CHARLES PAYNE OP-ED: Time To Unleash The Millionaires

In USA, asserts the FOX Business analyst and conservative: "As much as success has been dogged and treated with disdain there is no doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of rich people have a different sort of will and determination than the masses. I think that it's crazy when the crowd that runs home at 5:00:01 would have contempt for those that continue to work deep into the evening. According to the author of 'The Millionaire Next Door', 80% of wealth is first-generation affluent. The idea that every rich person in this country was born with a silver spoon is a myth driven by the envy of those that watch from afar in their Lazy Boy. I mention this because this nation needs its citizens that are currently wealthy and those that have the skill, guts, and luck to join their ranks to be able to operate without constraints. Those constraints range from harsh rhetoric by politicians and the tidal wave of new taxes, fees, and regulations on the horizon."

He continues his commentary: "Now is the time to unleash our entrepreneurs and small businesses, and also to encourage big businesses to reverse job cuts and money-hoarding as they prepare to battle on the global stage. According to Chicago based marketing and research firm the Spectrom Group, U.S. millionaires increased in number by 16% to 7.8 million; households with net worth of $5.0 million or more increased by 17% to 980,000 in 2009. The thing is that these rebounds were powered by the bounce back in the stock market. Just about everyone I know that abhors the rich doesn't 'play' the stock market. Of course, they like to shop. That image of a security guard being trampled to death at a Wal-Mart (WMT) on Black Friday a couple of years ago proves trickle down is the only way wealth can really spread through our economy. When President Obama talks about a trickle up economy we are already there. The masses spend their money and send it to the top of the economic pyramid."

More commentary from Mr. Payne: "We need small businesses to save the day, but that can't happen until the coast is clear. The battle against business has to cease. I'm not sure why the White House doesn't listen to any of the major organizations representing small businesses and yet claim to be friends to small businesses. Perhaps it's because these organizations have been critical of policy proposals, but that shouldn't matter. In fact, skepticism should be welcomed and there should be a willingness to learn from those that are in the trenches.....The government really can't create jobs unless they raise taxes on the shrinking pool of taxpayers, thereby negating any positive impact. The fact is that I think the government should abandon its ambitions to create jobs and instead find a way to extend an olive branch to the people that know how to create real jobs that generate economic prosperity. The government needs to fertilize the environment so businesses know they will not be railroaded and demonized. There aren't many people out there that pay their bills, pay for their children's education, and put cash away for retirement that don't do this as part of riding the coattails of the wealthy."

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Harper, Zora Neale Hurston Trust Ink New Exclusive Deal

HarperCollins and its Harper Perennial imprint have reached an agreement with the Zora Neale Hurston Trust that will allow the publishing house to continue as the exclusive publisher of Zora Neale Hurston's adult backlist for the next decade. Ms. Hurston (1891-1960), the Harlem Renaissance-era writer and libertarian Republican folklorist, is author of such classics as Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mules and Men. Fifty years after her death, Ms. Hurston's books sell nearly 500,000 copies annually.

Despite her prominence during the years of the Harlem Renaisance, the works of Ms. Hurston fell into obscurity in the later years of her life. Interest was revived through the efforts of black liberal novelist Alice Walker, who wrote an article about Ms. Hurston for Ms. in 1975, and a through network TV special organized by Oprah Winfrey in 2005.

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TIM MAK COMMENTARY: The "New" Racist Right

The Canadian moderate-conservative blogger over at the Frum Forum sounds the alarm about a new magazine that claims the mantle of conservatism but whose real goal is white supremacy (hat tip: Hip Hop Republican): "The problem with the conservative movement, say the founders of the new webzine, Alternative Right, is that conservatives no longer want to ‘go there’. 'The conservative establishment is...brain dead,' said contributing editor and VDARE.com proprietor Peter Brimelow. 'We’re trying to do something cutting-edge,' says editor Richard Spencer. That’s all well and good, save the fact that the cutting-edge ideas that Alternative Right seeks to promote are actually tired, reactionary ideas that harken back to when people found out there were other races. In fact, their new ideas include concepts that the right largely exorcised fifty years ago, like denying women the right to vote. The site’s frustration lies in their view that white, male conservatives lack the courage to address issues of sex and race with a sense of superiority. 'There are races who, on average, are going to be superior,' says Spencer, with implication in tow. The problem with conservatism today is that, as Spencer puts it, 'the conservative establishment is full of politically correct purists' who lack the courage to take up the mantle of what should be a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant America."

He continues his commentary: "It’s tremendously ironic that Alternative Right’s charge against the conservative movement is political correctness, when they themselves hide their sexist and racist ideologies behind the gloss of sweet-sounding, pseudo-intellectual terms. Instead of spouting racism, Alternative Right is engaging in the much more respectable-sounding analysis of ‘human biological diversity’ and ‘socio-biology’. Rather than railing against the beast that is first-wave feminism, Richard Spencer’s magazine is actually writing about ‘paleo-masculinity’. He’s not reactionary – he’s a ‘radical traditionalist’; He’s not castigating race X’s culture – he’s being ‘literary’. What makes this all the more ironic is that, despite his critique of the right, Spencer was strikingly skittish when I asked if his goal was to make conservatism more ‘racially conscious’. 'Racially-conscious? That’s a little bit of a ‘hot word’,' said Spencer."

More: "Exorcised from the mainstream decades ago, where does Alternative Right fit in now? Spencer is not a Paul-istinian, for Ron Paul too suffers from the failings of political correctness. 'Ron Paul is really not a man who is going to discuss some of these more ‘literary’ issues. He’s not going to discuss, say, America as a Western European or Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation,' Spencer says. Despite this, the website does have a lot in common with the anti-war libertarians. 'The right is still in love with war, and talk of spreading democracy....I think there are people who basically have conservative values and want nothing to do with [this concept],' says Spencer. That said, Alternative Right is not a libertarian site. 'The state is necessary [to stop] immigration – people are not interchangeable...America is not going to be America if it is Hispanicized,' says Spencer. Are they paleo-conservatives? No. 'Sadly, a lot of paleo[-conservatives] now...have actually denounced human biological diversity. Paleo-conservatism is now irrelevant,' declares Spencer. The website’s prevailing ideology doesn’t even fit within the category of white nationalism, or so Spencer claims. However, he stalled when asked to point out a few differences between his site and a white nationalist site. 'We’re going to talk about literary things, about culture,' said Spencer after some hesitation. In other words – they’re going to be white nationalists, but, by God, they’re going to be a little fancy about it."

Booker Rising response: As soon as Mr. Mak mentioned in his second paragraph that one of the magazine's founders (Peter Brimelow) is the founder of VDARE, I knew that it was a white supremacist, un-American, and victimologist enterprise. Perhaps my new "friend" Jeff Thomas would feel comfortable reading this magazine?

I find it funny that Peter Brimelow - who hails from Britain, by the way - (I'm not sure about Richard Spencer's background) thinks that he is better qualified to preach about what American society and our immigration policy should be like than your average black American. My family has been in America for at least nine generations, actually helped build the country for 300 years (from slavery - ahem, involuntary immigration - through Reconstruction through Jim Crow to now), has fought in at least seven wars on behalf of America going back some 150 years, has educated, ministered, and provided medical care to Americans for more than a century, and played a role in its democratization (my late paternal grandfather was a civil rights activist and his late cousin was the former Assistant Majority Leader of the Illinois Senate). Other black Americans - including my readers - have ancestors actually fought the British during the American Revolution back in the 1700s. Through thick and thin, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the outrageously ugly, we've been here - our story is a quintessential American story, and reveals American history across time - and we aren't going anywhere. Brimelow has investment in America is a gnat by comparison, so he needs to sit down somewhere.

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News: Bookerista Politicos

Britain: Adam Afriyie: "Science Is A Key Election Issue"

The science spokesmen of Britain's three main political parties crossed swords in a debate staged by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Adam Afriyie, parliamentarian and the Conservative Party's shadow minister for science and business innovation, argued that "Labour's debt crisis" was now the big threat to future science activity.

"I intend to see to it that you get the resources that you need to continue the vital research that puts Britain at the top of the league tables, but first we have to fix the economy to find those resources", said MP Afriyie, a millionaire tech entrepreneur. "The current government has led us into the longest and deepest recession since records have begun. We may worry about Greece but actually Britain has the biggest budget deficit of any developed nation, and public debt is out of control and we have the weakest recovery in the industrialised world. Major science cuts have already begun - the National Physical Laboratory has seen a £5m [US$7.5 million] cut from its income, the Science and Technology Facilities Council has been forced to cut 10% from its grants for research, and withdrawn from 26 significant projects. And the government's cut £1bn [US$1.5 billiion] from the higher education and research budgets."

Ghana: Kufuor Blasts Mills

Former Ghanaian John Agyekum Kufuor expressed disgust about center-left President John Atta Mills’ claims that his government, since assumption of office a little over a year ago, has worked assiduously to turn the country’s economy around. “There is no evidence of a single initiative that the Mills administration has taken with respect to improving the nation’s economy since coming into office, so where are these boastful claims coming from?” Mr. Kufuor asked.

Mr. Kufuor added the quadrupling of Ghana's reserves from US$2 billion in 2001 to a whopping $US16 billion in 2008 was enough evidence that his administration left behind a healthy economy. “If we did not handle the economy well, I do not think the banks and the big companies would have mustered courage to invest in the country,” he said.

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CLIFTON B. COMMENTARY: The Raaaaacism Industrial Complex Comes To Black Barbie’s Rescue

The conservative Republican blogger in New Jersey, comments on a new controversy involving Mattel's Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Theresa dolls: "Raaaaacism Industrial Complex member ABC News has come out to fight the evil intentions of that great foe Walmart who had the audacity to sell Black Barbie for 50% less than White Barbie at one of their stores! When question[ed] about why Black Barbie was selling for 50% less at one of their stores, Walmart responded that it was a matter of making room for new inventory:

'To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance,' spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said in an e-mail. '... Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers.'

'Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing,' O'Brien said.

For members of the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex, such an answer reeks of cover up and immediately requires further investigation. ABC News then heads off to find all those people who see raaaaacism in Walmart’s actions. Enter Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development:

'The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the black doll,' said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.

'While it's clear that's not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage,' Dye said.

Other experts agree. Walmart could have decided 'that it's really important that we as a company don't send a message that we value blackness less than whiteness,' said Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the founder of the blog Sociological Images.

The ABC News article goes on like this for two and a half pages, with psychoanalysts, sociologists, and cultural analysts. The one type of person ABC New did not bother to interview were economists."

He continues: "After reading the story, I immediately consulted the Bureau of Labor Statistics and what did I find? Unemployment among whites is currently at 8.8% while unemployment among blacks is a staggering 15.8%! Note, these figures do not include underemployment, which is sure to be higher. At 15.8% it would seem that there are a whole lot of black parents who simply cannot afford to buy their little girl a Barbie doll of any color! So while ABC News and its analysts may want to look at that a 50% off sticker as a sign of devaluing black skin, I [am] willing to bet there are a whole lot of black people out there who will look at that sticker as the difference between treating their daughter to a new Barbie doll or nothing at all."

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