Cynthia's Real Sin: You Call, Girl?
by Richard Oxman

*Unsolicited Advice: If the reader is going to look at only one paragraph here, make it the next-to-last unit (above the final bio info), please.*

Listening to Paivepo by Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi I can put Cynthia McKinney's recent debacle into perspective. As I dream of what might be, was. What must be.

Left-wingers continue to waste precious time with observations such as the following:

-The uproar over McKinney’s swat of the Capitol Hill cop with her cell phone after he’s manhandled her was grotesque. Tot up the hours devoted to McKinney, as opposed to the fleeting attention to Republican Rep Duke Cunningham, finally sent to the Joint for taking upwards of $2 million in bribes; or to David Savafian, Bush’s man in charge of procurement at OMB, arrested for corruption as a spin-off of the Abramoff scandal.-

Our focus should not be on the ongoing imbalance in the Media Balance Sheet vis-Ã -vis predictable coverage and non-coverage. That's beating an overly covered Obvious Dead Horse.

And although I love the line about *having to apologize for the rest of one's life* in

-Here at CounterPunch we don’t think McKinney handled the affair deftly. Why did she have to appear on talk shows with lawyers? Tom DeLay, who’s got a lot to answer for, confronted the press alone, and never stopped smiling. And why, oh why did McKinney apologize? As Jesse Jackson learned, it doesn’t do any good. You’ve copped a guilty plea and then they say, You didn’t apologize enough! You have to go on apologizing for the rest of your life.-

COMMA (I want it big here, PLEASE!)

THE NICETIES RESPECTING -the affair- ARE OUR BIGGEST LEFTIST PROBLEM, NOT WHAT'S BEING DISCUSSED: who was right; how Cyn should have finessed it all; to what degree was racism involved; what might have come down *if*-; and so on.

What's being discussed, as is par for the course regarding so-called current events, is fun. And it provides one and all with an opportunity to establish ground on which they mesh with what's popular-among the souls with whom they want to bond. A priori, if necessary. It's a great part of the basis for news junkies' mainlining-right or left. Right or wrong, the main thing that matters is having a strong opinion-which lesser beings don't get, which firms up one's superiority. And-it's a substitute for ACTION.

My writing is motivated by much; goals are only a part, BUT one of my goals is to encourage people to stop throwing their heartbeats away (exclusively) on the game described above. And it is a game. A superficial pastime, in fact, pretending –intentionally or otherwise– to lead to bigger things. Not even authentic-like apolitical sports. It's a pretentious, presumptuous game. Dangerous re: the dialogue it cuts off.

Perhaps the follow up to Oliver Mtukudzi's *Tuku Music* won't resonate with one and all, won't make him sound like the Otis Redding of Zimbabwe to each and every ear.

But the leaping guitar arpeggios and flickering cymbal cross-rhythms –though quite light– are -clear and secure as a geodesic dome,- AND very much in touch with the fact that the average age of death these days for the people in and around the former Rhodesia is-34 for women-and 37 for men.

Yes, let's encourage all of the middle class writers and lecturers to shy away from the middle class issues which plague one and all as so-called important current events. Let's finally acknowledge that apologizing and rationalizing and finessing fine points that will not make us bleed is-middle class.

Then, perhaps, black and white and all people of color and non-color will have a chance to achieve something of what was in place long before the Munhumutapa Empire was ever a fact of life.

What am I talking about?

Hey, I haven't heard anyone question what the hell Cynthia McKinney is doing with a cell phone, one of our biggest mutual problems-certainly as huge an issue for ALL people these days as racism-cell phone coltan –like diamonds– coming from the multitudinous blood of Africans and gorillas-and their requisite *waves* irreparably damaging what we all should prize.

Zimbabwe comes from *dzimba dzamabwe* meaning -stone buildings- in the
Shona language. Let's trust that all lefties won't remain stoned prostitutes.

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Richard Oxman, info@parisgraves.com, trusts that no one in his right (left) mind will try to justify cell phones for this one or that, for this or that; details upon request. The most updated versions of his articles appear at www.oxtogrind.org. 'Cause there's a lot that the author likes about Cynthia-this article was almost titled, -Call for a Moratorium.- It would be lovely if someone would telephone Cyn on this count-on something along the lines of a rotary phone. Then, it'll be her call. See http://www.cellular-news.com/coltan/ and www.allthingspass.com if you need a “starting kit” (dis)respecting gold, diamonds and coltan.