Monday News

Now, it is has been over fifty years since the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson gave his “Great Society” speech on May 22, 1964. He did it in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His words and the policies of the Great Society was the peak of post-war liberal reformism. The Great Society agenda included a series of social programs. These programs were in response to some of the worst forms of social misery in post war America. The suffering was egregious. The Great Society did reduce extreme poverty in America. It expanded significantly the quality of public education, provided millions of people, and caused regulatory checks on major corporations. Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs from the Great Society provided health care to the elderly, the disabled, and the poor. The Food Stamp Act of 1964 created America’s food assistance program. Federal funding for primary and secondary education was expanded, including in poor areas. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities was created as a result of the Great Society too. These programs along with FDR’s New Deal reform came about via bitter struggle. Many people fought via strikes, protests, etc. to cause these laws to exist. People fought against Jim Crow racial segregation, and union exploitation. The U.S. ruling class feared social upheaval in America and Communist sympathizers in America. So, they implemented many changes. In announcing the “Great Society,” Johnson set out a half-century time-frame to judge its success. “The challenge of the next half century,” he declared, “is whether we will have the wisdom to use [America’s] wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.... For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.” LBJ wanted to fight poverty in a capitalistic context. We see that we have made progress, but not revolutionary changes. One in five children in the US lives in poverty—the “wealthiest nation in the world” has one of the highest child poverty rates of any major capitalist country. There are dozens of counties throughout the US where a third of children do not get enough to eat. Food pantries report running out of supplies, and each year cities say they face ever-greater demand for assistance for the homeless. American capitalism has, by any measured, failed in the “challenged” outlined by Johnson 50 years ago. The Vietnam War, tax cuts to the wealthy, etc. harmed our economic situation greatly. The Vietnam War caused the West to send over 500,000 U.S. troops to come into Vietnam. There is the contradiction of Johnson’s pretensions about social reform at home and mass murder approved abroad (in the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, etc. not just Vietnam). The quagmire of Vietnam came at the peak or zenith of America’s military and economic power. Beginning in the 1960s, the United States' balance of trade declined and ultimately turned negative, as America's global competitors, including Japan and Germany, began to outstrip it. Later, both Republican and Democratic administration stripped corporate regulation and cut social programs. We know that social inequality in America is at the highest since before the Great Depression and the New Deal. Neoliberalism has replaced social liberalism today. Therefore, we should continue to fight for not only egalitarianism, but for social including economic justice.

Chris Christie is a disrespectful person. His austerity, privatization, and neo-liberal agenda is well known. He has called a grown black man a boy, so I have no respect for him as a man. Christie's conversation to Baraka is tame as compared to his other reckless statements to citizens. Now, the campaign is over. There is nothing wrong with being hostile to the status quo. There is nothing wrong with being hostile against injustice and poverty. We can be hostile against evil without being disrespectful towards fellow human beings. Too many of our people have been lukewarm toward the critical issues confronting our community and our people. So, the new mayor of Newark Ras Baraka should continue to receive encouragement, inspiration, and advice from the people that brought him into office (which are made up of the people of Newark. The community of Newark can send him great advice on how to address the important issues in the city). He won the election against his opponent (Shavar Jeffries is a founder of a charter school). Now, it is his responsibility to use his time and effort to improve Newark. He has to govern. There is nothing wrong with real businesses existing. Yet, businesses should serve the people not vice versa. Many businesses have done corruption (businesses should not do whatever they want) and real businesses should exist in service to the aspirations of the citizens of Newark. Not only education should be improved upon in Newark, but its infrastructure too. All of the poor and the working class ought to have their rights and dignity respected. Poverty must be addressed and state plus local power ought to be utilized in creating the necessary solutions that can adequately benefit the people. I wish Ras Baraka the best. RIP Amiri Baraka. These racists always believe in historical revisionism. The ex-SELECTED (NOT ELECTED) President George W. Bush obviously have an inferior enunciation of the English language than President Barack Obama. In the fall of 2001, after an eight-month review of 175,000 Florida ballots never counted in the 2000 election, an analysis by the National Opinion Research Center confirmed that Al Gore actually won Florida and should have been President. The SCOTUS (with the backing of the electoral college) selected Bush 43 to be President. The electoral college, not the majority vote necessarily, selects the President. Voter fraud was abundant in Florida during the 2000 election too. Bush 43 is a great example of white privilege in action. Ta-Nehisi Coates is another great black scholar. Many black people know not only one language, but can write and speak in multiple languages. The reality is that black genius is found globally from kids going into universities being younger than 17 years old to massive black engineers and black physicists explaining the diverse mysteries of the Universe.






The Guantanamo Bay prison has been representative of the injustices and the evils found in the war on terror. Both major parties have supported its continued existence and the rest of the major nefarious components of the mammoth American Empire. Many in Gitmo are innocent of any crime according to various experts too. Many of the detainees have been released as well. Legal experts have documented torture transpiring in Gitmo. Indefinite detention is blatantly immoral. It is a facility with many similarities to the grotesque Inquisition. Gitmo should be closed completely. I just listened to Stephen A. Smith's words. I don't see anyone rational pouncing on Mark Cuban unfairly. He or Smith ignores how people can disagree with many parts of Cuban's words. People have the right to critique and dissent with Cuban's statements. No one is saying that Cuban should go to jail or be harassed by his comments, but people have the right to disagree. See, Stephen wants to have it both ways. He wants folks to agree with him, but he wants to ignore the voices that disagree with him. That is the point. No one real is saying that all issues in the black community are race related. Black people have worked hard in America. We have built up cities, and the poor among our people have worked extremely hard too. He hasn't educated me, since I heard of his condescending statements before. You can work hard and won't have freedom unless we resist evil. We worked hard in this nation and we fought against the Maafa, slavery, and Jim Crow via resistance against oppression. Freedom is never gained by folks submitting to a system that is wicked. Freedom is gained by struggling against that system and enacting revolutionary change. Nonviolent drug charges are not equivalent to rape, assault, or murder at all. Not to mention that black people receive higher sentences than whites if both are charged with the exact same crime (as documented by studies). That ends the argument of the lie of black genetic criminality. The people who commit most of the rape, pedophilia, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and financial fraud in America are not black people at all. There has to be an accounting of the wicked, fallible policies found in the judicial system. Most black men don't have felonies. The sick black men bashing and the sick black women bashing both are truly cancers in the world. It must not only be repudiated. It must be opposed. Crime is complex. We should not only condemn unwarranted crime. We should find ways and execute methods to end unfair sentencing against people and restore full legal & human rights to felons (after they have paid their debt to society).


Yasiin Bey has always been a conscious human being. I do hope that whatever issues that deals with him being prevented from visiting America can be rectified, so he can visit America if he wants to. I respect those who leave America to build fruitfully in their own lives. I also respect those who stay in America and seek to fight the many injustices found in the USA too (like fusion centers monitoring innocent protesters, the prison industrial complex, police brutality, etc.). Yasiin Bey is right to expose torture and he is right to disagree with the evils found in the reactionary war on terror. Human beings have the right to condemn the widening income gap and to use constructive deeds as a means to see solutions. I am glad that Yasiin Bey is living in the Motherland too. Also, why would we want to go back anyway? Go back to what? I don't want to go back to a time where my voting rights were overtly denied based on the color of my skin. I don't want to go back to where the poor were denied basic benefits because of their class. I don't want to go back to where women were denied the right to vote and denied their other human rights. I don't want to go back to when environmental protections were nearly nonexistent. So, we want to move forward. We want to move forward to be better than the past and the present. Any form of racial discrimination in the realm of housing ought to be condemned. Such of an action is unjustifiable and morally repugnant. Also, racism is complex. Solutions to deal with this serious problem will have to be multifaceted. Not to mention that we have to deal with economic inequality too. Many people have done the right thing, earned a college degree, and even earned a job. Then, some of these same people lost that job and live in poverty because of a layoff, sequester, or budget cuts. Therefore, some have to realize that poverty is not as simplistic as numerous reactionaries assume that it is. The scholar Ta-Nehisi's Coates have written excellent historical analysis of the situation. Redlining is a perverted act that harmed many black human beings. The vicious oppression against black people has been disgraceful. Nothing will change unless revolutionary policies come about. There has to be massive structural changes in society. These racists need to learn some history indeed. The truth is that Black is beautiful and black Africans have made great civilizations in history (like the great sub Saharan civilizations of Nok, Ghana, Mali, Songhai, etc.). People of Black African descent then and now continue to contribute excellent time and effort in the world today.

There are many lessons that should be learned in the black struggle for liberation. One of the greatest lessons from Malcolm X is about that we should embrace political independence. Malcolm X said at the Audubon the following words: “…Either party you align yourself with is suicide. Because both parties are criminal. Both parties are responsible for the criminal condition that exists.” The changes in the views of Malcolm X heavily dealt with world politics. He knew that the people of color in the world have every right to liberate themselves from colonialism, especially from Western imperialism. He saw the American black struggle as part of an overall colonial liberation struggle. American bourgeois politicians can never save us. Malcolm X wanted the U.N. to condemn America for its racist policies and back then the U.N. condemned South Africa for its brutal treatment against black South Africans decades ago. Racism must be solved via social struggle not just by individual enlightenment. Black freedom has been violated by interests of both major parties. We should never beg for token reforms. We should demand for freedom and justice now and use militancy as a means to advocate solutions. Since the 1960’s, the establishment have sought bourgeois political leaders to contain revolutionary fervor in America. Workers have the right to be liberated including the poor (plus the homeless). Also, we ought to continue the interests of Africa too. Africa is the Motherland. Brothers and Sisters in Africa fought back against European imperialists for the total, complete liberation of Africa. Patrice Lumumba died for us. 69 black activists in South Africa in Sharpeville were killed in 1960, because these Brothers and Sisters were fighting for equality and justice. Therefore, we should always understand the sacrifice that black people made in the battle for freedom in Africa. We are in solidarity with strong, revolutionary human beings of the Third World who seek peace & justice. There must be a radical redistribution and economic and political power as a means for humanity to be free.


By Timothy