Weekend News

Mental illness appears to be one contributing factor of this whole incident. First and foremost, Erica is Okay. The child being fine is the first priority and there have been no further deaths. That is great. Since, other witnesses say that she was not political or has a major history of violence; I assume this was a rare act of wrong decisions. Not to mention that cops are heavily trained in these situations. Shooting tires and surrounding the vehicle are alternatives to just shooting windows. She was unarmed and she never shot at the police. I do hope that Miriam has mercy from God. Now, this doesn't mean that we should act nihilistic. We should be upright and disciplined, but we should continue to fight for justice. In retrospect, we certainly need to handle the issue of mental illness in the African American community. Confronting this issue doesn't mean that we are weak or soft. Weakness means to cover up these things and real strength is about just handling business in a real, open way. Like always, compassion should be given to Brothers and Sisters who have mental illness. All of them should not be scapegoated for all of tragedies at all in the world. All of the facts of this horrendous incident are not shown yet.  Her daughter should have all of the hope and the prayers in the world. These events make us further know that human life is so valuable and mutual compassion along with fighting for justice are legitimate prescriptions to adhere to. Certainly, we can love our humanity and use constructive actions as a means to see moral improvement. The dental hygienist information is a description of her life that authorities found out about her. For now, they say that they have not figured out a motive for her actions. Yet, all angles ought to be investigated as a means to find the truth. She was from Brooklyn, NYC but she lived in Stamford, CT. She was 34 years old. She was too young. The woman was named Miriam Carey and she was from Stamford, Connecticut. They say that she was a dental hygienist. I am just seeing photos of her. She was a very beautiful Sister and it is so sad that she went that route. It is sad. All prayers should be given to the baby and the injured including those effected by the incident. She was unarmed and all the shots were fired by the police. It is a horrible situation and a tough day for those living in the D.C. area. Also, all of the facts of this situation are still not known yet. So, Miriam Carey was unarmed and killed by the police in cold blood. She was in the car and was shot when she was unarmed. Hold up. I keep hearing that she never shot at the police was still shot by the police (when she was unarmed). This has been reported by the NY Times. This looks like an execution. The other video shows the police car that got so damaged. The press makes it seem as if she did the damage to that car, but in reality, the car was speeding along and one of the pop-up barricades activated and practically destroyed his own car.


Many of black African descent fought for liberation among a long time, especially in the Deep South. There were tons of slave rebellions all over the South alone. The Deacons of Defense existed in 1964 at Jonesboro, Louisiana. It was created by African American men led by Earnest "Chilly Willy" Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick. It was formed in November of 1964 as a means to protect civil rights workers against the violence of the evil, racist Ku Klux Klan. Most of them were war veterans with combat experience from the Korean War and WWII. The Jonesboro chapter organized a Deacons chapter in Bouglusa, Louisiana led by Charles Sims, A.Z. Young, and Robert Hicks. The Jonesboro chapter formed 21 chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The militant Deacons confronted the Klan in Bogalusa. They were instrumental in forcing the federal government to intervene on behalf of the black community and enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and neutralize the Klan. The FBI illegally monitored the Deacons because they hate black humanity having the right to use self-defense including self-determination. They vanished by 1968 with the growth of the Black Power Movement of the late 1960's. A 2003 television movie called Deacons for Defense outline the Deacon's great story. The first Black Panther Party came about in 1965 in Lowndes County of Alabama in 1965. It came after a voter registration drive was launched by the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee or SNCC. SNCC was later shortened to the Student National Coordinating Committee. The voter drive was led by Kwame True. Alabama was most black African, but most of them were not allowed to register and vote. SNCC wanted black human beings to vote as a means to handle local governments and redirect services to black human beings (many living below the poverty line). SNCC formed a political party as Alabama law allowed it with the support of a certain amount of residents. The SNCC workers took this law, and organized a county convention in Lowndes. Out of that convention an organization called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) was created. The LCFO subsequently nominated and selected candidates to run for the county offices: assessor, sheriff and so on. SNCC and the LFCO wanted to go out and fight illiteracy among human beings in that area. The leaders choose the image of a Black Panther, because it is black, it has panther skills as a fighting cat, and the image motivated humanity. The Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama was called the Black Panther Party, because it was a symbol used to represent the organization as was required by state law. Many SNCC members like Kwame Ture would ally with the Black Panther Party of Self Defense in Oakland, California. Now, LCFO registration was a great success with the African population. The enemy evicted sharecroppers, tenant farmers, attempted to foreclose people illegally, and threatened to kill any African who registered. In response to these circumstances the leadership of LCFO instructed its members and supporters to arm themselves, but not to precipitate any violence. This was a strategy necessitated strictly for SELF-DEFENSE. To summarize the people carried a piece for protection, registered and then returned to their place of residence. SNCC, in June of the next year, in Jackson MS, made the famous call for Black Power. A few months later SNCC issued a paper explaining their call for Black Power. Among the things they called for in the Black Power position paper was the establishment of Black Panther Parties throughout our communities across the USA. The early African student volunteers working with SNCC in the original Lowndes Co. project was Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. They were impressed with the Lowndes Co. experience and created the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Oakland, California in 1966. Kwame Ture and H. Rap Brown (also known as Iman Jamil Al-Amin Abdullah) were members of the Oakland group. The Black Panthers of Oakland wanted to use self-defense and progressive efforts as a means to defeat imperialism, oppression, racism, and any form of injustice harming the black community (and oppressed communities of the world).

One of the greatest parts of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was about his fight against poverty. By 1967, African Americans had won federal legislation to guarantee civil rights and make Jim Crow legally gone. Yet, Dr. King knew that black human beings were not free. We are not free until we have full economic and social equality. Economic equality means that black human beings should not suffer poverty, low wages, corrupt housing, and other forms of negative conditions in the world at all. He was right that Black human beings needed power as a means to bring about social, political, and economic change. That is why he wanted full employment for all Americans or create a guaranteed annual income. That is why the Black Memphis sanitation workers walked off the job in Memphis to win union recognition. The union workers by 1968 were only paid up to $1.60 an hour, or only five cents above the federal minimum wage. In addition, there were no set hours. Workers had to haul garbage until their route was finished, whether it took eight hours or fourteen. If it rained, they could be sent home with little or no pay. Workers could be fired for being one minute late or for talking back. They had no breaks. They could only eat lunch for fifteen minutes and could not be seen in the shade of a tree. The city did not require residents to pack their garbage up or to even bring it to the curb, so the sanitation workers had to just grab everything as it lay, including tree limbs, dead animals in the road, and unpacked garbage. They had no sick days, and without a union, no recourse to protest any of this. That was immoral. So, these human beings wanted to struggle for racial and economic justice. T.O. Jones or the leader of what became AFSCME Local 1733, got support from civil rights activists, Black ministers, and some limited support from AFSCME’s national office fought for freedom. On February 1, 1968, the proverbial back of the camel was broken by a final straw: two sanitation workers—Echol Cole and Robert Walker—were crushed to death as they rode in the back of a garbage truck. They were seeking shelter from the rain at the end of a long day, and there was no room for them in the cab of the truck. Faulty wiring is believed to have set off the compactor, and the two were mashed up. It was the workers collectively that rose up to strike because of the deaths of these 2 innocent men. The treatment of the workers by the mayor and the police was racist. The workers used the signs of "I AM A MAN." Dr. King Martin Luther King, Jr. was energized by the striking workers. He said the following on March 18: "...With Selma and the voting rights bill one era of our struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and cup of coffee?..." Dr. King was marching and agent provocateurs funded by the FBI caused rioting in the downtown Memphis (as a means to disrupt Dr. King's efforts). Dr. King said the following words just before he died, "...We are not coming to engage in any histrionic gesture. We are not coming to tear up Washington. We are coming to demand that the government address itself to the problem of poverty. We read one day, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists. We are coming to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it signed years ago. And we are coming to engage in dramatic nonviolent action, to call attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible visible. Why do we do it this way? We do it this way because it is our experience that the nation doesn’t move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action..." (at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1968. The full text of Dr. King´s sermon was entitled “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”). This is why Dr. King was determined to success with another march on April 8, but he was unfortunately assassinated on April 4. After his assassination, rebellions occurred nationwide. These rebellions were done in response to the conditions of urban ghettoes and poor communities nationwide. Human beings who rioted were heavily young and suffered low wage jobs. The ruling class feared that it was losing control of the situation. That is why they had no choice, but to give concessions. The day after King’s funeral, Congress passed the last piece of major civil rights legislation: the Fair Housing Act. President Johnson sent a personal emissary to Memphis to force Mayor Loeb to settle the sanitation workers’ strike, which he did. Across the country, private foundations distributed millions of dollars to fund new Black business ventures. One negative conclusion of the death of the great late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was that the power structure funded the bourgeoisie Black elite (who sought reform not revolution).  So, we should fight poverty vigorously.

Malcolm X was a great human being. He stood up for real ideas and he was courageous. In prison, he joined the Nation of Islam. The NOI is a group that wants separatism for African Americans. NOI theology views Black Americans as the Earth's Original people and try want great self-determination inside of the black community (these 2 concepts are themes that I have no issue with at all). Regardless of what the FBI said, the NOI was not some radically murderous group. The NOI then and now have strong conservative elements (like believing that man and woman have specific gender roles, they formed businesses, they followed a strict code of diet, dress, and behavior, etc.). That is why back then; the NOI tried to advise Blacks to limit civic engagements. This was one of the reasons why Brother Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam. Today, the NOI is more involved in political activities. Malcolm X grew in the Nation, because of his great intellect, wit, and charisma. He was a great public speaker and he had acumen for organization. The newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, was largely Malcolm's creation, and it was his idea that it could be an organizing tool. Malcolm X's political trajectory is important to know. Malcolm X became more political than ecclesiastical as time went on in the 1960's. His parents were linked to the pan-Africanist movement of Marcus Garvey indeed. Even early on, Malcolm X acknowledged that the anti-colonial struggles of the Third World were linked to the struggle of black humanity globally fighting for their rightful liberation. Malcolm X once followed Elijah Muhammad unconditionally like a son respects a father. Malcolm X was a political Independent as he called the Democratic and Republican parties wolves and foxes. He heavily the establishment figures of the civil rights movement as a lackeys of the white power structure, but he allied with some civil rights leaders behind the scenes. Malcolm X attended the March on Washington and engaged in discussion with civil rights leaders there (Yes, he called the March the Farce on Washington for its censored speeches, establishment funding, etc.). Malcolm X wanted to have an international mindset. So, he formed 2 organizations: Muslim Mosque Incorporated (MMI) and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). While abroad, he tried to establish formal connections between the MMI and Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood on the one hand and the Saudi royal family on the other. He also met with the newly minted heads of state in several liberated African countries, aspiring to make links between their revolutions and the struggle of U.S. Blacks. When Malcolm X left the NOI, Malcolm X further evolved on issues of race and gender. He believed in gender equality and wanted racial equality among all peoples. He even appointed a young woman to head the OAAU. We are still fighting bad housing, the mass incarceration of African Americans, harm done to our schools, the evil war on terror, etc. Malcolm X always supported the rights of workers in Western society. He criticized liberal establishment figures since they wanted to manipulate the civil rights movement to be a tool of the Democratic Party instead of an independent revolutionary force to benefit black people more directly. Malcolm X advocated armed self-defense against racists. He wanted reparations for Black Americans. He was right to see that bigotry was not just a Southern problem, because a lot of racism existed in the North too (especially in urban conditions and lax job opportunities in the North). He left the Nation in March of 1964. He converted to Orthodox Sunni Islam. He wanted Black Unity. He criticized capitalism and he was moving in a more progressive fashion. Still, Malcolm X was never an establishment liberal reformist. He was a black nationalist progressive Revolutionary. 

The coup against Diem was one of the most controversial events during the Kennedy Presidency. The Hu Brothers died at the hands of coup plotters. There was the May 1963 famous bombing of the Hue radio station during a Buddhist holiday. This Buddhist rally was in progress as a means for the Vietnamese to protest another discriminatory edict by the Catholic Diem. The firing into the crowd caused 7 to be dead and 15 wounded. It caused a full blown political crisis causing huge strikes and large street demonstrations. The twin explosions were at first blamed on the Viet Cong. Then, it was blamed on the South Vietnamese police. This caused the Buddhist population to be enraged against Diem since his brother Nhu was in charge of the security forces. The State Department soon lost faith in Diem. The State Department backed the coup of the generals against the Nhu generals. There was a plastic explosive that blew up the building, which only the CIA possessed at the time. A further investigation by a Vietnamese newspaper located the American agent who admitted to the bombing. This puts the event into a new light. The Hue atrocity caused even the liberal establishment members of the State Department to abandon Diem. Harriman and Hilsman united with the conservative hawks in an effort to oust him. In late August of 1963, they manipulated President John F. Kennedy into approving a cable that gave the go ahead to a group of South Vietnamese general to explore the possibility of a coup. Afterwards, at least one high staffer offered to resign over misleading Kennedy about McNamara's previous approval of the cable. The leading conservative mounting the effort to dethrone Diem was Henry Cabot Lodge.  Kennedy had planned to recall Ambassador Nolting and appoint Edmund Gullion to the position.  And, as readers of the Mahoney book will know, Gullion was much more in tune with Kennedy's thinking on Third World nationalism. He had actually tutored him on the subject in 1951 when Congressman Kennedy first visited Saigon. But Secretary of State Dean Rusk overruled this appointment, and suggested Lodge for the job. Lodge lobbied hard for the position because he wanted to use it as a springboard for a run for the presidency in 1964. Henry Cabot Lodge was told by Henry Luce that he should not negotiate with Diem. From the time of the August cable, Lodge plotted with CIA officer Lucien Conein to encourage the coup and to undermine Diem by ignoring him.  Even though, as Douglass makes clear, this is contrary to what JFK wanted.  Kennedy grew so frustrated with Lodge that he sent his friend Torby McDonald on a secret mission to tell Diem that he must get rid of his brother Nhu. Lodge was the one who got John McCone to withdraw CIA station chief John Richardson, who was sympathetic to Diem.   On September of 1963, Kennedy accidentally discovered that the CIA had cut off the Commodity Import Program for South Vietnam. That action will harm the South Vietnamese economy. On October 24th, the conspirators told Conein the coup was imminent.  JFK told Lodge he wanted to be able to stop the coup at the last minute.  (Conein later testified that he was getting conflicting cables from Washington: the State Department was telling him to proceed, the Kennedys were telling him to stop.)  At this time Diem told Lodge he wanted Kennedy to know he was ready to carry out his wishes. (p. 202) But Lodge did not relay this crucial message to Kennedy until after the coup began. So, this is the truth without spin. JFK was not some radical war hawk. Lodge and Conein were with the generals. Kennedy was so distraught by this outcome he decided to recall Lodge and fire him. He had arranged to do this on November 24th.  Instead, President Johnson called the ambassador back with a different message: the US must not lose in Vietnam. Diem and Nhu were murdered after they walked out of a Catholic church. Therefore, President John F. Kennedy wanted peace.

By Timothy