tweet-a-boo, i see you

If you are an avid reader, you may be we4ll aware of two of the finest works of science fiction written over the past 100 years: Audous Huxley’s A Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984. In A Brave New World, Huxley attempts to warn us of a future plagued with interest supportive of scientific utopianism. A world in which people are just victims of propaganda to be manipulated. In 1984, George Orwell describes a petrifying dangers that man, in search of a Utopia may create via government in order to have an orderly society, but at the expense of the freedom of the people. In the book “Big brother” is always watching, “Ignorance is strength” and “freedom is slavery.”

Yesterday, the U.S. Library of Congress said it will start saving and archiving all worlds’ tweets from around the world due to a new partnership with Twitter. Each public tweet from 2006, when the first began to date will be archived. This means that all information that is on the public timeline, from twitpics, to your location, to any link will be recorded for all of history for anyone to search and study.

This just displays how significant view the Internet is in this digital age. After six months, all public tweets will be made available to the Library of Congress. It has been estimated that between 50 to 60 millions of tweets are published each day. Biz Stone, one of the founders of the micro-blogging service wrote “…there are some specifics regarding this arrangement. Only after a six-month delay can the Tweets will be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation."

So be leery of what you send out in your limited 140 character space, for if you plan to run for congress or any political office, your tweets will be available for you opponents to use anyway fit.

the struggle continues - yet many dont care

sovereignty, liberity, freedom, rights or privilege

It is only fitting that on this day we revisit history and not just any history, but that which empowered one Martin Luther King Jr., to embark on the continuation of the works, ideas and beliefs of freedom and liberty. Yes freedom and liberty for even with knowledge of King, Frantz Fanon, and Thomas Jefferson, such knowledge is lost on the hearts and minds of others. I say these because I have come to the empirical conclusion that many folks of my ethnic persuasion have accepted that we are free or even worse – think we are free. Truth is that many can not tell the difference nor explain what separates liberty from freedom, or a right from a privilege.

For me, the concepts all start with the fundamental understanding of sovereignty – a construct imbued in us not from or by any man but rather a Supreme Being or higher power. Sovereignty means supreme or highest in power. To be sovereign means to be independent of, and unlimited by, any other; possessing, or entitled to, original authority or jurisdiction. This is what liberty and freedom are based on in these United States of America with respect to the un-alien-able rights men documented in the constitution.

I say this because a sovereign individual is self-reliant and does not need anyone (even government) to provide for him, protect him from himself nor tell him what to do. To be sovereign means to be responsible for ones own actions, to be financial independent and free from unnecessary government interference – basically living the life he desires. The problem again is that many do not understand theses concepts or how mandates are in direct opposition from the aforementioned concepts.

Recently Obama passed a Health Care reform bill that mandates folks buy health insurance, similar in the vein that we are mandated to purchase auto insurance and or wear seat belts (if your state demands such by law). Truth is some states do not and that there were times that it was not required to buy auto insurance or wear seatbelts. Many may be too young to remember such but it is true. When I mentioned my problem with this to a friend, he told me that he was glad such was mandated because driving is not a right but rather a privilege. I said that anything can do, create or think of is legal and provided to me by that greater than me and not a man. Also added that by your logic, reading and learning is a privilege also for that is how slave masters saw it – that they could decided for you as government entities do now. I also added that also thought it was unnecessary for marriage license, gun permits and driver’s license. Again he disagreed.So I reminded him of why we have both.

There was a time when there was no such thing as either, that is until or near the end of slavery. Historically, all the states outlawed the marriage of blacks and whites. Not until the mid 1800’s did some states allow such but in order to do so, they were mandated to received a license from the state (had to get permission to do an act which without such permission would have been illegal). Blacks Law Dictionary notes historically that a marriage license is defined as, "A license or permission granted by public authority to persons who intend to intermarry." "Intermarry" is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as, "Miscegenation; mixed or interracial marriages." Up until this period their was no such thing and now states all use them as a way to make money for God requires no such permit.

The same is true with respect to Gun permits. Throughout much of American history, gun control was used as a method for keeping blacks due to the racial fears of whites. Racist arms laws were on the books before the US was established. The French Black Code (required Louisiana colonists to stop "any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane)." If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to "shoot to kill." Even before that the sixteenth century the colony of New Spain, prohibited all blacks, free and slave, from carrying arms. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. Such restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831. Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead". Simply, America has a fear of armed blacks based on the collective unconscious of what many made Africans in America Experience. Even the end of slavery in did not eliminate or change racist gun control laws. Blacks even needed to obtain a license before carrying or owning a gun or knife when such was not required for whites. Even today the same practices based on race via mandates stem from what we saw in the years of slavery. From public housing residents being singled out for gun bans to so-called "Gun sweeps" by police in "high crime neighborhoods.

All I am trying to say that we speak and accept these mandates by the government and they are often accepted under the guise of privilege as opposed to a right. We do not value freedom or liberty as much as we say or we would have continued the struggle that ore fore parents lead. It seems again as we think we are free, or think we have made or thin\k we have overcome, but the truth is we accept with out question. Accepting mandates as such makes us slaves, obviates us from individual responsibility and takes away our enumerated rights stated in the constitution. I mean it is not rocket science – if we are not sovereign, we have no liberty, if we have no liberty we have no freedom, if we have no freedom we have no rights – all that is left is privilege, which by definition can be given and/or taken away at anytime.

handle your business folk

While many of us walk around oblivious too the serious economic conundrum our country is in, and remain inattentive to the world around us and feel secure in our little niche with our weekly pay checks, it is really a troubling time in our beloved country. The trouble from the way I see is multifaceted yet all inter-related. First the wild west financial entrepreneurship of recent years that lead to the creation of the derivatives, credit default swaps, collateralized debt instruments, and the new boy on the block cap n trade futures. The reason they became so popular is because they allowed Wall Street banks to get around financial regulations because they were kept of banks balance sheets. Then they were packaged and sold for many times the values of the actual loans and when the housing market crashed they became basically worthless.

My question I guess is why do we keep on doing the same dumb stuff? In the 1980s, we observed the Texas real estate bust; what we saw then is what we see happening now - folks taking government money and basically gambling with it to make a profit that the US citizen would have to take the loss for. My concern is that the Treasury and the FRB under the Obama administration are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. First by not trying to examine this economic crisis holistically(letting the Feds and Treasury examine this in the open) and rock us to sleep with the story line that all is well and will be happily ever after.

Then there is the fact that our stagnant economic growth is also a function of lower tax revenues which means we as a nation will have to borrow more and more money. As of now, the proposed Obama activities including Cap N Trade and Health care reform will only stagnant growth more given their considerable cost. Even the Chinese government has stated publically their concerns with the US government debt since China holds a major portion of such debt. China owns US government bonds and Treasury notes at or approaching the $700bn of the bonds at the end of 2008.

Now the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, based on 2009 data stated that 702 banks with a combined $402 billion in assets are at risk of failure this year. With all of this overt information, they to me are getting it all twisted again. They say they want to stimulate lending but this can’t be done by throwing money at banks. The reason banks are not lending to each other is not because of a lack of loot to go around but because banks have no faith in the ability of borrowers to repay their debts for none of us know what institutions are solvent or on solid ground. In the great depression, banks failed because folk took their money out during the runs on banks. Today it’s due to the strange financial investment tools that financial institutions keep off of their books and we don’t know what their value is or if they are worth anything at all.

Obama as his predecessor George W. Bush lean toward a jobless recovery but have taken no steps to stop the increasing levels of unemployment. After reading his 2,585-page, $3.8 trillion document 2011 federal budget it is obvious that we will continue to go father into debt and that the brunt of this will be felt by us the average citizen. In his State of the Union Address he said that he would have a 3 year freeze on non discretionary spending but one cannot tell from reading his budget nor see how this will help our economy.

First, by December 31, 2010, most of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), that comprised the Obama stimulus package, will expire. This will leave states in even worse position than they were before. Last year even with the stimulus money, 48 states already had significant budget gaps. In Hawaii, folk may not get their tax refunds until August and in California, they have been giving out IOU’s. Across the country we see lay off is in Police departments and schools not to mention the closings of entire police departments and many schools. In San Francisco they plan to lay off more than 900 school teachers, administrators and staff. Des Moines Public school officials plan to cut almost 500 jobs and here in Georgia, Fulton County plans to cut 1000 jobs and DeKalb County anticipates closing a dozen schools over the next two years. In Massachusetts, they are considering eliminating funding for a program providing housing vouchers to homeless families. California has proposed $1.5 billion in reductions to kindergarten through 12th grade education and community college funding. In Arizona, the state trust fund that pays for jobless benefits is expected to run dry this week meaning that if they will continue to pay unemployment they will have to borrow $250 million from the U.S. Treasury in 2010. About 30 states have had to borrow federal money to do the same thing

Yet still with all of this, there are no proposed political reforms to deal with bankers who will likely see any attempt for a new independent agency to protect consumers as a threat to their business; and there is still norealistic effort to deal with job loss and creation. Truth is needs to generate an estimated 1.5 million new jobs each year simply to keep up with new workers entering the job market annually. Not to mention we will need to create 600K jobs a month to reduce unemployment to 8.5% to make his budget practical.

All I am saying is that before things get better, they will get worse. Our solution is not to flood the market with money for this is not a liquidity issue but rather one of jobs, accruing debt and banks not know the value of other banks. All the Obama policy is doing is transferring risk from private banks to government which aint good. And instead of trying to restore trust in our financial system, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and the boys have tried to sweep the problems under the rug while at the same time telling us there is no need for reform.

Just be honest you inside the beltway folk. The government has committed to give trillions to the financial industry but the way I see it will only lead to inflation and never reach the small businesses like mine who are going out of business every day. Truth is most of the loot has gone to states to help tryt and keep unemployment rolls open, medicare payments and teachers employed – but this has not worked. All I suggest is that you work on the economy and leave this healthcare alone for now – handle your business folk before we become the next Greece.

have we overcome?

poppa i dont want to go out of business

Today is my last day of business. Closing down. Economy is real bad if you aint know, especially for small business owners.First 26 to 28 months was making 4 to 5 K a month. Last 10 months barely 2000. So closing to regroup. Thanks for the love. Lil momma say she dont want us to go out of business.

comedy i couldnt make up

Tavis Smiley calls in Tom Joyner calling out Sharpton and others for being blind Obama followers.

Al Sharpton calls in to the show and says Tavis was "buck dancing" for the Clintons...

Al Sharpton and Tavis Smiley go at it head-to-head this afternoon:

Cant we agree to disagree?

mark of the beast

One of the benefits of being the President of the United States of America, if time is on your side is stacking the United States Supreme Court. Obama has made one move with a Latino woman but he may have the chance to put another one on giving John Paul Stevens, the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is 90 years of age. He joined the Supreme Court in 1975 and may not have that many years to live.

My concern is that I think Obama will put a man in office that scares the ish out of me - Cass Sunstein. Obama has been linked very closely to Sunstein since their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school and has appointed him to direct the White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), His job is to mainly to put in place regulations to protect health, safety and the environment but history has shown us otherwise, but that is besides the point.

He is a major proponent of cost-benefit analysis as the basis for assessing regulations, even though mathematically it is not precise and can be easily manipulated to support what ever policy is retro chic. For example, it was he who used such an approach to develop his "senior discount" method for undervaluing the lives of seniors with respect to health care. He has even asked that popular or partisan websites to be FORCED to carry links to opposing viewpoints; something I will never do, could you imagine neo-Nazis and white supremist posing on my blog? Taking this farther, he even wants mandatory "electronic sidewalks" for cyberville. He would like a "notice and take down" law that would mandate bloggers and service providers to "take down falsehoods upon notice," even if they are made by commenter’s.

In a 2008 Harvard Law paper called "Conspiracy theories" Sunstein suggested that the government should ban conspiracy theorizing asserting to me that he does not desire for individuals to think independently or ask questions if it is against the body politic of who is in control of the government.

His position is that unrestrained individual choice if not controlled or regulated by the government is dangerous and must balanced in the interests of "citizenship" and "democracy." He stated that “a system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government. Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not to be rejected in freedom's name." Unlike the most of us, he see’s the internet as dangerous and that the Internet is destroying the ability for the masses to have shared social experiences.

He also is against using what is called the "precautionary principle" as a basis for regulating environmental which he would like to give the "benefit of the doubt," over possible health and safety concerns of the public. If you have read Sunstein's new book, "On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,"

He is concerned that in the future,” people’s beliefs” will be are a “product of social networks working as echo chambers in which false rumors spread like wildfire."
Sunstein suggest that the current libel standard - which requires proving "actual malice,” even if one blogger or news paper, that we should even be held responsible even for what people who comment on or blog say, this is true even for web service providers.

Cass Sunstein is a scary mother shut your mouth and I don’t believe that many folk even know or care are even up on folk, his writings, his papers, his belief or his policies. If you are not, then you need to be – he is the antithesis of liberty in word, belief and practice. Although he claims to be a progressive, he is more of a regressive to me. So take my advice and don’t be surprised if he is the folk Obama select to take the place of John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court. And if does, there will be a real mark of the beast on America.

The new white folk – us

In 1954, 0n may 17 The United States Supreme Court announced its unanimous decision regarding the historic Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case. The case specifically targeted the doctrine of “separate but equal”. Thurgood marshall used social science to note the negative impact on the mental and psychological well being of African American students as well as the noted inferiority of the schools that African Americans were forced to attend. His purview was that such school segregation violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. One significant point of evidence was evinced by Dr Kenneth Clark and his wife. Called the doll test, Dr. Clark showed how segregation impacts African American children. In his words:

"I presented these dolls to them and I asked them the following questions in the following order: "Show me the doll that you like best or that you'd like to play with," "Show me the doll that is the 'nice' doll," "Show me the doll that looks 'bad'," and then the following questions also: "Give me the doll that looks like a white child," "Give me the doll that looks like a colored child," "Give me the doll that looks like a Negro child," and "Give me the doll that looks like you." By Mr. Carter: Q. "Like you?" A. "Like you."

His results showed “that of the children between the ages of six and nine whom I tested, which were a total of sixteen in number, that ten of those children chose the white doll as their preference; the doll which they liked best. Ten of them also considered the white doll a "Nice" doll. And, I think you have to keep in mind that these two dolls are absolutely identical in every respect except skin color. Eleven of these sixteen children chose the brown doll as the doll which looked "bad." This is consistent with previous results which we have obtained testing over three hundred children, and we interpret it to mean that the Negro child accepts as early as six, seven or eight the negative stereotypes about his own group." This was a while back, a time before many of us were born, however there is a similar behavior however it is self directed.

It used to be that the forces of racism were the main culprits of the problems that many African American Currently, there are many trends in behavior that denote some of us are regressing. One such trend is young men calling themselves goons and thugs and gangsters and women calling them Barbie – a white doll. Now some have considered my presentation of such as petty, non-sensorial and even as bull shit. However I disagree. True it may be younger folk doing such but that does not abrogate my responsibility to point out what I perceive needs to be discussed.

It is as if one should not attended to unemployment just because they have a job; or not be concerned about high dropout rates among African American males because their son is graduating and going to college. I suggest that we have lost our way and that our behavior from self –hate, to being self absorbed and materialistic is akin to the manner in which white folks treated use decades past. They were the one that made us feel less than equal; they were the ones who used violence on us; they were the ones that made laws that made it a crime punishable by death to learn to read; they were the ones who considered black as vile and ugly. Not any more for today it is us. We make ourselves feel less if we don’t have certain material to define us; we sing about beating killing and shooting our own kind in popular music as if it is acceptable behavior and even parade it on television via videos and on the radio as if it proffers a benefit to our community; we no longer read and if we do in many cases it is about gossip and/or celebrity and now we proclaim ourselves to be representatives of white beauty, at least some of us with the use of fake hair and proclamations of the aforementioned. Why not Kendra, I mean the black doll has a name – or is it that even today – we associate with the white doll over the black one?

Even today what Dr. Clark noted still occurs. Now I don’t care nor am I trying to ruffle any feathers, however I will not separate myself from acknowledging or trying to openly discuss things that may be detriments to our community. It is sad that folks get defensive and prefer to attack the messenger than accept and think about problem solving. If we should have learned anything from Martin Luther King Jr., it should be tolerance of the opinions of others. He encouraged open discussion and the promulgation of thought as opposed to self-destruction when he wrote "A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan” and “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." 459 years latter and we still got major problems folk and we too weak to accept, point out or even acknowledge them. And as such, we may as well put on them white robes for how are we any different from the KKK?

same ole same ole

Ok I’m back, sorry have a lot on my plate but not enough to prevent a simple jactitation on the current President of the United States and his Cronies. Now I know we all know this is Black history month, a month in which we should I figure be trying to focus on education or even bring to the fore, past wrongs in an attempt to correct them.

If you did not know, this is the 100 year anniversary of the legendary Jack Johnson and James Jeffries fight which occurred during the summer of 1910. Born in Galveston, Texas in 1878 as Arthur John Johnson, he was the first African man to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world. His life was one of hardship. His family lost all they owned in the great Hurricane of 1900 and he was arrested in Texas for boxing since it was against the law and considered a blood sport. Before becoming Champion of the world, Jim Jeffries refused to fight him because he was black. However Johnson went to Australia and defeated Tommy Burns to win the title in 1908 which forced Jeffries to fight him if he desired the title. After Johnson put the smack down on Jeffries (the first great white hope), folk lost their minds. There were race riots; the Texas state legislature even banned the showing of films of his victory. The only thing that could be employed to “handle” Johnson were Federal laws – mainly the Mann Act, of which he was charged for transporting white women across state lines for “immoral purposes” – a charge that was completely false. The original name of the Mann Act was the “White Slave Traffic Act”. In 1913, he was imprisoned as were many other African men to follow including Chuck Berry.

Sen. John McCain and House Rep. Peter King last year pushed a resolution through the Senate and House of asking for President Obama to pardon Johnson. However, Obama’s head of the Justice Department, Eric Holder and staff said no, suggesting they do not “traditionally” pardon dead folk compared to people "who can truly benefit" from a pardon. Truth is that Bill Clinton pardoned Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1999, who was wrongly accused of embezzlement and G.W. Bush pardoned Charlie Winters in 2008 for illegally selling planes to Israel during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

Strange to me that Obama is always talking about change, but his actions seem to continue the problematic approaches to politics that we have seen historically by folks trapped inside the beltway. So Mr. President, Pardon Jack Johnson, because for some strange reason, I thought you ran on a mantra of change, not the same ole same old.