A Constant American Takes A Stand, Quits Rather Than Lower Flag For Helms

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

L.F. Eason, III, 51, out of a job, but rich of character

News & Observer reports:

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff.

The brouhaha began late Sunday night, when Eason e-mailed eight of his employees in the state standards lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers.

"Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week," Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Eason said in an interview Tuesday that he did not typically lower the flag himself, but that, as head of the lab, he supervised the technician who did. He also trained new employees on proper flag etiquette, including a one-person folding technique he learned in Boy Scouts.

When the lab opened Monday morning, the flags were not out at all. An employee called Eason's boss, Stephen Benjamin, who worked in another building in Raleigh. About 10:45 a.m., Benjamin told one of Eason's co-workers to put the flags at half-staff.

Another of Eason's superiors later drove by the lab to make sure the flags were up properly.

No one in the Governor's Office was aware of any time in recent memory when a state employee refused to lower a flag. Brian Long, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said Eason's refusal was unexpected.

"We've never had any conversations like that," he said.

An ultimatum

In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately.

Though he's only 51, Eason chose to retire, although he pleaded several times to be allowed to stay at the lab. Eason, who had worked for the Agriculture Department since graduating from college, was paid $65,235 a year as the laboratory manager.

Several people, including his wife, argued to Eason that the flags belonged to the state, as did the lab. But Eason said he felt a strong sense of ownership.

Eason and a previous boss had sketched out the building's rough design on a napkin at the Atlanta airport in 1984 after attending a national conference on weights and measures.

He then worked to get funding for it in the state budget, and he recently helped snag state money to study building another lab.

"I designed and built that lab," he said. "Even though technically the bricks and mortar belong to the state of North Carolina, I feel very strongly that everything that comes out of there is my responsibility."

It was not the first time Eason felt uneasy about lowering the flag.

A registered Democrat who frequently votes a split ticket, he said he had no problems lowering the flag for former Sen. Terry Sanford or President Reagan. But he remembers wondering whether he would be willing to lower the flag after President Nixon's death.

He never had to make that decision, since it rained both days.

Monday was sunny. And Eason was out of a job.

To L.F. Easley, III, a Constant American, goes the Golden Picket award.

The Clinton Campaign Goes [SUBLIMINAL]

ALERT: Racially offensive language ahead!

Thursday's release on YouTube.com of a doctored clip from the 1992 documentary,"War Room" which has Clinton advisor Mickey Kantor disparaging Indianans to George Stephanopoulos and James Carville, first by saying that "Indianas are shit", and then that Indianans are "white niggers" was an inside job by the Clinton campaign.

How do I know and why did they do it?

The answer to the latter question explains the former:

The Clinton campaign did it to get the word "nigger" out into the public. The intention wasn't to offend Indianans or to have Indianans think that people within the Clinton campaign think Indianans are the scum of the earth (because it's so obviously a fake and can easily be denounced): It was just to get the n-word out into the public arena. Ideally, in a news venue where the word itself would be repeated again and again. Even reported as "the n-word", our minds know what the reference is to. The purpose is to create a sense of discomfort in some white voters (the undecideds) at the idea of a black man becoming President of the United States. You don't even have to connect it with Obama, because the effect is that voters see Obama and the word "nigger" becomes synonymous with him.

The effect on voters doesn't have to be much. It can be mild, but the people who are being targeted are the undecideds voters who, when they walk into the voting booth, literally are not sure which button to press/name to check off. The word "nigger" provides the motivation for choosing Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.

If only one out of a hundred voters is influenced by a feeling that they have, for example, thinking of Barack Obama and thinking "nigger", and being uncomfortable voting for him (and because they're not even thinking of it consciously, it's just a slight increase in their physical discomfort, the effect may be mild and not even register consciously), it's enough to throw the election to her. In a neck and neck race a change of one to two percent can make the difference between victory and defeat.

It's not a conscious experience. It's a gut reaction, a slight increase in discomfort. Particularly for those people who aren't aware of the issues, but who just vote based on whether they like somebody. There's a certain percentage of people who vote that way, who voted for Bush that way, over Al Gore and John Kerry. "Which candidate would you prefer to have a beer with?", as if there's even a possibility of that ever happening.

These are people who won't vote for somebody they get uncomfortable thinking about.

The diabolical 'beauty' of this plan (unlike other critically negative campaigns, such as saying that Hillary is "polarizing" which is an overt connection that people will consciously reject or accept) is that on the surface there's no connection between the phrase "white niggers", the word "nigger" and Barack Obama. You're not using the term in any way directly connected with Obama but you are getting the word into the public awareness.

In a certain number of people, the word will automatically be associated, not consciously but viscerally, with the African-American candidate. They will think "nigger" and then they will think of the candidate. They will think of the candidate and then they will think "nigger". They become interchangeable. And the voters to whom this is happening may believe that they're not racist (and consciously they may not be), but they will be uncomfortable voting for a "nigger" for President.

In a tight race such as this, enough voters may be swayed by this tactic to make the vote go one way rather decisively.

And it's feasible, given the kind of campaign Senator Clinton has chosen to run, to think that this was intentionally done with that result in mind.

It certainly dovetails into the whispering "He's unelectable"-campaign that superdelegates have been telling journalists they're being subjected to by the Clinton campaign. And also the truly bizarre comments made in the last three days by N. Carolina's governor Mike Easley ("Hillary makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy"), Paul Gibson, president of the Sheet Metal Workers' Union in Indiana, who said of Hillary Clinton, she has "testicular fortitude", and James Carville who said if Hillary gave Obama "one of her cojones, they'd both have two". These are not spontaneous utterances, they don't just pop out these mens' mouths. These are carefully crafted and intended for the same undecided voters who, if voting for a woman as president creates similar unease as voting for the black man, the Clintons want them to think, "Worry not, this woman makes Sylvester Stallone look gay".



There is no conceivable way that the Mickey Kantor clip benefits anyone but Hillary Clinton. Once the word ("nigger") is 'out of the barn', so to speak, the voters' discomfort has been created. All that is left for the Clintons to do is to keep up the whispering campaign, that "Obama is unelectable", only they don't have to whisper anymore because it's being discussed openly in the media. It will ring true for voters because they assume others are having the same feelings of discomfort, and won't vote for him.

Hillary's Dilemma

How does she get people who are inclined to vote for this man...



....see this man when they look at their ballots...



ALERT: Racially offensive language ahead!

If I were Macchiavellian, and in a neck and neck race with a black opponent, and I wanted to manipulate racist attitudes, I might ask myself, "How can I get the word "nigger" into the public consciousness without actually calling him that?"

One way to do it indirectly is applying the word to a completely different group of people and creating a firestorm or setting up a straw man. For example, creating a tape where it looks as if someone on my team called Indianans, "white niggers", then release it anonymously into the public arena (on the internet, on YouTube.com) and make sure it got reported on TV (CNN, Anderson Cooper's 360/MSNBC/ABC).

The beauty of this tactic is that it doesn't matter if it's accurate and it doesn't matter if anybody believes it. The purpose is to get the word out ("nigger") into the public consciousness. At some level, a certain level percentage of the voters will associate the word with my black opponent and that can create a reluctance to vote for him. Even if it influenced 1% of the voters, it's a significant factor in a race as close as Indiana.

It's very sophisticated, obviously very underhanded, but it can be effective, as any social psychologist can attest. [Think you're for Obama (or Clinton, or McCain)? Want to see if your unconscious mind agrees? Take the Presidential Candidates Implicit Association Test at Harvard University's virtual laboratory, Project Implicit.]

Given the kind of campaign Senator Clinton has chosen to run, I'm having a very hard time believing she isn't behind the last minute Mickey Kantor-YouTube slur video. It certainly dovetails into the whispering "he's unelectable" campaign that superdelegates have been telling journalists they're being subjected to by the Clinton campaign.

The broader implications of what this means for our country and our culture in the 21 century is unconscionable. Unless we evolve, there are always going to be those less high-minded people plotting to exploit unconscious processes for their own selfish advantage.