Remembering the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and Virgil Ware

This year, 38 years ago, two events shaped history in the goal of equal rights and liberty for all in America. They were events that showed the ugly that festered inside of America, an ugliness based on a terroristic hate and race supremacy. These events were the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham and the murder and lynching of Virgil Lamar Ware. The common element was that the both occurred on killed Sept. 15, 1963 and both involved children.

On that Sunday, a white man was seen placing a box under the stairs outside of the church, which had become a meeting-place for civil efforts to register African Americans to vote in Birmingham.

A few minutes before 10:30 am., the bomb exploded killing four girls who were in the church attending Sunday School: Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). In addition, twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast.

A witness identified a known member of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Chambliss, as the man who placed the bomb at the but found not guilty of murder and received a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month jail sentence for having the dynamite.

On the same day the 13 year-old Ware was found lynched and mutilated in Birmingham. Virgil Ware had just entered the eighth grade at the all-black Sandusky Elementary School near his home in suburban Pratt City. While working on a paper route with his two brothers. Larry Joe Sims and Michael Lee Farley, both 16, had attended a segregationist rally that day drove by the brother firing two bullets hit Virgil in the chest and cheek, making Virgil Ware the sixth and final black person to be killed in Birmingham that Sunday.

Although African Americans can applauded some overt change with the election of Barack Obama and the erection of a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C., we must recognize the disservice we actually do ourselves by forgetting about those who gave blood for what we supposedly have currently. To forget in memory yet celebrate in symbols is a defeatist mantra that serves no proactive or productive utility. For it will always be as Dwight David Eisenhower stated, “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

Our privileges have us more knowledgeable of celebrity and avarice than education and self-determination. Thus if such is the case, the principals symbolized in the actions of those before us and the words of Dr. King are long gone and may be never to return.

Shovel Ready Bull Crap

I would like to say the new world has not been in such a despondent state of precariousness since King Manuel I set Vasco de Gama loose of to this region from a village on the Tagus River in 1497. Although the same level of disease and pestilence may not be present, a future of slavery and servitude just might be.

Americans, especially African Americas, please wake up and stop falling for the okie dokie, this free thinker cannot think freely for us all. Historically we had jobs and our dollar was worth something in most cases when backed by Gold. Now with internationalist and globalism we do not because in decades prior, we would have stopped the outsourcing of jobs by imposing tariffs. And I anticipate things only will get worse before they get better for taking advantage of idiots is what politics is all about for the Obama administration and the republican led congress.

Yes Virginia, they are all in the same gang. They are all millionaires protecting millionaire interest, not your or mine or the average American. I just as, Tea party of Obama supporter, what do they have in common with you? Nothing, your wallet can empty and your house can foreclose but not theirs. True Obama at least promulgates a plan while the Republicans have no plan, but his plan worked for all in congress and the senate regardless of political affiliation.
Although the US consumer base is probably the largest in the world and buy more stuff than any other nation, our politicians both republicans and democrats only gives away access to the best market on the planet. Jobs will only return via a top level educational constituency and manufacturing growth. the only way manufacturing jobs are going to return to this country is if corporations find their foreign made products cannot compete with American produced ones.

Dr. Ron Paul understands, for if Obama or the congres did, they would have proposed a value added or import fee to raise the cost of foreign made products to the comparable US produced materials to mathematically negate foreign cheap labor. Yes 3^rd grade math would advocate such. Lesson being, if a company desires to sell in America, then make it in America. This would also go a long way to assist in paying down the nation’s debt – but what do I know as a free thinker?

In terms of a corporate tax rate of 35%, most US corporations don’t pay anything near that if anything at all, since the corporate share of income tax in terms of all income tax collected is about 7%. Part of the decrease is due to the moving of companies off shore. Part is due to the loopholes and tax credits that companies use to decrease their tax. A flat corporate income tax would help solve the deficit. Tariffs would force more companies to do business here which increase the corporate share of income tax. Obama’s jobs bill speech indicated he was not on my side and it broke my heart. I know he is smart enough to understand what is aforementioned, but it proposed nothing that would help the average American and actually sounded as if his sole goal was to fire up his union base: union construction, teachers and other public sector workers like police and fire persons.

Although Obama’s plan does not do enough, a proposed 1.5% GDP increase in 2012 with 1.2 million – 2 million jobs isn’t bad given the Republican congress as his opposition. But facts are facts, job creation requires more than yelling, demanding and good subject verb agreement when many parts of the world, pay is around 15 dollars a day or lower. Nothing in his plan deals with this, or preventing jobs from being shipped out of the country or even maintaining Davis-Bacon act wages. More interesting, it Seems Obama forgets us little guys while Republicans ignore us. The many who do not have a drivers license, and now on a felony probation for not paying child support, and as a result not able to pass background checks, or who have a bad credit report due to becoming one of the long-term unemployed?

America, any dream of days of yore may be over. The Middle Class has disappeared along with manufacturing. All we have is quasi-sovereignty and our debt is eroding that. Only a question of time when what we see in the streets of Greece, Italy, Israel and Libya takes root here. There are no shovel ready jobs in America, we don’t even have shovels let alone make them anymore.

Somalia: Another Fine Mess

Halfway around the world, another fine foreign policy mess is manifesting its head thanks to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Why, because in the name of emotion in the form of terror, American-backed warlords in Somalia have free reign to destroy a nation from its infrastructure to its government in a vain effort to persecute the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), who they consider terrorist affiliates of Al Qaeda. A group that once held warlords at bay, who established order, stopped the open dealing of drugs and even allowed Freedom of speech.

That is until the United States intervened and made Somalia into another front in the global "War on Terror." Now the country has returned to the mess prior to US intervention of individual clans battling for their piece of the Somalia pie. This due to our inefficient and faulty foreign policy. The United States and U.S. policy makers never did have a valid and viable understanding regarding the troubles confronting Somali society. Yet this was not enough for the United States, as part of the international community, under the auspices of Somalia humanitarian operations to make things even worse. True, US efforts assisted in debilitating starvation and saving many lives, we couldn’t stop there and decided to wave our magical military wand and engender a backwards slide into disorder and anarchy.

After all of our wasted economic support in this effort, now what we thought we were attempting to prevent is coming to fruition – a mad dash and violent battles by warlords and tribal clans to collect as much land as possible. We have engenders more instability and corruption in the nation. It is like we never thought what could occur if all of the Islamic insurgents were to be defeated and left the region.

The failures in Somalia reflect U.S. foreign policy at its best – inept and destructive. Yet we still appear to have not learned from the lessons of Somalia. In theory, American interest in the Horn of Africa region dates back to the Cold War when both the Soviet Union and the United States competed to gain allies and influence in Africa and elsewhere throughout the world. Consequently, it was another comedy of errors that reflected more on our self-centeredness than trying to get a nation to solve its own problems internally. Why, because in the US ignorance of the tribalism of Somali culture was a major shortcoming before and during our intervention in the African nation. We entered Somalia in December 1992 under the guise of stopping the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people. Although it succeeded in this mission, the chaotic political situation eventually demonstrated a poorly organized nation-building operation in that merely increased hostility toward us and our interest as a nation.

Today it is estimated that more than 20 mini-states comprise Somalia. What was holding the nation together prior to our intervention exist no longer and it has become a country fragmented and although we attempted to end starvation, we have only made human suffering in the drought-stricken country worse. Moreover, this blunder is off the radar of main stream media for some reason or another. Maybe we really don’t ot didn’t have the humanitarian intrest of Africans in our heats in the first place. I think the adamantine Laural and Hardy said it best, “this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.

Congress has No Job Plan and Obama’s Job Speech: No Substance- No Peace

When I started High School in the tenth grade in Memphis in 1977, my homeroom teacher Dr. Meyer’s was also my economics instructor. Although a public high school, at least a third of my teachers had PhD’s. In his class, according to him I did so well that he suggested I take another economics class as an elective albeit he knew I was concentrating in math and science classes. Thus via a flip of a coin I took microeconomics over macroeconomics. Herein this essay begins, upon a reading of the President’s job speech.

I have come to accept as abstruse as it may seem for some to grasp, that the plausible allure for present day politicians regardless of race, gender and political affiliation, must either be the ability to lie or the scarious inability to see a truth in order to tell it like it is. All because it is clear they do not want to tell us the truth about the nation’s current economic conundrum – that it has taken decades to create this problem, that there is no easy solution out of this mess, or worse that they intentionally vitiate solutions because they have no answers because they have no answers and lack the scrotum to say honestly it will require decades to get out of this mess, that it will be hard and that Americans will have to tolerate difficult times and live within our means to do so.

Telling the truth, no matter how saddening or worrisome lost on politicians even Obama. Not to mention it is difficult for a class of millionaires like Washington, DC politicians the pains economically us regular folks feel. Factually since 1960, there has never been a time in which four straight months of stagnate job growth as we have just seen has never manifested without a recessionary period to follow. Yet politicians on both sides of the aisles quip they have answers and solutions to solve this problem in the immediate future – a bold face lie. They say the recession is over, that we will not experience a double dip recession and that the nation is not in a depression – a bold face lie.

Now as for the President’s speech, it was passionate, but passion and great subject verb agreement does not amount to substance. I disagree with GOP stalwarts who assert a joint session was not the place for such a speech under the auspices it was not an urgent situation. But as I stated prior, for people who are not wealth like most inside the beltway politicians are hurting and the state of the economy is a serious national security issue.

Still with this said, Obama’s speech was more of the same rah rah type. Not that it was bad, but still the same old same old. Only thing missing was a “cash for clunkers” program. Why because it was not specific and talks around what I see and experience as a person under employed who has grown through $300,000 of savings just to keep from losing his home. I guess he knows that in this weak economy his numbers are bad but that the approval for congress is worse. On the ground, those of us without sufficient employment know that things will most likely get worse before they get better and that none of what he proposed even attempts to thwart the impact of the troubles of Europe through its banking and market crisis on the average American citizen, for consumers remain deep in debt and the depression in the housing market has yet to hit bottom.

We in touch and on the ground see the economy is too weak to add enough jobs monthly to even keep up with US population growth. My understanding of microeconomics and math indicates anything less 140,000 jobs a month will only keep adding to the ranks of the unemployed.

The plan had nothing I would consider big or different. He should have [1] offered to implement some sort of profit tax on large corporations that earn more than 20 million annually in profits of around 4 to 6 percent. He should have [2] offered some type of net job creation tax for large and small businesses for about a five year period to serve as an incentive for job creation that would said companies a tax credit that would cover at least a third of their salaries for that time period. He should [3] look at international growth sectors and instituted a re-employment service as opposed to unemployment that focus on industry specific training programs that would prepare the young and poor for skilled jobs.

Nothing in his proposal is punitive. He should have [5] mentioned that the top 100 companies in the US have uprooted around 3 million jobs here in the states over the past decade yet created around 2.5 million jobs overseas. He should have [6] specifically addressed Sarbanes-Oxley regulations and only implement them for corporations making under $200 million annually (I could only imagine the strain and expense on businesses with respect to their legal cost alone to comply).

Lastly, he should [7] reinstate Glass-Stegall, [8] eliminate Dodd-Frank, [9] increase tax rates on short term capital gains for hedge funds for example who create most of the market volatility and lower long term capital gains taxes and lastly – [10] relegalize the sale of marijuana.

This is just what I think, based on what I learned from Dr. Meyer in high school and my subsequent readings since then. It aided me in being able to amass more than $300,000 in investments without the aid of a broker or financial planner; although I have been using it up to stay afloat after my business closed and lost full time employment before then.

Politicians are scared to tell us the truth, do not understand the problem and too busy with the interest of large corporations to really solve or care about us little folk. They are afraid to tell us and won’t tell us the truth, and Obama’s plan is nothing more than the same thing he did the first two years while in office – hum bug.

Neither the congress nor the President can honestly feel what we feel on the ground. They argue about finding funds to provide for simple people who have lost everything due to floods, fires and tornadoes. They do not see that the games they play are not funn for us and look away from the possibility of what has been seen in France, Greece, Italy, Syria, Israel, England and else where in the form of civil disobedience can manifest over here. Nice speech Mr. President. Way to sit on your hands Congress. Just be reminded though – No Substance, No peace. For republiacns and democrats seem to not understand I am human capital not political capital.

No Uncle Tom, But Paul over Obama Any Day

I like Obama. He is smart, promotes the values of family and what it means to be a father and a husband, but his policies leave a lot to be questioned. I am not fond of the republicans, or the Democratic Party, especially the true GOP candidates trying to become the next President of the United States. But I do like and respect Dr. Ron Paul – libertarian like me, who has been reduced to run under the Republican banner when the Republican Party hates him with avarice and conviction. So if it came down to it, I would select Dr. Paul over Barack Obama, Esquire anyway and let me tell you why.

To start off, more than five years ago, before any of the current slate of GOP hopefuls or prior democratic contenders, he saw and said what would happen if government continued on its fatuous ways. Even before Obama, he described the current state of America’s Federal government as a philosophical danger that only represents the status quo. He described it as immoral because both republicans and democrats in the executive and legislative branches of government were destroying our personal and economic liberties. Five years ago he stated that they believe in internationalism over the constitution and that banking, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, medical industry, the insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry interest are placed before the interest of the American people in the name of profits.

Many of us, as ill-informed as we are, forget that the austerity measures via stimulus as pronounced by Bush and Obama, and countries in Europe, are not what is needed to deal with the problems resulting from the financial crisis of 2007 but instead aid the speculators who brought the crisis in the first place. Paul is the only person who addresses this.

He speaks openly how the UN uses America to act against its own interest and how they took us to war after WW II in Korea and that we have been there ever since. He points out how our major trade agreements including NAFTA and our involvement with the IMF, WTO and World Bank drain US economic resources for other nations and not ours. He is against internationalism and believes most government should be local as well as speaks openly how democrats and republicans alike are weak on immigration and do not care about the nation’s borders based on past inaction.

To bring our budget under control he notes we needs to stop spending. Unlike Republicans, he will not cut domestic programs to do this but rather stop all foreign aid abroad, close all of our military bases abroad, and bring home all of our troops. If we don’t take such measure, not only will our sovereignty be questionable, but we will have an even bigger financial crisis and a collapse of the dollar is his view.

His observations are well supported as both democrats and republican administrations amass massive deficits that continue to grow annually. He attacks republicans for when Bush was elected, he doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased entitlements and implemented a prescription drug program, none of which were paid for.

He says that the federal government spends too much, tax too much, borrow too much and print too much. This has resulted in a currency and sovereign debt crisis. He would end the IRS and not replace it with anything using history as a framework saying that the nation lived without an IRS until 1913 when it was established (16th amendment). He would prefer tariffs and similar fees.

What makes him different from the Republican candidates and Obama is his understanding and approach to foreign policy. A common example of his is showing how Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein used to be our allies and then became our enemies. Our aid t these nations and our presence in Saudi Arabia for example fuel their hate. We give billions to Israel annually and three times as much to Arab states because of our global policeman stance and desire to want in roads to Middle Eastern oil. Cutting foreign aid alone would save hundreds of billions annually and would be sensible foreign policy if taking care of America was more important than policing the world putting military lives at risk. For as Paul ask, who do US troops in Germany and Japan help America’s defense and protect our national interest? As it stands, the US military is in 130 countries and have more than 700 bases around the world at a staggering annual cost.

He believes we should become energy dependent, drill at home and develop alternative fuels here in our own backyard. Government from his perspective should not give any global multi-national corporation loan guarantees because it fosters malinvestment and obviates free-market. Why because from his perspective, welfarism and corporatism create more and more poor and hungry people.

Last but not least, unlike Obama or the GOP, Paul believes in legalizing freedom of choice to the extent of legalizing marijuana. His position is that it should be obviated from the jurisdiction of the federal government and that states should be left to decide to regulate it as was the case before 1937. This is both a 10^th amendment and free market issue from his perspective.

Now I could speak more on his desire to get citizens to understand the importance of monetary policy to how the Federal Reserve is responsible for job destruction in the nation through fixing interest rates and expanding money, and not liquidating debt to let prices fall subsequently propping up bad debt, but I doubt if most folks take their politics to the same level as I do prior to selecting a candidate. Another reason why I like Paul over Obama, he is the only candidate talking about a return of the Gold standard since history shows us all great nations who went off the Gold standard eventually failed.

Bottom line is based on policy and position alone, Dr. Paul is what I desire in a President more so than any of the GOP fanatics and President Obama. I do not select a person because he looks like me or is the same color or race. The way I see it a rapist, black or white is still a rapist. Unlike many black folks in America, I study the issues and do not vote based on trivial pursuits or because someone tells me I should. I am no Uncle Tom but for me it is Dr. Paul over Obama any day. Im just saying - so call in tonight and let us know what u think.

"2012 BARACK OBAMA vs RON PAUL" hosted by @RDBRadio LIVE Sept 8th 10 PM EDT #BlogTalkRadio call-in (347)324-5722

The charcoal Forest of African American Public Though

I am taken back by the level of conformity and tolerance in my community for mediocrity, acceptance of the status quo and the derisory fatuity we display with respect to everything from our comprehension of politics and economics to our limited understanding of history and learning from past and present experiences. Conformity in the sense that all information seems or must be presented in the form of “one approved perspective” as Juan Williams described in his latest book Muzzled. Tolerance in the form of people seemingly being afraid to speak out or complain about anything which if viewed objectively, may have a negative impact on others, particularly African Americans just because it originates from within the African American community

My beliefs and opinions, both written and oral have been vilified and called rude, condescending, wrong and even unreasonable just because I state them with sincere vehemence and temerity and because the acceptance of hypocrisy is more haute couture than dealing with the facts and truth. Sadly is that most of such individuals do not or cannot read a simple 300 page book in a night or two days nor do they read any newspaper daily, but rather regurgitate what they hear from television or some singular web site that likely supports their views. Growing up when I did, nearly everyone I saw always kept a book or newspaper and read one daily.

Now, many with such dispositions may have never lived outside of the US for more than a few months or worse, have never been outside of the country except in the capacity of a tourist – yet they contend to be worldly in thought and disposition.

Often, if I express a position, even if objective with fact, one risks being ignored, shunned, blocked (in social media) or ridiculed for the sin of free thinking based on diverse information just because they disagree with what I may say. Whether it is pointing out the impact of unproductive and gratuitous violent misogynistic lyrics in most hip hop music, the media messages that mainly spoon feeds garbage to the masses that are void of utilitarian value or asserting Obama’s problematic and misguided preoccupation with Keynesian economic philosophy; they disagree simply because the subject matter deals with or originates within the African American community, and as such are off limits to critical discourse and seen as an attack and results in a muted discussion - for the defensive posture people tend to take. It is a sadly funny predicament to say the least.

For example, if I say George Bush and Obama’s use of economic stimulus served as a short term fix and only made America’s economy worse in front of republicans they get defensive and complain and say I am attacking Bush and he is not even in office. If I say George Bush and Obama’s use of economic stimulus served as a short term fix and only made America’s economy worse in front of democrats, especially black folk, they get defensive and complain that he inherited it from Bush ,that he needs more time and that I am either a hater or an uncle Tom. Although both do not deal with the objective reality that the stimulus, regardless of who supported and implemented it that it was short term and resulted in a worse economic standing for America objectively, they equally attack the messenger and the message that it did not work just to support their position albeit fact states otherwise (economic growth continues to fall, value of dollar continues to fall, jobs continue not to be produced). Ironic and funny, since both condemn the other for the same action.

This gets even worse with so-called talking heads. Al Sharpton will get on stage with George W. Bush and applauded his No Child Left behind Educational imitative as he did during the Bush years but did not speak out against schools being punished and loosing funding if they did not meet the rigorous program education standards. Today, ex post facto the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating scandal, he blames it on that very program he proffered support for implemented by George W. Bush. Lesson being – say what is popular with your supporters void of critical foresight and thought and don’t think for yourself.

Thus, we black folks are lost and have lost our way in the world. Our world view is a ghetto fabulous one in which we don’t snitch and keep it real while we ride or die – for nonsense. Sad fact is keeping it real is equal with keeping it ignorant and promoting behavior that destroys all around us including ourselves. Since this merely means be leery and suspicious of anyone that thinks for themselves if they do not support all that is black, even the negative aspects of our culture or do not think like us. That we should only say and think things that will be accepted by the people such statements are being presented to.

The free thinker in me would tell all folk as the aforementioned to suck my dick. But since I am trying to be politically correct I will refrain. Keeping it real means that we need to recognize the burned down and charcoal forest of ideas that exist around us and either move beyond them or stay in a dead zone mentally and wait to pass into extinction.

ANN COULTER calls Obama a "feeble minded turd"

Humpty Dumpty Economics

I have come to accept that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot rebuild and grow the US economy with the approaches being considered currently and the inability for adults occupying the political grounds within the beltway to accept the common groundwork that they work for the people, not themselves, corporation or K Street lobbyist. All that has been proposed or ignored, whether by the President or the congress misses the point completely, avoids a historical context for understand and is rooted on feculent assumptions.

For starters we cannot deal with our soverign debt issues until we recognize the need to obviate the massive credit contraction we are expericing.se in point, it is a fact that the top five percent of the people in the US with respect to income account for nearly 40 percent of all US consumer spending. Just imagine if the annual salary of the top one percent is above $700,000, this group includes individuals earning more than $500,000 and up yearly. Coupled with the recent news that no, zero jobs were created in August and the prior months numbers were revised to show lower job creation, it is no way possible for any of the suggestion proffered by the Congress or Obama can work to create jobs without addressing the massive gap in consumption between the rich and poor, in particular if demand (more specifically lack of demand) is why there is minimal job growth. Now there are some who say Obama saved the country from a depression with his stimulus, but in fact it resulted in 2 million jobs vacated from the system, since the money went to the folks who already had money and desired to save it, or it went to those from foreign countries who currently own our debt and subsequently spent that money abroad and not here to create jobs.

Obama’s effort, even if more stimulus is introduced, will not produce any jobs. Likewise, the Republicans, who say they do not desire excessive regulations and want lower taxes, will not create jobs either, if history is any indication of what such policies evince. One reason is because over the past twenty years, household debt grew by more than thirty percent. Namely because of the lack of regulations proposed by the GOP for large corporations and Wall Street especially. Second, growing the economy, by reducing taxes for the top 2 percent while sales and payroll taxes for the masses continue to increase, will mean less money in the pocket of the average American, thus keeping consumer demand as it is or lowering it. Math shows us that US workers fortunate to be employed have increased in productivity, yet compensation and hourly wages have stagnated, not matching this productivity. Why, because just as prior to the great depression as it stands now, the majority of the wealth was in the hands of the top five percent. As Robert Reich notes in his book “Aftershock: the next economy and America’s Future” the top earners in the share of the nation’s total income reached their highest levels in 1928 and 2007 – both two years before major economic depressions. And Yes Virginia, a double dip recession as a kind way to say a depression.

Both Obama and the congress need to accept these facts. Obama needs to recognize big corporations are no longer singularly loyal to the US – they are global and have global interest. Republicans need to understand that deregulation places short-term profit gains over long-term economic. But I doubt if they will, seeing that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor wants to stop rules that regulate deadly mercury emissions and toxic coal ash from power plants suggesting that such regulations kill jobs (he fails to speak of the public health risk and loss of human life). I published a list four years ago that would grow the economy and create jobs, but what do I know, I just study history and do math.

I just wonder why places like India, China and Germany can do what we can’t – grow the economy and create jobs and increase earnings. German economic growth has outpaced the US for the past 15 years. Over the same period they have increased annual pay close to 30 percent while ours has increased almost 6 percent over the past fifteen years. The top 1 percent only takes 11 percent of the nation’s total income. Oh that’s right, they value education more, just as the other countries, and consistently out pace us in math and science aptitude, just as 26 other nations around the world.

Yes Obama has the second worse record to job creation of all US presidents, ranking only above Herbert Hoover. Yes, our attention deficit disorder having republican dominated congress seems to display the inability to comprehend that cutting taxes is not correlated to a decrease in the ratio of revenue to GDP. Not to forget a Treasury secretary who said the US credit rating would never be lowered, we have incompetence all around the nation’s capital.

Our economy suffers because in 2008 the chickens came home to roost – with no regulations, Wall Street, Banks and multi-national corporations were allowed to deal complex papers with unknown values like mortgage backed securities, which gave banks extra capital to enrich themselves by selling the same debt based securities of unknown value around the world. Simply because oligarch, people with great economic power and influence on politicians, republican and democrat equally, make the rules defining American economic policy to benefit themselves and ignore 95 percent of the nation. It not happen stance that The poorest 50% of all Americans now control just 2.5% of all the wealth in this country, or that the wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own over 50% of all the stocks and bonds.

Brilliant Dumb: Notes on a Lost Generation

The temporal distinction between the generations in terms of temperament and belief orientations is vastly opposite today. So much so that the purview of a man approaching 50 in the African American community is a diametric contrast to a man in the same community approaching the age of 30. In years past this was not the case either in the 1960s or the immediate decades to follow.

Just yesterday I had a discussion with a man on a social media platform which started when I noted that young African Americans appeared to be more excited and interested in the release of a rapper from prison than Mumia Abu Jamal remaining in prison. Our back in forth in which he defended and justified this interest , ended with him suggesting that I did not include white supremacy in my asserting that such an interest is why young black men can’t read or do math yet adore a man who’s music basically encourages sociopathic behavior among them as being appropriate and acceptable.

Truth is that white supremacy was the context and barometer of the time in which I was raised more so than his and always will exist as such. More importantly it was not an excuse for inaction as it seems to be for this current generation.

The differences are several. First reasoning and critical thinking has been lost and the current generation is much less serious about attending to the problems confronting our community. Historically reading in itself was a revolutionary act making education our best weapon in the fight against inequality. I was raised in a family that read voraciously. Even to this day I read the “weekly standard” and “National Review” – republican slanted publications that many around the age of 30 who are black will never pick up simply because they disagree with republicans. Information has no political affiliation and if one ignores the views of others because you disagree with them, we limit our intellectually capacity to recognize and solve our problems strategically. But if such is stated, this generation will likely get defensive as opposed to respect and address this concern openly in an objective fashion.

This generation has tools that past generations did not have. Martin King or Rosa Parks or the Black Panthers did not have fax machines, email or face book was were way more effective organizers and getting issues of civil rights dealt with on behalf of our community. Yet with these tools, they do not or are unwilling to mobilize the masses for social change because they are not serious and ignore the fact they place celebrity, entertainment and other mundane abstractions as paramount over collective community well-being. Maybe even because selfish dispositions care more about appearance and swagger than substance and the issues that matter.

Unlike the youth in Egypt and Syria for example, who use social media for revolutionary change, we use it for flash mobs to rob and attack people in the name of fun. We can go to a movie and learn that we can drive a truck through a window and steal but ignore such behavior as being a form of psychopathy. Yes the new generation is smart but in a morose stupid and brilliant dumb way.

I say this because it is dumb to attend to applauding a man like T.I., who initially went to prison for weapon distribution, weapons [ his guns in picture from arrest] that would likely be used against other black men as opposed to members of the Aryan nation, while at the same time giving him a pass and complaining that there are too many guns in the hands of young black males and all we do is aim them at each other.

New Video Game About Trading, Beating & Killing Black Slaves