Saturday, April 28, 2007

Ominous Signs

Ominous Signs

CHICAGO: Pulte Homes, Beazer Homes USA and Ryland Group have reported quarterly losses as the deteriorating U.S. housing market forced them to write down the value of property and abandon land purchases. Beazer and Ryland withdrew their earnings forecasts for 2007 and Pulte declined to provide an outlook for the rest of the year. The Beazer chief executive, Ian McCarthy, said the market was "extremely challenging" and he did not see any signs of a housing recovery. Pulte, Beazer and Ryland had a combined $300 million in costs for land and options on parcels they no longer need. Each posted a decline in new home orders. U.S. home builders are in their second year of a slump as tightening credit standards and a glut of unsold homes reduces potential buyers and prompts some to wait for prices to fall further before making offers.Pulte, one of the largest U.S. home builders by revenue, reported a first-quarter net loss of $85.7 million, compared with a profit of $262.6 million a year earlier. Revenue fell 37 percent to $1.87 billion, the company said late Wednesday. Ryland, the biggest U.S. home builder for first-time buyers, said Wednesday after the close of regular trading that its net loss in the three months ended March 31 was $24.4 million, compared with a profit of $90 million a year earlier. Revenue fell 34 percent to $706.4 million, the company said. Beazer's net loss for the three months ended March 31 was $43.1 million, compared with net income of $104.4 million a year earlier, the company said Thursday. Revenue slid 35 percent to $826.3 million.” http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/26/news/bxhomes.php

Things are really getting ugly when the three largest home builders in the US each reported losses during the first quarter of 2007. Many of us are just discovering the implosion of the Sub prime mortgage market and the record home foreclosures it has sparked. The mainstream corporate media as usual, is not telling the whole story. They must remain loyal to their class interests and treat the public like mushrooms, kept in the dark feed a steady diet of manure. The truth of the matter is the US housing industry is headed for the bottom. The sub-prime scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. Keep in mind mortgage brokers in concert with banks and lending institutions hyped exotic mortgages to folks they knew had poor credit histories who were especially vulnerable to the push of “home ownership” and the “AmeriKKKan dream” the Bu$h administration, was touting to low income Blacks, Latinos and fixed income elderly. These particular demographics were deliberately targeted for the shady loans by brokers whose fees were higher when they steered borrowers to sub-prime lenders. (It’s all about he Benjamins) This was not by accident or coincidence. It’s all part and parcel of the way they (meaning the US central bank Wall Street their cronies) planned to “boost” the economy by printing more worthless paper money and opening the credit spigots to help fund the largest housing expansion in the nation’s history. The down side of all this is the massive infusion of worthless money and easy credit are now taking a heavy toll on the US economy. And there is nothing the Fed can do to reverse the trend. It is another example of the predatory nature of this system!
Keep in mind so far fifty companies that specialized in loans to folks with poor credit scores have gone belly up and several of these companies are subsidiaries of major lending, banking and/or financial institutions. Cracks are now forming in the Alt A level mortgages, loans given to folks with decent credit ratings and payment histories. In their cases they are getting behind because the appreciation on their house has halted, so their equity in the house has leveled off, their wages are stagnant and they can no longer use the house as an ATM machine to borrow or refinance to keep up with the Jones and their bills! “Borrowers who take out Alt-A mortgages are considered less risky than subprime borrowers because of their higher credit scores. But as the housing market cooled and loan volume declined, some lenders lowered their standards for Alt-As. Now a rising number of borrowers who took out these loans are running into trouble. Data from UBS AG show that the default rate for Alt-A mortgages has doubled in the past 14 months. ‘The credit deterioration has been almost parallel to what's been happening in the subprime market,’ says UBS mortgage analyst David Liu. The UBS report contrasts with testimony Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke gave to Congress yesterday. ‘Our assessment is that there's not much indication that subprime issues have spread into the broader mortgage market,’ Mr. Bernanke said.” Mortgage Defaults Start to Spread New Data Show That Nontraditional Loans Are Beginning To Haunt Borrowers With Midlevel Credit; Prime Still Fine By RUTH SIMON and JAMES R. HAGERTY http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117271866822722900.html?
One of the most curious features of these Alt A loans is the borrowers don’t have to document their income or the ability to repay the loan?! This is a sure fire opening for abuse. And that is what is happening. Ben Bernanke is the head of the US central bank that sets money supply and credit policy. He knows better but is not telling the truth to avoid a panic. The US dollar is falling rapidly, it’s losing its status and the US trade deficits continue to spiral out of control so the last thing the head of the central bank wants to do is tell folks the mid level mortgage industry is in trouble. Stop and take a look at the signs, the US economy is in big trouble. The US auto industry is about to go belly up unless it restructures and refashions the way it does business which means massive layoffs or buyouts for US workers and more outsourcing of jobs overseas. The US housing industry is at a standstill and the impact will reverberate throughout the economy. On the government front, the Bu$h administration is spending and borrowing like a drunken sailor. All of these issues will impact the quality of life for the average AmeriKKKan.
Gasoline prices are souring, the corporations are making huge profits but wages are stagnant and the standard of living is eroding for most AmeriKKKans. AmeriKKKans have a minus savings index and are in debt up to their armpits. These are troubling times and the ruling elites have no intention of righting the ship. “Consider the figures for 2005: the top hundredth of 1 percent, about 10,000 households, averaged $25.7 million in income, three times the money in 1928. This amounted to 882 times more than the bottom 90 percent average — an economic inequality gap in 2005 that’s almost identical to the 891-to-1 divide in 1928! Welcome to the modern billionaire world of the rich getting much, much richer, while everyone else stagnates. Of course, the top 1 percent of households are also extremely rich – some 1 million families or 3 million people – relatively to the bottom, majority 90 percent.
Married couples with children now account for fewer than one-quarter of American households – the lowest in history. It is the Upper Class that now emphasizes marriage with children. Married households with children are twice as likely to be in the top 20 percent of income. Some 13 percent of the increase in the nation’s income inequality since the 1970s results from the marriage of high income earners. Marriage is now for the rich. What does that say about American democracy and culture? That the Upper Class is like an inbred aristocracy. Children of the rich will marry other children of the rich.
Another critically important change in the real (ugly) America is the bursting of the traditional fantasy-belief that people can educate themselves into wealth. Is getting more Americans educated and trained all we need to do to attack economic inequality? If so, then inequality should fall over periods of time when people become more educated. Right? Americans have become more educated over the last three decades. In 1970, only three out of four Americans aged 25-29 had completed high school. In 2004, nearly nine of ten Americans that age had a high school education. In 1970, only 16 percent of Americans in their late 20s held a four-year college degree. By 2004, that had nearly doubled to 29 percent. Something else has nearly doubled since 1970: the share of national income that goes to America’s richest 1 percent.That means that the share going to average Americans has dropped. Lower Class Americans in the bottom 90 percent of the nation’s income distribution took home 67 percent of U.S. income in 1970, but only 53 percent in 2004, despite their greater education and productivity. American reality: We’ve become more unequal at the same time we’ve become more educated. Why? Education doesn’t determine how income and wealth – or macro domestic and global prosperity – are distributed in our unfair system. The Upper Class ensures that increasing fractions of income and wealth go to them.” US Government Policy Separates Americans into two Classes: the wealthy Upper Class and the Lower Class. http://dissidentnews.wordpress.com/2007/04
This is not pretty, in fact it is down right ugly! Keep in mind, it will not get any better on its own. The ruling elites have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. Don’t say you weren’t warned. The ominous signs will continue through 2007 and beyond.

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Mental Decolonization Begins In Us

Mental Decolonization Begins In Us

“A part of the problem of mental illness is not what people do to each other and what mama or daddy or somebody else does to a child. A part of it (mental illness) is also how what momma does is reacted to on the part of the child. It is not so much that the European says we are inferior and that we are this and that, and that the European maligns our character, et ectera: It is the belief on our part that what he says is true that drives us crazy. It is a crazy reaction to what he says, an insane and unthinking kind of approach to dealing with what he says about us that maintains the craziness.” Amos N. Wilson The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness Eurocentric History Psychiatry and the Politics of White Supremacy Page 95

Watching the hoopla over the killing spree at Virginia Tech University made me even more aware of how insane and pathological this culture is. Even if the story and time line the corporate media is spinning about Seung-Hui Cho are true I have doubts and reservations about that simply because the corporate media lies routinely; but even if the stories about this young man’s emotional problems are true that does not obfuscate the factual reality AmeriKKKa is an extremely violent nation. It’s not just the guns and weapons that make AmeriKKKa so violent, it’s the mentality and values behind them. The values of AmeriKKKa are anti-life and anti-peace! The Western paradigm of interpersonal relationships is best described as a predatory Win-Lose scenario. Success in the twisted mind of Europeans is: on an individual and collective basis when they, their tribe or country are able to defeat, exploit, demean, swindle or subjugate anyone else particularly the racial “other” to gain some advantage, material possession or position for themselves while depriving the original custodians of it altogether. Europeans have fashioned an in order for me to Win-you most Lose reality/world. Their language about relationships is full of analogies about war, conflict and combat. For example their notion of male-female interaction is called the “battle of the sexes”.
Given the omnipresent and immutable principles of reciprocity, sowing and reaping and KARMA civilized people used to structure their societies is in direct opposition to the European paradigm of reality, what usually resulted when dealing with Westerners was a Lose-Lose scenario. The pattern of modern interracial and inter-cultural contacts went much like this: Caucasians would come on the set pretending to be friendly while discreetly checking out the aboriginal or indigenous people, looking for whatever they could steal and expropriate. Once they discerned or discovered whatever it was they coveted, their rapacious behavioral patterns set in, conflict, genocidal wars, colonization/debasement always resulted. Due to the Europeans’ superior weaponry and their homicidal behavior over the last five hundred years, whites usually won the wars and subsequently dominated the people militarily. In order to maintain their political hegemony they would bring in missionaries or “cultural workers” to pacify and colonize the people mentally and psychologically. They used fear, terror, intimidation and brainwashing they called “education” to pacify the natives once they had been defeated militarily. Often the Europeans would take selected members of indigenous people to be “trained and educated” in their colonial schools or sent back to the European’s home country for further indoctrination and brainwashing into Eurocentric thinking with the goal of creating self-negating, self-hating pawns and sycophants. Eurocentric white supremacy was the core curriculum, the natives and captives were taught to internalize and believe they were sub-human, innately inferior and “less than” their European colonizers. For their efforts the Europeans became even more ruthless, more brutal and amoral further dehumanizing themselves and escalating the cycle of dehumanization for all.
The invaders, colonizers and kidnapers were always fearful of retaliation and liberation struggles so they would employ heinous and time tested (on their own people, study their history) techniques, torture and murder to instill fear into their targets so they would not rebel or overthrow the colonizer’s system. This is what the whites did during slavery, during the colonial period and during the apartheid era in AmeriKKKa. In the modern era in AmeriKKKa they used COINTELPRO to eliminate our righteous leaders when the Civil Rights and Black Power movements threatened their hegemony especially when their cities when up inflames following the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. Subsequently whites recognized how empowering the Black is Beautiful, the Black Arts and Black Aesthetic movements were and how they raised our consciousness, so the oppressors determined to use this same creativity against us.
This is why and how they high jacked Black Music. Read Nelson George’s The Death of Rhythm and Blues and extrapolate and juxtapose those and similar corporate techniques to Hip Hop and you’ll see how they now manipulate and control the music industry. This is how and why our young people dehumanize, degrade and debase themselves and us individually and collectively for a few dollars more. The Don Imus situation finally forced us to look at ourselves and examine what we are willing to accept. Yeah this culture still promotes vile and demeaning images of us everyday, so what? The question we must address and answer is, what are we going to do about it; how can we counter this filth and garbage with life affirming values, pro-African images and messages? We’re not obligated to support P Diddy, Snoop Dog or their clones. We can choose not to support Radio One, ViaCom or Disney’s values, advertisers and programming. There are other venues, conscious newspapers and magazines out there we can support. There are conscious artists like Paris and Immortal Technique, conscious Internet radio and television stations we can support to get our music, news, edutainment and information. It’s not what corporate AmeriKKKa pushes or what their paid Sambos and Hoochie Mommas say or do, it’s how we react. We have the power to act and/or react. We can react by not buying or consuming Eurocentric media or Minstrelsy . We can act by being proactive and creating our own media, our own messages and our own distribution networks. To accomplish that means we have to stop whining, stop going for the okey-doke get up off our duff and do something different and wonderful! We have it in us, the challenge is to bring it out in time to save ourselves and ultimately by extension, the whole world. Mental decolonization is possible. It begins in us, it begins when we transform our thinking, when we alter our behavior so our creativity reflects a renewed African consciousness. The good news is we don’t have to wait, we can begin right now, right where we are to make our world better, sane and life affirming. Begin now, our future depends upon it!

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Gangsta Rap, Don Imus, Iraq and Virginia Tech

Gangsta Rap, Don Imus, Iraq and Virginia Tech

“Issues of moral integrity and traditional conceptions of order have been neutralized by slick marketing campaigns and a Western derived social propaganda of moral, political and economic liberalism. The vaunted American century is the capstone of the white/Western world’s five century expansion which has been driven by a monstrous and insatiable appetite for carnage and destruction, as it progressed toward world domination and ‘supremacy’. The genocidal campaigns and colonial settlement of the Americas and Australia and the libidinous genetic infusion into the gene pools of every racial type that succumbed to its campaigns of terror and destruction evidence the insane barbarism of the “Western man” and his ‘civilization”. These historic conditions partially frame the condition of the Afrikan world at the close of the 20th century.” The Sankofa Movement ReAfrikanization and the Reality of War by Kwame Agyei & Akua Nson Akoto Page 11

The Don Imus issue is gradually making its way to the back burner of media exposure and thus our consciousness, the ruling elites having decided that’s enough of that. Now we are being bombarded by the media giving us minute by minute coverage of the carnage and slaying on the campus of Virginia Tech. In the backdrop the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq and the incessant saber rattling directed at Iran is just enough to keep us on edge as the beat of perpetual war goes on. Meanwhile, black folks continue to degrade, debase and kill each other at an ever increasingly alarming rate.
I watched Oprah Winfrey’s “Town Meeting” focusing on the Don Imus brouhaha when the local ABC affiliate interrupted her program to provide more information on the situation at Virginia Tech. Prior to the interruption psychologist Dr. Robin Smith was explaining to Oprah and her audience the Don Imus incident was not really about Don Imus, it was actually deeply indicative of the spiritual void at the core of AmeriKKKa’s soul. She explained it was not just the Rutgers student athletes who were being demeaned, it was all of AmeriKKKa. She said succinctly, anytime a person willfully and deliberately denigrates another person they also tear themselves down. Dr. Smith is on the case on this one. When we look at AmeriKKKa, we see a nation with a long and continuous history of wanton violence, bloodletting, genocide and rapine.
The Europeans who invaded and settled this hemisphere brought their culture of war, pillage, plunder social and ecological disruption with them. In fact they have carried this tradition everywhere they have set foot on planet earth! Given this is their historical legacy, why are we shocked when a Don Imus spews insults and epithets at black people in an effort to “entertain” his mostly white male listeners. Words are an outgrowth of thoughts and thinking as are actions. Take a look around and ask yourself what are the real values AmeriKKKa disseminates to the world? Whites pretend to be shocked at what happened at Virginia Tech just like they pretended to be shocked at what happened at Columbine High School years ago. Nonsense! Only a fool would say these aren’t the real values AmeriKKKa holds dear. The killers were merely expressing the real motives, values and psychology of AmeriKKKan culture, the values this culture promotes by its actions.
Dr. Amos Wilson once noted white people’s true psychology and values aren’t found in their psychology books or their religious dogma, their real values are found in their behavior and history. As tragic as the murders were at Virginia Tech a brother reminded us via E-mail the biggest shooting spree in AmeriKKKa took place in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 when rampaging whites went berserk and burned thirty-five blocks in the black neighborhood of Greenwood in North Tulsa. Even the National Guard who were called in to restore order turned on the blacks who had armed to defended themselves against the marauding mobs, opening fire on the blacks who were huddled together to defend themselves against vicious attack.
What do you expect in the most violent country on the face of the earth? This is just one example of the state and white AmeriKKKans using its considerable powers to turn on the indigenous inhabitants of this land as well as the Africans they imported here! What the National Guard no longer does to black folks in AmeriKKKa, like they did in Tulsa, it now does to Iraqis over in Iraq under the guise of a bogus War on Terrorism. The hatred white folks used to spew on blacks since the beginning of this nation with impunity, Don Imus repeated on syndicated radio. But Imus got fired only because his corporate master’s kicked him off the gravy train to save their hides when the pressure got a little too much for them. It is business as usual for the barbarians and sociopaths who run this nation. The most tragic aspect of all this is we have internalized the barbarians’ fear and loathing of Africans. Our children now degrade and act out every vile and negative stereotype created in the demented psyches of European males. This is not by accident. The Europeans discovered the best way to dummy us down, stupefy and neutralize us was to use our own music as a weapon! Just when our young people were using the new genre of Hip-Hop to carry on the liberation struggle, the white corporate oligarchy altered the music scene and provided a counter to conscious rappers like Public Enemy and KRS-One. They began to promote degenerates like 2 Live Crew and NWA. Before long a new substrata of Hip-Hop a rough, gritty and sociopathic style which came to be called Gangsta Rap took root in the hood, because it was aggressively promoted on the white owned cable, FM stations and later in films and videos.
When wise elders like C. Delores Tucker and Rev. Calvin Butts stepped up to warn us about the potentially negative and damaging impact of Gangsta Rap in the ‘90's they were viciously attacked mocked and derided by apolitical retrograde corporate mercenaries. Two years ago when Bill Cosby stood up to challenge the insanity he too was vilified by the corporate stooges and lackeys. These Judas goats denounced their detractors under the guise of cultural authenticity, saying they were “keeping it real”. Their lack of historical insight was matched only by their arrogance. These semi literate buffoons actually think their retrograde brand of creativity is the first form of black music to be authentic and true to the black experience! Since most of them are not musicians they know nothing about the Blues, nor the circumstances, situations and artists that created them. Most are woefully ignorant about anything else that flowed from the black experience.
The truth of the matter is, we must assume responsibility for their ignorance. These are our children. We failed to teach them our history. We failed to connect them with the struggles of men on the chain gangs, on the plantations who created the work songs, shouts and the blues. We neglected to tell them about the struggles Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Sam Cook or Veejay Records waged for artistic freedom and a real pay day. Now the chickens have come home to roost in our homes and communities.
Don Imus got fired over his latest racist remarks even though our reaction was misguided. If Imus got fired, how is it a whole pack of decadent “black” slime merchants gets a free pass to degrade and perpetuate the vilest stereotypes against their own people? How do sane people allow this to happen? How does the ruling oligarchy dupe the masses of AmeriKKKans into allowing them to kill, maim and steal the natural resources of Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan or whatever country you want in the blank. How is it there is no outcry over the more than 600,000 Iraqis the US has slaughtered during the past four years? These things happen for the same reasons there was no outcry against the slaughter of the Native Americans or African people. The good white folks whoever they are, lack the will to change things.
We African people are too impotent to stop the escalating fratricide in our communities, the prostitution of our creativity and the use of our genius to subjugate, castrate and dehumanize ourselves. That is the bottom line! We seem to have lost the will to resist, redeem ourselves or fight for our survival. One Afrocentric psychologist says we suffer from “survival fatigue” we’re too beat down to resist and fight for our survival. I suspect we suffer more from what I call the sell out syndrome than anything else. Our kids don’t know who we/they are,. They don’t know the resilient and strong people they come from, all they know is they don’t want to be African. They are so enamored with money and material things they will do anything and I mean anything to get them. In an insane and barbaric society that is a surefire formula for death.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Don Imus Is Symptomatic of AmeriKKKan Corporate Media

Don Imus Is Symptomatic of AmeriKKKan Corporate Media

“In a major urban market like New York City, “hate radio” unadorned, crude expressions of hatred of Blacks are a 24 hour seven days a week fare. The radio stations and hosts who broadcast such attitudes receive markedly higher ratings and are listened to by enormously larger audiences numbering in the millions, compared to their milder or even more liberal counterparts. Rush Limbaugh, nationally syndicated TV and radio personality who transparently disguises his Reaganite conservative views, anti-Black, anti-liberal attitudes as entertainment and political satire, speaks daily to an audience approaching 20 million, 70% of whom are middle to lower class Whites.” Amos N Wilson, Blueprint For Black Power A Moral Political Economic Imperative for the Twenty First Century Page 230

I didn’t participate in the flap over “shock jock” Don Imus’ comments about the Rutgers Women’s basketball team because I felt in the overall scheme of things given all that is going on in the world and his history it was no big deal. To me is Don Imus is being Don Imus, it was business as usual and for WFAN and CBS business up until all this fuss business was booming. (I saw on the Internet today two sponsors are pulling their ads off of Imus’ show). But when I saw the reaction from Black folks I was truly amazed. Why were Black folks were so upset over two crackers’ crass remarks about a group of African student athletes? How is it there is so much commotion over Imus’ remarks and such fury directed at his CBS MSNBC employers, but these same supposedly concerned Black folks give HBO, BET, MTV, VH1, Radio One and Clear Channel a free pass on their programming?! Programming which in my opinion is equally if not more offensive and degrading. How is it these reactionary Negroes are jumping on this one goofy white boy (and his producer) who have a long history of insensitivity and racism for which he gets paid quite handsomely but nothing is said about how Flava Flav and the TV “reality show" Flava of Love and similar cable shows debase black people?! How is it we can point fingers at Don Imus but ignore the crass, sleazy, duffus buffoonery that takes place on Black commercial radio every day? How is it no one is calling for a national boycott of Radio One or any of the commercial Hip Hop stations owned by whites that play “music” which routinely degrades African people, promotes violence, misogyny, espouses self-destructive behaviors and models anti-African values. What’s up with that? Are we that out of it we don’t see what’s going on right under our noses?
In AmeriKKKa and by extension the rest of the world the mass media is consolidated into the hand of a small elite. While some contend the primary function of the mass media is to provide advertisers a conduit and hook into the minds of consumers, I maintain the mass media is first and foremost a values transmitting and socialization tool. The mass media does in fact do both things, “The media constructs a message, disseminates it into society, and targets specific people in order to achieve an end result. The end result is ultimately meant to sell you something: either a product or service, or an ideology. As we’ll soon discover, the media is a business selling a product (the message), to a set of consumers (the audience). An example of the media’s intent to sell a product or service, is the commercials we watch between the segments of our favorite television shows. Those commercials have the intention of selling you a product or service. An example of the media’s intent to sell an ideology is the television show between the commercial segments. The television show appeals to your sensibilities and in turn it sells you a lifestyle. Of course, as with all things, extremes do exist in the media’s attempts to sell a product or ideology. When an extremely biased media source tries to sell you a political ideology, it is considered propaganda.” What is The Media? By UndestandMedia.com Staff http://www.understandmedia.com/art14.htm
From the vantage point of conscious Africans, the European media promotes an ideology of white supremacy and anti-Africaness. From that vantage point Don Imus and his ilk are typical and symptomatic of white media. That is why they are so popular, they do their jobs well. Don Imus is doing what he gets paid to do! We as liberation minded Africans should understand Don Imus is part and parcel to an overarching agenda of global white supremacy and anti-African psychological warfare and act accordingly. By that I mean we should not overreact to a situation like this. Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh et al are being themselves. They are making out like fat rats in a cheese factory whether we listen to them or not. The fact of the matter is, none of us should be listening to them or their black face counterparts in the first place if we are conscious and liberation minded! The role of the white mass media is to maintain the status quo and propagate global white supremacy. If you doubt what I’m saying search our radio dial, television and the Internet and see if you find any revolutionary white stations advocating the overthrow and destruction of the US fascist system? Even the most radical communist and socialists aren’t doing that! If you find one just one, let me know.
Don Imus was suspended for two weeks and as of today two sponsors have dropped the show. Big deal! For Imus, WFAN, MSNBC and in fact the whole world the beat goes on. Two weeks from now Imus will be back on the radio if not at WFAN somewhere else and all will be forgotten. But our plight in this country will remain unchanged. Africans will still be subject to anti-African propaganda much of is done by Black folks. So the question we have to ask and candidly answer is, what are we doing to liberate ourselves? What are we doing to decolonize our minds so a non-factor like Don Imus isn’t even on our radar screen? When will we stop overreacting and begin to tackle the really pressing issues facing us like how do we survive in a hostile (as Imus has so aptly demonstrated) anti-African environment. We have much more pressing issues to deal with than Don Imus. Let’s get busy on those.

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Saturday, April 07, 2007

Can You Count?

Can You Count?

“Good Friday, the anniversary of Jesus' death on the cross. According to the Gospels, Jesus was put to death on the Friday before Easter Day. Since the early church Good Friday has been observed by fasting and penance. In the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican traditions, the celebration of the Eucharist is suspended; liturgical service involves veneration of the cross, the Passion narrative from the Gospel of St. John, and communion using bread and wine consecrated the previous day, Maundy Thursday. Other forms of observance include prayer and meditation at the Stations of the Cross, a succession of 14 images, usually on wooden crosses, depicting Christ's crucifixion and the events leading up to it.” http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0821267.html

Many people who follow the Western (European) Christian traditions celebrated Good Friday yesterday and they will observe Easter services tomorrow. If you do some research about the development of the Christianity and its main tenents, you will find most of the dogma and rituals were developed centuries after Yeshua Ben Joseph (if such a person ever existed at all) passed from the scene. The Encyclopedia of Religion edited by Vergilus Ferm published by the Philosophical Library Inc. in 1945 says this about the celebration of Easter, “Today Easter is observed among us on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox. Pagan practices were introduced into the Christian observance of Easter at an early age on account of the fact that the feast coincided with the beginning of Spring (the word Easter is derived from the name Eastre the Spring-Goddess; the French word Paques (Italian Pasqua) comes from the Greek pascha The Passover!). At that season of the year, the New Year and the Creation of the World were celebrated in ancient times by the exchange of gifts (Easter eggs) and by generous hospitality to friends to the poor etc.” Page 240.
Most people follow the cultural habits and traditions of their parents and ancestors, unless a new cultural paradigm is foisted upon them or they decide to change on their own, of their own volition. I grew up in a “Christian” home. Christianity had been foisted upon my African ancestors sometime after they were transported to this hemisphere. Somewhere along the line folks on both sides of my family acquiesced to the predominant cultural pattern and became “Christians.” But even as a young child I always had questions about what Christianity taught and after I grew into adulthood when I didn’t get satisfactory answers to my questions I moved on. For me the basic Christ teachings (once understood and viewed from a mystical perspective) are extremely practical and valid, while the dogma and practice of many organized religions leaves much to be desired.
If you are into organized religion, don’t allow the priests and religious hierarchy to make a fool out of you, at least think for yourself. For example, this is Easter Season in the Western Christian tradition. According to this tradition Yeshua ben Joseph was captured tried and sentenced to hang on a Thursday, hanged on a cross and died on Friday. Well for starters the Roman practice of crucifixion was a long, slow, painful torturous way to execute a human being. It usually took days for the poor man to die, usually of suffocation, dehydration, starvation and depending on the brutality of the Romans, shock and trauma from loss of blood, broken bones or wounds. Of course the Christian traditions claim Yeshua’s death followed “Biblical” prophecy so none of his bones were broken that way broken bones weren’t a factor enabling him to “rise from the dead” whole with no major defects or deformities. But even if you accept all that, even if you say a couple of hours on the cross was enough to make him “give up the ghost,” the rest of the story falls completely apart. Church doctrine says Yeshua was in the tomb (or in hell depending on which story you believe/subscribe to) three days. Well by my count Friday afternoon to Sunday morning is not three days! Friday afternoon or evening to Saturday afternoon or evening is one full day, twenty-four hours. Saturday afternoon or evening to Sunday morning is not a full day, it is not twenty-four hours and even if it were that would only be two days! So where did the notion of him being dead and buried for three days come originate? Don’t be afraid, do the math yourself and correct me if I’m wrong.
How do they explain this obvious error other than by saying, hush keep quiet and accept what we tell you on faith?! My question is, if the math is wrong and doesn’t add up, what else about the Christ myth is false and doesn’t add up? A paper entitled Timing of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (No. 159) put out by the Christian Churches of God says, “It is physically impossible for Christ to have been crucified on a Friday and been resurrected on a Sunday and fulfil the sign of Jonah and the Messianic prophecies. He could not have been placed in the tomb until Friday at dark and thus he could only have spent two evenings (one incomplete) and one day in the tomb. The requirement was to spend three days and three nights in the earth. This could only have happened from a Wednesday crucifixion. From the dates this could only have happened in 30 CE. 31 CE has a Sunday crucifixion, 32 CE requires a Saturday preparation day and crucifixion and thus a Sunday crucifixion (postponed from the Sabbath). Only 33 CE has a Thursday preparation day and crucifixion (postponed from the Wednesday). 33 CE is however far too late to be accommodated by the gospels and is completely at odds with the sequence of events in the gospels. Only 30 CE accords with all aspects. It is thus concluded that the crucifixion was on Wednesday 5 April 30 CE.” http://www.logon.org and http://www.ccg.org
Keep in mind the writer’s objections to the orthodox dogma are based upon reexamining Jewish (the real inhabitants of Palestine not the Khazars), various Roman calendars and cross referencing them with past lunar cycles. He comes to the exact same conclusion I do, it is impossible for the man Yeshua ben Joseph to have been crucified on Friday and “rise” the following Sunday and say he was in the grave three days! The writer however accepts the other pillars of Christian dogma while I do not.
Black folks will turn out big time tomorrow to observe Easter Sunday, many after going deep in debt to buy clothes and food especially to "celebrate" this occasion. If you choose to follow suit that’s your choice. But at least make sure you make your choice based upon sound and solid information not out of mere habit or conformity. Today organized religion is a major business. The leaders weld a great deal of influence and power over their congregations and followers. To survive and keep the cash and influence, religious leaders often prey upon and manipulate the ignorance and superstition of the masses. The clergy purports to speak for their god(s) and they often exhort their followers to disobey the very commandments their god supposedly gave to them to obey. Look at all the wars going on around the world. Religious bigotry, fundamentalism, manipulation and covetousness play a major role in many of them. If you choose to belong to a particular religion and choose to support their dogma, rituals and canons, please do so based upon knowledge of the facts and common sense! Don’t allow anyone to make you their chump or sucker.

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Real Power

Real Power

“What is abundantly clear is that one of the main threats to world markets -- and the health of the financial ruling class -- is an Israeli military attack on Iran. This will extend warfare throughout Asia and the Islamic world, drive energy prices beyond levels heretofore known, cause a major recession and likely a crash in financial markets. But as in the case of the relationships between Israel and the US, the Zionist Lobby calls the shots and its Wall Street acolytes acquiesce. As matters now stand, the Jewish Lobby supports the escalation of the Iraq war and the savaging of Palestine, Somalia and Afghanistan. It has neutralized the biggest and most concerted effort by big name centrist political figures to alter White House policy. Baker, Carter, former military commanders of US forces in Iraq have been savaged by the Zionist ideologues. Under their influence the White House is putting into practice the war strategy presented by the 'American' Enterprise Institute (a Zioncon think tank). As a result parallel to Bush's appointment of Paulson and Wall Streeters to run imperial economic policy, he has appointed an entire new pro-war civilian military-security apparatus to escalate and extend the Middle East wars to Africa (Somalia) and Latin America (Venezuela).” Who Rules America? by James Petras www.dissidentvoice.org, January 13, 2007

There was a time in the late ‘60's when Africans in AmeriKKKa embraced the notion of “Black Power”. For a brief period we began to re-examine the psychological implications of “integrating” and “assimilating” into a hostile Euro-AmeriKKKan culture. Black folks actually began to aggressively throw off the yoke of mental colonization and Euro-AmeriKKKan socio-political subjugation. We began to strategize about building an effective power base and linking with Africans throughout the diaspora. The ruling class viewed the call for Black Power and the riots of the mid and late ‘60's especially following their murder of Martin Luther King Jr.as a clarion call to reassert and tighten their hegemonic domination over us; but in a less obvious and brutal fashion. So they began to push to integrate larger numbers of Africans into what they referred to as the “mainstream”. While on one hand they were doing this, they also engaged in domestic military and paramilitary counterinsurgency programs like COINTELPRO and Operation Chaos to root out and destroy the militant leadership, disrupt and undermine the Black Power and Black Consciousness movements and strike fear in the hearts of the masses of our people. They formulated nationwide detention programs like REX 84 and created SWAT sharpshooter/assassin teams in every city as a hedge against additional civil unrest. The can together to challenge or co-opt every initiative of self-determination we started whether it was community control of neighborhood schools, Black Nationalism, political organizing or economic survival. For example they undermined the principle of Ujamaa by promoting Black Capitalism. Lastly they imported and dumped massive quantities of lethal and illicit drugs into our communities.
As a result of the ruling classes efforts, the concept of Black Power was eventually erased from the consciousness of most of our people. Think about this for a moment, we rarely ever hear anyone even mention the phrase “Black Power”. They did a masterful job on us. They murdered or co-opted our righteous leaders like Malcolm and King and they demonized honest men like Elijah Muhammad while promoting the con artists, charlatans and Sambos like the Negroes we see paraded before us as “leaders”.
Now we find ourselves in a war of survival but unfortunately most of our people have no clue what is being done to us, how we got into this mess or how we can extricate and save ourselves. Contrast our position of ignorance and impotence with that of the Ashkenazim Khazars who effectively have highjacked AmeriKKKan foreign policy and who exert a powerful influence on AmeriKKKa’s political and economic infrastructure. Granted the Khazars are Europeans, they can move in and out of Euro-AmeriKKKan society at will with little or no hindrance. They also dominate not only public policy making and implementation, they also influence control of the media, the messages in the media and finance capital! In this pluralistic society the Khazars exert major influence and power. In fact they weld so much influence and control their minions set policies that are in direct conflict with the best interests of the other groups. “Neither the Democratic Party majority in Congress, nor the Republican-controlled Executive offer any proposals to challenge the financial ruling class's dominance nor are there any proposals to reverse its most retrograde policies causing the growing inequalities, wage stagnation and the increasing rigidity of the class structure. The reason has been reported in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times: An overwhelming chunk of the funds that Democrats raise nationally for election campaigns comes either from Wall Street financiers or Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs. (FT November 3, 2006 p. 13). The Democratic congressional electoral campaign was tightly controlled by two of Wall Street's favorite Democrats, Senator Charles 'Israel First' Schumer and Congressman Rahm Immanuel, who selectively funded candidates who were pro-war, pro-Wall Street and unconditionally pro-Israel. Democrats slated to head strategic Congressional committees like Zion-Lib Barney Frank have already announced they have 'good working relations' with Wall Street.” Who Rules America? by James Petras www.dissidentvoice.org, January 13, 2007.
The influence and policies both domestic and foreign these people exert are draining the life out of this country literally and figuratively. It’s not just The Carlyle Group, GE, Lockheed Martin, Bechtel and Haliburton that are making ungodly profits by trading on insider knowledge, benefiting from no bid contracts and political patronage, the international investment bankers are making out like bandits too. “US financial and manufacturing ruling classes have long influenced, advised and formulated policy for US Presidents. But given the stakes, the risks and the opportunities facing the financial ruling class, it has moved directly into key government posts. What is especially unprecedented is the dominant presence of members from one investment bank -- Goldman Sachs. In late November 2006, Goldman Sachs (GS) senior executive William Dudley took over the Federal Reserve Bank of New York markets group. Hank Paulson, ex-CEO of GS is Treasury Secretary -- explicitly anointed by President Bush as undisputed czar of all economic policies. Reuben Jeffrey, a former GS managing partner is the chief regulator of commodity futures and options trading, Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff (he decides who Bush sees, when and for how long -- in other words arranges Bush's agenda) served as GS executive director. Robert Steel, former GS vice chairman, advises Paulson on domestic finance. Randall Fort, ex-GS director of global security, advises Secretary of State Rice. The ex-GS officials also dominate Bush's working group on financial markets and financial crisis management. The investment bankers wielding state power will control the Bush regime's biggest housing giants (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), tax policy, energy markets -- all issues that directly affect the investment banks. In other words, the financial banks will be 'regulated' by their own executives. The degree of finance capital's stranglehold on political power is evidenced by the total lack of criticism by either party. As one financial newspaper noted: ‘Neither Mr. Bush nor Goldman have been criticized by Democrats for holding too many powerful jobs in part because the investment bank (GS) also has deep ties to Democrats. Goldman represented the biggest single donor base to the Democrats ahead of this (2006) year's mid-term election.’ (FT December 4, 2006)” ibid. Needless to say Goldman Sachs is a Khazar banking firm.
What if anything does this have to do with black people? Everything. We must begin to see AmeriKKKa for what it really is, a pluralistic society where ethnic groups vie with each other for ever shifting power relationships (subordinate or dominate) and influence. AmeriKKKa is not now nor has it ever been a melting pot. It is not now nor is it ever likely to be a harmonious blend of peoples, tribes and ethnic groups given the history of designed inequality, color, class and gender oppression and the mentality of the ruling elites who currently dominate and set policy. Africans (meaning non-continental, non Carribean Africans) in AmeriKKKa are the only ones who fail to comprehend the implications of this reality. We are the only people in this nation content with the egregiously disadvantageous power dynamics we live under. This is due to the ruling elites’ counterinsurgency methods and mind control I mentioned earlier.
Am I suggesting we be like the Khazars? No. But I am advising us to develop a group consciousness/mentality, a group identity, and a group agenda/action plan. We can’t think about restoring Ma’at globally until we are first able to insure our survival, self-sufficiency and independence! We can never ensure our survival, self-sufficiency nor our independence as long as we are trying to assimilate into a fragmented, ethnically diverse extremely competitive culture dominated and controlled by xenophobic and hostile Europeans. I am advocating we become more ethnocentric in our outlook and actions. Reread, re-examine and build upon the messages of Booker T Washington, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad and Amos Wilson. Time is of the essence. The psychopathic European elites have collaborated to charted a course for perpetual war (foreign and domestic military and class warfare) and we will get caught up in their madness and totally at their “mercy” (a scary thought) unless we prepare ourselves. If we do not move immediately to organize, mobilize and galvanize ourselves we will end up as collateral damage like we saw during Hurricane Katrina. I doubt our ancestors want to see us go out like that!

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