Hey mm,

Looks like were at it again. I am with you on the integration of liberalism and conservatism, but the elites are not into either. This two part system was flawed from the beginning. The founding farthers had a hard time with this and new it was a problem. For true balance is a three pronged affair. They could not figure out the voting in a three party system. So now we have a  two party system were the parties are not so different. Exactly how the elites want it. The neocons and the neolibs are not so new. The old conservatives and liberals ended in the early part of the 20th century. Now we have made by hidden elites neolib and neocons since WWII. The political process got sumsumed up by the forces of the FED Bank, Military industrial complex(includes drug companies), and Media control.

Here is some more on  

Brzezinski’s unconvincing antiwar posturing

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3130.shtml

Item 1: On a scale of one to ten, how much damage is Reverend Wright doing to Obama's chances? One is negligible. Ten is a fatal blow.

I think it's an eight too. He's had a bad six weeks or so running right now. This just adds to it and brings Rev. Wright back into the spotlight. I can't see him widening any lead on Clinton at this point. The best he will be able to do is maintain things as they are. But she has a chance to make some gains.

Item 2: On a scale of one to ten, how much involvement did Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Vernon Jordan have in getting Wright onto the stage over the past week where everyone can hear him?

I say zero. The Clintons are not so foolish that they would try something like that. If Rev. Wright outed them on it, they would lose everything; they would be ruined politically forever. They wouldn't risk it. The chance of a leak would be so great. The Clintons are clapping their hands and stamping their feet, but they didn't have anything to do with it. Rev. Wright felt dissed--even though Obama treated him as lightly as he possibly could in Philadelphia (many thought he should have simply cut Wright lose then)--and Wright felt the need to answer back, to Obama and everyone else. Are these Obama's chickens coming home to roost?

By the way, a recent Newsweek poll shows that Hillary far outstrips Obama or McCain in being mistrusted by Americans.

They're all going after her now. But Hillary can take a hit! I'm glad you're warming to her. I think she could do better than the Bill Clinton years, and that would be pretty good.

Item 3: Scale of one to ten: how hard is Obama kicking himself for sticking around the good Reverend's church after he was put on notice that the guy is a nutjob?

That's what might bring him down. But why was he there in the first place? Was it because he wanted to move ahead in Chicago politics as some have suggested and he was just using Wright for this? Did he really want him for a pastor? I think it may have been both. Wouldn't that give your daughters a skewed vision of the world? I actually don't blame Wright for thinking how he does, because he grew up in another era, an era that was even more screwed up than this one, so there are some reasons he has these nutty ideas. The world has changed, but he hasn't changed his views. He still thinks the government is doing experiments on African Americans. But wouldn't Obama see that this vision was skewed and outdated and might give his daughters a warped view of the world? That's what really troubles me about it. But not just kids, everyone--Wright was feeding mistrust, paranoia, and hatred. So if Obama is such a post-racial unifier, why did he stick around for 20 years?

Item 4: Scale of one to ten, how pissed off is Michele Obama right now?

They both must feel betrayed. I am pretty surprised Wright came back and hurt Obama like this, but being humiliated in front of the entire country as he was mustn't feel too good. He must feel as though he has to respond. But really, Obama was pretty kind to him in Philadelphia, as kind as he possibly could have been.

 

Item 5: How hard is Oprah going to crush those who are behind this?

Oprah has been completely silent for a long while, hasn't she? It's probably a good move on her part.

Item 6: How much thought are the majority of super-delegates giving to overriding the popular vote at the convention in August?

First of all, Hillary might be leading in the popular vote by the end of the first week in June. It all depends on how you add it up, and it will also depend a lot on Puerto Rico in particular. The fact that Obama has no right to claim that he is the people's choice after blocking re-votes in Florida and Michigan aside, I think the superdelegates are giving it a lot of thought. Maybe an 8, a 10 meaning a vote for Hillary. Look, they've had every incentive to vote for Obama. If a superdelegate hasn't voted for Obama yet, he or she must be looking for an excuse to vote for Hillary. Wright is giving them an excuse; Pennsylvania and Ohio adds to that excuse; Indiana would too, but especially taking the lead in the popular vote would. The uncommitteds can't be too fond of Obama if they haven't gone to him yet. The people he's getting now, the last few to cross over, are just that--crossovers, Hillary supporters who don't have the stomach for a fight. I would hope that not all of them would let themselves be manipulated by Obama supporters. This is what is really happening--they are saying, "If you don't vote for Obama, we're not going to vote in November at all; we're going to riot in Denver . . . " They shouldn't give in to that manipulation. Obama is not entitled to the nomination just because they feel so strongly about it. It's the superdelegates' job to help put forward a winning ticket for November, and they are probably having doubts about whether Obama can win. Electorally, he has lots of problems, lots. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, even New Jersey, maybe Michigan. Some have even said Massachusetts. Hillary has some issues too, but Obama has big holes.

Item 7: How much disarray will there be in the Democrat party if evidence ever is adduced showing a connection between the Clintons and Wright's recent string of public appearance pearls?

Not going to happen. The risk of being caught would have been too great to even consider doing something like that. Hillary was doing everything she could do pop Obama's balloon, but then someone else did it for her.

 

Hey innerline,

I'm not sure how much of a fan of Brzezenski I am, but I believe he was really against the Iraq war.

I'm kind of skeptical about a third party because likely it would just take votes away from Democrats and result in Republican wins on election day. Of course it depends where the third party is coming from, but if you're suggesting something on the left, I think that would only help Republicans. I think the way forward is the slow, painstaking process of moving both the Democrats and Republicans forward, along with the media and all the people who vote for them, those who run the corporations, etc. The system should be improved also, but if the individuals running it were to evolve to higher stages, the system as it is would not look so bad. The system that we have now would look much, much better if the people running it were into second tier and if we had a second-tier culture. So the problem is not just or even primarily systemic, in my opinion.

 

mm

 

 

MM:

Wright is a smart guy. He held an important position in a major community for many years. He knows what to say and when to say it. The guy is savvy and strategic to the core.

I am openly voicing my strong suspicion that someone working on behalf of the Clintons greased some kind of wheel to get him on his little barnstorming tour at this important juncture.

I will take exception to your general notion that the Clintons would never attempt such a tactic. They are infinitely wise and know just how many levels of plausible deniability are required in a given situation. And they know how to align those degrees of separation. 

Look, Wright held his tongue for a good while. He is not incapable of remaining strategically silent. So, for him to come out now and start delivering gash wounds to the Obama campaign is very suspicious in my estimation.

Wright has devoted his entire life to the cause up uplifting AfricanAmericans. Here we are just months away from potentially an historic day for all AfricanAmericans and he does the single stupidest thing a man could do to sabotage the cause.

How do you explain this? How does this happen?

He can't be furious at Obama for Obama's decent and moderate distancing of himself from the guy. And if he has an overwhelming need to have the last word, then in the interests of the AfricanAmerican cause, he could have waited until after the General Election and said everything he wants to say.

No, the only explanation that makes sense is that he is getting something of major value from helping the Clinton campaign. There is something of great value that is prompting him to sabotage Obama today. We may never know what it is.

Any ideas?

schalk:

Look, Wright held his tongue for a good while. He is not incapable of remaining strategically silent. So, for him to come out now and start delivering gash wounds to the Obama campaign is very suspicious in my estimation.

Wright has devoted his entire life to the cause up uplifting AfricanAmericans. Here we are just months away from potentially an historic day for all AfricanAmericans and he does the single stupidest thing a man could do to sabotage the cause.

How do you explain this? How does this happen?

Any ideas?

Who knows, perhaps Wright and Obama cooked this up together so as to provide Obama with a clear and credible reason to sever any ties he has with Wright. Or, at least to be seen to be doing so...  Isn't Wright one of the areas where Obama would be most vulnerable to McCain?

Castel:

Somehow it doesn't make sense for Obama to resurrect a relationship that he had already dealt with in the eyes of the voting public and emerged intact.

It may just be a case of the old dog stepping up and telling they young puppy, "look, I may be long in the tooth, but I raised you and you best not be nipping at my heels." It just smells fishy to me. It is too too weird.

 

monkmonk:

Hey innerline,

I'm not sure how much of a fan of Brzezenski I am, but I believe he was really against the Iraq war.

I'm kind of skeptical about a third party because likely it would just take votes away from Democrats and result in Republican wins on election day. Of course it depends where the third party is coming from, but if you're suggesting something on the left, I think that would only help Republicans. I think the way forward is the slow, painstaking process of moving both the Democrats and Republicans forward, along with the media and all the people who vote for them, those who run the corporations, etc. The system should be improved also, but if the individuals running it were to evolve to higher stages, the system as it is would not look so bad. The system that we have now would look much, much better if the people running it were into second tier and if we had a second-tier culture. So the problem is not just or even primarily systemic, in my opinion.

mm

mm, I was not coming from a space that a third party should come into the election now. That would be a three party race in a two party voting system. I was think about a different voting process for a three party system. The winner would not need a majority. Not an easy process to make, but I see many options that can be done.

And saying all we need is second tier people in power misses the whole point, that second tier can not be seen by first tier. I have watched over and over again friends not actually hear what I am saying cause it is being filter through first tier awareness. They flatland into spaces of non cognition. Their filters are turning it into something that has a object subject awareness.

I wish it was that simple monkmonk.

 

What if Wright is really really into God!

From a moral perspective I think he is right on. Do you think the modern era has really looked deeply into Morals. Do you think the government is moral. He is being very truthful from a moral perspective. Is he being insensitive to Obama? Yes, but a pretcher is focused on the moral . Do you want him to hide the truth he speaks, for Obama. That would mess his integrity up completly, if he is a man focused on morals. Now is he going out there and trying to be seen?

Maybe someone is behind it.

Now were trying to see the shadow I am trying to bring to light. And think Integral will go green if it does not look into it. I have not been picking up Integral awareness from most people who are integrally informed, yet. The difference between knowledge and being is shocking. Integral awareness involves being , integrally informed is knowledge not converted to power yet.

innerline:

And saying all we need is second tier people in power misses the whole point, that second tier can not be seen by first tier. I have watched over and over again friends not actually hear what I am saying 'cause it is being filter through first tier awareness.

i imagine we've all had this problem. i know i've got into alot of trouble, especially on what i thought were supposed to be integral forums, by being turned off by anything 1st tier--that wasn't what i had come for.

however, if we're going to talk to 1st tier, we can't just spout 2nd tier wisdom--we first have to listen to them, get where they're coming from, and then reframe it integrally. this is what i interpret obama to be doing, and one of the reasons i believe he intuits integral.

again, you can get a much better picture of this, if you read 'dreams from my father'. obama had mixed feelings about wright from the start, but he could clearly see the good that wright was doing, and, in true integral fashion, he wanted to include that, while integrating it into something larger than wright himself was capable of.

even in wright's inflammatory, post 9/11 remarks, he is, afterall, giving us, honestly, one of the many faces of terrorism. his shortcoming was his refusal to recognize some of the many other, perhaps shadowy, faces of terrorism.

i think many americans--especially green and healthy orange--could forgive wright, if they saw his outbursts as the result of the frustration he must feel about the status of african-americans in our country. most other americans, of course, cannot, and they are also partially right, imo. wright appears to be so mired in ethnocentrism that obama absolutely had to denounce him, however painful it must have been. this may not appear to be integral, to be inclusionary, but in fact it's a necessary part of integral: everyone is invited to the integral table, but if they insist in their actions at that table on being exclusionary, then, if effect, they exclude themselves from that table.

there has been alot of complaining about negative, non-substantive campaigning. on the other side, i think alot of good is coming from it. i sense that obama and especially clinton have grown as persons, and as possible presidents of the most powerful country ever, in the course of this campaign. and haven't we grown as well in following the campaign?

---

schalk:

Castel:

Somehow it doesn't make sense for Obama to resurrect a relationship that he had already dealt with in the eyes of the voting public and emerged intact.

It may just be a case of the old dog stepping up and telling they young puppy, "look, I may be long in the tooth, but I raised you and you best not be nipping at my heels." It just smells fishy to me. It is too too weird.

 

True, it doesn't make sense, but perhaps Obama/Wright can see a shit storm coming - that we can't - from either McCain, or, of course, Hilary.

Or, as innerline implies above, Wright is a man a little drunk on his own sense of morality/righteousness. There's a smug, gleeful aspect to his Press Club appearance that's hard to work out otherwise. Like many he might believe that Obama is essentially more of  the same dressed up in wonderful  eloquence and charisma. To hell in a hand basket with all of them, etc, etc.  I'm not sure I'd entirely disagree with him, as much as I like Obama.

"ralphweidner

i imagine we've all had this problem. i know i've got into alot of trouble, especially on what i thought were supposed to be integral forums, by being turned off by anything 1st tier--that wasn't what i had come for. however, if we're going to talk to 1st tier, we can't just spout 2nd tier wisdom--we first have to listen to them, get where they're coming from, and then reframe it integrally. "

Hi Ralph, One thing really bugs me about being with first tier is the absolute need for a meditation practice that leads to causal awareness for integral to be embodied. My conversations with my friends ends up with me expressing the suble reductionism happening in expression and then I end up saying where does that statment leave you and they end up clinging to the subjective relativism of it all. I end up laughing alot, with the men, do to the ability to play with the ego of it all. The woman end up looking at us as if we were nuts. It looks like we are just wasting our energy debating stuff. But on a deeper level I am sick of gatherings and have been playing with the idea of being apart of a intentional community.

Green depends way to much on the froth of modernism. Without a true knowledge based economy, green is at the effect of modernism and all its short sightedness. Integral sees a harmony in these levels of development. One problem, Modern social systems have a phony front for Red and Amber. The level of Orange has not nearly been fully manifested. If orange had its expresion in systems and law throughout humanity we would be in heaven compared to were we are now. You might think in law the USA has a modern experssion. Only on paper, how it plays out is anything but. Green is absolutly blissful when manifested in the world. And integral is beyond death satisfying when it is a permenate trait in culture and society.

To give you a sense of how their is a phony orange front to social systems that have Red as its foundation, please watch this. Its great. 

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money+is+debt&total=1856&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Innerlife:

Greetings to the Obama Teal Revolution thread. You have entered the no-bullshit zone.

Time for cross-examination, a good old fashioned orange technique you'll appreciate:

1. Are you are sure you are 2nd tier?

a.What indicators do you have that convince you of this?

Don't tell me you are going around telling people you are 2nd tier and pointing out who is 1st tier! That isn't 2nd tier!

2. Have you thought about how arrogant and ridiculous it is to regard oneself as 2nd tier? Or to even suggest it to others?

Money, status, power, beauty - these all change over time. But the ultimate ordering of the universe is such that I am on top of the game of the universe! Heady stuff! I can definitely feel good about myself knowing that the ordering of the universe is such that my awareness is at the top of the hierarchy! Wow, what a trump card!

Have you ever tried to make money in a 2nd tier way? Ever tried to use 2nd tier awareness to organize a community? Ever tried to organize 25 people from different backgrounds and have them cooperate?  

3. Are you pretty confident you know who is 1st tier?

a. And what do you have to see to know that someone is 2nd tier?

4. What is this subjective relativism that your friends cling to? What are you even talking about? Can you give us examples?

(You mention that the women "look at us as if we were nuts." Actually, women have a highly refined bullshit meter that tells them when men are firing from an arrogant and intellectually sophisticated zone that is lacking heart or caritas. They don't think you are nuts - they think you are nuts for playing such bullshit games at the time and place in question.)

5. Modern systems have a "phony front" for red and amber? What are you implying?

"Phony" implies that a deliberate fraud was perpetrated.

a. What is it about our Constitution in America that is a "phony front?" That, after all, is the mother of all "systems" in America.

6. Has it occured to you that young geniuses like you and I don't get to completely change the neural pathways of humanity in the course of a few years based on our 2nd tier high wisdom?

We hear talk about radically elevating American society with the new and right candidate. Really? It's that easy huh? Overnight.

Some processes take a long time. I am wondering if the universe was designed so that a bunch of hotshot 2nd tiers like you and me get to remake the whole of humanity over the course of a year or three.

In 1975, Chou Enlai, the premier of China was visiting Paris. A reporter asked him, "so, what do you think of the French Revolution?" He said, "it's too early to tell."

7. And in closing, how does any of what you said relate to the thread of what we have been talking about?

You breeze in and tell us that you are 2nd tier, your friends are "1st tier morons," and we need to watch a 47 minute video about money that will change our lives. WTF?

I agree with you - the level of orange has not been fully manifested. Specifically, it has not been manifested in your ability to join a thread, make coherent remarks that respect the topic of the thread, and organize your thoughts in a way that contributes to the topic.

8. By the way, is Obama Teal?

a. And how do we know this?

b. What exactly does one see that tells whether a person is Teal?

Ken Wilber has suggested that we all speak from our highest level in the forums. My highest level is orange and that is where I am coming from. Help me to see the way to 2nd tier.

 

Hi, Schalk. I think these are good questions, well expressed, and I've appreciated your on-going challenge to others and yourself to eliminate a lot of the fluff and chaff from our sometimes extravagant minds. ambo

---

Ambo Suno

Hi Schulk, I am cocky as hell. But I hope to answer your questions.

1. Are you are sure you are 2nd tier?

a.What indicators do you have that convince you of this?

Don't tell me you are going around telling people you are 2nd tier and pointing out who is 1st tier! That isn't 2nd tier!

This does point to how we know anything. We are involved with an identity process. Who am I? These are my friends I am talking about. They know me and what I do in my life. The truth is the truth and has no identity crisis.

Have you ever tried to make money in a 2nd tier way? Ever tried to use 2nd tier awareness to organize a community? Ever tried to organize 25 people from different backgrounds and have them cooperate?

For ten years I have been a yoga teacher and a Rolfer. I organize large groups of people when I do yoga teacher trainings and seminars.

4. What is this subjective relativism that your friends cling to? What are you even talking about? Can you give us examples?

(You mention that the women "look at us as if we were nuts." Actually, women have a highly refined bullshit meter that tells them when men are firing from an arrogant and intellectually sophisticated zone that is lacking heart or caritas. They don't think you are nuts - they think you are nuts for playing such bullshit games at the time and place in question.)

Not knowing what subjectiuve relativism, make me wonder how much of integral you have studied. An example would be a common statement when we talk about differnt cultures in time is " all cultural beliefs are contextually based holding no absolute frame of reference". The statement itself is an absolutizing statement and flatlands because it really is not making any meaningful distintions that would produce action terms. It leaves the coversation in a pile of sliding subjective dodo.

I enjoy my time with my friends and I like going were ever things go. The woman are involved until it gets all frgemented in the green expression. The women know it is going nowhere at that point and the men start bouncing the fragments at each other. Really very funny.

My message to my friends is the practices that lead to development. They are great studiers but do not have a practice that exercise the witness. I have other friends that do and the conversations are much more grounded in the current flow.

5. Modern systems have a "phony front" for red and amber? What are you implying?

"Phony" implies that a deliberate fraud was perpetrated.

a. What is it about our Constitution in America that is a "phony front?" That, after all, is the mother of all "systems" in America

I am making the distinction between the law on paper and how it is enacted in society. I am stating it has been a deliberate fraud. America is for equal rights but does not actually have those rights in practice. The Constitution is just a document. The US has not follwed the Constitution pretty much from the beggining. It has great hope, but we would have to followed it if we want to manifest that dream.

We hear talk about radically elevating American society with the new and right candidate. Really? It's that easy huh? Overnight

Are you talking about Ron Paul? I do not know how you think, I think this will happen overnight. I am not promoting elevation but a following of law so we have social systems we can trust. A lets get the basics right. The problems between amber, orange and green will be with us.

7. And in closing, how does any of what you said relate to the thread of what we have been talking about?

It started for me when mm brought up Bresinski. He is in Obama's campain.

You breeze in and tell us that you are 2nd tier, your friends are "1st tier morons," and we need to watch a 47 minute video about money that will change our lives. WTF?

I agree with you - the level of orange has not been fully manifested. Specifically, it has not been manifested in your ability to join a thread, make coherent remarks that respect the topic of the thread, and organize your thoughts in a way that contributes to the topic.

Have you watched the video? My friends are increadably smart, maybe not so intelligent.

I understand I am not so easy to understand. Sorry if it got off topic. Didn't know these forums were so on target.

8. By the way, is Obama Teal?

a. And how do we know this?

b. What exactly does one see that tells whether a person is Teal?

Back to the how do we know anything thing. You know when someone is Teal when you see a Teal color in their energy field. But that means you will have to SEE. (joking)

Ken Wilber has suggested that we all speak from our highest level in the forums. My highest level is orange and that is where I am coming from. Help me to see the way to 2nd tier.

Orange is good at working with aspect of the world you can look at and touch. Your physical body is their for you to observe. It has real functions you can observe. Try to get control of these functions. If you can do that the unknown world should reveal itsself to you. Get all orange with your body.

hi 'innerline',

to be honest, i don't think you responded to my message nor gave much thought to the context of this particular thread. that includes the link, which i listened to for about five minutes--enough to be confident that it was unhealthy, destructive green--not my cup of tea. if it's yours, we obviously don't have much of anything we can discuss together.

---

Schalk: Wright has devoted his entire life to the cause up uplifting AfricanAmericans. Here we are just months away from potentially an historic day for all AfricanAmericans and he does the single stupidest thing a man could do to sabotage the cause.

How do you explain this? How does this happen?

 

Wright felt he had been dissed. Also, Obama denounced his rather extreme ideas. He felt angry, humiliated, and at the same time he didn't see that Obama was going to be anything but an Uncle Tom if he denounced notions like whites injected blacks with the AIDS virus and Louis Farrakhan speaks the truth. But mostly I think it was just narcisistic rage.

 

Innerline, so a three-party system where the party with the most votes, not necessarily a majority, wins? I'm not sure that would end up with a different result  than a third party now--it would likely split the vote from one party and help the other win. You're not thinking that this would help Ron Paul, are you?

My point was that if the people running our government had higher ethics--higher than their personal self-interest, for example--we wouldn't have half the problems we have now. So many of our problems can be attributed to congressman simply doing what they need to do to perpetuate their careers. They won't take risks or sacrifice their careers to do the right thing; they'll do what they need to do to ensure they keep their jobs.

 

mm

 

 

 

MonkMonk:

Let me share with you an out-of-the-box explanation of the Wright phenomenon.

Wright resonates with a magenta consciousness. Pre-red. Of course he can function at red and orange and speak green, but, magenta is alive in him and driving him.

Every culture in the world has a variation of it with different names and different totems. But the essential theme is this: the world is populated with spirits. These are not fairy tale spirits. These are real spirits that can either wet you and give you life or dry you up until you are dead. They are the absolute bottom line.

Deep in our personal operating systems, we will find the code for this. Check out Frazer's "Golden Bough" - a classical on magenta consciousness.

In the Bantu philosophy of Africa, the force is known as "kuntu."

Here is how it works. At any given moment, you are either gaining or losing kuntu. Kuntu is a spirit. It does not observe logic or morals. It simply flows where it is summoned.

If I wear a robe and headgear with bright feathers, kuntu will flow into me. If I proclaim myself to be the Duke of Earl, kuntu will flow into me. If I drive a chariot with flashy wheels and it exudes powerful sounds of bass resonance, kuntu will flow into me. Kuntu likes colors.  

It matters not whether I own or borrowed or stole the headgear and the robe. It matters not whether there is a kingdom of Earl to begin with. (There is one just as I proclaim it to be so.) It matters not if I own the chariot or whether I am producing the resonant sounds with my voice or they are simple digitized code emanating from a speaker. In fact, it matters not whether the engine under the hood of my chariot even functions or is timed properly. Kuntu does not concern itself with technical details.

Kuntu likes colors. When we are sick and dying, we turn gray. When we are hale and healthy, we exude a glow of color.

Kuntu obeys immediate commands. It does not regard the past or the future.

And one guards kuntu with his life because it is life. We all know the feeling of having our soul sucked out of us. And we all know the feeling of having the mojo flowing and rivers of juice coming our way. Kuntu must be seduced and summoned through appropriate showings.

Wright is fighting for his kuntu. Obama cast a dry spell on him. Before, he was more than dead. Now, kuntu is coming back to him.

The very act of standing before the Press Club and speaking with force summoned big kuntu to him. It did not matter what he said. The simple act of getting in front of the mike was the precondition for bringing back the river.

With kuntu, it does not matter what is true or false. It is the immediate effect the situation surrounding the utterance of the words or the performance of the deeds has in summoning the spirit or casting it away.

Now, is this a whole line of hogwash? No.

In my professional life, I am a criminal defense attorney. I have had clients of every race and creed and social strata. One talks with other defense attorneys and shares observations and arrives at orienting generalizations.

Here is a very undeniable thing I have found in my representation of AfricanAmerican clients. (And of course, my disclaimer is that I have a number of AfricanAmerican friends who will tell you I am absolutely not racist. And my AfricanAmerican clients trust me as much as they trust any Caucasoid. And, my spouse and her in-laws who, unlike me, are clearly not Caucasoid, will also tell you that I am not racist.)

So here goes:

- when I am representing an AfricanAmerican client, I find it very important to observe the laws of kuntu. What are those laws? First, you must acknowledge and frequently touch on their positive and powerful features. Second, you must never point a finger at them and belittle them or even suggest that they are weak or "bad" or ... guilty! It may come down to that later in front of the judge after making the strategic decision to not fight the charges, but that is much later in the process. (And even at that juncture, prying the kuntu-destructive words out their mouth can be a hard chore!)

- the very act of admitting that you did a bad act in itself drives kuntu away. So, I must figure out the facts of the case without asking the client to admit to me his bad acts.

It is not a question of lying or deception. It is a question of life or death. The very act of voicing the words "I stole the money" leads to a drying up of kuntu. Often, you cannot get those words out of the client's mouth, and if you want to have a rapport, you must figure out whether it happened without asking them to invoke the "dry kuntu gulch" for you.

- it is important to seek out members of the community who will rain kuntu on the client.

Often it comes down to a former assistant baseball coach from the 3rd grade whom the client has not seen in 20 years appearing and praising the positive qualities of the client. This of course is followed up by the assistant director of the church chorus, the church the client has not set foot inside for the last 15 years, speaking of how the client was the most popular and helpful member. You may think that these people are nearly irrelevant as character witnesses. And they are. But in the world of kuntu, as they sit on the witness stand and positively sing with glory about the traits of the client, one must remember - it is not about whether the assertions are true or false! It is the act itself of summoning kuntu. When you call a witness from the AfricanAmerican community, often what you are asking is "are you willing to serve as the medium for the invocation of kuntu on behalf of my client?"

- and you should see the looks on the faces of the witnesses when the skinny white prosecutor cross-examines them with such questions as "ah, but you haven't spoken to the defendant in over 20 years, have you? And you really don't know who he is, do you? So, do you support what he has done here?" Those questions are violating the spirit of kuntu. It seems almost improper to even ask them. It is like speaking of feces at the dinner table. You just don't do it!

I could talk for hours about the cases I have had where I put on major kuntu invocations. Afterwards, the clients are not even concerned about going to jail, because they are going there on the river of kuntu. They are happy. Their mothers and grandmothers and uncles will thank me profusely for understanding the deep role of the kuntu invocation in the case. But they don't use those words.

There are two kinds of whites in the eyes of an AfricanAmerican living in kuntu. There are the whites who are sensitive and respectful of another man or woman's kuntu and who generally can be counted on to augment your kuntu, and there are the whites who come in oblivious to kuntu and start throwing around dry concepts all the while their posture tells kuntu to flee. When we hear that someone has no soul, translate it to: "the person drives away kuntu."

I have mentioned before that the prison system has mastered the art of sucking the kuntu from the inmates. Not by abusing them but by creating miserable little irritants that never quite permit one to get into a kuntu groove. Over time, the rivers stop flowing.  

Wright lives in this world of magenta kuntu. He absolutely must regain kuntu after the showing of the video and the commentary of the political analysts and Obama's public act of casting him aside. It is a question of force. We often refer to it as "mojo."

In a magenta world, you absolutely do not tolerate another man driving away your kuntu! It does not matter what the cost! Such an act will not be tolerated!

Tutsis and Hutus have been slaughtering each other over massive kuntu contests. There is no real social program divergence at the heart of their dispute. They both govern essentially the same way.

No, it is about kuntu. More important than another man's life is your own life. And kuntu is your life.

And at the heart of Wright's world is a proclamation for survival - you do not mess with my kuntu! I will fuck you up! And in doing so, I will summon kuntu unto me.

That MM, is what is happening, my man.