Monday News in early March of 2013

We are now five years after the New York Stock Exchange hit its low point at the bottom of the financial crash. The crash came about with the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank. On March 6, 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its post collapse low of 6,443. Three days later, on March 9, 2009, the S&P 500 hit its post collapse low of 676. Recently, at the end of stock trading for the week, the Dow Jones average closed at 16,452, up a colossal 10,000 points over five years, or 154 percent. The S&P 500 stood at 1,878, rising even faster than the Dow, gaining 170 percent over five years. There are many facts that show that the Crash of 2008 has been used to engineer a historic redistribution of wealth in favor of the U.S. financial aristocracy. The wealth of the oligarchs who own the bulk of stocks, bonds, hedge funds shares, and other financial instruments have never been greater. It is growing at a record pace. The wealthiest 1 percent of the U.S. population raked in 95 percent of all income gains between 2009 and 2012. The world's billionaires saw their combined wealth soar move than $1 trillion last year alone. As for the banks, beneficiaries of trillions in cash, loans, and loan guarantees from the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, both stock prices and incomes have returned to stratospheric levels. The American working class makes up the majority of the population. They work now for wages or are unemployed and seeking work. Some are retired, living on pensions and Social Security derived from their past wages. Median US household income has actually fallen by 6 percent since March 2009, to $52,297, after adjusting for inflation. The median family—the family living at the 50th percentile—is thus worse off today than five years ago, at the trough of the financial crash. The unemployment rate has recovered only slightly, and only because so many millions of workers have dropped out of the labor force and are no longer registered as seeking work. The actual rate of unemployment, if “discouraged” and part-time workers were included, would stand at well over 15 percent, a near-Depression level. The cost of living has rising steadily over the past five years. The workers' real wages have stagnated. The price of a gallon of gas has risen by more than 50 percent from $2.40 in 2009 to well over $3.60 in most parts of the country today. The employee share of health insurance premiums for family coverage has nearly doubled over the last decade, from $2,412 in 2003 to $4,565 last year. As for food prices, anyone who shops in a supermarket is aware of the ever-rising cost of milk, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, and other essentials. Working people have to take on more and more debt just to keep up with their daily expenses. Household debt rose $241 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, reaching $11.52 trillion. One third of all households were unable to save a dime last year. There is a huge disparity between the fortunes of the super-rich and the struggles of the vast majority. It is so stark and so wide that the corporate controlled media and the corporate controlled political parties can't avoid discussing it. Many have proposed halfhearted proposals to address this issue of economic inequality. The record against inequality for the past five years shows how much work that we have to do. The 10,000-point rise in the Dow Jones average is not an accident, or merely the result of blind market forces. It is the result of policies deliberately engaged in, by the Democrats and Republicans, by Bush and Obama, to bail out the banks and speculators and make the working class pay for the crisis of American capitalism. Inequalities have contributed to war and this is part of the ruling class agenda. It harms democratic rights in America. Both Republicans and Democrats have advanced the policies of class warfare, social counterrevolution, and other evils for years. Independent, grassroots organizations are necessary to fight the evil system and see revolutionary changes in the world. 

No human should be made into an island unto itself if a human being has children. In life, we have experiences and we interact with other humans, communities, families, and other social parameters. It is this solidarity within our community that should be strengthened. That is why parents and the community can raise up a child and give a child real values. It is also part of our African tradition to deal with growing our communities. It takes a village is from an African proverb, so that proverb has great relevance today. Spiritual traditions globally talk about the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is a valuable Universal law that states that we should do unto others as you would have them do to you. The prophets and leaders throughout human history taught this ideal. Therefore, we have to care for us. Selfishness, ignorance, and a non-caring mentality contributed not only to the recession, but too much of the problems in our community. We have to reconcile the individual and the collective. There is nothing wrong with individual power and collective power. There is something wrong with some in our people who want to escape and ignore their vital responsibility to help our own community. Our kids are dying, folks are acting wild, and we see oppression. Now, certainly is not the time to quit or to be selfish. We have to be selfless and be part of the solution. What matters is what we do and not what evil people think about us. What evil people conceive about our value, our worth, and our dignity as black human beings doesn't matter at the end of the day. Every day, I see Black love and black camaraderie in my area, in documentaries, and in other areas globally. That love and wholesome spirit of true unity ought to be cherished by all of us. When we uplift each other with the exclusion of tearing each other down, then that is all the more valuable in creating a better future for our posterity. Also, legitimately checking someone has nothing to do with unjust hatred or disrespect. It has to do with us expressing succinctly fundamental discernment and inspiring a person to do better. We all know the REAL TRUTH. The real TRUTH is that we are not inferior. WE HAVE VALUE AND OUR HUMANITY AS BLACK PEOPLE IS SUPERIOR TO HATRED. We are descended from a strong people and our ancestors suffered a lot, but their memories are not forgotten by us at all. The truth is that many who hate us viciously are extremely jealous of our wonderful MELANIN, our keen strength, and our overall spiritual awareness of reality. We are leaders too. When we help a child or help adults, we still lead. When I look at the beauty and strength of black women and the strength of black men, these truths and realities make me more aware of our huge potential as a people. This battle is not over. We have so much more to do and go, but we still have hope and we will win.

Many folks have never complained about certain programs specifically geared to the 1%, to various immigrants, and to other ethnic groups. Historically, many programs were exploited by some to make sure that many black people were excluded from having any benefit from those programs. Therefore, the system of white supremacy is based on inherit hypocrisy. The white supremacists try to deemphasize discrimination and blame BLACK PEOPLE COLLECTIVELY for their own problems while ignoring the SOCIAL CONDITIONS and the SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION that heavily contributed to the problems in the first place. The white supremacists talk about black culture, but murder, rape, theft of lands, economic exploitation, etc. have nothing to do with real black culture. It has to do with the culture and true identity of white racists. Some black people mimic the culture of white supremacy by doing murders, etc. when that is a form of self-hatred and a denial of their true purpose as black people. Black people have every right to be strong, to be accountable for their own voluntary actions, to fight for solutions. Also, I have another thought in my mind. They can cry about stuff, but THE REAL ISSUE IS THAT BLACK PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE MISTREATED. THEY ALWAYS TRY TO IGNORE HOW BLACK PEOPLE ARE MISTREATED AND THIS MISTREATMENT CONTRIBUTES TO THE ISSUES IN OUR COMMUNITY. Fundamentally, we should individually improve our lives and collectively fight back against the evil system of white supremacy. Many have made your points extremely clear and pristine. Pam McKelvy is a brave woman. Her words are touching and very inspiring. We all praise her being free from cancer. Evil people still demonize black women, because of a black woman's beautiful hair and some evil human beings even demonize black women wearing natural hair too. She is completely right to talk about this issue, because many folks who don't know about the struggle of women & their hair can be educated about this situation. Many men and many whites don't know about women's hair or the hair of black females too. So, all of us need to be educated on cancer and the true worth of black women. Any human being should have confidence and any human being should be encouraged to follow excellence. Pam McKelvy exhibited strength, class, and a lot of dignity. The Sista is blessed and more blessings will come to her no doubt. She was right to say that true beauty is about compassion, love, truth, and inner strength. Inner beauty is precious too as Pam have described. We all wish the best for her. We are still waiting for the Malcolm X monument. You are right. They or many types of people always exploit Dr. King as a means to omit his militancy. They just want to present him as some moderate type of Brother when he was not. Dr. King especially by the late 1960's was very vocal about his anti-establishment views from critiquing capitalism, saying that Black is Beautiful, desiring an end to racial injustice, wanting a radical redistribution of economic & political power, and to condemning the Vietnam War. Dr. King and Malcolm X were very militant black human beings.

One point is that we should know about our heroes. Our economic plight has not ceased and we are still fighting the same issues that we fought back in 1900. Brother DuBois woke up by the time he passed away. By 1963, he worked on pan-Africanist movements and was dedicated to the liberation of our people. WEB DuBois believed in economic justice for black people. Marcus Garvey (Garvey was a hero and an inspirational man that taught us about the value of BLACKNESS AND HOW GOD IS PRO-BLACK. IN OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE, WE SEEK PEACE AND FRUITFUL ACTIONS AS A MEANS TO INSPIRE, AND TO USE PROACTIVE SOLUTIONS IN OUR LIVES) inspired him to see that respecting Africa was key for black people to achieve their true destiny. That is why WEB DuBois remained in Africa in the final years of his life. By the time Dr. Du Bois joined the Council of African Affairs in 1948, he played a pivotal role in the first five Pan African Congresses from 1900 to 1945. Now, we should never follow the reactionary playbook and blame high incarceration rate of many black people, and other issues in our communities on our people collectively. We know that there is a correlation between inadequate education and early death, substance abuse and violence, but these issues stem from the social conditions of an imperfect society. There are the social and economic roots of illiteracy, violence, petty crime, substance abuse, and other ills. These ills accompany poverty. Poverty can cause despair among many human beings. We have to support the dignity of labor truly by respecting true workers in the world. Many children attend schools that are underfunded and understaffed. Many public schools in minority and poorer communities are in a state of desperate disrepair. The great sociologist WEB DuBois studied the conditions of black Americans in the 19th century. He found that the roots of the problems facing African Americans were social not individual totally. DuBois later became a socialist and believed that racial oppression was linked to class exploitation. He wanted a movement for fundamental social change against the capitalist system itself. It is a shame that both major parties in their leadership claim to be for the people, but they are complicit in destroying much of the tenuous social safety net that was formed in the previous decades. Income inequality has grown since 1978 especially. We have to challenge the established political forces that are responsible for many of our issues today. We should not attack the victims of oppression in an unfair way. We should uplift the victims and hold the powers that be accountable for the crimes against humanity. We are fighting for the same democratic and egalitarian principles that our black ancestors fought for too. Some black people have expressed a sick disdain for the black poor, which similar to many white elites having a disdainful attitude about the poor whites. Yet, most black people love the black poor and realize that the poor should receive justice too. So, he like Garvey, was dedicated to the interests of Mother Africa. We have to learn more about Marcus Garvey, Martin Delaney, Gabriel, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglas, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells, and other great, independent BLACK THINKERS. They inspire us and we are continuing in this fight for our liberation.

It was inevitable that Rand Paul would win the CPAC Presidential straw poll since many of those voters viewed him as a hybrid political person. His supporters believe that his views on economics (which are more conservative) and his words on the War on Drugs (and the criminal justice system) can broaden voter appeal. Rand Paul is right on some issues (like on his views on the criminal justice system) and wrong on others. Yet, when you look beyond the superficial CPAC conference, the conference is filled with the same people talking mostly about the same old ideologies that did not work to create true social change that will benefit all of the people. Human rights is superior to states' rights. There is nothing wrong with racial & economic justice too. At the end of the day, we need policies that protects the rights of workers (which includes an increase of the minimum wage that most Americans support I might add), that opposes a reactionary foreign policy agenda, that supports our civil liberties, that improves the environment in a real way, and that fights poverty. In the final analysis, we have to continue to condemn the system of white supremacy and we need revolutionary solutions beyond just token talk. Yeah, some folks falsely equate the government being made accountable for its crimes against black people by ESTABLISHING justice (to be given to black people) to a token handout. A REAL MAN WILL NEVER USE A WOMAN OR VICE VERSA. Keen human discernment is very much necessary in trying to figure out the truth. Also, you have great discernment to see things too. Discipline, self-control, and a sense of purpose are great concepts for any human being to embrace fully in their own lives. One strength of Malcolm X was that he was book and street smart. We are human. We are multidimensional beings. Therefore, in our capacity of wisdom and in our inherit nature; we should learn not only legitimate education about various studies. We should learn about commonsense strategies to handle our lives and navigate in life in general (from learning about how to deal with the police, how to learn our rights, and learning how to handle various situations). Even Dr. Martin Luther King, who was raised middle class, allied with those in poorer communities as a means to gain more street smarts too. Also, we must build. Learning is more than just memorization. It is about analyzing information and building tools as a means for us to function greatly in our communities. We should encourage Brothers and Sisters to have the skills to build technology and apply that in our daily lives. Organization, building, and applying those skills in real life are great ways to enrich black people's lives. Real Brothers and Sisters want the system to be changed in a revolutionary fashion as a means to benefit the people. We don't want token measures. The poor are the convenient scapegoats for the ills of society. They have been made the scapegoats for many problems collectively among the timespan of centuries and thousands of years. The poor serfs stood up to the czars. The poor peasants in Europe stood up to the monarchs in various fights. Poor black people then and now have been standing up against economic oppression and discrimination too. Many are right that we have to correct injustices as a means to solve this issue. There is nothing wrong with hard work. We should all work hard in life. Yet, nothing massively changes unless discrimination, racism, and oppression are eliminated in the world. We have to do both. We have to address racism and we have the responsibility to advocate morality in our communities too. I disagree with folks that believe that only hard work can end the cancer of racism. Our ancestors were slaves. They worked hard every day, but they were not free until people fought to end overt slavery in the States. So, we have every right to demand justice in the world.

By Timothy