclear/atomic warhead.  Nothing can replace the value of real life testing, and Japan offered fertile hostility and landscape to put it to valuable use.  We've been fighting to limit the access to this weapon ever since, but guns are different somehow.  George Zimmerman might have purchased a gun because the state of Florida told him that more guns makes us safer than less guns, but he used it because having one without using it is the equivalent of  keeping a stick in your pocket, or having a weapon but never being ready when the moment of "safety" demands.  Weapons scream to be used because everything powerful has a voice.  They also scream to be used with caution because life and death decisions lie in the hand of the beholder.

Trained officers make mistakes in this realm, and yet we've convinced ourselves that random citizens are just as capable of being calm, cool and collected decision makers when encountering random gun violence?  How are normal people supposed to deal with rational or irrational terrorists?  Regardless of their state of sanity, they are operating with a plan and 7 magazines of bullets or so to execute that plan. Whether the weapon of choice is a bullet or a plane, churches and schools and movie theaters and World Trade Center buildings would have to plan for the unthinkable to prepare for the unthinkable.  In some ways, we are enslaved by this condition and need to look towards those who are familiar with the terror of enslavement.

The reason its called terror is because it disrupts our connection to normalcy. Car wrecks, train wrecks, plane wrecks and the like are sad, but not disrupting by nature nor terrorizing.  We take trips in these transport mechanisms expecting to be safe, but realizing that dangers do exist.  Going to church all day or eating greasy popcorn in a dark room are not supposed to be terribly risky behaviors, just as working in a sky scraper building should never make you afraid of incoming attack planes.

Tomorrow or next week we won't be afraid of church or movies or sky scrapers anymore because that's just not normal.  Angry white people in the South are not still plotting to kill black church go'ers  or to start a race riot, just as every Muslim who worships the Koran  is not trying to join the Jihad and shoot up any part of America, even if Pam Geller is sponsoring the event. The people interested in doing such things are so predictable that the authorities targeted and met them at the last Geller event.

Segregation remains the truly crazy part about America's landscape, and the opportunity to get to know each other on a level beyond our skin and stereotypes is more elusive in places like South Carolina now that they have returned to segregation policies of the past that limit REAL interaction between races.  Crazy is the necessity of 9 deaths to take away the daily hysteria over a white girl who dared become black, as if she painted her face and blackened her hair-do just to jump into a soup line exclusive to coloreds instead of advancing cause of coloreds (I hate that word NAACP). Blacks are such a terrorized people, even we can't understand the compulsion to endure terror forgetting that our moments of terror have created the very courage and charisma that have made more than one white girl copy our ways, and more than one white person challenge our backbone during church.

All terrorism is crazy if for no reason other than its trauma against humanity, yet its important that we compartmentalize it and not turn it into a wider reaching conspiracy that demands a wide reaching address that misses the mark.  Terror must be compartmentalized or it works. If terror is an individual act that attempts to differentiate those who are terrorized, black people are perfectly equipped for this type of behavior, and we will never be intimidated. By the whip or a weapon. Blacks should continue conducting worship in the very way we have always done to overcome terror, from the middle passage until now.  If we ever needed a gun to protect our worship, then we never needed faith.

Domestic terror of all sorts is here to stay, and America needs to understand how to endure and overcome this mess. Mother Emmanuel can now be an example that this is not an issue of race, but an opportunity for racial progress and for the hope of a better America. Blacks as a race in America made America possible from the beginning, and continue to shine the light of hope that only courage can provide.  If Mike Brown Jr.  died to expose a policing problem that needed exposing, these 9 deaths could very well address a nation flying under too many flags.

Are WE Embarrassed By Black Face or Black Race?

"I'm not sure that this reality TV moment is a substitute for the important work around race that needs to continue."

-Cornell Williams- NAACP President on the Rachel Dolezal story.

Rachel not only see's herself as a black woman, she knows it.  Having won the Spokane, Washington NAACP election for chapter president sort of proves that it was working. Doesn't it? Dolezal didn't come out of any closet or change one thing about her daily presentation in order to deal with the media onslaught, and she won't change a thing because of it either.

Caitlyn Jenner enraged some people because of her transition into womanhood, but in a whole different kind of way.  Womanhood is apparently not quite as sacred as blackness seems to be, at least based upon the fervor of this story.

Dolezal was elected into her role by people who
assumed that she was black  and qualified like them.
What has changed?

Personally, I don't get it.  Well I get it, but I don't get the reason why race passing in reverse is such a capital offense.  Blacks and Hispanics, and anyone who has the ability to "pass" for white, have done it forever.  Getting past the fact that this whole story only reveals that everybody assumes white to be right and black to be an embarrassment, let's dig deeper into the question of what does it mean to be black in the first place?

What makes blackness something more sacred than whiteness such that copying it is more angering or less allowed?  If the NAACP is truly an organization that doesn't hire based on race in the first place, than they did not vote for Rachel with her apparent identity as a deciding factor- in the first place.  Based upon the stories of all the great things that she has done to further the cause of black people, what makes those who won't fight for their own cause more worthy to be black proud?  If Africa is the cradle of civilization, aren't we all shades of black anyway?  Will whites no longer be allowed to tan, or do they need to wear race disclaimers in case they start to get too dark and mistaken for the wrong race?  If we all did DNA tests, we might be surprised by the amount of black or white we actually have in our blood, but does any of that matter these days?

Rachel Dolezal may have never experienced black racial problems directly as a kid, but she was at an impressionable age when she watched it happening to her younger siblings, and she clearly is getting the black woman business now.  Sometimes the pain of watching racism towards people you love can be more impactful than experiencing it directly yourself, especially if her siblings were too young to fully understand the racism she endured from the sideline.

The spirit of grace typically makes me lean towards being sympathetic, although I don't have to sympathize with the life that Dolezal has lived for some time now. Anybody who looks like a black woman, especially to black people, is going to experience the kind of things black women deal with everyday, especially from  other women.

"Black" Persia White

Questions like, is that really your hair? Light skinned black men and women have often added ethnic styles to their hair (braids, afro blowout) to help aid with their chosen identity because their birth given identity didn't clarify race well enough. In other words, they looked too white and didn't want to.

Do really light blacks like Karen Finney become black at birth, when society finally recognizes their nappy edges, or when she happens to mention it on the news one day?

I never knew Karen Finney was black until she said so. I always
found her attractive and smart- even when she was white to me.

What about all of the minorities that marry white people and attempt to assimilate into the white community, seemingly to detach from the worst parts of their minority experience.  The black versions of this behavior get labeled, Uncle Tom. Yet, even those old tired labels have always begged the question, "what does it mean to be black" and who gets to decide the parameters of the black experience.  If Caitlyn can feel like a woman, why can't Rachel feel like a black person?  Who gets the exclusive rights of deciding what the black experience is? Even if unwanted racism is a delineating factor, how much racism does it take to qualify as black enough?

Dolezal stepped down from her NAACP post in Spokane because of the controversy and the distraction it was creating for the cause. Had I been Cornell Williams, the president of the NAACP, I would not have accepted Rachel's resignation since he keeps declaring that the NAACP has always had multi-racial leadership, and Dolezal was not chosen because of her assumed race.

Or was she?

Are those black NAACP members, who chose the light skinned black woman over her darker skinned black opponent, upset now that her resume has changed (it has not) or is this about the box on her application pertaining to race?  According to Williams, the NAACP doesn't use that race box as a hiring criteria, so Dolezal isn't responsible for using  her race as a qualifying factor. As chapter president, she didn't vote for herself or craft anything special to tilt the vote in her favor. She ran on the life merits of the same Rachel Dolezal that they knew her to be. The same Rachel Dolezal that woke with a silk head wrap on her hair to keep it tamed. The NAACP didn't think they had hired a white woman patriot and Dolezal didn't either.  She still doesn't.

Some transsexuals are able to pass without problem so long as they pull off the exterior part sufficiently. However, if they've fully made the change, no one, even the NAACP, would consider replacing them a the result of a gender change that was made prior to their hire.  No one would even be questioning the gender revelation as being deceptive now that we allow people to live under any gender assignment without retribution and without declaration of their past.

Race, in this case, isn't getting the same kind of pass- but it should.  Dolezal is one of millions of Americans who don't present themselves exactly as their birth certificate claims.  Some make changes because of genetics that they don't control while other have made changes that they fully and consciously control. If YOU hire or vote for someone because they appeared to be white but were Hispanic, or appeared to be black but were a well tanned white person, YOU were looking for a category of person in addition to a qualified person. If color played ANY part in the selection of Dolezal, they got exactly what they deserved.  A capable hard working black woman, and an eye opening example of why color is a stupid reason to hire someone.

Ultimately, the people who care are the people who care. Post racial America is a joke because the lense of race colors every interaction between humans. Upset blacks say that Dolezal could have served as the voice of that sympathetic white woman whose words add balance, as opposed to just another black woman demanding respect for the cause- but she's pretty good the way she is.  In fact, there are plenty of lifelong black people who have done quite a bit less than Dolezal to further black causes.  Maybe each of us should consider if an identity adjustment is the key to getting more involved ourselves. If you are mad because you're too black go back and forth as Dolezal seems to have done, consider this. What damage would it be to the cause of blackness if every white person in America decided to go ethnic, for a lack of better word?  What harm does it do to the cause of blackness if every human outwardly embraces a connection to all of our African roots?

I encourage you Rachel Dolezal to keep braiding those little girls hair and doing your best to be a part of the cause.  If life is easier for your black family to have a black mom, then good for you and them.  Dolezal could have remained the sideline white lady, upset at seeing her black loved ones treated so poorly at times, or she could "go there" as she explains, accepting the same ridicule and suppositions from color that she's seen projected at her people all of her life. You see, in the minds of those who don't care for blacks very much, she's a nigger now too.

God will judge us all for many of the things we choose to do in our lifetimes, but this race thing is a personal problem for humans to deal with alone.

Black face not allowed.

Sanders Softening America On Socialist Ideology

Since my socialist brother Bernie Sanders has finally grabbed America's ear relative to the matters that matter most- I feel compelled to jump on board and further tug the well tweaked ears of the populace.

You see, the populist message will resonate to the ear of the proletariat so long as the bourgeoisie don't understand how to silence the noise.  Bill Clinton understands.  He has seen life from both sides now, but his political days are mostly bedroom whispers now, and he is considered the problem and not the cure given the fact that his days in office created many of the policies that are being examined under the political microscope.  Bill called for the blitz on welfare benefits and signed the NATFA agreement jamming North America into the free trade corner that ruined Mexico, and wounded American politics with millions of new immigrants but no congressional agreement about how to deal with them.

Bill admits to doing all of that to America, and now Hillary is asking US for an opportunity to fix it, assuming we can trust her to get it done.  Her asset is an American public widely convinced about the necessity for the kinds of changes Hillary is parroting from Senator Sanders of Vermont, but don't want someone who looks like a mad scientist in the White House .   Her liability is Bill.

I'm still pulling for the world to meet the real Jeb Bush, whose bilingual ability and immigrant friendly policies could bridge many of the gaps in the system and save Hillary from 8 precious years of being a grandmother, but Jeb needs to start sounding more like Bernie too, not just Hillary.

Although he only survived one term, Jeb's daddy George, did not chase into Iraq and kill Sadaam Hussein like Jeb's brother chose to do when America was still pissed off about 9-11.  One day in the future, America might admit to itself that WE asked for that mistake and WE own it, not just little George and his cohorts. Quietly, recent polls about big and little George reveal that the shift towards each Bush has already happened, even though it hasn't appeared to help Jeb with his poll numbers yet.

Or has it?

Any real analysis of Jeb's running style or poll numbers begins now that he's finally in, not while he was trying on running shoes.  The same must be said for Chris Christie, who has yet to put his hand up for a full blown dose of a Washington media blitz on his family and worthiness to be president, even though Christie seems destined to leave his fingerprint before the story is told.  The ravenous media keeps distorting the process by forcing the hand of so many stupid candidates who think that early launching and lots of interview questions could offer beneficial media coverage and a chance to get in that upcoming FOX debate.

Jeb has finally declared, and might also be the greatest example of what happens when you expose yourself to an industry paid to make you screw up if they can.  Over the years, the ravenous American media has only grown more hungry to feed the beast, and make the newest news cycle fresh and interesting.  In fact, the very word "news" has become a pejorative for the sketchy details that drive opinion pieces.  Where once there were editorialized news articles, now there are only editorials about the news of the day- and Benghazi.  

I quickly abandoned my elementary dreams of the presidency when I stared wide eyed at crafty news reporters with a microphone in hand and realized who tugs at the strings of the politicians. At the time, the word lobbyist was foggy to me as were capitalism and democracy, since socialized unions were then and are still now, the only one's fighting for the common American- not politicians and certainly not Donald Trump.

Who Runs The World?  Sorry Girls, It's the Press.

Hidden inside of every opinion based news report is a grandiose view of said opinions.  Those who regularly make historical records of their opinions are declaring something that is universally meant to matter, maybe even change something.  Opinion sharers are not much different than policy makers, just less willing or able to expose our views to the unequivocal test of a voting booth.  The natural contempt that will always exist between politicians and the press that covers them, should be viewed like the friend who would date your hot spouse if things just don't work out between the two of you.

If you recognize this reality going in, then you keep yourself and your gorgeous husband far away from this "friend", and force all of your interactions to be on a governed and controlled basis, much like Hillary has tried to do with her white house press friends, whom she is VERY familiar with.   To nurture the friendship, Hillary is actually taking some questions lately, possibly feeling as though the constant negative news needed a coordinated counter measure.  Way too many candidate's, including Hillary, are falling prey to pressure from a contempt filled friendship, when speaking through surrogates has always been a better way to limit questions and control the messaging.

In the end, the early entrants and media blabber mouths will be chewed up and spit out by a White House press crew that is more experienced at this than the candidates who don't control the process or track the results like the press does anyway.  In the end, the ravenous penchant for a 'WHO'S NEXT' mentality will always play into the hand of the person most willing, and able, to hold out and be that person. Elizabeth Warren was working this angle to perfection by creating the clamor for her to run that would have become a forest fire had she not put it out early.  Even with the bridge scandal, Chris Christie seems to be the only republican politician who understands how to play this game and the media, and not let the media or the game play him.  If big timer LeBron is a timely example, Christie has the kind of game to shock the world like only big timer's know how to do (that was not a weight pun).

In the end, Christie's timed delay and dazzling debate skills could crush Jeb, Rubio and the field, and bully his way through the republican primary (that was not a weight pun either).


Assuming Christie is not slowed by his weight, he will be slowed by the fact that America needs a centrist in the White House, so much so that America is actually listening to the message of Bernie's Sanders at the same time that republicans are searching for a charismatic voice to do to Hillary what Obama did to her the last time.  What republicans don't realize is that democrats can have a  party coronation, but America will not do the same for the presidency. Hillary is not the first woman to run and Obama was not the first black person to run for president either.  Obama was the first black to win the democratic nomination, and the first to receive widespread backing from blacks for good reason, not blind race love. Americans of every color, don't accidentally or frivolously choose presidents, even if hanging chads suggests otherwise.


DO YOUR JOB!

 However ravenous it might appear, the chewing and spitting process of our media does help to yield transparency from people trained to fight it, and to eventually hand the keys of the White House to the best of two flawed party reps, since two party politics is the best America has been able to offer its people. Going in, WE know all too well that every president is nothing more than a governor of the unforeseen, and the captain of a ship that can't fully turn until after they have fully left office.  As a result, each president has to convince us that they can redirect a ship if WE are to grant them one or two terms and not impeach them along the way.  Ultimately, the judgement of presidential performance lies in the hands of historians, not the voters who offer them up to history. Because of two-party politics, we shall always sway back and forth from the two-party tug-o-war we call democracy, or representative republic, or whatever they call that two-party song and dance going on in Washington.


Forget The People, Trust The Process.

As for winning the vote, is it about the people or the process?  Bill Clinton educated interviewer Jake Tapper (CNN interview 6/14/15) that voters only need to feel that things are moving in the right direction for things to be moving in the right direction.  Clinton was primarily addressing the Ferguson style protests all over the land, but his comment has many applications. In American politics, its not about what is real, but how you spin the message.  Bill rightfully recognizes that, when following the prevailing winds, you never lose much altitude.  This ideology makes it easy for Bill Clinton to recuse his own failed policies as a means of helping Hillary do the same.

The prevailing winds are calling for Bernie Sanders style socialism.  What is Sanders socialism?  Proactive populism is what Sanders is selling, a socialist who has grown tired of the excuses we keep making for corporate greed and a shrinking middle class.

 Populism is nothing more than a pseudonym  for proactive socialism, something every nation needs desperately. Proactive socialism removes excuses and breeds the kind of healthy and educated people who rarely see excuses as children, so they rarely use them as adults. Socialism is way too damaging to use it on anything other than social necessities. Capitalism like ours breeds disparity like ours. Together, the capitalism and the socialism we use now are creating more excuses, not taking them away.
I, for one, am tired of them all.

Proactive, preventative socialism, like ObamaCare and Pell Grants for college, are an investment in our own children and families, and promotes the mental and physical health of every individual in America. Bernie and I declare socialist (or populist if that's more palatable) ideas of this sort because we have seen something consistent in every healthy and educated person that we've met on this planet. They seldom make excuses for their status in life.

NO EXCUSES!?!

Imagine an America without excuses.

(necessary dramatic pause so you can digest that thought)


American's seem to universally relate to feeling frustrated with excuses and the disconnect between those who make excuses for their plight in America, and those who excuse America as not being duty bound to repair societal fissures that trap so many. I imagine an excuse free America where all political ideologies join together around a unifying acceptance that WE are only as strong as our weakest link.  This must be the message of the populist movement, and the message of excuse free America as well.

Excuse free America will be one that eliminates wasteful social welfare spending and transforms it into total healthcare and life long access to education for every human seeking to be American. In excuse free America, no undeserving person will ever gain wasted benefits because education or mental/physical health are not benefits, but life necessities. Chain repair, if you will. Excuse free America won't have welfare anymore because that seems like an odd word for repairing the links in America's broken chain. If you are hungry or short of other societal needs, excuse free America will provide them through the only institutions that will continue to offer such services- healthcare and education, since food  and shelter are essential components to health and learning.

 What about the impaired and the elderly? A smarter, healthier, excuse free nation won't quibble over care for the truly needy of society.  I'm fairly confident about that.

Whether an excuse filled nation comes from a nation full of excuse makers, or from a nation that excuses its failures, has been the kind of finger pointing that's frozen our progress. As the greatest nation on earth, the excuses for why WE continue to fail ourselves should exist no more.

Excuse free American's will tell the hungry or the addicted homeless to "go to school and eat, or go to the hospital to get some help". In excuse free America, both of these institutions would be duty bound around the goal of repairing these damaged chain links,  pointing them towards answers and moving them away from an excuse filled life.

WE the people are responsible for our own strength as individuals and as a nation, which demands the proper balance between capitalism and socialism. I haven't interviewed every socialist, but I will go out on a socialist limb and say that 45% is way too much socialism, even for those of us who proclaim socialism.
.

Even Russia is less socialist than America
Russia 20.9  .vs.  USA  44.9 (2009 figures).
Unlike China (also 20% socialism), Russia
has a population half the size of the U.S.

China, a nation over 4 times larger than America's population,  only spends 20%  on socialism.

You might be struggling with your textbook definition of the word socialism, so let me help you with that. Avoid your textbook when defining what socialism means just as you should avoid your textbook when searching for a definitive view on democracy or capitalism.

In reality, the textbook will put the positive picture of America next to capitalism and democracy, and the negative face of  communist Russia or N. Korea to help define socialism, as if America has done a perfect job representing the value and virtue of capitalism and democracy without blemish. Not only are WE more socialist than Russia, WE have yet to realize our own democracy dreams since our representative republic keeps resisting the call to count the vote, something that could eliminate an outdated electoral college system, and a do nothing congress at the same time.

Yes, the do nothing congress is a miserable representation of the ''so-called" democracy that we keep portraying on television, hoping to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into carbon copies of US.  Can you imagine an American style congressional debate in our fixed up version of Iraq- complete with newly elected officials from the Sunni, Shiite and Christian Kurd party's?

 Gentlemen, please check your weapons at the door.  Please?

One day soon, we won't demonize the word socialism just because of its bad examples just as we don't denounce every aspect of our representative republic each time there's another U.S. government shutdown pending. Nations who pattern themselves after US might someday have less than 30% of their population as participating voters just like WE do too.  Every social system can chronicle success and failure, and every nation needs some level of socialism. Socialism, aka.,Taxation and redistribution, can hurt an economy when you collect and redistribute too much, or devastate it when you collect and redistribute too little.   For certain, every nation is a balance of capitalism and socialism with the freedom to describe their own ideology, regardless of what the scales truly say.

HOW MUCH SOCIALISM IS ENOUGH?

 As a matter of socialized spending, several self proclaimed socialist nations spend less money (per capita) on socialism than WE do, China and Russia the most noteworthy. Be it welfare, ACA, Pell Grants, Food Stamps, Section 8 or big bank bailouts during recessions caused by the same big banks. America is much more socialized than nations who wear this label proudly. But how much is too much?  And is American socialism reactionary and much more costly as a result?

Chris Bowers :: Just How Socialist? A Survey of Major Countries

With the exception of the United States and the United Kingdom, where better data is available (see here for the US and here for the UK), the following data comes from the CIA World Factbook. It measures the percentage of socialism in major world economies by dividing real government spending by nominal GDP for selected countries (numbers for all countries except the UK and USA are from 2008): Levels of socialism in G-20 nations, plus selected other economies Cuba: 81.4%* France: 61.1% Sweden: 58.1%* Italy: 55.3% Netherlands: 54.7% Libya: 53.0%* Germany: 48.8% Canada: 48.2% Spain: 47.3% Angola: 44.8%* United States: 44.7% (2009) United Kingdom: 42.1% (2009) Australia: 43.6% Venezuela: 41.1%* Saudi Arabia: 40.4% Turkey: 39.1% United States: 35.5% (2007) South Africa: 33.9%* Indonesia: 33.2% Japan: 30.9% South Korea: 29.3% Mexico: 26.7% China: 22.0%* Russia: 20.9% India: 20.4% Argentina: 19.1% Brazil: 17.3% * = officially, or at least famed for being, communist or socialist

If China- the most famed socialist nation- can spend 22% on socialism, what makes the US more democratic, or capitalist, or better at 45%? With the 55% remaining portions of American capitalism hijacked by the wealthy and the crafty, "how free are we really"?  Most American's recognize the fundamental flaw in the design of the building, yet struggle to figure out how to dismantle and rebuild a structure that is currently in use.  Our challenge is not finding good ideas-  its the sacrifice of change when the status quo is yielding so much for some (1%), and leaving so little for the rest (99%) to fight over, or fight back with.

"Mexico is not our friend" and
"I'm really rich".

The status quo spends millions on maintaining their status while telling US that conservative policies need more time to produce the trickle down prosperity that they've been promising every since Ronald Reagan. Under Obama, Donald Trump has become a multi billionaire and is a walking billboard for the success of the 1% under Obama.  From Reagan to Bush and Bush to Clinton, back to a Bush and then Obama, three score and 6 years more of  the presidency have involved conservative friendly presidents and policies, yet all that WE have to show for it is a widening gap between Donald Trump and everybody else.

" I can beat China.  I do it all time"

Obama's TPP might appear to be doing more of the same, assuming you didn't notice that the Asian trade is a ship that has already sailed, or is already sailing each day with goods earmarked for US shores emblazoned with the words "Made In Asia Somewhere".   Fat cats who make millions in the Asian markets don't really need America's penchant for thwarting cost cutters and wage slashers, to muck up their revenue streams anyway. The abject failure of NAFTA to deliver on its promise has rendered the words "trade agreement" very taboo in America in the same way that the failed Iraq and Afghanistan wars are making us gun-shy towards ISIS, an actual worthy reason to have troops in the middle east.

When ISIS Disrupts Capitalism Like Bin Laden Did, We'll Finally Get Serious With ISIS.

If we haven't learned a thing from 9-11, we should know by now that capitalism is bigger than America, and too complex to look inward in a highly competitive global economy.  International trade will always be necessary, but should never come at the sacrifice of the American collective.  Since the American farm is now the farm to the world, socialism is necessary to maintain the stability of American farms for the sake of worldwide human consumption of bland green vegetables and overall human health.


Call it populism, socialism, collectivism or whatever trick helps you to digest bland green vegetables and this aspect of our Cold War defeat. The SquareBiz is that there is almost nothing that  proactive socialism and kale or wheatgrass won't fix.  But we must first develop a taste for the word socialism.

Better yet, learn to eat your green vegetables first.  Socialism will exist whether we like the taste or not.

TransRacial? What Is That?

What The #@&! Is Trump Saying

Wow. What an announcement.

2015 NBA Finals Have Been Fantastic Experience, But What Are We Watching?

A little over one year ago, this 

is what the headline said.

Bill Russell Responds to LeBron James Mount Rushmore List

 balldontstop.com on February 18, 2014

Last week LeBron James listed his NBA version of Mount Rushmore, James chose Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson.

King James has captured  or chased afterthe 

crown for the past 6 years in a row- and 

every year we debate a redesign of our 

NBA mount Rushmore's.

For those who couldn't include LeBron on the mountain, 
alternative monuments have been suggested.

Why has Kobe fallen off of the NBA Mt. Rushmore talk?
He would like to know.  Russell and Bird don't care.

Is Bird considered because he's a white
guy, and is Kareem's sky hook
worthy of a place on the Mount?

  

If LeBron has bumped someone like the great Bill Russell from NBA's
Mount Rushmore, can Steph do the same to Larry Bird or Kobe 
or is he not that kind of player......yet?

Via Sun-Sentinel:

According to (Craig)Sager, Russell told him, “Hey, thank you for leaving me off your Mount Rushmore. I’m glad you did. Basketball is a team game. It’s not for individual honors. I won back-to-back state championships in high school, back-to-back NCAA championships in college, I won an NBA championship my first year in the league, an NBA championship my last year, and nine in between. And that, Mr. James, is etched in stone.”

No really!  What happened to Kobe?  Why didn't he make the Mt. Rushmore 4?
----------
Shaquille O'Neal is sitting somewhere saying:
"Shut up Kobe. I didn't make it either"

What exactly are we watching?  Since this  series has destroyed the common bromide "The best team always wins in a 7 game series", 

what are we watching? 

What value is there to all of the commentary when neither team seems to be doing what we expected of them to start this series, turning an out of shape white guy into the storyline?

I'm rooting for LeBron and the Cavs, but I certainly still anticipate what every fan who is still picking the Warriors expects as well-

for the Warriors to come out and play the way we've seen them play all season, and even at moments in this series.  All the folks from Akron, Ohio including one of them with the last name James- thinks that the 2nd best team can and will win the NBA finals this time around. 

Let Stephen A. Smith (ESPN) give his FirstTake, and he'll tell you that LeBron is different from Kobe and Jordan because he is more comfortable with losing than either of these legends were.

Magic, LeBron, Jordan and BillRussell- not Kobe, should be the new NBA Mt. Rushmore, right?

  LeBron (and Magic), 




unlike Kobe and Jordan, deal with losing better because they realize that "experience is not only the best teacher" it is a prize no one can take away, regardless of the games outcome. LeBron didn't know if his team could make it all of the way to the NBA finals, but says he was certain that he could lead them if they did. 

LeBron- bent over at the waist in a yoga style v-stretch, getting 

recovery and relief from the grueling battle he'd just won, quickly smiled like a fresh morning sun moments later when talking to Doris Burke about the experience his new brothers were gaining as they struggle to maintain fourth quarter leads.

People who live and think like that can never really lose in life- or basketball.  Kobe and Jordan rise to the top of the debate when it comes to rings and moxie, but fall flat when character comes into the Mt. Rushmore debate of NBA greats.  LeBron and Magic, on the other hand, shine like the smiles you think of whenever you imagine their legendary skill and bigger personalities.

Like it or not, LeBron will never be a murderer on the basketball court.  He's willing to take your hope away while leaving your heart fully intact.  Jordan and Kobe on the other hand, needed your heart for nourishment, and ate a few of their own teammates while satisfying the hunger.  LeBron, Magic- and Bill Russell for sure- deserve to be considered the greatest basketball players of all time because basketball is a team sport that deserves its greatest players to be acclaimed as players and people that everyone would have wanted as teammates, and not just to avoid getting eaten. Is the LeBron of today still willing to leave Bill Russell off of the list  in lieu of Oscar Robertson, or does he now realize that, when it comes to teamwork, Russell deserves to be the logo, not Jordan or Jerry West.

LeBron is just the kind of player and person to usher in the style of Bill Russell team basketball that is currently elevating the NBA globally since that the NFL is causing headaches and early retirement, and baseball is boring.  If we hoop fans think we prefer basketball with lots of scoring, the past few championships  series, including this 2015 NBA finals, is challenging that notion since viewership of the finals is at an all time high.  Each of these teams have defended at an all time high level and are experiencing the pain and the rewards of stellar defense.  Golden State might be looking to shoot better, but if they had defended any less in these first 3 games, game 4 would be a closeout opportunity for Cleveland and not a chance to even the series as it is for the Warriors.

Experience is the best teacher for Golden State as well as Cleveland. An experienced LeBron is not quite certain if the Warriors will keep up and maybe improve their stellar defense, or sacrifice something in the quest for more offense?

Some believe double teaming the ball away from LeBron  who is shooting below 40% already is really the key.  I think it will insure a triple double and a huge game from Mosgov instead of LeBron's regular 40points, 12 boards and 8 assists that LeBron has averaged in the series? To these aging eyes, LeBron needs the double team to help him create plays.  Without it, he appears a tad too old to do what his young legs used to do easily. LeBron is still capable of forcing his way around and through multiple players like he once did regularly, but it costs him so much more than it used to. and it didn't help his last rag tag Cleveland team anyway.

 So he doesn't do it until he must. 

Freethrows Win Championships

As of game 3, LeBron now seems willing, almost eager, to step up and hit the free throw. Every big game is decided at the line, rather directly or indirectly, and the greatest player alive must have watched the tape and learned from the experience of gaining a victory through the hustle and freethrows of his sidekick, Delly- freethrows that the king has often missed in moments that matter.  

FREETHROWS are championship basketball, and at the end of games, heroes succeed and celebrate 20% of the time, while the rest of the time the lunch bucket teams hit their freethrows and haul away the crown. 

At this point of the 2015 NBA finals, there are no more secret plays and no more adjustments that will matter.  If either team had something decisively effective, they would have used it to win the first 3, highly crucial games, which have each been won by the last team standing, not by strategic mastery. One of the hardest parts of late game freethrows will always be late game exhaustion. Championship fatigue might later send you to the hospital for IV replenishing, or sad and alone in the off season, wondering where you went wrong while wishing you had worked IV hard.  As always, the greatest pain yields the greatest gain. Not the pain of playing defense until you feel like you're gonna die- I'm talking about the pain from losing and feeling like you didn't sacrifice to the death like your opponent did to win. If you are lucky to make it back, there is a lot to be gained from such an experience.

No One Can Tell Who Will Win

Are we watching the meltdown of Golden State or the over achievement of Cleveland?  Why did we expect the Warriors to have experience that they didn't even add through free agency? Leandro Barboso is a serviceable veteran player, but he has never won it all just like the rest of his Warrior teammates. Coach Steve Kerr has Golden States only championship experience, and at times it looks like he would rather suit up and battle LeBron instead of trying to impart his knowledge with a business suit on. There is almost no more coaching left to be done, there is only effort and competition left to decide the season. The great Dan Patrick thinks that the Warriors must change the style of game if they hope to change the result of the game.  Everyone who thinks like this is setting Golden State up to be slain by their own sword.  These teams are playing the game at the highest effort level, and the more experienced team barely won two games. 
Barely.

Although Golden State seemed a clear cut favorite going in, and still a pretty good bet if you ask some, are the Warriors really any more talented than the Cavs, or are have we glossed over every player on the Warriors because of Steph story?

My 2 cents just became an IOU since I'm still stuck with so many questions, even though the team I chose won 2 games already including one on the opponents court.  Anyone who tells you that they still have a  definitive clue about the outcome of this series is hiding fear or confusion behind a facade of confidence.  LeBron remains unsure about the challenge before him, and Steph has also stopped saying that his team expects to win.  The tea leaves tell me that this series is totally up in the air- still.

Except for LeBron and a few Cleveland backups, these teams have the same 3 amazing games of championship level experience. I expect LeBron's experience to tip the scale, but we will see, since everyone is obviously watching so very close.