Posted on 04/16/2002 8:31:16 AM PDT by Mom_Grandmother
(Cynthia McKinney Excellent Analysis, by John Corry, Published 4/16/01 3:01 AM
To be sure, Cynthia McKinney, the gentlewoman form Georgia's Fourth Congressional District, is a flake, but what kind of flake--merely absurd, or knowingly pernicious? Whether she is the one or the other, however, attention must be paid. She made the Prowlers's Enemies List last week, but only is passing, and her aberrant hehavior demands a longer look than that.
Most recently, McKinney, in an interview with a Berkeley, California radio station, said that President had advance warning of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, but did nothing to prevent them. "Persons close to this administration," she added, "are poised to make huge profits off America's new war." In particulary, she cited the Carlyle Group, an investment firm that employs a number of one-time government officials--former President George H. W. Bush is a consultant--as a beneficiary of the new war.
According to the Washington Post, which first disclosed the Berkeley radio interview, McKinney said the war had enriched Carlyle Group investors by increasing the value of a military contractor that the firm partly owned. When the Post asked her for a follow-up interview, however, McKinney declined, and issued instead a statement:
"I am not aware of any eveidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case."
Consider that as actively pernicious, an attempt to raise paranoid discontent. Meanwhile in a House speech last month, McKinney made virtually the same assertions as she did in the radio interview, although this time she sounded merely absurd, or, perhaps, patently nuts.
McKinney asked her collegues to close their eyes and "imagine themselves going faster and faster into a black unknown." Then, she said, they will see a "bright light," and hear "a huge booming voice coming from nowhere, and at the same time from everywhere."
Just what the voice was saying, however, McKinney did not say, but instead went on:
"You unlock this door with the key of understanding. Beyond it is another dimension, a dimension of hearing that which is not spoken, a dimension of seeing that which is invisible, a dimension of reading that which is not written."
And this, she declared, is "the Twilight Zone, better known as George Bush's America."
Then she said the White House had received "warning after warning" about the terrorist attacks, but had begged Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle not to inquire why it had done nothing about them. She also said that bush was calling for a big increase in defence spending, and that this means "his dad stands to make a mint."
"Wake up, America," she concluded. "We are not in the Twilight Zone. We have crossed the threshold to George Bush's America."
Grant now that the right wing also has its clowns and bozos. On the "700 Club" the other night, Pat Robertson warned us about the dread secret order, the Masons. Nontheless you always know what side the right wingers are on, while you can never be sure with left wingers like McKinney. She often suggests that America is run by hooded men in white sheets, and that it wants to oppress people of color everywhere. At the U.N.'s fatuous conference in South Africa last year on racism, sexism, colonialism and G-d knows what else, she said the White House was full of "latent racists."
(When Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a few months after she attended the U.N. conference, however, McKinney, ever the loose cannon, denounced the award as "an insult to the millions that died at the hand of the U.N. in recent years.")
McKinney often poses as a great friend of Africa and an expert on its problems. As a member of the House International Relations Committee and Congressional Black Caucus, she frequently makes pronouncements. She had, however, a sorry record on Africa, and she does more harm than good. She plays the race card, and mindlessly supports tyrants.
McKinney, for example, has defended Robert Mugabe's depotic rule in Zimbabwe. I a bizarre House speech last December, she said Zimbabwe was a "stable democracy." She also said that Mugabe, who has impoverished his country and brought about famine, brutalized his opponents, and ordered the killing of any number of ordinary Zimbabweans, has only been attempting to right old wrongs. The old wrong, of course, were all imposed by white colonialists; and any attempt by Congress to censure Mugabe or impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, according to McKinney, would be a "formal declaration of United States complicity to maintian white-skin-rule."
This was, in fact, a grotesque analysis, but you would be wrong to dismiss it or others like it. So know now that some of Mugabe's domestic political opponents were here last week, trying to drum up support for a democratic transition in Zimbabwe. They turned up at at the State Department, Congress and the Council on Foreign Relations. They also met, unhappily, with what one of them called their "African-American brothers."
Most of the brothers, it seemed, did not want to take any kind of stand against Mugabe. According to the Zimbabweans, they had bought into the idea that he was a revolutionary leader and that any attempt to unseat him would play into the hands of his country's old white rulers. The Zimbabweans were disappointed, of course, but there you are. McKinney may deal in paranoid absurdities, byt they are not without effect.
Meanwhile McKinney is patronized by her congressional colleagues, at least some of whom it seems, even admire her political acumen. The Washington Post story about her September 11 accusation also quoted Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston, a Republican no less, whom it identified as a friend of McKinney's.
Kingston said McKinney was adept at raising "red-meat" issues that appeal to her political base. "She's not as ramdom as people think," he said. "People always want to hear a political conspiracy theory."
Indeed the do, and McKinney no doubt will continue to offer them. So yes, she is a flake, but above all, she is a menace.
No, and she is a traitor to her race by being such a caricature of a shrill, dumb, hectoring clown. To speak bluntly. The good black people I know wince when her name is mentioned.
Again, to speak bluntly? Her father ( Bobby? Not sure ) was a State-level legislator here and helped carve out a gerrymandered "protected" district so she was virtually guaranteed election & re-election.
Are you SURE this isn't Jocelyn Elders? She sure has the same I.Q.
I noticed also the concentration of donors from the DC-NVa area - remember the FBI raids a couple of weeks ago? And also a very large concentration of donors from California.
Some FReeper home with a sinus infection today could do useful service by methodically running these names on Google and letting us know what comes up.
Like biting on tinfoil ( excuse the analogy! )-- I noticed the weird "clustering" too.
Well, Cynthia wants "investigations"-- let's give her some!
I'd run a web search but I'm tied up with housework today- come on, FReepers, and lend a hand!
If you want the 2000 election cycle go to http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/x_itoc.exe?DoFn=H2GA11016MCKINNEY,$CYNTHIA00 While she still had a lot of people with Arab sounding names there is a major difference in the % over the current cycle. In the earlier cycle it looks like it was only about 30% and now it's closer to 90%. This link is to the 98 cycle and it's less than 10% Arab sounding names.http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/x_itoc.exe?DoFn=H2GA11016MCKINNEY,$CYNTHIA98
Granted we aren't through the 2002 election cycle and their are fewer donors 157 vs. about 380 in the two prior cycle the differences in where she's getting her individual contributions is striking. Also very few of her contributions anymore are from Georgia. Again this is a striking change in her typical pattern
I'd think her hometown newspapers would be interested in her funding for the current cycle and the comparison with the prior cycles. The local talk radio stations as well.
She accepted $4000 on September 11th from Abdurahman Alamoudi, the president of the American Muslim Council. I think someone has some explaining to do, d@mn!t.
No agrument from me! It's disgusting. I have sent an earlier version of this story to a pile of papers and talk show hosts- and I have heard that it was mentioned on CNN ( well, not the donor list! )... for whatever that will be worth in the long run.
We've all shared this experience....
when we were kids and went into the FUn HoUSe at an amusement park.
I guess she was traumatized by the experience and still has flashbacks to those days.
As much as I hate to admit it, she got this one right. See Peace - UN style.
Even Allan would not defend what she said about President Bush and his father they thought she was either on or crossed the border of "slander"). If enough Freepers keep sending the Information you have on her, she will get an "Investigation" just not the one she wants.
Just FYI, I just received an email requesting I stop sending him "links to Free Republic!" and so I not only will remove nealznewz from my lists, I'll make a point of boycotting his show and tuning in his rivals in the same time spot. Too bad. So sad. Plenty of other talk shows to listen to...
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