VISION
WHERE THERE IS NO VISION THERE IS NO FUTURE!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
NEGATIVE PEOPLE
Don't you get tired of when you try to do something positive with your life the nay sayers come out of the woodworks like cockroaches trying to discourage you or destroy your efforts with their poisonous, venomous,and hate filled mouthes. It seems as though they are not happy with their lives and work tirelessly to make yours the same as theirs. Well, I got something to say on this and I don't give a damn who likes or who doesn't like it. Shut the hell up with your punk asses and get the hell out of the way and let those who are trying to improve the quality of life for themselves and their people do their thing. After all you are free to live your life as you please. Nobody is forcing you to change. If you're happy living life as you are, fine, but get your b**ch ass out of the way, live your life, and leave the rest of us the F%ck alone. Peace
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Bowie County Phalanx: When the police knock down your door: more on the ...
Bowie County Phalanx: When the police knock down your door: more on the ...: "When the police knock down your door: more on the Richardson Raid: ' Vergil and Mark Richardson By Alan Bean Friends of Justice was first to..."
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Bowie County Phalanx: Dekalb PD and Liberty Eylau School PD to get 7 ne...
Bowie County Phalanx: Dekalb PD and Liberty Eylau School PD to get 7 ne...: "On tomorrows Bowie County Commissioners Court agenda, the Dekalb PD along with the Liberty Eylau school PD are scheduled to receive 7 camer..."
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Just saying
Just saying: "
"
I can use Visa and Mastercard to pay for porn and support anti-abortion fanatics, Prop 8 homophobic bigots, and the Ku Klux Klan. But I can’t use them or PayPal to support Wikileaks, transparency, the First Amendment, and true government reform.
"
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Bowie County Phalanx: Dr. Boyce: Racist Sentencing Occurs When Alcohol M...
Bowie County Phalanx: Dr. Boyce: Racist Sentencing Occurs When Alcohol M...: "Dr. Boyce: Racist Sentencing Occurs When Alcohol Meets Crack | News One"
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The Daily Phalanx: Dekalb | City secretary knows she has violated th...
The Daily Phalanx: Dekalb | City secretary knows she has violated th...: "Mr. Reed, It is a very busy time of year for my office, therefore, I must apologize for my delay in answering your request. You are certain..."
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
The African-American Church and American Politics
http://peacepink.ning.com/video/the-africanamerican-church-and-1
Creativity
Here, in the picture above, is a man who put the local car wash to work for himself. By investing a little money into a few cleaning supplies and a little wax, he created himself a job. He works when he wants to and the only boss he has is himself. Just think of the possibilities here. It may not be the best job in the world, but then again it's not the worst either. It has the possibility to grow, depending upon just how much time, effort and money he's willing to put into it. There are some brilliant minds walking around in our neighborhoods. There are men and women walking around among us with talents that could be a good means of support. That is if we could come together and turn our neighborhoods into communities. Communities where we look out for one another. What would it hurt to give those talented men and women some of our business and pay them a just price for their labors. When you see them doing their thing, take a little time and give them an encouraging word. I solute Mr. Jack Galbert in a little North East Texas town called De Kalb, for standing out as a beacon, showing just one of the many ways of survival in these ever toughing times. I know there are many others just like him all across America. Peace
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
“Acquire knowledge, it enables one to distinguish right from wrong -- it lights the way to heaven”. It is our friend in the desert, our company in solitude, and companion when friendless. It guides us to happiness, it sustains us in misery, and it is an ornament amongst friends AND ARMOR AGAINST ENEMIES.” - Islamic Hdith (attributed to the Prophet Muhammad).
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
This is a Peul woman and her daughter who happened to be passing through Zindarou when I was there. Traditionally semi-nomadic, the Peul people are now largely settled and agriculturalist, although many groups retain herds of cattle that are moved around according to the seasons. The origins of the Peul people remain a mystery - they have lighter skin than the other tribes and different facial structures, with features that appear Caucasian more than Bantu African, but they are not Arab. The women can be easily recognised by their long thick dreadlocks, often woven with many beads, and elaborate beaded jewellery. The men typically wear very jaunty, European style hats and clothing. Djerma and Hausa people typically look down upon the Peul as inferior although I'm not sure why this is so. I think that in some areas the Peul may have been slaves to the Djerma or Hausa in history, but the Peul themselves had slaves also.
Arafa Ali Daoud. This little girl may have a tumor growing in her eye that urgently needs to be removed. The eyes hurts her and she can barely close it. Flies constantly land on it and it gets damaged by drying out. If this is indeed a cancer, such as retinoblastoma, it could spread to her brain and other organs and quickly be fatal. We need to bring eye care to the people of the refugee camps in Chad and Sudan.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter has become widely known in the last decade as a beneficial skin care ingredient. The butter is a yellowish fatty acid that is extracted directly from cocoa beans.
Cocoa butter is a natural antioxidant that clears and smoothes skin considerably well. It is most commonly used for dry skin and the treatment of stretch marks, and has a natural source of vitamin E. It is also an excellent treatment for chapped hands, lips, pregnant skin and skin irritation.
Cocoa butter does not contain any petroleum, preservatives or harsh chemicals. It is grown most commonly in Ghana, from the Theobroma cacao tree.
Cocoa butter has become widely known in the last decade as a beneficial skin care ingredient. The butter is a yellowish fatty acid that is extracted directly from cocoa beans.
Cocoa butter is a natural antioxidant that clears and smoothes skin considerably well. It is most commonly used for dry skin and the treatment of stretch marks, and has a natural source of vitamin E. It is also an excellent treatment for chapped hands, lips, pregnant skin and skin irritation.
Cocoa butter does not contain any petroleum, preservatives or harsh chemicals. It is grown most commonly in Ghana, from the Theobroma cacao tree.
Avocado in Soap
Avocado is a very recent discovery in skin treatment and remedies, and so far it has had outstanding results. Avocado oil is made from the pulp of the avocado fruit. It is rich and heavy but penetrates the skin for a nutritive and therapeutic experience. Avocado oil contains more than 20% essential unsaturated fatty acids as well as vitamins A, C, D and E, proteins, beta-carotene, lecithin, fatty acids and the “youth mineral” potassium. Avocado oil is high in unsaponifiables (sterolins), which are famous for being beneficial in reducing age spots, healing scars and moisturizing the upper layers of the skin.
Unsaponifiables are a group of compounds called plant sterolins. Sterolins soften the skin, having an amazing moisturizing effect on the upper layer of the skin and reducing scars. The sterolins in avocado oil have been found to diminish age spots. Oils with the highest unsaponifiables are shea butter, avocado oil, sesame oil, soybean and olive oil.
In a 1991 study at the Department of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology found that skin treatment with avocado oil significantly increases water soluble collagen content in the dermis, which effects the aging of the skin. Avocado is used in many folk medicines as an aphrodisiac. Avocado oil is an emollient and very stable. According to many dermatologists avocado does help make the skin feel softer and smoother, reduce roughness, cracking and irritation. Avocado also removes the fine wrinkles of aging and help protect the skin from ultraviolet rays.
Avocado is a very recent discovery in skin treatment and remedies, and so far it has had outstanding results. Avocado oil is made from the pulp of the avocado fruit. It is rich and heavy but penetrates the skin for a nutritive and therapeutic experience. Avocado oil contains more than 20% essential unsaturated fatty acids as well as vitamins A, C, D and E, proteins, beta-carotene, lecithin, fatty acids and the “youth mineral” potassium. Avocado oil is high in unsaponifiables (sterolins), which are famous for being beneficial in reducing age spots, healing scars and moisturizing the upper layers of the skin.
Unsaponifiables are a group of compounds called plant sterolins. Sterolins soften the skin, having an amazing moisturizing effect on the upper layer of the skin and reducing scars. The sterolins in avocado oil have been found to diminish age spots. Oils with the highest unsaponifiables are shea butter, avocado oil, sesame oil, soybean and olive oil.
In a 1991 study at the Department of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology found that skin treatment with avocado oil significantly increases water soluble collagen content in the dermis, which effects the aging of the skin. Avocado is used in many folk medicines as an aphrodisiac. Avocado oil is an emollient and very stable. According to many dermatologists avocado does help make the skin feel softer and smoother, reduce roughness, cracking and irritation. Avocado also removes the fine wrinkles of aging and help protect the skin from ultraviolet rays.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Poli-tics= Many Ticks.
Poli-tics= Many Ticks.
Our Leaders are BLOODSUCKERS,VAMPIRES,TICKS....
Brandon P. Reed
There is no death, only a change of worlds." Duwamish
Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm,look for me all around you,for with G-D grace,I shall come and bring with me countless millions of Black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for LIBERTY,FREEDOM, and LIFE."The civilization of today has gone drunk and crazy with its power and by such through INJUSTICE,FRAUD,and LIES to crush the unfortunate.But if I am apparently crushed by the system of influence and misdirected power,my cause shall rise again to plague the conscience of the corrupt.For this I am satisfied,and for you,I repeat,I am glad to suffer and even die.Again , I say , cheer up,for better days are ahead.I shall write the history that will inspire the millions that are coming and leave the posterity of our enemies to reckon with the HOSTS for the deeds of their fathers.
Marcus Garvey
Our Leaders are BLOODSUCKERS,VAMPIRES,TICKS....
Brandon P. Reed
There is no death, only a change of worlds." Duwamish
Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm,look for me all around you,for with G-D grace,I shall come and bring with me countless millions of Black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for LIBERTY,FREEDOM, and LIFE."The civilization of today has gone drunk and crazy with its power and by such through INJUSTICE,FRAUD,and LIES to crush the unfortunate.But if I am apparently crushed by the system of influence and misdirected power,my cause shall rise again to plague the conscience of the corrupt.For this I am satisfied,and for you,I repeat,I am glad to suffer and even die.Again , I say , cheer up,for better days are ahead.I shall write the history that will inspire the millions that are coming and leave the posterity of our enemies to reckon with the HOSTS for the deeds of their fathers.
Marcus Garvey
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
America's Endless Race Wars And Massacres By Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, Blackcommentator.com June 6, 2006
Massacre is an acquired taste. The United States is arguably the only country on the planet whose national personality and self-image is rooted in centuries of unremitting expansion through race war punctuated by massacre. There have always been "free-fire zones" all along the coveted, ever moving peripheries of white American power, from the "Indian country" surrounding the settler beachheads of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown to the "Sunni Triangle" of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. Whole peoples - millions - have been erased in the glorious march of American Manifest Destiny.
It is true that the globe-ravaging European colonial powers certainly killed more human beings in the course of their imperial careers than their settler sons in North America. However, the national characters of Britain, Spain, France, Holland and Belgium were already formed when the Great European Breakout and Worldwide Pillage commenced. Although their wealth was later built on the blood and bones of faraway "natives" and slaves, European civil societies were already shaped by long histories of conflict among themselves, between classes and nations on their small sub-continent. Britain and France stretched forth their naval and army tentacles to ensure that wealth arrived in Liverpool and Marseilles, but the colonized peoples did not effectively intrude on the evolution of European society.
Nobody had to invent the historical personalities of the Frenchman in France, the Englishman in England. Their civil societies were deeply impacted - and some sectors greatly enriched - by the existence of the colonies, but not (until very recently) by the foreign peoples who died for European prosperity.
The English settler colonies in North America were different - unique. Masses of armed migrants came to steal, and stay, and keep stealing. Theirs was an enterprise of aggrandizement at the native's expense, and unlimited expansion. Less than a century and a half after the massacre and near-erasure of the Pequots - in celebration of which the Governor of Massachusetts proclaimed the first day of Pilgrim Thanksgiving - the white colonists decided that they were a distinct people, no longer Europeans.
They were right. American colonial society was shaped by constant depredations against non-whites, close up and brutal. By 1776, one out of five non-Indian residents of the colonies were Black slaves, the control and dehumanization of which had become a daily collective duty of much of the white population. Across the Alleghenies lay unconquered Indian lands that, once cleansed, could usher into being a white empire that would dwarf Europe. The English King and his treaties with the Indians stood in the way; he had to go.
The "American" mission was clear, manifest: to endlessly expand through the elimination of impediments posed by the External Other ("savage" Indians), while keeping white society safe and separate from the "debauchery" of the valuable, Internal Other (Black slaves). This is the foundation on which the American iconography and celebration is based. Lacking any other, it is the template of white American identity and purported "civilization."
From Outright Theft to Glorious Empire
By the turn of the 20th Century, with the Indians dead or subjugated and African Americans forced into the long nightmare of Jim Crow, soon-to-be president Teddy Roosevelt - who called Blacks "a perfectly stupid race" - summed up the great American adventure with the guilelessness of a pure psychopath. In our March 16, 2004 issue, BC contributing writer Paul Street described Roosevelt's "massive, four-volume 1899 study Winning of the West" as "a white-supremacist paean to Anglo-America's near-eradication of North America's original civilizations."
"During the past three centuries," Roosevelt opined, "the spread of English-speaking people over the world's waste spaces" (meaning spaces not occupied by "progressive" capitalist-developmental Caucasians) was a great and welcome "feat of power," for which the "English-speaking race" could justly feel proud. No such "feat" of "race power" was more laudable, however, than "the vast movement by which this continent [North America] was conquered and peopled" - the "crowning and greatest achievement of a series of mighty movements."
This is still the song that is sung, the imperative to supremacy that cannot but lead to endless war and massacre. Paul Street presents a long but necessarily incomplete chronicle of the mass murder exclamation points in U.S. history that polite white society now shakes its head in regret about, but which remain the operative events and premises on which U.S. behavior in the world is justified - celebrated! - today.
Roosevelt became a "hero" in the Spanish-American War of 1898, a pushover conflict in which a decrepit Spain was ejected from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The U.S. was now a full-fledged imperial power with tens of millions of "natives" under its boot - and proud of it. American Manifest Destiny had gone truly global, as white as ever.
But the Filipinos, who had surrounded and almost run out the Spanish before the Americans arrived, insisted on claiming their independence. The U.S. embarked on a scorched earth and bodies strategy - as usual.
The American soldiers were confused, however. What would they call these people who lived in the thousand-island archipelago "free-fire" zone? With the Indian wars (massacres) still fresh in their minds, and the lynching of thousands of American Blacks the favorite pastime for many back home, U.S. soldiers wrote to family and friends of the fun they were having killing the "niggers" and "injuns" of the Philippines.
"Gooks," "chinks," and "hajis" would come later, once the Americans got their feet wet in the blood of the world.
Mark Twain, an anti-war activist, wrote of how 30,000 U.S. troops caused the deaths of a half-million Filipinos. One episode of many in the imperial butchery occurred in 1906 when a whole village sought refuge from the invaders in a dormant volcanic crater on the southern island of Jolo. Sixteen-hundred were massacred by American artillery, rifles and machine guns. U.S. officials reported:
"This action was absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people of Jolo. The position was first shelled by a naval gunboat and then assaulted by the troops and constabulary. The Moro women fought alongside the men and held their children before them, having sworn to die rather than yield. In this way a number of women and children were among the killed - an unfortunate but necessary evil."
The same script we hear today had been written, even then, just as the U.S. was stepping fully onto the global stage. We will not list the atrocities that U.S. soldiers have committed against (almost always) non-white peoples in the 100 years since the Jolo Crater Massacre, the Philippines. They are legion, as were the massacres that occurred in the previous centuries of the evolution of American Manifest Destiny.
The rabid expansionism at the core of the American national personality has never been bound by fixed borders, international law, or any other constraints. Steeped in racism, it places no value whatsoever on non-white lives. That's why the Bush administration gets away with not counting the civilian casualties in Iraq - only the American dead matter. And that's why contemporary Americans feel perfectly normal speaking of "exporting American values" and other nonsense to cloak the atrocities of nation-stealing that are but a "necessary evil" in the fulfillment of some God-given mission - wherever it leads.
Continuity of Crimes
The Haditha, Balad, Ramadi, and Makr al-Deeb massacres of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops are mere whiffs from the inferno that has consumed up to a quarter million Iraqis since the Americans set upon their mission to accomplish - as in 1906 Jolo, the Philippines - what was "absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people."
In a post-Haditha column that Cindy Sheehan, anti-war mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, called "the most difficult article that I have ever had to write," she decried "the fact that our troops are being turned into war criminals." Sheehan recognizes that the U.S. is in violation of international law - that the Iraq war is a criminal enterprise.
"War turns our mostly normal American youth into wanton murderers who have lost their own humanity and love of others. Haditha in this war and My Lai in another disgusting war were unfortunately not aberrations. War is the abominable aberration."
We commend Sheehan's courage in describing the U.S. government as criminal. In doing so, she is beginning to confront the national mythology - at the core of the national identity - that Americans are always seeking some "greater good" and commit crimes only by mistake or through the "aberrations" that are inevitably unleashed once wars are started.
But even the brave Ms. Sheehan cannot face the truth. The (white) American public still cannot discuss why the U.S. glories in having become the ultimate imperial power of all time, to the acclaim of the overwhelming majority of its citizens whose whole history and culture has prepared them to accept this "burden." Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others.
Societies willingly go to war when they have been primed to do so by an already existing mass internal dynamic that is easily manipulated by scheming rulers. White America has been constantly at war with Others, internal and external, since long before the founding of the Republic. George Bush just played the right chords, in Iraq. Now the music is sounding way off key, which causes majorities of Americans great concern and confusion. Yet these same citizens react just like their pre-Iraq selves when the Bush regime choreographs a near-identical run-up to war with neighboring Iran – another country they know nothing about except that it's not "white" in the American sense. Are white Americans stupid, or have they been conditioned by a national ethos born of habitual aggression, fundamental expectations of impunity, and an idiotic assumption of innocence?
Cindy Sheehan tries to find the soft spot in America by blaming the crimes in Iraq and Vietnam on something called "war," but sadly winds up in the same place as apologists for slavery and genocide, who claim these systematic crimes were "aberrations" not fundamental to the American national character and worldview.
Slavery was not an aberration; it created the wealth that allowed the United States to emerge as a world power only a century-and-a-quarter after the Declaration of Independence, and to become a magnet for successive waves of European immigrants. Genocide of Native Americans was not an aberration; it was the logical outcome of the original European hemispheric-theft project, and became the national project with the triumph of the settlers over the British. The ever-expanding United States was born. Was it an aberration?
At the very least, we must hope the planet survives the United States. In a world that is becoming inter-dependent at breath-taking speed, there is no room for a superpower nation born in and nurtured by centuries of massacre and endless war, always with the majority support of its white citizenry.
A Change of Values
Most Black Americans understand that the U.S. has never been up to any good in the non-white vastness of the world, because we realize that most American whites have been steeped in either blood or lies about our own Black corner of the society. African Americans react with learned cynicism when white anti-warriors call for a "return" to "American values" - for obvious historical and contemporary reasons. What values? "American" values are the problem.
The American-instigated crisis that threatens to widen the arenas of war is not just an "aberration" that can be corrected by getting the Bush men out of office - although that would be welcome. In truth, most Americans care little about the world, unless they have a privileged position in it, imposing their will on everyone else. They are collectively hostile to their own fellow citizens who are Black, and many are rousing themselves for a fierce confrontation with yet another Other: Latino immigrants. It's the same historical dynamic, that can only lead to more massacres and endless wars - foreign and domestic.
Glen Ford and Peter Gamble are writing a book to be titled, Barack Obama and the Crisis in Black Leadership.
It is true that the globe-ravaging European colonial powers certainly killed more human beings in the course of their imperial careers than their settler sons in North America. However, the national characters of Britain, Spain, France, Holland and Belgium were already formed when the Great European Breakout and Worldwide Pillage commenced. Although their wealth was later built on the blood and bones of faraway "natives" and slaves, European civil societies were already shaped by long histories of conflict among themselves, between classes and nations on their small sub-continent. Britain and France stretched forth their naval and army tentacles to ensure that wealth arrived in Liverpool and Marseilles, but the colonized peoples did not effectively intrude on the evolution of European society.
Nobody had to invent the historical personalities of the Frenchman in France, the Englishman in England. Their civil societies were deeply impacted - and some sectors greatly enriched - by the existence of the colonies, but not (until very recently) by the foreign peoples who died for European prosperity.
The English settler colonies in North America were different - unique. Masses of armed migrants came to steal, and stay, and keep stealing. Theirs was an enterprise of aggrandizement at the native's expense, and unlimited expansion. Less than a century and a half after the massacre and near-erasure of the Pequots - in celebration of which the Governor of Massachusetts proclaimed the first day of Pilgrim Thanksgiving - the white colonists decided that they were a distinct people, no longer Europeans.
They were right. American colonial society was shaped by constant depredations against non-whites, close up and brutal. By 1776, one out of five non-Indian residents of the colonies were Black slaves, the control and dehumanization of which had become a daily collective duty of much of the white population. Across the Alleghenies lay unconquered Indian lands that, once cleansed, could usher into being a white empire that would dwarf Europe. The English King and his treaties with the Indians stood in the way; he had to go.
The "American" mission was clear, manifest: to endlessly expand through the elimination of impediments posed by the External Other ("savage" Indians), while keeping white society safe and separate from the "debauchery" of the valuable, Internal Other (Black slaves). This is the foundation on which the American iconography and celebration is based. Lacking any other, it is the template of white American identity and purported "civilization."
From Outright Theft to Glorious Empire
By the turn of the 20th Century, with the Indians dead or subjugated and African Americans forced into the long nightmare of Jim Crow, soon-to-be president Teddy Roosevelt - who called Blacks "a perfectly stupid race" - summed up the great American adventure with the guilelessness of a pure psychopath. In our March 16, 2004 issue, BC contributing writer Paul Street described Roosevelt's "massive, four-volume 1899 study Winning of the West" as "a white-supremacist paean to Anglo-America's near-eradication of North America's original civilizations."
"During the past three centuries," Roosevelt opined, "the spread of English-speaking people over the world's waste spaces" (meaning spaces not occupied by "progressive" capitalist-developmental Caucasians) was a great and welcome "feat of power," for which the "English-speaking race" could justly feel proud. No such "feat" of "race power" was more laudable, however, than "the vast movement by which this continent [North America] was conquered and peopled" - the "crowning and greatest achievement of a series of mighty movements."
This is still the song that is sung, the imperative to supremacy that cannot but lead to endless war and massacre. Paul Street presents a long but necessarily incomplete chronicle of the mass murder exclamation points in U.S. history that polite white society now shakes its head in regret about, but which remain the operative events and premises on which U.S. behavior in the world is justified - celebrated! - today.
Roosevelt became a "hero" in the Spanish-American War of 1898, a pushover conflict in which a decrepit Spain was ejected from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The U.S. was now a full-fledged imperial power with tens of millions of "natives" under its boot - and proud of it. American Manifest Destiny had gone truly global, as white as ever.
But the Filipinos, who had surrounded and almost run out the Spanish before the Americans arrived, insisted on claiming their independence. The U.S. embarked on a scorched earth and bodies strategy - as usual.
The American soldiers were confused, however. What would they call these people who lived in the thousand-island archipelago "free-fire" zone? With the Indian wars (massacres) still fresh in their minds, and the lynching of thousands of American Blacks the favorite pastime for many back home, U.S. soldiers wrote to family and friends of the fun they were having killing the "niggers" and "injuns" of the Philippines.
"Gooks," "chinks," and "hajis" would come later, once the Americans got their feet wet in the blood of the world.
Mark Twain, an anti-war activist, wrote of how 30,000 U.S. troops caused the deaths of a half-million Filipinos. One episode of many in the imperial butchery occurred in 1906 when a whole village sought refuge from the invaders in a dormant volcanic crater on the southern island of Jolo. Sixteen-hundred were massacred by American artillery, rifles and machine guns. U.S. officials reported:
"This action was absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people of Jolo. The position was first shelled by a naval gunboat and then assaulted by the troops and constabulary. The Moro women fought alongside the men and held their children before them, having sworn to die rather than yield. In this way a number of women and children were among the killed - an unfortunate but necessary evil."
The same script we hear today had been written, even then, just as the U.S. was stepping fully onto the global stage. We will not list the atrocities that U.S. soldiers have committed against (almost always) non-white peoples in the 100 years since the Jolo Crater Massacre, the Philippines. They are legion, as were the massacres that occurred in the previous centuries of the evolution of American Manifest Destiny.
The rabid expansionism at the core of the American national personality has never been bound by fixed borders, international law, or any other constraints. Steeped in racism, it places no value whatsoever on non-white lives. That's why the Bush administration gets away with not counting the civilian casualties in Iraq - only the American dead matter. And that's why contemporary Americans feel perfectly normal speaking of "exporting American values" and other nonsense to cloak the atrocities of nation-stealing that are but a "necessary evil" in the fulfillment of some God-given mission - wherever it leads.
Continuity of Crimes
The Haditha, Balad, Ramadi, and Makr al-Deeb massacres of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops are mere whiffs from the inferno that has consumed up to a quarter million Iraqis since the Americans set upon their mission to accomplish - as in 1906 Jolo, the Philippines - what was "absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people."
In a post-Haditha column that Cindy Sheehan, anti-war mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, called "the most difficult article that I have ever had to write," she decried "the fact that our troops are being turned into war criminals." Sheehan recognizes that the U.S. is in violation of international law - that the Iraq war is a criminal enterprise.
"War turns our mostly normal American youth into wanton murderers who have lost their own humanity and love of others. Haditha in this war and My Lai in another disgusting war were unfortunately not aberrations. War is the abominable aberration."
We commend Sheehan's courage in describing the U.S. government as criminal. In doing so, she is beginning to confront the national mythology - at the core of the national identity - that Americans are always seeking some "greater good" and commit crimes only by mistake or through the "aberrations" that are inevitably unleashed once wars are started.
But even the brave Ms. Sheehan cannot face the truth. The (white) American public still cannot discuss why the U.S. glories in having become the ultimate imperial power of all time, to the acclaim of the overwhelming majority of its citizens whose whole history and culture has prepared them to accept this "burden." Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others.
Societies willingly go to war when they have been primed to do so by an already existing mass internal dynamic that is easily manipulated by scheming rulers. White America has been constantly at war with Others, internal and external, since long before the founding of the Republic. George Bush just played the right chords, in Iraq. Now the music is sounding way off key, which causes majorities of Americans great concern and confusion. Yet these same citizens react just like their pre-Iraq selves when the Bush regime choreographs a near-identical run-up to war with neighboring Iran – another country they know nothing about except that it's not "white" in the American sense. Are white Americans stupid, or have they been conditioned by a national ethos born of habitual aggression, fundamental expectations of impunity, and an idiotic assumption of innocence?
Cindy Sheehan tries to find the soft spot in America by blaming the crimes in Iraq and Vietnam on something called "war," but sadly winds up in the same place as apologists for slavery and genocide, who claim these systematic crimes were "aberrations" not fundamental to the American national character and worldview.
Slavery was not an aberration; it created the wealth that allowed the United States to emerge as a world power only a century-and-a-quarter after the Declaration of Independence, and to become a magnet for successive waves of European immigrants. Genocide of Native Americans was not an aberration; it was the logical outcome of the original European hemispheric-theft project, and became the national project with the triumph of the settlers over the British. The ever-expanding United States was born. Was it an aberration?
At the very least, we must hope the planet survives the United States. In a world that is becoming inter-dependent at breath-taking speed, there is no room for a superpower nation born in and nurtured by centuries of massacre and endless war, always with the majority support of its white citizenry.
A Change of Values
Most Black Americans understand that the U.S. has never been up to any good in the non-white vastness of the world, because we realize that most American whites have been steeped in either blood or lies about our own Black corner of the society. African Americans react with learned cynicism when white anti-warriors call for a "return" to "American values" - for obvious historical and contemporary reasons. What values? "American" values are the problem.
The American-instigated crisis that threatens to widen the arenas of war is not just an "aberration" that can be corrected by getting the Bush men out of office - although that would be welcome. In truth, most Americans care little about the world, unless they have a privileged position in it, imposing their will on everyone else. They are collectively hostile to their own fellow citizens who are Black, and many are rousing themselves for a fierce confrontation with yet another Other: Latino immigrants. It's the same historical dynamic, that can only lead to more massacres and endless wars - foreign and domestic.
Glen Ford and Peter Gamble are writing a book to be titled, Barack Obama and the Crisis in Black Leadership.
African American Awareness (AFAA)
If knowledge is power and there is strength in numbers, then many people knowing a lot has got to be a force to be reckoned with. Far too often we, African-American/Black People never Niggas, are powerless to the issues and problems we face in our homes, communities, cities, states, and this country. I do not have to tell you that we are victims of racial discrimination, injustice, police brutality, health issues, and a whole slew of issues that are projected on us and others that we bring upon ourselves on a daily bases. Also, I don’t have to tell you that these problems are some, not all, of the root reasons for the perception and stereotypes black people face today.
Just because something is not directed at you, does not mean that is does not affect you. Far too often we pass things off as not being important because they did not directly affect us or someone close to us. But a great man we all respect, by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. said that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He was basically telling us that what affects one of us affects all of us no matter how small the affect may be when it gets to us personally.
Unfortunately, unlike most ethnic groups, we all have the burden of uplifting a nation. The efforts, achievements, and actions of anyone of us are a direct reflection on all of us, and vice versa. We must become a responsible people; responsible for our individual actions and the actions of others. We are our brother’s and our sister’s keeper, and we have to take ownership of everything we do. Not just the good, but we also must take ownership of the bad. So much that, it pisses you, me, and all of us off when one of us messes up, and we feel a personal need or obligation to correct the issue ourselves.
Now this is not a “take pity on us black folk” or “we are the victims” group. The goal of this group is to be a source of empowerment. We need to get as many people in this group, and we need everyone to be active. I want everyone to network and inform each other of issues and problems that are happening across the United States. Once again, in the black community, there are a lot issues that are projected on us and others that we bring upon ourselves that we can discuss. Now, anybody and everybody talk about the problems, but very few try to provide a solution to those problems. This will not be one of those groups. We are not only going to talk about these problems, but we are going to propose solutions to these problems. I want us to be solutionist (new word) to the problems we face today and tomorrow.
In order for this group to be a true force in the eyes of our communities, schools, churches, and political leaders, we need to have members numbering in the thousands. So when we say something or speak out against a wrong, we are heard by everyone not just those close to us. “Anything worth having is worth fighting for” and Fredrick Douglas told us that “Without struggle there can be no progress.” So, it is going to take time to build this group into what we want it to be, but I believe that we will be a positive voice for our communities and those who may not be heard otherwise.
Just because something is not directed at you, does not mean that is does not affect you. Far too often we pass things off as not being important because they did not directly affect us or someone close to us. But a great man we all respect, by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. said that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He was basically telling us that what affects one of us affects all of us no matter how small the affect may be when it gets to us personally.
Unfortunately, unlike most ethnic groups, we all have the burden of uplifting a nation. The efforts, achievements, and actions of anyone of us are a direct reflection on all of us, and vice versa. We must become a responsible people; responsible for our individual actions and the actions of others. We are our brother’s and our sister’s keeper, and we have to take ownership of everything we do. Not just the good, but we also must take ownership of the bad. So much that, it pisses you, me, and all of us off when one of us messes up, and we feel a personal need or obligation to correct the issue ourselves.
Now this is not a “take pity on us black folk” or “we are the victims” group. The goal of this group is to be a source of empowerment. We need to get as many people in this group, and we need everyone to be active. I want everyone to network and inform each other of issues and problems that are happening across the United States. Once again, in the black community, there are a lot issues that are projected on us and others that we bring upon ourselves that we can discuss. Now, anybody and everybody talk about the problems, but very few try to provide a solution to those problems. This will not be one of those groups. We are not only going to talk about these problems, but we are going to propose solutions to these problems. I want us to be solutionist (new word) to the problems we face today and tomorrow.
In order for this group to be a true force in the eyes of our communities, schools, churches, and political leaders, we need to have members numbering in the thousands. So when we say something or speak out against a wrong, we are heard by everyone not just those close to us. “Anything worth having is worth fighting for” and Fredrick Douglas told us that “Without struggle there can be no progress.” So, it is going to take time to build this group into what we want it to be, but I believe that we will be a positive voice for our communities and those who may not be heard otherwise.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
SALVERY
The Slave Ship
Many have written and argued that Slavery was a Sin of the South. I would argue most strongly that Slavery was NOT a Sin of the South; It was the Sin of a Nation. Placing the Sin of Slavery onto the doorstep of the confederacy is easy, and even comforting, but unfortunately is not the complete picture. The simple picture of Slavery as a Southern Sin does not reflect the much broader participation, exploitation and profit in Slavery as an Enterprise.
Here, for your perusal and research, we present an original 1860 news account of a captured Slave Ship. The Slave Ship was owned by a New York Slave Trader, It was full of Native African Men, Women, and Children, and it was delivering the Cargo to be sold in the South.
My hope, and even my belief is, that few today could look at these images, and read the accompanying story without being appalled, repulsed, and even outraged.
Click on the thumbnails above. Look at the picture of these people, created by God and in his image, packed onto this ship like cattle. Gaze at the image, and then spend several minutes reflecting on what it must have been like to be crammed onto a ship so tightly that you could not lie down, so tightly that you could hardly breathe. Think of the sounds of the dieing all around, the stench of the diseased and deprived hanging in the air, and the utter hopelessness of the situation.
After some time of quiet reflection, then read the story. There are three things to look for as you read the story; 1) Pay attention to the facts in the story describing the conditions on a Slave Ship, and then 2) consider the overall tone and demeanor of the news account, and note 3) that the newspaper was a Northern Newspaper published in New York City.
The facts of the conditions on the Slave Ship are quiet disturbing. It is an affront to all mankind that any man would be treated this way. However, the newspaper reports it in a light-hearted, almost whimsical fashion. The article describes the games of a small boy, it seams to imply that the level of death and disease as being “not as bad as usual”, perhaps even acceptable. It purports to be able to ascertain the intelligence, and presumably the worth of these people, by the shape of their head, and the width of their nose. When the people appear to be praying, or praising God, the author makes the assumption that the people could not be aware of God.
The writer, in describing this atrocity, lacks the indignation and passion that one would think would be associated with being an eye-witness to such a human catastrophe.
The plantation culture of the south helped to create Demand for slaves, rich northerners were more than happy to use their ships and wealth to Trade in Slaves for profit, and then the popular press, potentially influenced by the wealthy who were benefiting from the slave trade, appear to have been willing to simply look the other way. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/slavery/slave-ship.htm
Knowledge Is Power
Welcome to the NIEC -
Saturday, January 9, 2010
WALKATHON TO PROMOTE BREAST CANCER
THOSE WHO CAUSE BREAST CANCER SEEK THE CURE Thousands of things cause breast cancer. One thing makes it grow when a woman is unfortunate enough to get it. The key factor in breast cancer growth is a powerful growth hormone manufactured by the human body called IGF-I. That same exact hormone (a miracle of nature) is manufactured within a cow's body. Every sip of milk, bite of cheese, and spoonful of yogurt contains that hormone. THE REAL SCIENCE: http://www.notmilk.com/b.html THE PRESS RELEASE (SOURCE: General Mills) http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010904/40173.html Kroger supermarkets and Yoplait Yogurt will donate ten cents from the sale of every container of Yoplait yougurt sold to cancer research. That money will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation which sponsors a walkathon for breast cancer survivors. THE IRONY This year, walkathon participants will find a 20' tall inflatable Yoplait yogurt container at the finish line. In addition, those women who have had breast cancer will be treated to free hormone-laced yogurt at the conclusion of their march. KROGER SUPERMARKETS The Kroger Company is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are one of America's largest retail grocery chains with NEARLY 2,400 locations. KOMEN FOUNDATION The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation was established in 1982 by Nancy Brinker to honor the memory of her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died from breast cancer at the age of 36. http://www.ar-raceforthecure.org __________________________________________________ Robert Cohen author of: MILK A-Z Executive Director (notmilkman@notmilk.com) Dairy Education Board http://www.notmilk.com This file: http://www.notmilk.com/forum/678.txt
Friday, January 8, 2010
For The Victims Of Cancer
Leticia Whitley
In memory of family and friends who have lost the battle of cancer and the ones who continue to conquer it! Put this on your page if you know someone who has or had cancer♥ . I pray for the cure of cancer. Amen. 93% won't copy and paste this, will you?
Monday, January 4, 2010
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