June 27, 2005

Competition dem a run

The primary trigger of the high homicide rate in the black community is competition which serves as a conduit to confrontation. Competition is a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature that aids in the “natural selection” process by promoting and rewarding the strongest, whose genes then have a greater probability of being passed via merger with alpha females genes. However, what has happened is that you have a group of people (blacks) that have historically been dehumanized and devalued under white supremacy, being inundated with drugs and guns, coupled with poverty, triggering a deadly form of competition in the black community.

Much of the violence in the black community, and indeed all communities, emanates from the male. The primary goal of male competition is survival, rank and mating with alpha females. In the black community in general and the poor black community in particular, this competition has often become deadly. This is because violence is seen as a means of survival, as well as a means for achieving rank and respect among males (this was conditioned through years of violence used dominate and control blacks by whites). Once one achieves rank and respect among males, one also increases in attraction to females, who biologically are predisposition towards attraction to ranking males, for protection and survival. Of course, this is not an absolute rule by any means.

The proliferation of drugs and guns, combined with poverty and the rise of individualism, has resulted in a fusion that has created a “culture” of violence in the black male community. With so many guns and an illegal underground lucrative economy, the envelope of what it takes to achieve survival and rank has been raised. When you live in a community of armed and warring drug dealers and thugs, to achieve survival and rank among them, many often feel that they have to be just as violent . To have an alpha female in the hood, one has to have enough rank and respect to deter aggressive males who would otherwise play spoiler by disrespecting the male and his mate, in order to lower the males manhood in front of her, which in turn increases the perception of his own manhood.

In light of this, this is why so many young males attempt to create an image of being “hard”. This is also why you will hardly see a black male youth smile for a picture. The “screw face” is the preferred face of black youth because its goal is to promote respect and to deter challenge from other males. However, in the arena of drug dealing and gang banging, as well as other criminal activities or the "streets" in general, being recognized as hard requires more than a screw face, it often involves the demonstration of callous disrespect for another life in the form of cold blooded murder. Once you get the reputation as a person who will kill without conscious, you have thus achieved the pinnacle of respect and rank among males as someone not to be F___ with.

The problem with the existence of such people, besides the obvious, is that it creates a “quick draw” mentality and culture. When people know that they are commingling in environments with armed killers, competition and its derivative of confrontation results in a kill or be killed mentality. If there is a confrontation then survival is promoted by being the first person to pull and shoot, lest you become the shooting victim. This is how a culture of violence snow balls as a result of fear of your competitors killing you. Consequently, many people arm themselves and as soon as a confrontation occurs, fear leads them to be quick at the draw. The resultant is that you have a high number of armed males engaged in competition for respect, drugs and women, creating the type of violence that plagues many of our inner cities.

In order to reduce the level of violence, there needs to be a reduction of guns, or reduction of drugs, or a reduction of poverty, or preferably, a reduction of all the mentioned. These three phenomenons are combining to ravage the black communities of many of our strong alpha males. In the absence of a national commitment to those goals, blacks should avoid certain kinds of competition with one and other and promote unity and cooperation instead. If one decreases competition they will decrease confrontation and hence deadly violence. There once was a time where the collective interest and struggle of black people was a powerful force in the behavior of our youth. Today it’s all about individualism which increases competition and reduces mutual cooperation and love, substituting confrontation and animosity towards one and other, in its place.



Nah try sit down ina another man chair
Cake it so big and every man have dem share ....

well, many are call but only few are choose
don't try to put your foot ina another man's shoes
then you know you only would a get confuse
impersonating rastaman do refuse
and corruption bingiman exclude
nuff a dem a come with things dem a try prove
competition dem a run we know dem a go lose
all who a try fi eat another man food
bwoi then you know you the rude

-Capelton

June 22, 2005

My FICO

I am sure that for certain people, what I am about to note is common knowledge, however, for me it was a lesson and paradigm shift away from the conditioning of being broke. Within the last six months, I have taken my Fair Isaacs Credit Organization (FICO) score from the low 600’s to above 700. How did I do it? I simply paid my bills on time.

You see, what I used to think is that as long as I paid the current bill before the next bill was due, that the payment was not late. You see, the habits and conditioning of me being broke for so long, lead me to hold off paying my bills as long as possible. I used to figure that as long as I paid within that “Grace” window, beyond which it goes on your credit rating as a late payment, that my credit would not be penalized. However, I was wrong.

I guess what I did not know was that you are rewarded for on time payments, just as you are penalized for late payments. Consequently, if you pay in the grace period, it does not count for or against you in the calculation, except for the fact that you can never reach the upper range of score without a good history of on time payments. If you were never reported “late” to the credit agencies, and never reported “on time” your score will never get above the 600’s. That was my problem. I had a habit, formed from being broke, of paying bills before they were reported late to the credit agencies.

Your credit score is one of the most important numbers in your financial life. Over a lifetime, having a good credit score can literally save you tens of thousands of dollars in interest charges. In the environment that I was reared the importance of good credit was not taught and certainly the hints and tricks of the “secret algorithm/formula” used by FICO were no where to be found. Consequently, the synergy of lack of information and deprivation of cash lead to behavior that some would characterize as irresponsible. However, my personal definition of irresponsibility is when one if fully informed and understands the consequences, yet makes the bad choice and can’t live with it.

I used to be so broke, that only recently have I started filling my car up with gas. I used to never put more than 5 dollars in my car at a time. I would prefer to have money in my pocket than gas in my car. Plus, the car I was driving was likely to break down and I did not want it to break down on a full tank of gas that I could not use, which would be a waste of money, I rationalized. Even when I stopped struggling and begin to earn a decent wage, I continued that habit for a few years, as well as the habit of waiting until the last minute to pay my bills.

This Oped is mainly informational to those who may be as in the dark as I was about credit and how to potentially improve on your score. Over the last few years, I have had more than enough money to cover my expenses several times over. However, the old paradigms formed from the lack of information and struggling did not end until I was looking to refinance out of a ballooning Adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). I was looking for a way to improve my score and could not understand why my score was not improving, despite not having late payments (by credit union reporting). This is when I learned more about the FICO calculation.

Hopefully, some people who are struggling with low credit scores and falling victims to predatory lending and high interest rates, will read this a learn of a quick way to boost your credit score. Knowledge is power. For those who think I believe that I know it all….this should be an indication that I do not. However, thinks I don’t know about…..I don’t talk about…unlike some people. A little knowledge can be very destructive. The reason being is that the biggest threat to a truth is often a greater truth.

June 20, 2005

HATE

How does one determine hate as a motive or state of mind and heart of another? I ask this question due to many frequent guests to this blog having posted dissents to our message and characterizing this blogs authors as motivated by hate and anti-white rhetoric. This is not a ubiquitous characterization of our motives by all dissenters, but certainly enough to warrant a topic where the accusers or those who share such beliefs of our motives, can demonstrate the evidence of hate and anti-whiteness.

It would seem by virtue of pattern recognition that the working definition of hatred manifest as black people who link this nations racial past to its racial present. To be guilty of this linkage thus makes one also anti-white, but based upon what? What is the logical inductive or deductive reasoning that leads dissenters to conclude this, assuming that the claim is rationally motivated? Given that no admissions of hate or anti-white racism have been made, how does one read between the lines to glean this?

Can it be possible that these dissenters are making a “Freudian slip”? Could it be that their accusations is simply their subconscious mind leading them to believe that given history blacks should hate and be anti-white? When one cannot bare witness to the heart and mind of others, ones own heart and mind then is used as a template to understand the motivations and behaviors of others. This is psychology 101 and it is called “projecting”. I am not saying that our accusers are themselves full of hate and anti-white, for some of them are white. What I am suggesting is that their subconscious mind concludes that histories reality has provided many triggers that would produce hate and anti-white sentiments in the black human condition, as understood and calculated by the dissenters own humanity.

I would like to place a disclaimer on the accusation of possessing hate and qualify what may be interpreted or misconstrued as being anti-white. What I am is pro-black uplift to equilibrium and equality with whites; hence, I am anti-white superiority. In other words, I am also anti-black inferiority, anti-white inferiority and anti-black superiority, as well as being anti-white superiority.
The collective entity of “white people” has accrued a social and economic condition of superiority from past discrimination, oppression and repression of black people. Consequently, the push for black equality requires a relative, if not absolute, demotion of white status. Hence; such thinking is seen as being anti-white or motivated by hatred, because it is seen as punitive, when coupled with their subconscious beliefs that blacks have plenty of reason to be angry, given history.

I would be guilty of prevarication if I were to say that this blogs authors are free of emotions on the subject of race. However, I do strongly believe that the substance of our arguments and propositions are simply logical cause and effect analysis, based upon the natural fact that the present is the creation of the past and that every action produces reactions. Hate has nothing to do with cause and effect unless hate is of such a degree that it blinds logical analysis with bias. If we are guilty of hatred and biased analysis, then what is the bias and how does it manifest? Well, given the current black condition, the question concerning its cause is either rooted internally to “blackness” or externally to the environmental effects and conditioning of white America. Hence, our bias would be the assumption that blacks are not inferior to the degree that we are the cause of our social and economic differential with whites. This means that dissenter’s dissent is partially born from our not wanting to entertain this possibility. To exclude the external is to accuse the internal and visa verse.

In conclusions, I just would like to offer this opportunity to call out all dissenters to demonstrate the evidence of their claims that this blog teaches and preaches hate, so to speak. The failure of you to respond will be interpreted as the recognition that your claims were and are fallacious and merely attempts to discredit and obfuscate truths that you have a vested political and or emotional interest in not accepting.

Thanks in advance of your response.

June 17, 2005

Why I love Reggae

Why I love Reggae and the Ras Tafari Earth movement of the Nyhabingi and Bobo Ashante. Here are some lyrics.

The term BABYLON is a metaphor that has multiple popular usages. It generally refers to forces of wickedness, which has manifested in the form of Western civilization, police, politicians and other wicked oppressive forces. Many Ras Tafari see Diaspora blacks, who are the descendants of slaves as LOST TRIBES taken into captivity into Modern Babylon. Consequently, they see the SYSTEMS of the West as Babylon. Fire Burn dem. Baldhead originally referred to those who did not dread (Wearing hair in locks). However, its general connotation and usage is the same as Babylon and refers to those who have succumbed to wickedness.

These lyrics are from Capelton and the last, of course, is from the Natural Mystic album of Bob Marley.

Nuff Respect!


DIVIDE AND RULE
The whole trick is to divide and rule and conquer.Because Babylon say the old trick of divide and rule is still valid today.So dem have black inciting black against each other.Encouraging murder among themselves.So we just have fi know seh we fe endorse that love from birth... an inborn concept.


You know seh everything it have to fill before it spill

Babylon a use dem brain
True man all the ghetto youth dem fi go down the drain
Babylon a use dem brain
The mark of the beast the whole a dem a proclaim
Babylon a use dem brain
Dem all a fight against herb and dem a shipping cocaine
Babylon a use dem brain
With dem genocidal mind dem a go burn in the flame

Oh what a agony and oh what a shame
To see my black brother goin right down the drain
Man made to suffer and woman to feel pain
Dem rape me mommy.. me sister
I say oh what a shame
Brother.. me father have fi chop sugar cane
Pon the plantation under stress and shame
Pon dem hand and dem foot dem just the shackles and chain
Now dem take it off and put it pon dem brain
True dem a me nation fi go down the drain
Now the youth dem realize and shout the Haile Haile name
Man of a lion
that mean we can't tame
One thing is me desire one thing is me aim
This a wicked Babylon dem a go down the drain

What a crisis, you would cry fi see this
Cause Dem a come with dem kit
Just to take every bit
No think me nah know
You are the boss with your kit
But oh I a say hey, you won't be leaving with
I tell dem how could dem cadet go down practice
Now I see dem own face and dem own wanna vomit
Hey hey hey hey.. you're not being kind
Have what you rob and now you leave us behind
Now something drop from your hand
But you not touch it cause a mine
What's new unto us
We have fi deal with everytime


But this is one thing I can not overstand
Dem nah teach me nothing about me Asian clan
Ina the school and the college and the institution
The cirriculum that I get is European
A teach me about Marco Polo and Napoleon
Nah teach me nothing about the river Nile bank
Where civilization it began
You say thou shall not steal and should not kill no one
Still you steal, treacherize and then you teach wrong
Slave and you murder all me dad and me mom
But wicked Babylonian you will have to burn
Tell dem come down
Fire burn all politician
Causing their suit, making us their plan
Well your dishonesty and war is their illustration
Cause they dem fighting just to enslave black man
And have dem parties
Just a cause we partition


Them crazy, them crazy -
We gonna chase those crazy
Baldheads out of town;
Chase those crazy baldheads
Out of our town.

I´n´I build a cabin;
I´n´I plant the corn;
Didn´t my people before me
Slave for this country?
Now you look me with that scorn,
Then you eat up all my corn.

We gonna chase those crazy -
Chase them crazy -
Chase those crazy baldheads out of town!

Build your penitentiary, we build your schools,
Brainwash education to make us the fools.
Hate is your reward for our love,
Telling us of your God above.

We gonna chase those crazy -
Chase those crazy bunkheads -
Chase those crazy baldheads out of the yown!

We gonna chase those crazy -
Chase those crazy bunkheads -
Chase those crazy baldheads out of the yown!

Here comes the conman
Coming with his con plan.
We won´t take no bribe;
We´ve got (to) stay alive
.

We gonna chase those crazy -
Chase those crazy baldheads -
Chase those crazy baldheads out of the yown.



June 14, 2005

Days late and dollars short

This country has always been days late and dollars short in regards to being accountable and responsible for its transgressions and crimes against black humanity. Yesterday, the Senate, in an egregious manifestation of belatedness, formerly apologized for not passing anti lynching legislation during the era of “strange fruit”(Billy Holiday.. Southern trees bear strange fruit,Blood on the leaves and blood at the root...) where some 5,000 lynching took place. However, there has yet to be an apology for slavery or facilitating the era of “black codes” known more popular as “Jim Crow”.

It is said that intelligence can be measured by measuring ones ability at pattern recognition. However, I do not think that it requires a high IQ to recognize the pattern that is taking place in America, in dealing with its transgressions. America is hiding behind the laws it created, to protect America and contemporary Americans from being accountable and responsible for the nations past crimes. Even though most non-wicked people can and do see slavery as a crime against humanity, the fact that it was legal meant there is no bases in law for recrimination. How convenient. When a nation wants to benefit from amoral and criminal behavior, it simply legalizes such acts. When it reaps its rewards and benefits, it then outlaws the practice, leaving its past legacy with no legal means to seek award and justice from the courts for victims.

The statute of limitations is another “law” or scheme used by the “system”, to essentially protect white Americans from liabilities created by whites in the past. The goal is to filter, from the inheritance of the past, all liabilities related to race, while allowing the assets from the past to manifest to their benefit. Inheritance law does not usually work that way, however. When on inherits an estate or citizenship, they inherit the assets and liabilities of the estate or citizenship, as a package deal, regardless of their involvement in the creation of assets and liabilities. Obviously in a representative republic where Caucasians represent over 70 percent of the electorate, their interest manifest in government position and policy, and eventually law. The hypocrisy is so glaring that it is blinding.

It is obvious as to why congress is mum about the era of Apartheid known as Jim Crow. The pattern to recognize is that there are too many black folks stunted and oppressed by this era still breathing. Americans only like to talk about and admit how bad and wrong certain periods and practices were, when all the victims are dead and gone. That way, they can express their heart felt sympathy about a terrible injustice, while at the same time feeling safe that their tax dollars or white privilege will not be sacrificed in compensation to victims. They, Caucasians, will ensure that before any such empathy or sympathy takes place on their part, the victims must be deceased and the statutes of limitations have expired.

Of course, one must ask the question of why now? Why, after all these years, has the senate decided to apologize? Aside from the pattern motive mentioned above and feeling “safe” from reparations, its simply more politricking. It’s a symbolic meaningless gesture by a republican dominated senate to win favor with black voters, who they will more and more be dependant upon if they are to be a viable party in the future. It is no secret that the republicans have ramped up efforts to court the black vote. However, their reaching out manifest in symbolic grand standing and playing on assumed black credulous or lack of intelligence in regard to their polices. A good example is how the president tried to sell his Social Security private accounts plan to blacks by noting that blacks would benefit because they die sooner. Instead of focusing on policy that would create the condition for blacks to live as long as whites, he creates a conflict of interest in blacks living longer.

In conclusion, for this descendant of African slaves, Apartheid Jim Crow, share cropper lineage, the Senate can take their hollow apology and shove it up the arse of every white American who accepts the benefits of the past, while not taking responsibility for liabilities from the past. Such people should renounce their citizenship, which affords them the freedoms, assets and owners equity of past generations, while holding them also accountable for liabilities. It’s a package deal and for those who are not willing to accept the package…they need to find another deal in the form of citizenship in another country.

In Honor of Flag Day.. A Poem by Marvin X...

When I'll Wave The Flag

I'll wave the flag
When the trillions in reparations are paid to the
African American Nation
For 400 years of being terrorized in America
When the bill of the Middle Passage is paid
When the bill from the cotton fields is paid

I'll wave the flag
When the damages due the descendents of mass murder
is paid
Mass kidnapping
Mass rape

I'll wave the flag
When the police stop terrorizing us for breathing
while black
Walking while black
Loving while black

I'll wave the flag
When the 2 million men and women in prison are
released
for petty crimes
And those guilty of stealing elections take their
place
in the cells

I'll wave the flag
When those guilty of stealing labor, stealing
energy,
stealing souls of the poor are jailed


I'll wave the flag
When those guilty of the miseducation of our
children are
jailed for crimes against humanity

I'll wave the flag
When those who terrorize the earth, pollute the
earth,
poison the food, the water, the air
Inject animals with hormones
Genetically alter vegetables and fruits
When these people are taken before the world court
for
terrorizing the world
I'll wave the flag

Until then
Kiss my motherfuckin' ass.

2001 Marvin X.

June 13, 2005

The short run or the long run?

I recently read an article that concluded that all intelligent debate concerning whether or not global warming is manifesting has ended. The only question now, for most scientists, is at what rate it is taking place and what can be done about it. Much of the cause of this effect is rooted in the burning of fossil fuels to provide our economies the needed energy to grow and provide the lifestyle that many enjoy.

Nature may have its own solution to this problem, if humankind cannot practice the self control to manifest the prevention of ecological calamity. If it is true that the burning of fossil fuels is creating or expediting the “green house effect” and hence global warming, then the finite supply of the source of the problem will eventually run out and nature can heal itself. However, if and when these supplies run out, so does the fate of most of humankind who are dependant upon these energy sources to fuel their economies.

The philosophical, as well as scientific, quagmire for humanity is born from the laws of nature, primarily the laws of closed systems or relatively closed systems. The reality forced from these laws is that you can never profit from the system of nature, in the long run. Nature forces its own double entry system of accounting. Thus, for every credit one receives from nature, there is a corresponding debit as well. Another way to look at it is that every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. What distorts or hides this reality from many is that reactions or debits are not real-time (immediate), but are often conserved and actualized in the future.

A human life exists in the short run, while the life of nature is a long run phenomenon. As a result of this, a human’s scope and perception is often void of the manifestation of negative reactions to actions and hence experiences a net gain. This is what has been happening over the last 100 years. Humans, through technological advancement made possible by fossil fuels, have been maximizing their living comforts and pleasures, as well as living longer. In the process, humans have depleted fossil fuels and endangered the ecological system and energy supply for future generations. Consequently, the increasing of human standard of living, lives, comforts and pleasures will come at the expense of their descendants, who will be alive when the conserved reactions and debits are released from their conserved state.

All the debates about what political and economic systems are measured only in their short term efficaciousness. The systems that can best promote the maximization of human comforts, pleasures and standard of living are heralded as the “superior” system. However, is not sustainability and longevity the ultimate measure of superiority by nature’s standards? One hundred years from now, will people view capitalism as a superior system or will they curse their ancestors for their greed and gluttony made possible through its application? It is my hypothesis that it will be the latter as they will be left with natures bill for past generations gluttonous consumption.

A proper benefit cost analysis requires all the cost to be on the table with the benefits. The problem with human existence is that cost or burdens are either unknown or ignored. Opposite reactions are ignored when the burden can be placed upon others, present or future. Even today, you have intransigence from our government leaders in regards to making changes related to global warming and fossil fuel consumption reduction; because the politicians recognize that the degree of change needed would result in a radical reduction of GDP, which of course means recession, if not depression. Consequently, politicians realize that the descendants, who are to bare the burdens if we don’t change our ways now, don’t have a vote. However, who does have a vote are the millions of people who will be negatively affected today, by instituting such changes in energy policy and consumption.

One cannot have a short term oriented system, like democratic politics, and expect it to deal with long term problems. One of the draw backs of democracy is that people will rarely vote to make their lives worse off. Hence, if you have a government representing the people, the plurality are not going to vote to lower their standard of living, based upon a yet to manifest consequence. Like most addictions, society will have to “hit bottom” before they realize that the hyper consumption of the “product” that have been giving them so much pleasure….is slowly destroying them. But again, the people getting the benefit of the high, in this energy addiction, will not bear the burden of the addiction. In a doctorial construct, the needed changes could be forced upon the people.

In conclusion, the truly wise heed the theory and practice of moderation. Human existence is a marathon and not a sprint. We should not judge phenomenon based upon the assumption of a short term finish line created from the window of a human life span. The measure of superiority is not who is ahead, but who or what system can sustain its self temporally as the finish line of humanity is unknown. Being out front and well ahead of the pack, by an exhaustive expenditure of energy, is foolishness when the finish line is far off. In truth, it is the slower pace that is the pace of wisdom and nature. It is the pass of both progress and conservation of energy via self control. It is the tradeoff of running longer that comes from sacrificing running faster.

Wealth creates hyper consumption of energy and much of the creation of wealth output requires massive energy inputs. This is why the wealthiest nation on earth, the USA, consumes 25% of the petroleum, while being about 5% of the total human population. Hence, it is wealth that is causing global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels, which is the fact that presents the quagmire for capitalistic economies. The promotion of wealth is hence the promotion of extinction.

You have to be able to replenish or give nature a time to heal; such is living in harmony with nature.

June 09, 2005

62 Million Votes and the Army and Marine Corps still can not get enough people to Join?

.

The Army and the Marine Corp continue to miss their monthly recruiting goals. Between the two the Army has missed their recruiting goals by the largest margin, with that margin growing each month. The army in an attempt to change how this drop in recruiting might look dropped their recruiting goals for the month of May and still missed it. They said the goals were dropped to relieve the pressure put on recruiters to get more men and women to join the Army but these goals have rarely been a problem in the past which leads one to believe the Army explanation for dropping their goals is them trying to spin the truth. The Air Force and the Navy have no problem meeting their goals and the Navy is actually trying to get rid of some people.

Clearly the drop in the Army and Marine Corps recruiting is due to the War in Iraq and in Afghanistan. What is most troubling to me about these recruiting shortfalls is that Bush received over sixty two million votes in last year’s election. That’s 62, 000,000!! My question is; how and why are the Army and Marine Corp not meeting their recruiting goals with over sixty two million people voting in favor of the war maker. I would imagine of the 62 million maybe 50 million or more are too old, too fat or have some disability that would prevent them from joining the Army or the Marine Corps. However this still leaves 12 million men and women to join the Army and the Marine Corps. So why is this not happening, why did so many people vote for the war maker and support his war but are unwilling to go fight in the war!

Recruiting methods are being changed now, it use to be that recruiters only had to convince the recruits to join, but now the Army and Marine Corps is finding that they have to recruit the parents as well as the children. Parents have become the biggest problem recruiters have with getting young men and women to join the Military. The Military rely heavily on its “Delayed Entry” program. This program allows men and women who are not of age or have yet to finish H.S. or get a G.E.D. to sign up for the military and when they graduate H.S. or is of age they are then shipped off to Boot Camp. The majority of delayed entry recruits are under age and need their parent’s permission to join, and this is what recruiters are finding difficult to attain, parents are refusing to sign any papers that will allow their child to enter the Military thus the shortfalls continue. The NY Times reported several improprieties are being carried out by recruiters, from recruiters buying detox solutions for possible recruits to hide their use of Marijuana to recruiters informing possible recruits who did not graduate H.S. where they can get a fake Diploma and what school to use on that Diploma.

I believe the Republican Party and all those who supported this war (we know some of you Democrats supported this war as well) should help solve the Army and Marine Corps recruiting problem. Instead of having fund raising parties or events, they should have Military recruiting gala’s and balls, where the goal is not for you to donate a certain amount of money but to donate your person or your children to a worthy cause, like the war in Iraq. How about all those college republicans who are causing all kind of hell on college campuses around the country, they are definitely at the right age to “really” support this war. The Army recruiting goal for the year was 80,000 new recruits. The Marine Corp goal is smaller than that I believe. So if we account for all possible variables; old, fat, crazy, already in the military, gay and any other reason one will not be able to join the Military, I am sure out of 62 million people we can still come up with at least five million eligible men and women far more than the 80,000 the Army needs. So where are they, why are they not joining the military to support a war they supported? They can no longer depend on poverty to produce men and women willing to join the military, not the Army and the Marine Corps anyway. Poor people are saying they would rather be poor and alive than get a paycheck to die in a war they do not support and had no hand in starting.

I am calling on all Bush supporters and those who voted for him and support this war to get off your ass and help the Army and the Marine Corps meet their recruiting goals, if you are bold enough to support this war, than you should be bold enough to go and fight it! Support your Country!!

June 07, 2005

The "other" insurgency

There is another, less publicized, insurgency or resistance movement taking place below the radar of most media attention. Most people know about the insurgency going on in Iraq these days, but few people are aware or view what is happening in our own nation as such. There is indeed a stealthy resistance movement going on in America, without roadside bombs and suicide bombers, but instead, by social and economic guerrilla warfare.

The civil rights victories of the 1960’s can be viewed, arguable, as the end of the conventional war against a racist societal structure. Since that time, racist have abandoned their overt uniforms and rhetoric and have dispersed among the general population as stealth resistance fighters. There goal is to conserve or preserve the state of white superiority and to prevent any restitution or responsibility for its brutal regime, which could help lift up black people from three centuries of brutality by the old regime.

This American insurgency has millions of independent, decentralized fighters and millions of more tacit sympathizers. The fighters that can and do inflict the most damage are those who are in positions of economic or political power. Circumventing law, these fighters deny people employment, deny them loans or charge higher interest on loans, give longer time for crimes and generally make life harder at every turn for black people to reach a state of parity.

The goal of the resistance movement is to preserve white superiority of condition. The insurgency is really two different ideological groups, with the same objective but a different means to their end. One ideology believes in the old traditional methods of the old regime like discrimination to keep blacks from equality, while the other ideological resistance is contra any attempts to undo the effects of years of assault from the old regime. The latter ideology believes that they are morally superior to the former, although fighting to keep people down is in truth morally equivalent to knocking them down.

The insurgency movement is dominated by the “don’t knock them down… but keep them from getting up” ideology. In fact, this group often expresses opposition to the ideology and practices of the other group. However, even though they express opposition, once the other group knocks blacks down, this group’s goal is to make sure that blacks don’t get any help to get back up. Hence, their ideological opposition to the other group seems counter intuitive and may actually be an attempt at subterfuge, to hide the fact they have similar goals. They maybe in opposition to setting off bombs, but they are in support of not sending in the ambulance to treat the wounded from past and present bombings, so to speak. That is a distinction with virtually no difference.

An asymmetrical opponent is much harder to defeat than a symmetrical opponent. The white supremacy insurgent movement is clandestine and indirect these days. There is the political conduit and there is the economic conduit. The political conduit is often a Trojan horse that hides the true motives of insurgent members. They can and do often claim to be against “Big government”, but what they really are against are government monies, whether their taxes or someone else’s, being used for policy or programs used to treat black victims of the past regime and the current insurgency. The vote is the primary weapon of the vast majority of insurgents whose goal is to keep down the victims, whom through insurgent propaganda and psychological warfare are discredited as being victims, but rather sees as the creator of their own wounds. As I noted earlier, the economic conduit is carried out in the private sector by bosses, hiring managers, loan officers, police officers, judges, real estate agents and other, who discriminate to knock black people down.

One of the most ominous developments in the insurgency is that in their psychological warfare aimed at cloaking their true motivations, many insurgents have brainwashed themselves, in their attempts to fool others. Consequently, the majority of insurgents no longer even realize that they are insurgents fighting for continued white domination. The front line economic discriminators realize and know they are insurgents, but most will deny it out of fear of repercussions. The other resistance fighters, the voters, have so politicized their mode of operation that they see it as politics of right vs. left, rather than the insurgency of whites against blacks. When the Dixie-Crates abandoned the left, do to losing the civil rights war, the political mode of insurgency was born and has flourished hidden behind the politics of the right. It is often seen in politics as the “Southern Strategy”.

The sad reality of this insurgency is that there is no counter force, outside the target victim group, fighting it or attempting to treat or offset the work of insurgents. Once the symmetrical war was won and the last remaining overt laws and practices of black oppression were removed, the government (the people) abdicated any further responsibility to deal with the matter. The primary reason for this, in our representative republic form of governance, is that the government is representing the interest of the insurgency that make up a large portion of the electorate. Consequently, the government is an instrument of the insurgency, more so than it is an instrument that helps the target of the insurgents and this has grown true each year post winning the civil rights war.

The only people currently fighting this insurgency are people willing to speak out about it to bring it to the attention of the nation. However, the insurgency power, influence and propaganda machine has been able to make those attempting to fight the cause and effects of the insurgents as the people who are the real threat to society. They are labeled as anti-Americans, people who promote divisiveness and condoners of irresponsible behavior. The unfortunate truth is that the insurgency and their propaganda are winning the hearts and minds of many American….even some black ones.

June 05, 2005

The Spook Who Sat by the Door..

“The Spook Who Sat By The Door” is a revolutionary movie from the 1970’s. This movie is about a brother who joins the CIA after a congressman who is loosing the Black vote tries to win the Black vote back by accusing the CIA of not having any Black folk as agents. The CIA in turn recruit fifty or more Black men to become CIA agents, the white man in charge of their training is hell bent on making sure none of them make it through the school and training to become an agent thus he finds various ways to weed them out in hopes that none of them make it through. However, there is one brother who makes it through in spite of all the tricknology and sabotaging that takes place. Upon graduating the brother is sitting down with his boss the white guy who was hell bent on making sure none of the Black men make it through training and his boss says to him “you are a credit to your race” if all Black men and women worked as hard as you and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps like you have they would make it as well. Doesn’t this argument sound strikingly familiar to that of modern day white folk and the Black middle to upper class bourgeoisie?

I would love to write about this great movie in detail and how it ends but this op-ed is not really about that movie although I recommend that everyone see it. This op-ed is about the attitude of the white CIA boss in this movie, which has now become the attitude and belief of the Black middle and upper class bourgeoisie. There is definitely something to be said about how Black men and women who have climbed the ladder of success or upward mobility in this nation in spite of the racism they had to and continue to face look back and down on those who tried themselves to climb that ladder but was not as crafty or skilled in over coming the problems racism posed to their upward mobility. The reason I referenced this movie is because it illustrates exactly what I am referring to. Here is this white cat who did everything in his power to stop the Black men who were recruited to be CIA agents from actually becoming agents and yet one of the brothers was still able to overcome the obstacles put in his path and in the end the man who sought to sabotage all the Black recruits says to the Black man that negotiated all the obstacles “You are a credit to your race” and if all Black people work as hard as you have and pull themselves up by their bootstraps they would be successful. Never mind if the Black recruits had been treated like the white recruits more than half probably would have made it.

This is the same attitude of the Negro-Con and most scared to the death Negro men and women. They will tell us they had to deal with racism as they climbed the ladder to success, they will tell us about having to deal with racist employers, racist cops and racist professors and yet the only thing they have to say to those of us who stand in opposition to those very things is “Black people need to work hard”. Now I get it, working hard to white folk and the Negro men and women mentioned above is the ability to deal with and accept racism and other structural discrimination that stands in the way of Black upward mobility in spite of the fact that these things are not a problem for white folk. We are to accept the difficulties we face in our quest to have a piece of the so-called American Dream that is not a reality for others. This archaic attitude stems from the attitude of Black folk in the early and late twentieth century that said Black folk must work twice as hard as white folk for the same results and be happy doing it. It was common for Black folk to instruct their children to work doubly hard in order to be successful and that was the accepted norm. Is that really equality? Has equality really been achieved?

Why should we accept racism and other structural problems that stand in our way and say to those of us who are unable to get past these things "you did not work hard enough"? Who is it that we did not work hard enough in comparison to? This is the problem, when one says Black men and women do not work hard enough, their must be a juxtaposition to validate this claim, so my question is who is it that has to deal with all that Black men and women have to deal with in this country on every level, in school, in the hunt for jobs, in our day to day lives being Black in America, the various forms of discrimination that has been revealed to go so far as to discriminate against us by name; Who is it that deals with all of this and over come it as we do and continuously do? The second question is why some of the Black men and women who have overcome these things look down on those who were unable to overcome these things? The third is why can’t the Black middle to upper class bourgeoisie see the correlation between the obstacles they had to overcome and the overall Black condition?

Is the goal of every upward mobile Black person to become that which they hated as they climb the ladder of success? This is what we are asked to believe by those who say it is natural for Black men and women who join the middle and upper class to become more politically conservative. If this is the case, what accounts for poor whites being politically conservative? If ones politics is truly about class, should not poor whites be political allies of poor Blacks? How does a rich Negro see eye to eye politically with a poor white person that works at Wal-Mart? Easy, they both share they same disdain and hatred of the Black poor. The sad part is it took the Negro years of “hard work” dealing with and accepting racism and earning lots of money along the way to end up a political ally of a poor white person. I think that says more about the rich Negro than it does the poor white person.

June 03, 2005

Fridays Rant

If I am facing east and someone is across from me facing west and a tree falls between us, I will say that the tree feel to the left and the other person would say that the tree fell to the right. Even though the face value of our statements seems contradictory, they both are true and hence this can be seen as an example of the relative nature of truth. However, in reality, this is the improper use of language and terminology that has lead to truth seeming relative. One must use objective terminology to describe objective phenomenon. Had one of us said that the tree feel to the North and the other said it feel to the South, the truth would not be relative. This is why terms of discussion need to be made objective by agreeing upon working definitions.

There is absolutely no logical reason to agree to disagree, between two intelligent people who have complete information on the subject matter. If two intelligent people with opposing points of view cannot reach consensus as to which proposition is a greater truth than the other, it can only be from two things. Either their opposition has failed to provide supporting and demonstrative proof and or the one of the two parties has a vested emotional interest in their position to the degree that they are not willing to entertain contradictory evidence. Hence, agreeing to disagree can be and is often the product of poor demonstration or simply stubbornness, if not the product of ignorance.

When one is debating a collective concept or phenomenon, like race and the black struggle for equality, individual examples have no place in the debate. If one makes a statement about the role of white racism is the black condition, bringing up the fact that not all white people are racist or that you as a white person are not racist, is not a valid contradiction, because the scope is different. If one is tying to negate or repudiate a collective proposition, then they must retort with a counter collective proposition. What I mean by collective is the dominant or general rule for the whole.

It is invalid to attempt to negate the general rule with exceptions to the rule. If ones proposition is or was based upon exceptions to the rule, then the person whose proposition was or is based upon the dominant rule is speaking the greater truth. In light of this, one cannot use their life experience as a template for extrapolating what is true for the collective. I think that this is natural to see the world from the prism of your life experiences. However, no matter how natural, such does not make it valid when discussing collective phenomenon. Yet, people do this all the time and will agree to disagree with a collective proposition because there life has been an exception to the general rule.

The biggest problem in debates in regards to truth is the ability of one to bare direct witness. What and how is a person suppose to believe something that they cannot bare witness to? How do we then conclude what source is credible and is our decision the product of bias? When discussing a collective issue like race and black people, none have the ability to bare witness to each component part of the collective to say what is true for the whole. This is were and why people must make fundamental assumptions as the foundation or unstated premise of their proposition.

As an example, if you are a person who has risen to success and you use your life experience as a template, as most people do, you note your success as the product of working hard, making certain choices and being responsible. Quite naturally, you might conclude that those in good health who did not rise as you have did not demonstrates those traits in the same degree, even though you cannot bare witness to this. Consequently, you may see poverty primarily as the consequence of people not demonstrating or practicing certain positive character traits, not given respect to the uniqueness of everyone’s experiences. Hence, you substituted an assumption, because you cannot bare witness, based upon your personal experience, if not prejudice.

In the lack of the ability to bare witness, I believe that all humans should be given the benefit of the doubt of equality. What I mean by that is that we should not make assumptions that any groups of humans are less rationally or emotionally intelligent, less responsible, less ethical, less hardworking or inferior to other groups in any way. That assumption has to be made, lest the prejudice of bias becomes the foundation of ones argument, which most people never lay claim to being their motives. If you start out with the assumption that one group is superior or inferior to another group, the conclusion will fit the assumption.

In light of this, unless one starts out with the assumption of inferiority, there is no logical way to explain an inferior outcome or performance that is not the product of external circumstance. When the issue of black collective inequality, poverty, unemployment and other are discussed, one must make an assumption, because they have not the ability to bare witness to each individual that makes up these statistics. So people will assume based upon their own life experiences or they will assume out of prejudice, that this group inequality of statistics or outcome and performance are the resultant of flaws in black people. Black people are lazy, black people are not being responsible or black people are not this or that. This essentially is the evidence of the assumption of an internal flaw in black people which accounts for black problems.

It is certainly valid to say that there is lazy, irresponsible, bad choice making black people and that such black people need to get their act together. However, to say that in the context of socioeconomic racial discrepancies, such as poverty, unemployment and educational performance, among others, is to suggest that these traits are more endemic to black people than others. Noting these things in the context of black inequality is out of place, because they have nothing to due with the cause of black inequality, if one assumes that such are human traits that appear in 10 out of 100 people, regardless of race. It could be true that certain races of people are superior or inferior to others, which lead to inequality of outcome, but if that, is ones belief and or assumption, and then they need to be honest about it.

In conclusion, if people want to challenge the assertions and proposition made on this blog, in regards to the collective plight and condition of black people, please present a valid, objective methodology of disproving or repudiating our propositions and do not use logical fallacies and subjective verbiage.

June 02, 2005

AFRICA



Believing that the West is truly interested in the rise of Africa is akin to believing that the Republican Party in the USA is interested in raising taxes to help Social Securities long term solvency. There is much rhetoric coming from the West, in the past year, in regards to helping Africa rise from the abyss that the West’s past and present practices condemned it to. Of course, the latter part of that last sentence was my personal addition to the rhetoric. The West does not feel it owes anything to Africa (despite the Popes recent proclamation saying Europe was responsible for importing the vices of violence and corruption to Africa), despite it using Africa for centuries to lift itself up. Rather, they would define the supposed ambition as being altruistic, not taking responsible for the mess it created.

The three most prominent reason as for the sudden interest is due to politics, economics and terrorism. The political component is born from the need to offset what is widely perceived around the world to be evil western aggression, symbolized by the invasion of Iraq and the threatening of other nations. By placing focus and aid to Africa, the desired effect is to have the world interpret the West's ultimate motive as being the improvement of the lives of people, sometimes by aid and sometimes by military force. Also, there might be a little political capital to be gained in the African American community, by being seen as being pro-African. However, the fact that most African Americans have a disconnection with the continent will prevent any significant political benefits in regards to the black vote.

The West fears Africa after the terrorist attacks of 911, because the west perceives poverty and failed states as the breeding ground for future terrorist. One cannot find more poverty and failed states than in Africa and with Islam growing at a faster rate on the continent than Christianity, their propensity to link Islam to terrorism makes Africa a potential dirty bomb. Can one imagine the effects of black terrorist infiltrating the US? The US will have a major problem if it starts rounding up black folks in the USA, again, this time as suspected terrorist (but I guess that was true of the past roundups as well). If you want to start riots and social unrest reminiscent of the 60’s, the country can’t afford to take a step back in its treatment of black people in this country.

The economic reason that the West is gaining interest in Africa is born from the hunt for new oil reserves. Oil will be the defining issue in this century as economic growth is dependant upon the fossil fuel. The problem is that the resource is finite, creating a catch-22. The catch-22 is that economic growth increases the demand for the finite fossil fuel and hence a point is reached where demand is increasing while supply is decreasing, the point of “Peak Oil”. Consequently, whose economy gets to grow or hurt the least due to the phenomenon of peak oil depends on who is controlling the oil directly or by proxy. Africa has had some new promising discoveries off the cost of guinea and several other places, hence the economic interest in Africa.

The economic motive is interesting, for it begs the question, for the astute, of why would the West want to promote the rise of Africa, which can only manifest through growing economies, knowing the strain it would place on world oil supplies? We already have seen that the rise of Asia, particularly China and India, has placed a strain on the ability of producers to keep up with growing demand. The rise of Africa as a competitive economic block like Asia would only exacerbate the depletion of world’s finite oil supplies, hurting the Western economies in the process. In light of this, promoting the growth of yet another economically expanding continent would be akin to the West shooting itself in the foot. Poverty does not use much oil, while wealth requires and or promotes a gluttonous consumption there of.

It is my belief, therefore, that the West is not interested in fixing the problems it created in Africa or teaching the Africans how to fish. Rather, this supposed Western ambition is to give more fish to the Africans, for the above mentioned reasons. The adage that one should teach a person to fish instead of giving a person fish to eat ignores the reality of competition and finite resources. If you teach a person to be competitive with you for a finite resources linked to your degree of survival, you also increase the threats against your survival and why would humans do that, given that survival is the first law of animal nature? No one should hold their breath waiting for Western governments, businesses, banks or other institutions to have a real interest is Africa’s rise. There may be some private citizens from the West, who are truly interested in seeing Africa, do better, but they do not have the ability or resources to make the needed input.

June 01, 2005

Looking down upon others to elivate oneself




There are many middle class people who like to look down, preach to and chastise the poor for their continued poverty. All that the poor need to do, their critics say, is to follow these steps to the middle class, and they too can have what the critics of them have. But why does not these middle class folks ever look up and see themselves as failures relative to the class above them? Can the upper class make the same case against the middle class as the middle class makes against the lower class?

What are the middle class irresponsible behaviorisms and proclivities that keep them out of the upper class? Are people middle class and not upper class because they lack the work ethic to become upper class? Is the middle class not in the upper class because they have more children born out of wedlock? Is the middle class not in the upper class because they failed to get the proper education to be upper class and if so, why did they not get the education that could put them in the upper class? Are those who are in the middle class there by virtue of natural ordering of survival of the fittest, meaning middle class people are simply inferior in capacities to the upper classes and thus merit being beneath them?

I think that people would much rather look down upon others, because in the juxtaposition it lifts themselves up. In contrast, to look up at others who are doing better than you has the relative effect of lowering yourself in juxtaposition. People are trying to feel better about themselves...not worse, consquently, one needs to look down at others. All the condemnation of the poor, and of the black poor in particular, by those who are middle class, could and would be condemnation directed at them, from the upper class, if not for the existence of the lower class. Class is a relative phenomenon whose stratification into thirds or quintiles is based upon income and wealth. To remove the poor third or quintile would manifest a reallocation and definition of who is poor or who are the lowest performers in society, which many of the middle class who are criticizing today would them be the target of critics.

I constantly hear from people who think they have “made it”, looking down upon the poor and condeming them as irresponsible and lazy. Well, the truth is that if you are not at the top, you are also a loser in the relative social class ranking. You are simply choosing to focus on the ones that you have risen above, while ignoring the ones you are still below. If it is valid to look at those who achieved less than you as irresponsible, lazy or in possession of character flaws, then it is equally as valid for those above you to see your status as being the resultant of the same flaws relative them.

If a middle class person can come up with a rationalization or excuse as to why they have not achieved the status of upper class, when others have, why cannot the poor rationalization or excuse for not managing to rise from poverty not be just as valid?

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