Rahm Emanuel has been showing his cards in the world. He said that he wants to make Chicago a global city. Back in 1968, the reactionary Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley defended the police rioting against anti-Vietnam War protesters that erupted during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Rahm Emanuel has made himself a mayor of the 1 percent. It is a city that has some of the world's wealthiest individuals and institutions. There are still thousands of human beings in Chicago now that suffer extreme poverty, enduring violence, and political disenfranchisement. Rahm Emanuel was an establishment Democratic figure before he was in the White House. He has been aggressive as mayor and his popularity as mayor had declined. In May of 2013, Emanuel and his handpicked school board closed 50 public schools that were claimed to underutilized. That is the single biggest schools closure of any U.S. public school district to date, and part of a corporate school "reform" project spearheaded by millionaires who claim they care about the nation's children. There is the book from journalist Kari Lydersen entitled, "Mayor 1%: Rahm Emanuel and the Rise of Chicago's 99%." It contrasts stories of everyday Chicagoans and Emanuel's rise to power. The book talks about the growing inequality between the 1 percent and the rest of us (including the political agenda that is driving that inequality). The book describes Emanuel wanting to make the Democratic Party more pro-business and the social safety net being dismantled. The corporate agenda dominates both parties in American society. He is the son of Jewish immigrants. His father was a pediatrician and his mother was a psychotherapist. He grew up in a stable middle class household in the wealthy North Shore Chicago suburb of Wilmettee. He worked with Bill Clinton to allow him to win the Presidency. He was a fundraiser for the 1992 Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. The acts of welfare reform, NAFTA, crime bills, etc. were reactionary policies that harmed the poor including African Americans. By 1998, Rahm Emanuel joined the investment banking firm of Wassertein Parella. Emanuel loves the Wall Street bailout that corporate America profited from while working human beings paid the price from them. Emanuel love to use the code words of choice, responsibility, efficiency, and reform as a means to justify his neoliberal agenda. So, we know the truth. So, we need radical change in the world. We need revolutionary changes in society as a means to get the liberation that we all need. The age of Reagan is gone. So, racism and plutocracy both must end. We should have a radically democratic and cooperative society. The status quo wants to allow the Republicans to maintain the current system of concentrated wealth and power while allow the Democrats to issue more concessions within the system or liberal reforms. Yet, we should transcend the system and advocate revolutionary, independent changes in the world. But the success of real change, as Fanon observed, lies in the entire order of things being radically changed from the bottom up.
He or Love Olatunjiojo should sue. It is a disgrace that we have to deal with this. The police knew what they were doing. They were trying to intimidate an African man believing that he was ignorant of human civil liberties. Like I have said before, police injustices are in epidemic levels in the States. The cops knew full well the difference between candy and drugs. For them to still pursue this young man and try to cause him to go into jail represents a depravity and sickness among some police officers. A code of authoritarianism and a hatred of civil liberties are cancers that still metastasize in the system of white supremacy (as Brother Edud eloquently exposes). These crooked cops follow the code of corruption beyond the code of silence. They are still harming folks across a myriad of backgrounds and socioeconomic situations. The cop worshippers have no excuse in this regard. Stop and frisk did not prevent crime here. It violated the human rights of the young Brother named Love Olatunjiojo. The boys not men in blue are something else. The Brother should do the thing and make sure that the NYPD is held accountable for real for this injustice. This story is necessary, because for a long time, the police agencies try to sugarcoat their House instead of cleaning up their house. All of us know stories or know loved ones who experienced police brutality or racial profiling. Certainly, we need to end the War on Drugs and the corrupt judicial system as a means to create a fairer system for black humanity, especially for black youth (who are made the scapegoats of crime in the USA). Many reactionaries are hypocrites. Dick Cheney’s new book about his life-saving heart transplant has drawn much fawning coverage. But little attention has gone to the hypocrisy of the ex-vice president accepting expensive government-funded surgeries while endorsing the Tea Party’s campaign to deny health coverage to millions of Americans. His new book is entitled, "Heart." Now, the Tea Party wants to disagree with any government financed health care. The Tea Party is even fighting the expansion of Medicaid for poor families in states controlled by Republicans. That is cruel. In other words, the Tea Party wants to force Americans with pre-existing medical conditions – like, say, a diseased heart – to remain at the mercy of greedy insurance companies that have made a lucrative business plan out of denying coverage to the people who need it most. The federal government has the right to advance the General Welfare of society.
We know that Reaganonomics failed society. Although, the House Republicans among many of their members love it. Some of them took the economy hostage. We need programs as a means to create jobs and rebuilding the middle class and the poor. The reactionary Republicans are licking its wounds about most of the public disapproves of their actions. Some of the Tea Partiers have shown a false narrative on why the U.S. debt has grown and why the economy struggles. We know about the harm done to the economy by many forces. The current $16.7 trillion federal debt is about $11 trillion more than it was when George W. Bush took office. The ex-President George W. Bush was a massive tax cutting and war spending President. Those policies eliminated the surpluses of the Bill Clinton final years and reversed a downward trend in the debt that had threatened to eliminate the debt entirely over the ensuring decade. Amazingly, President Clinton left office in January 2001 with the federal budget in the red by $236 billion and with a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion. The budgetary trend lines were such that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan began to fret about the challenges the Fed might face in influencing interest rates if the entire U.S. government debt were paid off, thus leaving no debt obligations to sell. Greenspan is an Ayn Rand acolyte. He was first appointed by Ronald Reagan. So, Greenspan allied with Bush Jr. to create massive tax cuts that would mostly benefit the wealthy. This action did not solve the issue of paying off the federal debt at all. Bush left office in January of 2009 after the meltdown of an underregulated Wall Street. Talk of a debt free government was not in the air. The debt increased into $10.6 trillion. It was trending rapidly higher as the government tried to avert a financial catastrophe that could have brought on another Great Depression. Reagan in 1981 wanted to use supply side economics or trickled down economy. Reagan's tax cuts increased the federal debt which was $934 billion in January 1981 when Reagan took office. When he departed in January 1989, the debt had jumped to $2.7 trillion, a three-fold increase. And the consequences of Reagan’s reckless tax-cutting continued to build under his successor, George H.W. Bush, who left office in January 1993 with a national debt of $4.2 trillion, more than a four-fold increase since the arrival of Republican-dominated governance in 1981. During 1993, Clinton’s first year in office, the new Democratic administration pushed through tax increases, partially reversing the massive tax cuts implemented under Reagan. Finally, the debt problem began to stabilize, with the total debt at $5.7 trillion and heading downward, when Clinton left office in January 2001. At the time of Clinton's departure, there was the projected ten year surplus of 5.6 trillion dollars. That means that virtually the entire federal debt would be retired. The Bush Jr. administration fought two major wars without paying for them. By August 2008, the debt was over $9.6 trillion, nearly a $4 trillion jump since Bush took office. This was just before the Wall Street crash. The federal government had no choice to increase its borrowing to avert a global economic catastrophe that could have been worse than the Great Depression. This was before the Wall Street collapse in September of 2008. By January 2009, just five months later, the debt was $10.6 trillion, a $1 trillion increase and counting. Boehner agreed with the Bush tax cuts, the costly Iraq war, and bank deregulation. He denounced Obama for the debt crisis that his own party helped to create. Many deregulation, free trade, and supply policies were facilitated by the Clinton administration. Some of those actions harmed good paying jobs. During the decade of the George W. Bush presidency, the USA had zero job growth. And zero is actually worse than it sounds since none of the preceding six decades registered job growth of less than 20 percent. Even in the 1970's with economic stagflation and political malaise, there was a 27 percent increase in jobs. This was down from 31 percent in the 1960's. Reagan used tax cuts, global free markets, and deregulation. He caused deindustrialization in America. Job growth decreased to 20 percent during the 1980's. More deregulation and free trade agreements came under Clinton. Household net worth declined 4 percent in the last decade, compared to a 28 percent rise in the 1970s. Indeed, across the mainstream U.S. news media, it is hard to find any serious – or sustained – criticism of the Reagan/Bush economic theories. More generally, there is headshaking about the size of the debt and talk about the need to slash “entitlement” programs like Social Security and Medicare. Instead of paying heed to the real lessons of the past three decades, many Americans are trapped in the Reagan/Tea Party narrative and thus repeating the same mistakes. Reaganomics does not work and now we have gerrymandering by the GOP. It was the federal government that essentially created the Great American Middle Class – from the New Deal policies of the 1930s through other reforms of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, from Social Security to Wall Street regulation to labor rights to the GI Bill to the Interstate Highway System to the space program’s technological advances to Medicare and Medicaid to the minimum wage to civil rights. Even the Cheney family was lifted out of poverty by the New Deal. The government have every right to increase taxes on the rich, the ones who have gained the most from cheap foreign labor and advances in computer technology, in order to fund projects to build and strengthen the nation, from infrastructure to education to research and development to care for the sick and elderly to environmental protections. I reject Reaganomics.
Jesus Christ talked about the Kingdom, but it is a Kingdom that the elites did not like. Yeshua was a fierce critic of economic injustice in his time. He wanted a radical redistribution of wealth and a sense of caring for each other. Christians often pray the prayer to God that Jesus taught his disciples, which – at its heart – says: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus was an Israelite who followed the Torah or the Law of God. There was a scene described in Luke. There was a lawyer, who asked Jesus Christ on how to attain the fullest of life. Jesus responded with 2 questions. He said what did the Torah say. He said that how did the lawyer read it. He wanted to tell the lawyer that the Torah must be read in context. He knew about the rural poor human beings in Galilee. The land that they farmed was rich and productive. Yet, it was owned by very rich people who lived in large cities. The people who did that work were treated a little more than slaves. This reality was one that Jesus saw was an extreme injustice, which is a terrible and offensive violation of the Torah. The Torah said that humans should have devotion to one and only God or the God the Israelites. The bulk of the Torah outlined ways on how the Israelites who live with each other and their neighbors. Israelites back then were nomadic. They herded animals and gathered food from the land as many of the Bronze Age Semitic peoples were. They believed that the land was owned by God and God made the land available to his people for their good. Regardless of how one feels about the Torah, it is true that the land totally doesn't beyond to man. Man did not create the land. Only God did, so God owns the land ultimately. After the Israelites left Egypt, they became farmers from herders and gatherers. They were led by folks like Moses and later Joshua. According to the Israelite tradition, their God, Yahveh, laid down strict rules about the land which was distributed by priests to the clans of Israel, but Yahweh retained the title to the land. Leviticus 25:23 states the principle: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine; with me, you are but aliens and tenants.” The use of the land given to Israelites was conditioned. The tenant was obligated to care for the needs of priests, aliens, widows and orphans. Then every 50 years a great redistribution was to take place. All land was to be returned to the priests and reassigned to new tenants. At the same time, all debts were canceled and all slaves were set free. Still, greed existed then and now. According to the Gospel tradition (Luke 4:18), Jesus from the beginning of his teaching demanded/announced a reestablished year of Jubilee (a 50th year redistribution). Only when these teachings of Jesus are put into the context of the Galilean rural poor of the first century CE, can the radical commitment of Jesus to this world be fully appreciated. Today, we know that we have a modern world dominated by capitalism and obscene wealth. We know that true spirituality has nothing to do with laissez faire capitalism at all. Freedom can only come when all humans are free from oppression. Freedom comes by the blood of the Lamb ultimately. We have to work to make justice real in the world. Jesus was aggressive in his criticism of rich people, rulers, religious leaders and corrupt systems. He called for the overthrow of the Roman rulers and for the destruction of the temple hierarchy in Jerusalem. He also called for love of neighbor and unfettered generosity. That is why we must live our lives to advance generosity, hospitality, forgiveness and love are timeless, but the way they are applied is a moving target in ever-changing societies. Today, immigration, health care, minimum wage, social security, prison reform, taxation rates, equality and justice demand the aggressive involvement of every person who dares to pray those words: “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth.”
Life comes and goes in cycles. For our community, the struggle continues. That means that oppression, sexism, and any form of bigotry including injustice have not been totally eliminated in the black community. The events of police brutality, gentrification, and the evils of corporation exploitation remind us that we have to work as a means for us to achieve black liberation. So, the good news is that as long as we have breathe and as long as we are alive, we can fight. We can fight constructively and positively by: speaking out, joining independent organizations who are dedicated to pan-African liberation, learning more wisdom, strive to be better morally, socially, emotionally & spiritually, learn more about including understanding STEM fields, learn more about our black culture and history, develop more solutions, and press on. Ida B. Wells, Malcolm X, and Dr. King taught us about strength. We can use this strength to speak out against anyone disrespecting black males and especially black females. The Black Woman is the giver of our lives. They are our aunts, cousins, mothers, grandmothers, nieces, etc. Therefore, we should praise and defend Black Women. The indigenous Native Americans were exterminated in high numbers. They have been brutalized and abused. They were forced to live in the tragic conditions of reservations. A quaint procedure of a name change of a sports team is a reasonable granted what they had been through (and continue to suffer in a so-called Western contemporary society). The evil slur has been use by bigots as a means to exact a sense of cultural exploitation and make themselves have a false sense of superiority. Human dignity is always superior to sports continuity. The status quo is not what we need. We need revolutionary changes in society where justice is for all, not some, but for all. Human dignity means in the 21st century that despite our technological revolutions in the world, we still have a long way to go in embracing true societal transformations that can enrich the lives of all human inhabitants. At the end of the day, I do agree with a name change.
By Timothy
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