|
Books by Herman Cain
Leadership is Common Sense
/
Speak as a
Leader /
They Think You're Stupid
/
This Is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House
*
* * * *
|
This Is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the
White House
By
Herman Cain
While
Herman Cain has been the host of a popular
conservative Atlanta-area radio talk show
called The Herman Cain Show, a different
name originally captured American interest.
As CEO, Herman Cain transformed Godfather’s
Pizza from a company teetering on the verge
of bankruptcy into a household word. Cain—as
those with an interest in commonsense
solutions to political problems will
remember—is also famous for using the
language and logic of everyday business to
expose the fallacies inherent in Clinton
assumptions about “Hillarycare” during a
1994 televised town hall meeting.
Herman
Cain’s rise is the embodiment of the
American dream. His parents, Luther and
Lenora Cain, made a living the only way
black people could in the ’40s and ’50s.
Luther held down three jobs, including being
a chauffeur; Lenora cleaned houses. They had
two big dreams: to buy a house and to see
their sons graduate from college. |
 |
With dedication and
hard work, they made both these dreams come true. In
this thrilling memoir, Herman Cain describes his past
and present . . . and the future he is determined to
create, a future that will put our country back on
track. His message resonates because he describes the
American reality, and his down-to-earth personal tale of
hope and hard work is both unforgettable and
inspirational.
Book Review by
Kam Williams
|
I
didn’t grow up wanting to be President of
the United States. I grew up po’, which is
even worse than being poor. My American
Dream entailed working hard and . . . I
became a corporate CEO, a regional chairman
of the Federal Reserve, a president of the
Restaurant Association, an author, and a
talk show host before retiring at 65. And
then I became a presidential aspirant . . .
I’m a leader . . . When all the votes are
counted on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, we
will be free at last! Free at last! Thank
God Almighty! This nation will be free at
last—again!”—Excerpted from the Introduction (pp. 1-2) |
One criticism
leveled at Herman Cain by a lot of TV pundits is that he
isn’t really a serious presidential candidate because
he’s devoted so much time during the campaign to
promoting his autobiography. Well, anybody who’s
actually bothered to read the book would see that it
really devotes as much attention to his political
platform as it does to his private life.
One thing’s for
certain, whether he’s reflecting on his childhood or
addressing the issues, the charismatic businessman has a
knack for driving home his point in readily-digestible
layman’s terms. In fact, he’s able to break down any
topic of conversation into a slogan with 3 simple
tenets.
By now everybody
knows about his 9-9-9 economic plan. But this opus
reveals that he identifies himself as A-B-C, meaning
American, first; Black, second; and a Conservative,
third.
Then there’s his 3
steps on to success: R-O-I, which refer to Removing
barriers, Obtaining results and Inspiring yourself. And
how did the former CEO turn around the Godfather’s Pizza
chain when it was on the brink of bankruptcy? Why, with
Q-S-C! Quality, Service and Cleanliness.
According to Cain,
“There are generally 3 types of people in the world.
People who make things happen, people who watch things
happen, and people who say, ‘What in the heck just
happened?’” And when it comes to appointing Supreme
Court Justices, he says, “I have 3 criteria:
conservative, conservative, conservative.”
You might be
surprised that despite the apparent obsession with
triads, he devotes an entire chapter to his lucky
number, 45, in which he reveals that not only was he
born in 1945, but that he expects to be the 45th
President of the United States. If you’re superstitious,
you might appreciate the other coincidences he cites,
like recently writing an article with exactly 645 words,
and eating at a restaurant named Table 45.
Numerology aside, I
do recommend This Is Herman Cain for 2 (not 3)
reasons. First, as an excellent reference articulating
the Republican nomination contender’s positions. For, in
a chapter entitled “The Cain Doctrine,” he elaborates on
what his Administration’s policy would be on everything
from the Economy to Abortion to Energy to Immigration.
Secondly, even if
you’re not persuaded to embrace his right-wing
point-of-view, you still might enjoy the rest of the
text, a loving memoir crediting his late parents who
labored as a maid and a janitor in Jim Crow Georgia to
raise a black boy who beat the odds by growing up to
become a captain of industry.
*
* * * *
Raising Cain
Campaigning to Retire the First Black President
Excerpts compiled by Rudolph Lewis
Herman Cain was
born December 13, 1945 in
Memphis, Tennessee. His mother Lenora Caine (née
Davis), worked as a cleaning woman, and his father
Luther Cain, Jr., was raised on a farm and worked as a
chauffeur, barber and janitor. He grew up in
Georgia and graduated from
Morehouse College in 1967 with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in
mathematics. Cain, accepted for
graduate studies at
Purdue, received a
Masters in
computer science there in 1971, while he also worked
full-time in
ballistics for the
U.S. Department of the Navy.
Herman is an
American businessman, syndicated columnist, and
radio host from
Georgia. He is the former chairman and CEO of
Godfather's Pizza and a former chairman (Omaha
Branch board 1989–91), deputy chairman (1992–94) and
chairman (1995–96) of the board of directors of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Before his
business career he worked as a mathematician in
ballistics as a civilian employee of the
United States Navy. He lives in the
Atlanta suburbs, where he also serves as an
associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church North.
Cain married Gloria
Cain (née Etchison), of Atlanta, soon after her
graduation from
Morris Brown College in 1968. His wife of 43 years,
she is a homemaker along with stints as a teacher and a
librarian. The couple have two children and three
grandchildren. Disclosures filed during his campaign in
2011 categorized Cain's wealth as of that time as
$2.9-to-$6.6 million, with Cain's income for both 2010
and 2011 combined being $1.1 to $2.1 million.
Cain is an
associate minister at
Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, which he
joined at the age of 10.[31]
The church is part of the
National Baptist Convention, USA. A sometimes
gospel vocalist, Cain performed on the 13-track
album Sunday Morning released by Selah Sound Production
& Melodic Praise Records in 1996.He writes a
syndicated
op-ed column, which is distributed by the
North Star Writers Group. Until February 2011, Cain
hosted The Herman Cain Show on Atlanta talk radio
station
WSB, a
Cox Radio property.
His notable works include:
Leadership is Common Sense (1997);
Speak as a
Leader (1999); CEO of SELF (October 2001);
They Think You're Stupid (2005);
This Is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House
(2011).
Cain also wrote "The Intangibles of Implementation" in
the technical journal
Interfaces (Vol. 9, No. 5, 1979, pp. 144–147),
published by the Institute for Operations Research and
the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
Source:
Wikipedia
* *
* * *
Long ties to
Koch brothers key to Cain's campaign—By Ryan J.
Foley—Cain's campaign manager and a number of aides have
worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the
advocacy group founded with support from billionaire
brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower
taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain
credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory
board with helping devise his "9-9-9" plan to rewrite
the nation's tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP
events have given the businessman and radio host a
network of loyal grassroots fans. . . .
AFP tapped Cain as
the public face of its "Prosperity Expansion Project,"
and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to
activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters
from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met
Mark Block, a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative
hired to lead that state's AFP chapter in 2005 as he
rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed
his career. Block and Cain sometimes traveled together
as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker
preaching the ills of big government; Block was the
operative helping with nuts and bolts.—Yahoo
*
* * * *
NPR Interviews Herman Cain
Scott Simon: Herman Cain
joins us from along the campaign trail. Mr. Cain, thanks
so much for being with . . .
Herman Cain: Thanks a lot,
Scott. Happy to be with you.
Scott Simon: So how do you
keep your campaign from going the way of Mitt Romney,
Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump - for that
matter, every other front-runner?
(laughter)
Herman Cain:
Here's how I prevent my campaign from being the flavor
of the week, as some people call it. The difference is
you got, you know, there's ice milk and then what I call
Haagen-Dazs Black Walnut ice cream, which never loses
its taste, and I could eat it seven days a week. It's
called substance. If you look at what has allowed me to
surge, it is because of the substance and the ideas and
the specific solutions that I have put on the table more
so than the other candidates. For example, I know you
heard about my solutions to the economic woes that we
have.
Scott Simon:
Your 9-9-9...
Herman Cain:
9-9-9 plan.
Scott Simon:
Well, let me ask about a couple of specific features of
that plan. The 9 percent national sales tax, which would
under your plan help generate revenue that would be lost
by reducing payroll and corporate taxes to that matching
9 percent. A gallon of milk costs $3.89 in Iowa this
week. It's $3.89 for Bill Gates and his family, $3.89
for a family that's struggling, so wouldn't a 9 percent
sales tax hit families who struggle more than people who
have means every time they buy a gallon of milk or gas
or a loaf of bread?
Herman Cain:
On a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, Bill Gates and
every rich person is going to pay the same tax as
someone who's on the lower end of the spectrum. But
Scott, I'm not going to play the class warfare card. You
have to compare the taxes that they pay today. If you
pick a certain income level - and I'll pick one and walk
you through it, OK?
Scott Simon:
Sure.
Herman Cain:
I'm going to use $50,000 a year, since that's
approximately what the median income is for a family in
this country. Family of four, $50,000 a year. Under the
current system, based upon standard deductions and
standard exemptions, they're going to pay $10,200 in
taxes. Under the 9-9-9 plan, the middle 9, they're going
to pay $4,500. That leaves $5,700 to apply to that milk
and bread in terms of the taxes. You have to go through
the numbers for each individual situation.
Scott Simon: Mr. Cain, would
you consider it important under your tax plan to raise
to make certain - to raise enough revenue to keep
Medicare and Social Security solvent?
Herman Cain:
I would. In fact, the way we derive the 9 percent rate
is that we calculated it based upon replacing all of the
taxes that come in under the payroll tax, which you
funds Social Security and Medicare. So absolutely
I want to continue to fund those programs. So the
revenue for Social Security and Medicare are still
coming in and being collected using the 9-9-9 plan.
Scott Simon:
The question we have to ask this week: The Justice
Department says they've been able to stop a plot to
assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States in
Washington, D.C. And they say that plan traces back to
Iran. They've arraigned an Iranian-American man in the
crime. Are you convinced that the government of Iran is
behind the plot?
Herman Cain:
Based upon the reports that I have seen, I am convinced,
but obviously I, as president, would want to see all of
the evidence that has caused them to come to that
conclusion. Secondly, what we should do in response to
that would depend upon carefully reviewing all of the
information, all of the intelligence information, all of
the military information, everything that we knew about
that, before I could make an informed judgment as to
what the United States should do.
One of the reasons
that I believe that this happened, Scott, is that this
president is perceived is weak, and weakness invites
attack. I happen to believe that that's why they
attempted to do something like this; to thumb their nose
at the American people, to thumb that nose at the United
States of America because this president is perceived as
weak.
Scott Simon:
So if anyone were to ask you what would you do now, you
aren't in a position to answer until you've had a chance
to see everything?
Herman Cain:
Correct. Correct.
Scott Simon:
Mr. Cain, I don't have to tell you that a lot of
front-runners who have been in the second tier before
that seem to get staggered when they get promoted to the
varsity team because they get questions that - perhaps
they hadn't quite thought out some of the issues and
they get...
Herman Cain:
Right.
Scott Simon:...they
get some sunlight, or they get some attention maybe a
little bit prematurely. What's that experience been like
for you this week?
Herman Cain:
Well, the reason that me being in the varsity tier
doesn't throw me off stride is because if you look at my
career, I have been in the spotlight at various times
for various reasons. In terms of being in the spotlight,
that's not new. Being in the spotlight as a presidential
contender, that is new, but it's not like it's culture
shock to me. So I happen to think that I, along and the
people I've surrounded myself with, will be able to deal
with being at this new level in this whole Republican
presidential primary.
Scott Simon:
Mr. Cain, you know from your business experience that,
you know, you can have three people working behind the
counter and that's just fine until the tour buses with
200 people get off and then suddenly you don't have
enough staff.
Herman Cain:
Right.
Scott Simon:
Do you have enough staff, enough organization, enough
knowledgeable people to compete state after state from
here on in?
Herman Cain:
I will by the end of next week. We didn't - we don't as
of today, but when this surge started we started to ramp
up in terms of hiring the people that we have. And since
you brought up the bus, remember, my experience is
different from Governor Romney's. He's been more of a
Wall Street executive. I've been a Main Street
executive. I have been running that Burger King
restaurant when that bus pulls up and you're
understaffed.
In other words, as
a businessman who has worked in the trenches, you know
how and when to go to the customers. And you generally
find out if the customers understand the dilemma that
you're in and you're doing everything that you can to
service them, guess what? You will have happy customers
and that's how you stay in business. I've had to do that
many a time.
Scott Simon:
Has more money been flowing to you this week? You know,
the president's recently raised I think $70 million this
quarter.
Herman Cain:
More money has been flowing into my campaign,
absolutely, yes. I will tell you conservatively that the
fundraising has gone up 20-fold in the last two weeks.
President Obama has said he's going to raise a billion
dollars to try and buy a second term. Well, to quote one
of my supporters, "President Obama might raise a billion
dollars to try to get re-elected, but the people of this
country are going to raise some Cain."
Scott Simon:
Mr. Cain, thanks for all your time.
Herman Cain: Thank you,
Scott.
Scott Simon: Presidential
candidate Herman Cain.
Source:
NPR Transcript
* *
* * *
Herman Cain’s
999 plan: a misleading pitch—By Glenn Kessler—13
October 2011—The Facts— The “9-9-9” label is
actually a bit of misnomer. Cain would toss out much of
the current federal tax code and replace it, eventually
and only temporarily, with three taxes—a 9 percent
income tax, a 9 percent business transactions tax and a
9 percent federal sales tax. On paper, the first two
look like cuts, because payroll taxes for Social
Security and Medicare (now nearly 15 percent, including
corporate contributions) would be repealed. The sales
tax would be new, on top of existing state sales
taxes.
|
But note that we
said the “9-9-9” would happen eventually—and then only
temporarily. That’s because it is only the second step
of a planned three-step process. The first step would
cut individual and corporate tax rates to a top 25
percent rate (down from a current high of 35 percent).
Then the final step would replace all of the taxes— even
the 9s—with a national sales tax, known by proponents as
a “Fair
Tax.” (As denizens of Washington, we find this
three-step process to be highly dubious. It takes years,
even decades, to fundamentally overhaul the tax code.
Herman Cain is going to do this three times in his
presidency? But we digress.)
Much attention has
focused on whether Cain’s plan, in its 9-9-9 stage,
would raise as much revenue as the current tax system.
Bloomberg News had calculated it would collect about $2
trillion, thus falling short by about $200 billion a
year. But Lowrie
sent Bloomberg an analysis on Wednesday that
asserted “9-9-9” would actually collect slightly
more—$2.3 trillion. We think the revenue question is
beside the point. Anyone can turn the dials in their
computer models to generate the assumptions they want. Michael Linden of
the left-leaning Center for American Progress, for
instance,
estimates the plan would generate just $1.3
trillion.
graphic right by
Chuck Siler
|
 |
The biggest
difference between the two estimates is that Linden
thinks the 9 percent business tax would yield $112
billion a year, and Cain says he would get $862 billion
— a gap that simply demonstrates how a few different
assumptions can generate extremely different results.
(Linden on Thursday
updated his analysis, saying he had underestimated
how much revenue the business tax would raise.)
Cain’s proposal is
so radical that it makes more sense to examine the
potential impact on taxpayers. A key part of Cain’s
pitch for the plan during the debate was this: “When you
expand the base, we can arrive at the lowest possible
rate, which is 9-9-9.” “Expand the base” really means
that more taxpayers will pay taxes under his plan.
Right now, nearly
half of taxpayers don’t pay income taxes, but they do
pay their share of payroll taxes, which amounts to 7.65
percent of wage income (though much of it is capped at
$107,000). Cain would also eliminate the earned-income
tax credit, which is intended to lift working Americans
out of poverty. Many of these workers currently receive
tax refunds. On top of that, Cain would introduce the
new sales tax, which would affect lower and
moderate-income people who spend most of their income on
purchases, not savings and investments. Depending on how
you do the math, people now paying zero or negative
taxes might be faced with a 27 percent tax on income.
In other words,
while on paper Cain is promising a tax cut, in reality
tens of millions of lower-income Americans would face
tax increases. People in high tax brackets—28 percent
and higher—would likely see big tax cuts. (As part of
his plan, Cain would also eliminate estate taxes and
capital gains taxes, which, again, mostly affect
higher-income people with stock and real estate
investments.)
There have been
several interesting analyses done on the “9-9-9” plan.
Edward D. Kleinbard of the University of Southern
California School of Law
identifies several unusual quirks, including a
“disguised one-time 9 percent tax on existing wealth —
no doubt much to the surprise of Mr. Cain and his
followers.” Kleinbard, former chief of staff of the
nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, says that
“contrary to casual impressions, the Plan could be
expected to raise substantial amounts of revenue, but
does so largely by skewing downwards the distribution of
tax burdens when compared to current law.”
Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration
official who now calls himself an independent, also
offered a critical examination this week on the New York
Times
Economix blog. He (as did Kleinbard) noted that the
business tax allows for no deduction for wages, which he
said “is likely to raise the cost of employing workers,
even with abolition of the employers’ share of the
payroll tax.”
Cain, in his
television appearances, glosses over such details. “The
fact that we are taking out embedded taxes that are
built into all of the goods and services in this
country, prices will not go up,” he asserted on MSNBC.
“They will not go up.” He then gave an example of a
family of four earning $50,000. “Today, under the
current system, they will pay over $10,000 in taxes
assuming standard deductions and standard exemptions.
I've gone through the math, $10,000. Now, with 9-9-9,
they're going to pay that 9 percent personal—that 9
percent tax on their income. So that's only $4,500. They
still have $5,500 left over to apply to this sales tax
piece. …They are still going to have money left over.”
We’re not sure how Cain calculates
that this family now pays $10,000 in taxes, but the
reliable Tax Foundation calculator comes up with a
much more reasonable figure: a total tax bill of
$3,515—$690 in federal income taxes and $2,825 in
payroll taxes. (The family gets a big income-tax savings
from the child tax credit, which Cain would eliminate.)
So, in other words, under Cain’s plan, this family would
instantly pay $1,000 more in income taxes. They would
also pay additional sales taxes, probably more than
$3,000, on their purchases. It’s unclear how the
business tax would affect the family’s tax bill but it
appears this theoretical family would get no tax cut but
instead a 100 percent tax increase.
(The picture changes somewhat if
you assume that all the employer-paid payroll taxes
automatically would revert to the employee. We’re not
sure that’s a good bet given the design of Cain’s
business tax, but pro-Cain advocates make that
assumption with
their own tax calculator. But even under this
scenario, the family appears stuck with at least a
$2,000 tax increase.)
We take no position on whether it
is good or bad to make the tax code less progressive.
Perhaps in response to questions, Cain appears to still
be tinkering with the plan. In Concord, N.H., he
said on Wednesday that, among other changes, he
would preserve the deduction for charitable donations
and would exempt any used goods, including previously
owned homes and cars, from the new 9 percent sales tax.
Source:
WashingtonPost
* *
* * *
 |
Herman Cain's Sorry Defense of His 9-9-9
Plan
By
Andy Kroll
They're
wrong. That was front-runner Herman Cain's
short and sweet defense against critics who
said his 9-9-9 tax reform plan would hike
taxes on the working and middle classes
during
Tuesday's GOP presidential debate.
Cain's plan would wipe out the current
federal tax code and replace it with a 9
percent sales tax, a 9 percent corporate
business tax, and a 9 percent income tax.
Cain took plenty of heat in the debate after
multiple analyses of his 9-9-9 plan—this
one by the Tax Policy Center is
eye-opening—found it would dramatically
increase taxes for the working and middle
classes while dramatically slashing taxes
for the wealthy. . . . But Cain repeatedly
insisted that his critics—and the outside
analyses—were wrong. "The thing that I would
encourage people to do before they engage in
this knee-jerk reaction is read our
analysis. It is available at
hermancain.com, he said. His plan, he
went on, "is a jobs plan, it is
revenue-neutral, it does not raise taxes on
those that are making the least."
Here's the problem: The analysis (PDF)
on Cain's website doesn't support what he's
saying. After reading it I called the group
who conducted the analysis, northern
Virginia-based Fiscal Associates, but no one
answered; if they call back I'll update
accordingly. |
posted 18 October 2011
* *
* * *
Ann Coulter On Herman Cain
'Our Blacks Are
So Much Better Than Their Blacks'
1 November 2011
Ann Coulter
continued the conservative criticism of Politico for its
article on Herman Cain during an appearance on Monday's
"Hannity." Politico drew swift right-wing fire for its
Sunday article on Cain, which alleged that two female
employees had accused him of sexual harassment in the
1990s. (The article also initially drew a fair amount of
criticism
from
some
journalists, who said that Politico's piece
was flimsy.)
Cain
appeared
on Greta Van Susteren's show Monday night to explain the
allegations. Coulter used the same line of thinking that
Rush Limbaugh
employed on his Monday show:
that the article is part of a process to tear down a
black Republican. "Liberals detest, detest, detest
conservative blacks," she said. "...This is now the
second time a conservative black has had outrageous and
what appear to be false allegations leveled against
him." (The first, in her view, was Clarence Thomas.)
Hannity said that,
while he was not downplaying the seriousness of sexual
harassment, he felt that everyday office banter was
being misconstrued too often as inappropriate. "These
people are humorless," he said. Coulter brought things
back to race, saying that some women had been quick to
forgive Bill Clinton for his sexual transgressions, but
were attacking Herman Cain. "If you are a conservative
black, they will believe the most horrible sexualized
fantasies of these uptight white feminists," she said.
Hannity wondered/
"Our blacks are so much better than their blacks," she
said, speaking of Democrats. "To become a black
Republican, you don't just roll into it. You're not
going with the flow...and that's why we have very
impressive blacks in the Republican party."—HuffingtonPost
Exploring Romney's Shifting Stances
Cain, Gingrich Debate Lincoln-Douglas
Style
5 November 2011
GOP presidential
candidates Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich engage in a 90
minute debate hosted by the Texas Patriots PAC. There is
no moderator and the two candidates discuss and respond
to each other’s positions on domestic policy in The
Woodlands, TX. The debate is divided into three parts,
with each part focusing on one entitlement
program—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. In
previous media-moderated debates, Gingrich said
repeatedly that should he be the GOP nominee, he would
challenge President Obama to Lincoln-Douglas style
debates. Cain has risen in the polls recently with his
9-9-9 tax plan, but the media has focused this week on
two previous settlements with women alleging he sexually
harassed them while he led the National Restaurant
Association. The topic will not be discussed at the
debate.
The Lincoln-Douglas
debates were a series of three-hour debates between
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the 1858
Illinois Senate race. In the format, one candidate would
start with a 60 minute statement, and his opponent would
get 90 minutes to respond. The first speaker then got a
30 minute rebuttal. The two candidates took turns
speaking first.—C-Span
* * *
* *
|
Chicago Woman Claims Herman Cain Wanted Her
to Trade Sex for Job—Randy Kreider—7
November 2011—Sharon Bialek of Chicago
became the first woman accusing
Herman Cain
of sexual harassment to go public Monday,
describing an alleged incident in Washington
in 1997 in which the presidential contender,
then the president of the National
Restaurant Association stuck his hand up her
skirt and tried to pull her head toward his
crotch.
"I
said, 'What are you doing?'" alleged Bialek,
who said she had contacted Cain for help
getting a job. "You know I have a boyfriend.
This isn't what I came here for." According
to Bialek, Cain answered, "You want a job,
right?"
Bialek claims that after the incident she
rejoined her boyfriend and told him that
Cain had been "sexually
inappropriate."
|
 |
She also said she had confronted Cain recently at a Tea
Party event and asked him, "Do you remember me?" and
that he had confirmed that he remembered her and he
"kind of looked uncomfortable."
Cain campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon immediately responded
with a statement that said, "All allegations of
harassment against Mr. Cain are completely false. Mr.
Cain has never harassed anyone." Bialek, now 50,
appeared with attorney Gloria Allred at a press
conference at New York's Friars Club. Two other women
filed complaints of sexual harassment against Cain while
he helmed the NRA, but neither has spoken publicly. On
Friday, Joel Bennett, an attorney for one of the first
two accusers said she would decline to come forward and
discuss the case further.— ABCNews
* * *
* *
Cain says he
won't drop out of GOP race—8 November
2011—Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP)—A defiant Herman Cain
declared Tuesday he would not drop his bid for the
Republican presidential nomination in the face of
allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior."Ain't
gonna' happen," Cain said at a news conference a day
after a fourth woman accused him of unwanted sexual
advances."We will get through this," he added, trying to
steady a campaign that has been rocked by the
controversy for the past 10 days.Cain denied anew that
he had ever behavior inappropriately and said the
alleged incidents "they simply didn't happen." He said
he would be willing to take a lie detector test if he
had a good reason. . . . "I don't even know who this
woman is," he said of Bialek. "I tried to remember if I
recognized her and I didn't."
Another name
confronted Cain, as well, when one of his two original
accusers was identified publicly by news organizations
including The Associated Press as Karen Kraushaar, now a
spokeswoman in the Treasury Department's office of
inspector general for tax administration.When asked
about Kraushaar, Cain said he recalled her accusation of
sexual harassment but insisted "it was found to be
baseless."— TheGrio
* * *
* *
Herman Cain in
Michigan on Obama: ‘Beat him with a Cain!’—Philip
Rucker—10 November 2011—YPSILANTI, Mich. – A defiant
Herman Cain mingled with voters here Thursday morning,
trying jovially to move past
the
sexual harassment allegations that have consumed his
presidential campaign
by training his rhetorical fire on President Obama. “How
do you beat Obama? Beat him with a Cain!” Cain quipped
to a table of supporters at the Big Sky Diner here. When
reporters pressed him on what exactly he was suggesting
with his remark, Cain said: “Cain. Herman Cain. C-A-I-N.
Do I have to connect all the dots for you?”
Cain was upbeat as he addressed an
enthusiastic overflow tea party crowd from behind the
kitchen counter. He did not specifically address the
allegations of harassment from former female employees,
but he cast himself as the victim of a broader political
and media establishment assault against his candidacy.
“I’m gonna be the president of the people and not of the
politicians because, as you can tell, they’re starting
to come after me,” Cain said. “They’re starting to
attack me any and every way they can. Since they can’t
kill the ideas, they’re trying to attack my integrity
and my character. But the American people are not buying
that. They are sick of gutter politics.”— WashingtonPost
* * *
* *
 |
Ginger White Alleges
Sex With Herman Cain, Apologizes To Gloria
Cain
Ginger White, the woman
alleging she had a 13-year-long extramarital
affair with Herman Cain,
apologized to Cain's wife and kids
Thursday.
"I am
deeply, deeply sorry if I have caused any
hurt to her and to his kids, to his family.
That was not my intention," White said in an
interview with MSNBC. "I never wanted to
hurt anyone and I'm deeply sorry. I am very
sorry.
"I am not a
cold-hearted person," White continued. "I am
a mother of two kids. And of course my heart
bleeds for this woman because I am a woman
and being in a situation like this can not
be fun."—HuffingtonPost. |
* * *
* *
Ginger White on
Herman Cain's Exit, His Arrogance—and Her Sex Claims—Ginger
White tells Leslie Bennetts why she went public and how
Cain thought the ‘man was always right.”—Leslie Bennetts—5
December 2011—When I first started seeing Herman Cain, I
lived in Louisville, but within a year I got a job offer
here in Atlanta. I told Herman and said, ‘I may need
help getting there—will you help me?’ And he said yes.”
For White, getting
men to supplement her income that way “started becoming
a game,” she said. “It was easy for me to get help like
that. It makes you a bit cold. You have to be just as
clever as they are, just as cold as they are, just as
calculating as they are—and sometimes beat them at their
own game. But I don’t want to be depicted as a woman who
sleeps with men for money. I am not that woman. There
have been a lot of men who sensed vulnerability and
dangled a carrot, but I am not a bad person. I am a
loving mother who has always wanted to make her own way
and give her kids the best. I never wanted to take a
handout, and I’ve said no more times than I said yes.
I’ve said no more times than you can write down.” . . .
White doesn’t have
strong political views herself, although she doesn’t
share Cain’s conservatism, she said. “I’m probably more
liberal, but it changes. Sometimes I don’t know what I
am,” she said. “It’s never been political with Herman
and I. But all of a sudden, probably two months before
he announced, he said, ‘I think I’m going to run for
president.’ I said, ‘You’re running for president? I
guess we won’t be friends anymore.’ He said, ‘No, I
don’t think so.’ I guess I was wanting to define our
friendship: Are we really friends, or is this just a
very casual affair? He was pretty much confirming, ‘No,
we won’t be friends.’ It just confirmed what I already
felt. It wasn’t a love affair. It wasn’t even a
friendship, really.”
After three failed
marriages and the Cain disaster, White said she still
hasn’t given up on the idea of finding someone to love.
But one thing she’s determined to avoid from now on is
taking money from a man she’s romantically involved
with, she said.— The
Daily Beast
* * *
* *
Herman Cain and
the Myth of Acceptable Black Behavior—Roland Laird—1
December 2011—Coon. Modern day Stepin Fetchit.
Self-Loathing. Uncle Ruckus. Those are a few of the
names some in the black intelligentsia have hurled with
the velocity of a Satchel Paige fastball at Herman Cain.
I have zero interest in Herman Cain the right wing
political figure as a presidential candidate, but the
visceral reaction to ‘Herman Cain the media phenomenon’
amongst the black punditry has me both riveted and
perplexed. Yes, a couple of Cain’s lively antics at
times seem a bit undignified to some, but the name
calling by informed and intelligent people is
surprisingly imprecise and exposes a one dimensional
view of racial images in American popular culture.
Those black pundits
that invoke images of Stepin Fetchit and Uncle Ruckus to
describe Cain are falling into the unfortunate trap of
substituting emotionalism for analysis. Everybody
processes images differently, so I wouldn’t be so
presumptuous as to tell anybody how to feel about Cain,
but I do think that once you veer into the analysis of
image types, it’s important to look at the panorama of
black images that have become a part of American popular
culture, and put one’s emotionalism on pause when doing
so.
When the black
pundits liken Cain to the coon character, they are
likening him to a character represented as lazy and
devoid of any ounce of human drive or ambition. That
‘type’ was created to help justify oppressive American
racism against black people in the pre civil rights era.
This subhuman depiction planted an image in the American
psyche. Every slow talking, slow moving black person
that a white person had ever seen was baked into the
coon character and broadcast to the world. . . . Fetchit
became identified in the popular imagination as a
dialect-speaking, slump-shouldered, slack-jawed
character who walked, talked, and apparently thought in
slow motion. (“The
Coon Caricature”, by Dr. David Pilgrim, Ferris State
University, October 2000) One need only watch a sliver
of a Fetchit performance to see the accuracy of this
description. Contrasting Fetchit’s shuffling, slumping
gait and mumbling, slurred speech with Cain’s ramrod
posture and crisp articulation begs the question, how
could anybody make such a comparison?
The answer is
complicated. Even Cain’s most diehard critics in the
black pundit community would admit that Cain’s manner
bears little resemblance to Fetchit’s. . . The most
important of these images where Cain is concerned was
the black comedic authority figure. This character first
hit the American popular culture scene in 1973 with
Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson character. Hemsley’s
Jefferson was an opinionated and successful entrepreneur
(sound familiar?) who graced the TV screen from 1973 to
1985. Other characters that came later were Robert
Guillame’s Benson DuBois, and Bill Cosby’s Cliff
Huxtable.
If you count both
first-run and syndication, each of these character’s
have been seen thousands of times by millions of
Americans over decades, and each of these characters in
a small way chipped away at the racist stereotypes that
for years were lodged in America’s psyche. Yes, they
were comedic and at times clownish, but that fell in
line with the formulaic nature of the American situation
comedy. So despite their comedic extremes, they
ultimately were also explicitly depicted authority
figures that exhibited humanity. If somebody were to
poll the contemporary white American electorate, I’m
betting that the numbers of people familiar with
Jefferson, DuBois, or Huxtable overwhelm those that have
heard of Stepin Fetchit.— PopMatters
* * *
* *
Performing
Herman Cain—Mark Anthony Neal —The
oft-cited example of Cain’s experiences at Morehouse
College in the 1960s, where his father insisted that he
“stay out of trouble,” in an era when Black college
students were indeed starting trouble and changing the
world for the better—even at an institution known today
for its marked social conservatism. This admission on
Cain’s part, no doubt strikes a chord for potential
voters who still read President Obama as postmodern
Black Power radical, as embodied in the frank racial
talk of his life partner Michele Obama during the throes
of the 2008 primary season.
That bit of
autobiographical positioning on Cain’s part was easy;
more deliberate—and complicated—has been his performance
of spirituals, at any number on campaign events. His
willingness to take on the role of the minstrel—the
American brand of traveling bards who traveled the
country, telling stories of far away lands, and not to
be mistaken with the “black-faced” variety, who traveled
the land embodying “the other” in Blackness—has in some
way been a stroke of performative genius, no matter how
uncomfortable it makes the Black rank-and-file feel.
The songs are a
gesture towards nostalgia, a way to make some Whites
more comfortable with Cain, and clearly not a
performance for simply performance sake; Cain has
clearly been singing these songs all of his life and
sounds pleasing doing so. Quiet as it’s kept; Cain’s
gestures were every bit as effective as the President’s
“dirt off my shoulder” gesture, which quickly became
part of the mythical lore that has characterized
Candidate Barack Obama.— newblackman
* * *
* *
Send in the
Clueless—Paul Krugman—4 December 2011—The Washington
Post quotes an unnamed Republican adviser who compared
what happened to Mr. Cain, when he suddenly found
himself leading in the polls, to the proverbial tale of
the dog who had better not catch that car he’s chasing.
“Something great and awful happened, the dog caught the
car. And of course, dogs don’t know how to drive cars.
So he had no idea what to do with it.” The same
metaphor, it seems to me, might apply to the G.O.P.
pursuit of the White House next year. If the dog
actually catches the car—the actual job of running the
U.S. government—it will have no idea what to do, because
the realities of government in the 21st century bear no
resemblance to the mythology all ambitious Republican
politicians must pretend to believe. And what will
happen then?
— NYTimes
* * *
* *
Close Ties
to Goldman Enrich Romney’s Public and Private
Lives—Nicholas Confessore, Peter Lattman, and Kevin
Roose—27 January 2012— When Bain Capital sought
to raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing
office-supply company named Staples,
Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a
trusted business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose
bankers led the company’s initial public offering.
When Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts,
his blind trust gave Goldman much of his wealth to
manage, a fortune now estimated to be as much as
$250 million. And as Mr. Romney mounts his
second bid for the presidency, Goldman is coming
through again: Its employees have contributed at
least $367,000 to his campaign, making the firm Mr.
Romney’s largest single source of campaign money
through the end of September.
No other company is
so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and
private lives except Bain itself. And in recent days,
Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another
lightning rod to a campaign already fending off
withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist,
thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the
forefront of the Republican nominating battle. . . . But
other elements of Mr. Romney’s personal and business
ties to Goldman may prove more controversial. Bain’s
mid-1990s acquisition of Dade Behring, a medical device
maker with factories in Florida, has become a totem of
the economic upheaval that
private equity can inflict. Goldman invested in the
acquisition, which brought the bank $120 million and
Bain $242 million—but led to the layoffs of hundreds of
workers in Miami.
Democrats hammered
Mr. Romney over the deal this week. When Mr. Romney was
building Bain into one of the world’s premier private
equity firms, Goldman’s bankers clamored for Bain
business, and won assignments advising or financing an
array of Bain deals, including Bain’s 1997 $800 million
buyout of Sealy, the nation’s largest mattress company,
which it later sold. As Mr. Romney amassed his fortune,
Goldman also offered up the services of an elite
Boston-based team in the bank’s private wealth
management unit. The relationship gave him access to
Goldman’s exclusive investment funds, including private
equity vehicles known as Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.—NYTimes
* * *
* *
Herman Cain
endorses Newt Gingrich for president—Kim Geiger—28
January 2012— Former Republican presidential candidate
Herman Cain endorsed Newt Gingrich for president
Saturday night in what was billed as a surprise
appearance by the retired pizza chain executive. “I
hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt
Gingrich for president of the United States,” Cain said
in a brief speech at the Palm Beach County GOP Party
Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach, Fla. . . . “One
of the biggest reasons is the fact that I know that
Speaker Gingrich is a patriot,” Cain said. “Speaker
Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas. And I also know
that Speaker Gingrich is running for president, and
going through this sausage grinder—I know what this
sausage grinder is all about. I know that he’s going
through this sausage grinder because he cares about the
future of the United States of America. We all do.”
Cain dropped out of the Republican
presidential race in December after repeated allegations
that he had inappropriate.— LaTimes
* *
* * *
McCain and Palin
Are Playing With Fire—I—and, I suspect, millions of
Americans like me, Republicans and Democrats alike --
couldn't care less about Obama's middle name or the
ridiculous six-degrees-of-separation game that is the
William Ayers non-issue.
The Taliban are clawing their way back in
Afghanistan, the country that I hope many of my fellow
Americans have come to understand better through my
novels. People are losing their homes and their jobs and
are watching the future slip away from them. But instead
of addressing these problems, the McCain-Palin ticket is
doing its best to distract Americans by provoking fear,
anxiety and hatred. Country first? Hardly.—WashingtonPost.
* *
* * *
Labor warns
McCain about crowds—"Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah
Palin and the leadership of the Republican party have a
fundamental moral responsibility to denounce the violent
rhetoric that has pervaded recent McCain and Palin
political rallies," said John Sweeney, president of the
AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Obama. "When rally attendees
shout out such attacks as 'terrorist' or 'kill him'
about Sen. Barack Obama, when they are cheered on by
crowds incited by McCain-Palin rhetoric—it is
chilling that McCain and Palin do nothing to object.
"In a world where unspeakable violence is too often
promulgated by extremists, it is no small or trivial
matter to call someone a terrorist— or to incite
potentially dangerous individuals toward violence,"
Sweeney said in a statement. "John McCain, Sarah Palin
and Republican leaders are walking a very thin line in
pretending not to hear the hateful invectives spewed at
their rallies. McCain should end this line of attack in
the strongest possible terms. Anything less puts McCain
in the same camp as the racists and extremists who are
bringing their angry rhetoric to his campaign events."
Boston News
Raising McCain
Donald Ritchie—Foundations of the U. Senate
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
|
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
|
 |
* *
* * *
 |
Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
|
Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. |
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. |
This collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked together to
promote, disseminate, and critique the literature of
Spanish-speaking people of African descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
update 10 March 2012
|
