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Bill O'Reilly Confirms Again How Great America is At Dysfunction

7/27/2016

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If these multi-national corporate maniacs don't find a way to wipe out humanity before than, I have to wonder what folks 250 years from now will think about this time period in history.  I have to think they will review the course of events and shake their heads with amazement once they realize how many utterly insane people are taking up so much space in this period, and why the vast majority of reasonable minded people continued to permit them to do so.  Think about the blatant contradictions that are staring us straight in the face today.  The Americas were conquered 500+ years ago through brutality and systematic violence.  To justify this wanton and unprecedented terrorism, the clearly fraudulent belief that Europeans are better was created.  That myth has been manifested in every institution that emerged from our subjugation (industrialization and the development of capitalism) e.g. organized religion, school - all schooling, and all other political, cultural, and social institutions that are maintained today.  With this completely dysfunctional backdrop, it shouldn't surprise anyone that someone as arrogantly flippant as Bill O'Reilly could say something as stupid as the slaves who helped build the White House were well fed and comfortable, or whatever foolishness it was that spilled out of his mouth.  We don't even need to spend one second attempting to challenge his stupidity.  What I mean is Bill O'Reilly speaks for the aspirations of European people who are drastically upset - pissed off - simply because they don't have the privilege and comfort they have enjoyed on the backs of oppressed peoples for centuries.  So, none of those soft and unbalanced people are qualified to make an assessment of the brave and courageous people who suffered through the transatlantic slave trade.  Bill O'Reilly and his ilk, were they to have to endure the treatment our ancestors received, wouldn't have lasted five minutes on any plantation. 

Ironically, O'Reilly's stupidity isn't even the most glaring contradiction.  Michelle Obama's speech, from which O'Reilly's comments were actually based, offered an equal amount of contradiction.  Trust me, I get the emotion involved in being able to articulate that some of our people have reached the other side of fence.  We can enjoy the benefits of the White House instead of just being the oppressed hired, or unpaid and oppressed, labor force.  Still, the message her statement sends our youth is that our objective for achieving humanity and progress is to reach the highest levels of the oppressive and imperialist system, as if the echelons of power within the U.S. are something that we need to aspire for.  In other words, the key to our freedom is using the master's system to achieve the highest levels of prestige within it.  Audre Loude's often repeated refrain that we cannot use the master's tools to achieve our liberation clearly dismantles that sentiment.  And, Mrs. Obama's assertion that the example of her family's experience illustrates how great this country is would be valid if the criteria of greatness was based around a token representation of progress.  Clearly, tokenism can never represent anything else except what it is - a hollow symbol of progress for a very small and inconsequential amount of us while the masses continue to suffer.

On that question of tokenism, to bring that point home even clearer, we should discuss some of the even more glaring contradictions on display during the last two weeks of the Hollywood shows produced for the demopublican parties from Cleveland and Philadelphia.  In this environment where everyone recognizes that the legacy of white supremacy must be discussed, and many of us know it must be dismantled, both conventions are committed to keeping the discussion at a very controlled minimum.  Yes, I saw the mothers of those killed by police terrorism speaking last night, but without a movement behind them that can hold Mrs. Three Strikes accountable on any level, than all we have are moving and wonderful speeches.  Meanwhile, beyond these speeches, the fundamental issues of systematic oppression are not even on the convention agenda.  And yes again, we know that the republicans didn't even bother to have people giving speeches on police terrorism, but we should be far removed beyond giving cookies to people just for being a little less of a rapist than the person across the room.  Speeches don't equal policy and they definitely don't equal qualitative and quantitative change. 

Some examples of those core and fundamental issues.  Its interesting that the conventions are held in Cleveland and Philadelphia.  These two cities each have predominantly African populations.  Cleveland is 53% African and Philly is 43%, but you wouldn't know it by watching these conventions.  Not just by who's there, but by what the focus is.  Philadelphia has the most overwhelming innercity poverty in the continental U.S. and Cleveland isn't far behind, yet no mention of this poverty or any programmatic thrust to do anything about it.  None of the propaganda surrounding either convention is talking about any of this either.  Instead, they are talking about the fact police shootings have increased by 80% without even explaining to you that the reason police shootings have jumped so much is because so few police get shot that even a token jump in killings, as we've recently seen, will blast the numbers upward.  Again, no focus on the core poverty Africans are facing and the reasons why.  Not even from the democratic party so many Africans love.  So far, they haven't even demonstrated enough respect for us to at least give a shout out to the African Methodist Church, which was the first church started by Africans in the U.S. (that's why its called African and not Black or African American.  We were not confused about who we were or where are interests lie then like we seem to be today) 200 years ago this month in Philadelphia, not far from where the convention is taking place. 

Please don't misunderstand and think this is a complaint about what they are not talking about at these bourgeois party conventions.  We know enough about our movement for justice that we realize that the only reasons the mothers of police terrorism victims are speaking in Philadelphia is because of the pressure applied by the greater movement against the bourgeois parties.  So, the democrats get no credit for that.  Instead, it goes to the activists and participants in the struggle for justice.  That's why instead of being so concerned about what the bourgeois are doing in the conventions - where a millionaire is running against a billionaire for the right to screw you further - you should pay more attention to what's happening outside those conventions.  The mass protests taking place in Philadelphia this week and in Cleveland last week are the real stories.  Even those of you who preach in support of bourgeois electoral politics cannot refute that the strongest weapon you have to facilitate change within the system is the masses mobilized to bang against the system to hold it accountable to us.  That movement is being struggled around outside the conventions, not inside.  That's great work taking place in those protests and in all the protests taking place.  There's also outstanding work taking place to build revolutionary institutions to bang against the system for long term and uncompromising change - revolution.  The efforts outside the conventions helps that work as well. 

So, instead of being angry at Bill O'Reilly today, I actually appreciate him reminding those who want to forget that this country has always been a slime bucket of crime, oppression, disrespect, and misinformation.  And, the illusion of freedom (at the expense of everyone else in the world) is the only thing the bourgeois have left to control the minds and aspirations of European working class people.  The utter ridiculousness of O'Reilly's statements, and the fundamental lack of logic in Mrs. Obama's comments when confronted with analysis (which you won't get on television) actually reveals what we already know.  The bourgeois are desperate because they know our time has come.  And, they also know that if our time has come, that means their time has also come.





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50 Years Since the Black Panther Party and We Still Affirm Our Right to Defend our Communities

7/26/2016

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In 2016, thousands of Africans are routinely and consistently subjected to state sponsored and supported violence, death, and intimidation.  By state sponsored we mean tax dollar supported police agencies and their surrogates and supporters (or imitators).  Police terrorism is a serious issue today in the Americas from Alaska down through South America.  It happens against us in Australia and all throughout Europe.  And this state violence isn't just targeted against Africans.  Its equally aimed at our Indigenous families of the Western Hemisphere (that includes all people who are referred to as Latinx), and increasingly, poor working class Europeans (Whites) are affected by state violence which has one objective; preventing all of us from expressing our will to resist empire.

The Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) was founded in Oakland, California, in October of 1966 as an expression by African people to stand up against police terrorism.  Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the BPP along with Bobby Seale, expressed in his autobiography "Revolutionary Suicide" that the BPP was inspired in part by the Loundes County Freedom Organization.  The Loundes County organization was a project of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee that sought to create political power for the oppressed community of Loundes County, Southern Alabama.  In fact, violence against Africans in Loundes County by the Ku Klux Klan and other racist elements was so consistent that the county carried the name "bloody Loundes."  And, since eight out of ten Africans in the county lacked the ability to read, the organization created the Black Panther as a symbol to galvanize the community.  This action caused the party to be more popularly known as the Black Panther Party and the need for the party to have an armed presence to repel white supremacists created the blueprint that Newton says influenced his thinking for what was needed in Oakland to combat police repression. 

The Oakland BPP started out as a handful of young Africans who were fed up with this state repression.  Their method of addressing this problem wasn't to vote, lobby, or protest, but to organize armed patrols where they would confront police and make sure Africans being terrorized by police knew their "rights" as it related to laws on the books.  The BPP of course grew into a national and ultimately an international organization that carried forward many important lessons regarding self determination and forward progress.  In recent years, in light of many younger people studying the Panther history and becoming inspired by that work, there has been a concerted effort by agents of imperialism to denounce the Panther's legacy by attempting to discredit the courageous work they did.  Nothing our enemies say can discredit the brave example the BPP demonstrated for us.  Whatever errors the BPP, and all of its leaders made, those errors paled in comparison to the brutal repression they organized against.  By the same token, we cannot be confused to the point where we let our enemies attempt to compare a few token random killings of a handful of police officers to the institutionalized and systematic murder of thousands upon thousands of Africans, Indigenous, and all poor working people all over the world.  We refuse to be intimidated by this cowardly and unscientific effort to further devalue the lives of our people.  Capitalism and white supremacy have created conditions where state terrorism has killed millions of Africans.  Countless police and individual Europeans have historically been emboldened to go out and kill us at will with very little due process and consequences.  And our enemies are trying to compare that traumatic history to a few random cases of people shooting police who have this long history of shooting us.  Make note of the fact the killings of police have been random and unconnected to anything organized, yet, these people are shooting at police.  In other words, if the police were not systematically brutalizing African people, those shootings wouldn't be taking place whereas state terrorism targets Africans and others for no reason other than to uphold its control over the Africans masses and our right to resist their illegal dominance over our lives.  So, if you are concerned about the safety of police, then do work to stop them from brutalizing us.  It doesn't take an advanced degree to figure that out, but this will fall on deaf ears as it relates to our enemies because they have no interest in justice.

So, while they lower their disgusting flags and continue to try and convince everyone that police agencies are honored and should be respected, we will continue to talk to our communities about our storied traditions of battling police and all state sponsored terrorism against our people.  That means in light of all that is going on, we should declare 2016 the year of the spirit of the Black Panther Party.  We should honor all the Panthers who have fallen and we should certainly honor those who are still here with us.  We should learn more about aspects of the Panther's history that are not as evident.  I'm talking about the Panthers who came from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, strengthened the BPP, and then moved on to Pan-Africanism, primarily to make contributions within the All African People's Revolutionary Party.  Many of them have gone on to the spirit world, but several of them are still with us and still fighting against empire.  I'm talking about people like Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Bob Brown, David Brothers, Seku (Chico) Neblett, Mukassa (Willie) Ricks, and many others. 

Here's to upholding the legacy of the Black Panther Party with respect and integrity.  Here's to acknowledging their errors, but most importantly, honoring their contributions the only way that matters; by getting involved in organizations and continuing to build upon the work they did for us.  If you understand the last statement, the reason is because you realize that in spite of the obstacles we face today, which are huge, we still have more to work with than Huey and Bobby had.  More than Kwame (Stokely) had.  More than Elaine and Ruby and Carmen, and Amilcar and Sekou.  Those of them still living are very willing to help us fill in the blanks.  I know this because I have benefited from being able to spend in person time with Assata Shakur, Elaine Brown, Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt), Kwame Ture, Bob Brown, Seku Neblett, Mukassa Ricks, Akinsanya Kambon, and others.  Make 2016 the year of the Panther and demonstrate that by coming out as an organized Panther.  And, if you don't want to be a Panther, be a Panther Cub, a Cougar, a Lion, a Bear, whatever raises your voice to contribute towards an organized voice that will ultimately take down this vicious, rabid, beast, who's appetite for consuming humanity will never be quenched until we put it down, once and for all.








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Daily Confirmations that Teach Us this System Isn't for Us

7/24/2016

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Daily confirmations are things that happen on a regular basis, with consistency.  In other words, these are conclusions that occur on such a common level that we don't even question the results.  Its considered automatic.  I'm not even talking about egregious forms of oppression like police terrorism, mass incarceration, or health care disparities.  I'm talking about experiences you have on a regular basis in this society where all doors are closed to you and it becomes clearly evident that although you are being wronged, cheated, disrespected, and ripped off, there's really nothing that you can do to address it.  

Everyone surely has many examples that qualify, but I'll just use the latest one I'm experiencing right now.  In December of 2014, I published my second novel - "The Courage Equation."  Its a 542 page thrill ride about a group of dedicated organizers/activists for justice who decide to take the matter of dealing with a violent white supremacist group into their own hands after realizing no one else is going to address the problem.  In February of 2014, Super Bowl Sunday if I remember correctly, I drove up to Olympia, Washington, checked into a hotel room, and spent the day sending my "query" letter out to five publishers I had decided to focus on attempting to get to publish my book.  This is not necessarily a fast moving process so it was May before I got the last of my three acceptances (two publishers rejected my book).  The publisher I decided upon is a New York Publisher named Raider Publishing International (RPI).  I had seen a couple of uncomplimentary posts about RPI from persons who indicated their manuscripts had been submitted, contracted, and never published by RPI.  With smaller publishers, this isn't necessarily an uncommon thing.  I also saw posts from people who expressed positive experiences publishing with RPI (all of which I have come to realize were possibly fake posts).  Like most artists, I freely acknowledge that 90% of my joy is in the writing.  I'm a revolutionary organizer.  That's what I do.  I've never been a person focused on making money.  The business aspects of this I'm unfortunately having to learn through trauma.  That's why I admit I was moved by the enthusiasm in which the CEO of the company - Adam Silviani - spoke to me about my manuscript and his personal commitment to represent my work won me over.  Especially after the negative experience I had with the publisher of my first novel in 2010 (I did receive royalties from them, but after they initially reviewed,  accepted, and published my novel, I pretty much never heard from them again).

Initially, RPI seemed to be totally on the ball and committed to follow through as Silviani had promised.  I signed the contract with them in May of 2014.  The contract required them to organize book events, do press releases, send quarterly royalty statements (and royalty payments at a rate of 51% per book sold).  The publisher was also contractually obligated to send me 10 copies of my novel.  It took them no time to design a great cover for the book and they actually did a decent job editing the manuscript, per the contract.  By September, the book was ready to go into publication and Silviani assured me the book would be ready by the December imperialist holiday.

On that last point, the book did go into print by December, 2014, but a year and half since then, there have been no royalty statements or payments.  And more importantly, no book events organized.  After repeated efforts to engage Silviani, I solicited the assistance from a trusted person who took time to do extensive research on RPI.  It now appears as if many people have been duped by this publisher, most of them having never had their book ever published. In fact, there are apparently a number of people who paid RPI publishing fees and received nothing in return.  I guess on that point, I should feel good in that Silviani felt strong enough about the quality of my novel that he did follow through to publish it, although his motivation to do so apparently was fueled by his plan to make my book a money producer for him, and not the author - me.

After going back and forth with RPI by phone and email during 2015, at this point I've talked to a couple of attorneys and I even had a wonderful attorney send a demand letter to RPI via certified mail.  The letter was never claimed and was returned to us.  A Better Business Bureau complaint was filed against RPI, but that agency contacted us and advised us that Silviani never responded to that either and they have no ability to respond further.  My person helping me ended up talking to a contract attorney in New York state who reviewed my contract.  The attorney told us they believe there is plenty to file a lawsuit against Silviani and RPI, but based on research we have done, we already know that he has filed bankruptcy multiple times already.  The New York attorney bluntly stated that if we paid them a retainer of $3,000.00, they could file papers, but with this guy's history "you would certainly die without ever receiving a penny."

So, today I'm looking at being out some money.  Plus, I've never received the 25 books that were owed me (10 per the contract and another 15 I paid Silviani an additional $200.00 for).  And, with "The Courage Equation" clearly being marketed in Europe, Canada, Africa, Australia, and across the U.S., to date, I've not received one penny in royalties.  Don't misunderstand me.  I'm not broken up about the money piece.  I wrote the book to serve as inspiration to a broader audience than that which reads political, Pan-African, revolutionary, pieces.  I wanted to appeal to everyday people who have a sense of hopelessness. I wanted  to demonstrate to sincere European (White) accomplices what a legitimate ally should look like to the African liberation struggle.  And the huge feedback I've gotten about "The Courage Equation" from people I know and don't know, is that I accomplished my goal.  People have wonderful things to say about the book and many have indicated the degree to which the book has inspired them on a personal level.  So, that is my reward and I can say quite honestly that I don't spend much time thinking about the money I haven't received.  The main insult to me is that while I know I'm being screwed by RPI, and millions of people around the world are getting screwed in similar, and most often worse ways, we have to endure regular propaganda like that coming out of the Republican convention last week and the Democratic convention coming up this week, that this is such a wonderful country where fairness and democracy are guiding principles.  Where if you work hard, you will achieve reward and that the only people who are not receiving reward are the people who aren't putting any effort and skin in the game.  While I'm hearing that propaganda, I get to think about how I put five years of skin in the game, writing that book and pouring my soul into doing it.  And, besides the moral victories I've created in my own mind about the spirit the book helps to create, I'm forced today to have to buy my book the same way anyone else does, through retail processes and prices.  And, more important than that, I haven't been given the opportunity I was promised to talk about the political concepts within the book.  

​Being the organizer that I am, that was and is the most exciting aspect of the entire process of writing the book.  Silviani told me they have strong relationships with Barnes and Nobles and that book events there would be "easy" yet besides the book events myself and local people have organized in local spaces, there has been nothing from the publisher.

Since I've had a life of struggle, I know that I have to keep swinging.  Besides the political work I'm engaged in, don't believe for a second that my point is that I'm sitting around mopping about this situation.  I'm fast at work on my third novel, the next installment of the first two.  And, I'm determined to make sure this one lands with a publisher who can respect my work and help me talk about it as I desperately want to be able to do.  I also don't plan to let Silviani off the hook either.  This is the first time I've written about any of this, but its not going to be the last time.  And, soon, we will figure out our next move.  If we can't get anything out of him, we have enough organization skills to make his life uncomfortable.  All of those things will happen.  That still doesn't change the part I hate the most.  No matter what we do, we come out on the bottom.  And, the system response to that is unless you are ready to dedicate a significant portion of your life to figuring out how to address it, that's just how you can depend upon everything going.  Clearly there's no justice in that, but it does create a system that is quite profitable for those who have capacity to exploit.  Maybe that's what these strange people mean when they say "make America great again."  What they must actually be saying is we are supposed to be the people who lose and suffer.  And, they realize the system is set up to make sure things always turn out that way.  So, maybe what they are really asking for is a return to the day when we just accepted all of that and suffered in silence.


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Why I'm  Always Wishing Obscene Racists Would Cross My Path

7/18/2016

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The decline of capitalism and the emergent suffering of more and more Europeans (Whites) has triggered the capitalist classes to further unleash their oldest and most effective weapon: white supremacy and institutionalized discrimination against people of color.  Its their best weapon because its just so easy to get so many Europeans to completely ignore the greedy corporate thugs who are sucking their life blood.  Its even easier to get them to blame the folks who have no voice - the Africans, Indigenous, elderly, disabled, LGBTQ, houseless, etc.  

As it relates back to white supremacy, the expressions of it have become much more overt, obscene, violent, and unbearable.  That's why this is an open call for all the white supremacists, white nationalists, bullies, patriots, so-called blue bloods, and other assorted racist cowards to resist picking on those of us who are terrified and direct your venom at those of us who welcome your anger.  You see, many Africans are unfortunately still operating under a fantasy existence where somewhere in their consciousness, they have convinced themselves that they have some "rights" in this society and therefore, they expect to be treated with dignity by everyone.  That's why, when an ignorant European man or woman confronts these types of Africans with naked white supremacy, they panic and become overwhelmed with fear and outrage.  And, with the violent and barbaric history of white supremacy and capitalism these Africans have every right to be outraged and fearful.  Its just that capitalism has been so brutal to some of us that it has served as a training ground for how to give those vicious people more back of what they are dishing out.  And, when I say that, please spare me the rhetoric about not lowering yourself to the level of your enemies.  I'm sick of seeing Europeans spout racist venom at children while we defend our rights to be in this country.  Sick of that.  We need to be able to tell that scum, as my local comrade stated, that yes, you did own us, but our relatives were the ones who escaped, slit your throats, and burned your plantation down to the ground.  You see, I've spent the last couple of decades sharpening my skills at defending myself and my people so I can tell you I sleep quite well after being able to shutdown ignorant racists so I have absolutely no intention of stopping so when you racist bullies want to engage someone, don't pick on the defenseless.  And, don't be a coward that hides behind social media.  I'm not going to go back and forth with any keyboard warriors.  Come out in public and seek out people like me and we will give you more than you bargained for.

When you tell me something overwhelmingly stupid, like that grotesque idiot from the Republican National Convention tonight who said people of color haven't contributed anything to world civilization, I will respond by asking you how it is that you have lived as long as you have while being as stupid as you are?  The first country mentioned in the Bible is Ethiopia.  If you have an Old Testament, it will be called Kush or Cush which is translated to mean "land of the burnt faces."  This verse can be found in Genesis Two, verse 13.  Of course, Europe is not mentioned in the Bible until the last book, the book of Revelations.  I would add that the Indigenous people invented the concept of counting and all their old manuscripts confirmed that.  And, the reason we know that is because we know history.  The first documented university in the world is Timbuktu which is located in Mali, West Africa, you know.  Even Aristotle wrote about studying at Timbuktu in his memoirs.  I would recommend you get up to speed on the fact Africa's original communalism is certainly the basis from which Ibn Kaldoun, an African from the 12th century, formulated his theories on capital and the surplus of labor which formed the basis of Karl Marx'es works. I would even add that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Kautsky, Trotsky, etc., were not the only contributors to socialist theory, but simply Europe's contributors.  For us, as is the case with all people from all cultures, we have our own contributors who we strongly suggest you study.  People like Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Amilcar Cabral, Mangoliso Sobukwe, and many others.  At least, that's where we get our ideological direction from.  

When the racists try to tell me to go back to Africa, I would respond enthusiastically that I am always trying to get back to Africa.  There is really never a moment in my life when I don't want to be in Africa.  We actually have a gofundme active right now to raise money to go to Tanzania later this year.  I've been to Africa many times.  Enough times to understand clearly that the capitalist economy that runs this country and all of the industrialized capitalist countries, is an economy that is fueled by exploiting cheap African resources like diamonds, chrome, rubber, uranium, coltan, bauxite, phosphates, gold, cocoa, and cobalt.  Without the system of literally stealing those resources as cheaply as possible, there would be no wealth in the West and poverty in Africa.   And, I can tell you the same story about most of Asia and the Americas as well.  So, I'd tell the racist that we are happy to go home to Africa, and we will leave once we figure out how to take our vast wealth back with us.  This will then be interesting because once we do that (Pan-Africanism) the wealth that exists here will cease to be here.  It will be become the moment of truth where we will find out how many of the great American patriots will be so patriotic then?  I predict we will have to enact strict immigration policies, that we need to develop with our Indigenous family here, to decide what to do with all these Europeans who suddenly want to come to the same place they have been telling us here to go for centuries.

When these sorry excuses for human beings try to suggest that we are the violent people I will ask them how they can come to that conclusion when we don't own a single weapons manufacturing company.  We didn't make the chemical weapons that kill many people today because we have been denied quality education so most Africans don't even know how to operate a chemistry set.  Every gun we use to kill someone was made by rich White companies in Europe, Israel, or America.  There isn't a single gun manufacturer that originated in Africa and since the overwhelming majority of Africans on the continent and in the inner cities in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, or Europe, never venture more than a couple of hundred miles from where they are born their entire lives, any guns that filter into their communities have to be sent there by people other than them.  

Finally, when these sick fools try to suggest that they are more beautiful, civilized, or cultured than us, I'll remind them that some of us are confused and try to imitate their physical standards, but many more of them are out trying to darken themselves to look like us.  They spend billions on surgery to have the physical appearances we have in lips, rear ends, etc.  Then, I'll remind them that in spite of us being oppressed for over 500 years, more of their children desire to imitate us than our children want to imitate them, and why do they think that is?

I really do openly encourage all those ignorant people to seek me out, but I doubt that will actually happen, except through the cowardly internet.  I doubt it because those people don't want to run into someone like me.  They want to run into the people who are trying to validate themselves to America because those racists know that those poor souls are easy prey for them.  They have nothing to offer to someone like me who doesn't care what they think or believe about anything.  Someone who isn't trying to validate us to America and who doesn't care what they think about what I think.  Someone who will never kneel down to their propaganda.  Someone who knows any greatness America can claim is due to our suffering.  Someone who knows America is declining and knows that Sekou Ture was right when he said "imperialism will find its grave in Africa."  All of this is true beyond a shadow of a doubt because I actually run into those types of racist fools on a regular basis.  I speak, present, organize, and engage people so often that my way of life brings those people into my path much more often than the average person who isn't engaged in the political life that I have.  So, I know that most of the time, when I say the types of things to these people that I've indicated here, they usually just shut up.  No, they always shut up.  This happens because they are cowards and cowards always pick on someone they know they can defeat or at least intimidate.  I walk strong everywhere I go and I love my life.  So, if you want to have that same confidence that I have, guess what?  You won't get it being on FB all day.  There is really only one way to get it.  Join an organization that has an independent study process and participate fully in that process.  That will strengthen you in ways you would never imagine.  Then, when you are confronted by one of these weaklings, you can defend yourself with strength and dignity.  And, once we get enough of us who can function with that same confidence, I'm betting we will find we won't have these problems to contend with any longer.  Our problems then will be different.  Like, how do we figure out how to govern a society based on peace, justice, and forward progress for all of humanity.  That's a big problem.  Much bigger than dealing with these losers today, but that big problem is one I'd love to have right now.
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Truth:  Support Independent, Revolutionary, African (Black) Struggle

7/12/2016

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In the midst of so many attacks against African people that are being carried out on a worldwide basis, there is one very important message that is being ignored unintentionally, and in many cases, intentionally.  That message is if you really care about the safety, security, and forward progress of African people, then you must make it a priority to support independent revolutionary African organizations. How can you argue in support of African dignity if you aren't raising up the most legitimate form of dignity any people have - their ability to define and direct their existence on their own terms?

This isn't to say no one should support reformist work.  The work to reform the capitalist system through protests, boycotts, organized electoral campaigns, and other forms of awareness work is an extremely valuable aspect of the work that needs to continue.  This work must continue because for many people, it serves as their entry point into political struggle.  It certainly performed that purpose for me back before the Sun was created.  So, this point can never be overstated.  The problem we have to address is that reformist work is highlighted so completely that the narrative begins to seem to be one where reform is the only viable work taking place.  Another problematic aspect of this is that many so-called European (White) accomplices/allies, etc., say they support African self determination, but for them - either consciously or unconsciously - that translates into supporting only the African work that lines up politically with their own views and work.  And more often than not, that is reformist work, even if that work isn't cutting edge or the most important element of African struggle.

We believe independent revolutionary African struggle is critically important and deserves a whole lot more support than it receives today because history has taught us that this work constitutes the most powerful threat to the interests of the capitalist system.  Consequently, the system has concentrated its highest level of most violent tactics against this segment of the movement.  If you need examples of this you only need study the histories of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, Democratic Party of Guinea, Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam, and African Blood Brotherhood for starters.  Another reason the independent revolutionary African movement needs and deserves significant support is because the system is designed to perpetuate its maintenance.  So, when there periods of mass uprisings, the system has always accommodated space for dissent up until the point that the dissent poses a real threat to the system's overthrow.  So, protest movements from African independence movements to the U.S. civil rights movement, to the Black Lives Matter movement have always had space within the capitalist media machine.  Meanwhile, the Land and Freedom Movement - or Mau Mau movement - to remove the British from Kenya through armed uprisings, was never given a media focus.  The Black power movement and the Pan-African movement have never been given these spotlights.  Instead, those independent revolutionary movements are portrayed as ill-relevant, extreme, dangerous, anti-White, and counter productive.  Or, another way to look at it is if you know people who have a negative view of the Black Lives Matter movement, query them on radical independent revolutionary African movements and you will quickly learn how much more negative the perspective is on those who are courageously carrying out this work.

There are numerous examples of these independent revolutionary African movements in existence right now.  The All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) is my organization.  We are active in Africa, Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, and throughout the U.S.  We use no capitalist media to advance our work yet the messages we promote - such as join some organization working for justice - are known by everyone, everywhere.  Plus, we engage in long term mass work to strengthen and build revolutionary capacity among African people.  Here in Portland, that work will be manifested starting in September with the launch of the Harriet Tubman Freedom School which is an outgrowth of the breakfast program we have facilitated for the last year.  Certainly, we need your support in Oregon, throughout the U.S., but most importantly, in Africa where we are directing our capacity building work.  You can learn more about that by going to our local site here at www.aaprporegon.org or our international site at www.aaprp-intl.org.  And, please don't think we are saying you must support us or else you are not doing anything productive.  If you know us, then you know that has never been our message.  We have always promoted organization and we will continue to do so.  That's why we can tell you immediately that if you aren't interested in supporting us we hold no hard feelings at all towards you.  In fact, our response is that you should support the work of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.  And, if you don't want to do that, you should support the work of the African People's Socialist Party and their mass organizations like the National Democratic Uhuru Movement.  Don't want to do that?  Then we would direct you to any number of revolutionary African collectives and formations e.g. the Black United Front, Organization US, etc. 

Some people will spend a lot of time focusing on why they have issue with organizations mentioned.  Our point is that independent, revolutionary African organization is so important for the continued creativity and vitality of African people everywhere.  Our very spirit and existence is under attack.  We are shot down in the streets in the diaspora (outside of Africa) and we are bombed into submission on the African continent (Libya, Somalia, Sudan, etc.).  Our ability to stand up on our own power is essential to rebuilding our people and forging forward.  So, if none of those organizations do it for you, than help form the "None of those Organizations Do it for Me Organization for Independent Revolutionary African Organization" and help that new organization get to work.

Anyone who truly believes in freedom has to understand that the best work is the work that is being carried out on all fronts.  Many people have joined this movement within the last few years and that is outstanding!  Still, we shouldn't act as if there was no African movement before 2014!  There are many African organizations who have been struggling for decades for African liberation.  I would even argue that the independent revolutionary African movement is responsible for laying the groundwork that creates a Black Lives Matter movement.  Anyone who knows even a slight bit of knowledge about the history of African people has to recognize that this is true whether people in the streets today realize it or not.  Keep us in the streets!  Keep shutting things down!  Keep expressing your support for these direct actions!  And, keep supporting and building the independent revolutionary African liberation movement which will help us build capacity to gain freedom today, tomorrow, next week, next year, and until we achieve it!


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Dallas. The Inhumanity of Us Mourning People Who Don't Mourn Us

7/10/2016

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Gloria Richardson leading organizers against National Guard repression in 1963
I'm still waiting for someone to give me an example of this nation mourning its enemies.  Over the last 20 years they have killed literary millions of Afghanis, Iraqis, Sudanese, Somalians, and Libyans.  They have directly aided and abetted the murder of thousands of Palestinians.  Their state sanctioned security guards - known as police - have killed thousands of Africans and Indigenous people.  Yet, out of those millions of victims I just mentioned, most people in this society couldn't name two or three of them because this nation hasn't taken one second to mourn their deaths.  It certainly isn't telling you that you should respect them as people.  In fact, they are working hard constantly to destroy the character of these people because doing this is the way they dehumanize them which is how they get you to easily avoid spending one minute thinking about any of these victims.  That's why you have spent billions supporting the murders of all these people yet most cannot intelligently name any useful knowledge about them as a people because most folks just don't care.  And, they don't care because we have been programmed with the message that these people are the enemy and by being the enemy that means they are against your interests.  Therefore, they must be destroyed in order of you to survive and prosper as human beings.  The problem is those people are not your enemies and their interests are not only not opposed with your interests, but what you need actually lines up with what they need quite nicely.  

On the other hand, our enemies as African people are not our enemies because of a propaganda campaign to convince us they are.  Our enemies are such because they put in work to destroy us as a people.  Police Departments are the enemies of African people.  They are not in existence to serve and protect us.  You have to be brain dead to believe that lie.  Police Departments were formed as patrols to prevent us from escaping slave plantations in the South and to prevent us from roving in White neighborhoods in the North.  Almost 200 years later, these "departments" basically serve the same function e.g. keep us down.  Keep us out.  Keep us under control.  This is the reason they shoot us immediately.  This is the reason they kill us and then immediately start justifying it.  This is the reason they never acknowledge they were wrong.  And, this is the reason more than a small percentage of people follow their course of action after their oppression of us and support them 100%.

So, stop saying they should serve us.  Stop saying they are "our" police.  Stop saying and acting like when they disrespect us that is some sort of deviation from how they are supposed to behave.  Don't you get it?  This is always how they have behaved and no demands are ever going to get them to change because they are in existence to control you.  That makes police your enemy!  These are undeniable facts.  So, don't talk to me about mourning them when they are killed.  In this country alone, because they brutalize us everywhere, they killed in the thousands last year.  On the other side, there were 36 police killed and not all of them were killed by other people.  Some of them were killed in car accidents, etc., so the number is actually less than that.  So, clearly they are our enemy and they are the threat.  Yet, when a handful of them are killed, we are expected to mourn and respect them.  Many of our African activists are pressured to speak out against the police shootings in Dallas, yet no police are pressured to speak out against the ongoing and consistent murder of African and Indigenous people?  Now, I'm even reading that Black Lives Matter activists in various cities are delivering cards and flowers to police departments?  Are you serious?  How many police are going into African and Indigenous neighborhoods and mourning the shooting of young unarmed people by police?  And for those short witted who really think there is something called "African on African crime" we will reserve the right to write something later about the roles police play in instigating and perpetuating violence within inner cities (because the drug and prostitution trades are profitable for police in many ways).

Look, I realize many people are really challenged when it comes to intelligence so I'll state the obvious.  This is not an endorsement of snipping at police.  I say that not because I am trying to duck under the concept of waging a serious fight against police agencies.  The whole point here is I'm concerned about their feelings about as much as I've seen them have concerns for my feelings.  Besides I've stated as loudly and clearly as is humanly possible that I believe in organization.  Someone getting upset and deciding to shoot five indiscriminate police isn't organization and it doesn't do anything to help the work that we need to do.  The propaganda of the capitalist system is so strong that this action in Dallas has created a sympathy for police that has taken the spotlight off of the consistent trauma police agencies cause for African and Indigenous communities.  We cannot be seriously focused on organizing against our enemies if we are busy delivering flowers to them.  So, Dallas doesn't help us at all.  We need people in the streets, but we must evolve to getting that to an organized state.  Its great to close the Bay Bridge.  A quarter of a million people drive over it everyday.  Its a major artery for transport of products and its the main entrance and exit to and from the city of San Francisco, but wouldn't it be something if we could close it for more than just a few hours?  Wouldn't it be something if we could organize thousands of activists to take shifts so we could close it for weeks?  And, for you people who still believe the capitalist system can be reformed, wouldn't doing that place you in a strong position to force the people you think you need to talk with to have to listen to you?  They can only afford to have the Bay Bridge down for a very short period of time, but that period of time needs to be much longer than these spontaneous actions are able to do it now with no organization.  So, with more organization, we need to be in the streets, but we also need a strong political education offensive so that we can understand what type of society we want to build when we win.  If we don't do that work, how do you know you will be any better than the people you are fighting right now?  History has proven that you won't be unless you seriously plan and prepare for something different.  Something that doesn't place money over people.  That takes an overhaul against the capitalist mis-education we have now that has us believing our enemies deserve our respect, patience, and understanding despite our clear evidence that those very same enemies never demonstrate those characteristics when dealing with their enemies.  Based on the capitalist narrative, we are not even supposed to be enemies of the police, yet they still never even display those characteristics to us so clearly that capitalist narrative is flawed.

Don't expect any flowers coming from this direction.  There will be no cards and no mourning.  None of that until I see them offer us the same respect.  My father taught me that basic lesson from day one.  Treat people the way they treat you.  That way, you train them how to treat you properly and you learn how to respect the people who earn it.  If the police state wants us to mourn its losses, then stop behaving like a police state.  We have demonstrated as well as anyone else in this society that we have a great capacity to spread humanity.  In fact, we have civilized this backward country.  But, that doesn't mean that we can't eventually learn new lessons.  If you want us to mourn your police, then tell them to stop brutalizing us.  Its as simple as that, but it will never be resolved that easily.  You see, the thesis here is that police can never be anything except our enemy because of where they are positioned as the armed wing of the capitalist system.  Even if someone enters a police department as a well balanced and fair person, the requirements of that job e.g. control and repression of the communities with the most potential to challenge the capitalist system - bingo - Africans and Indigenous - will have to change that person if they hope to survive in that position.  Especially if they want to advance in that position.  So, when we organize and change ourselves we can begin to stand up and demand our dignity, instead of pleading to be accepted into a society that doesn't respect us.  When we organize and make that strong stand, I believe some of those who are police will wake up  like we are waking up, and join us.  Its naive to think they all will though, but that's the nature of war.  In order to win, you have to recognize that the enemy exists and who the enemy is.  Its the same enemy today that it was 200 years ago.  There's no surprises and no amount of propaganda should so easily confuse us.  Its the capitalists and those they employ to protect their interests.
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Cops Shot in Dallas.  Don't Let That Incident Cloud Core Issues

7/8/2016

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In every instance, the loss of life for any reason other than extremely old age should be unacceptable to each of us.  This is true whether its a bombing in Bangladesh, Nigeria, France, Somalia, or Belgium.  Whether its a shooting in Orlando, South Carolina, or Oregon.  No one can refute that these are all tragedies and that the losses experienced should be respected, reflected upon, and changes need to be made to help avoid any tragic loss of life from taking place in the future.  We all must agree to those words.  The reason things start to break down from that point forward is because capitalism is the dominant economic system in the world today.  That means, each and every one of us live under a class system which is based on valuing some lives over others.  This hierarchy of value results from capitalism's 500 year justification of subjugation.  That's why you know very little about Africa today, even if you were born in Africa this is still usually true.  The lack of information about Africa paves the way for misinformation about Africa.  The people are primitive.  They are violent.  They are not equipped to govern themselves.  They need Europe, Israel, Australia, and America to civilize them.  This type of world view dehumanizes the African masses and justifies our exploitation and subjugation.  It also makes it much easier to stomach harm coming to us, even up to us being brutally murdered on a regular basis.  The blueprint for this was established a long time ago.  If hundreds and thousands of us could be violently wiped out during colonialism in Africa or slavery in the Western world on a regular basis, then the dye was set for no one to be to inconvenienced when we are shot down like dogs by the representatives of the state e.g .the police. 

The death of five police officers in Dallas last night is actually a sad example of this disparity of life.  For the next several days, media everywhere will be talking about how stressed police are.  The police victims in Dallas will be provided extensive coverage that humanizes them and paints them as positive contributors to the society, and it is entirely possible that some or all of them were all of that.  We don't know them so we have no desire or interest in denying their humanity.  What we object to is we know that in the course of humanizing them with portraits of their families and their lives, if there was questionable behavior by any of them as it relates to how they carried out their duties, that information will never be exposed, unless activists bring it out or push for it to be revealed.  Darren Wilson, the cop who killed Michael Brown in 2014 had a history of working for a police department that was so racist it had to be dismantled before he came to work in Ferguson, Mo, but most people know nothing about that.  On the opposite side, the victims of police murders immediately have any element of their past which could be used to justify their cold blooded murder (as if this is possible) hashed and rehashed.  2016 is little over half way finished and police have already killed almost 600 people across the U.S. just this year.  Only a handful of cops have been killed during this time.  In fact, many more commercial fishermen and highway workers have died already then police will be killed this entire year.  Yet, the five slain cops will be discussed as if war has been declared on police.  There is no evidence that war has been declared on police, but there is substantial evidence that war has been declared by the state against African people.

Despite the fact capitalist media will connect the shootings in Dallas to the movement for justice for African people, there isn't a strong connection.  I know there isn't because our movement isn't organized enough to have an armed component operating on that level.  That won't stop the connection from being made by the same people who will fight tooth and nail to reject that police that kill Africans in cold blood are a part of an organized system to repress the African masses.  They will continue to argue that those cops represent "a few bad apples."  In fact, since yesterday, I have heard variations of that statement about "a few" bad police at least five different times.  Its a great sounding argument, but it doesn't stand up to analysis.  If you study police shootings, they take place universally.  Actually, police shootings of African people take place systematically and consistently across the entire U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Australia, and Israel.  Hardly the type of results that reflect "a few bad apples."  If the majority of police were honest people then where are all the police who should be calling out their colleagues for their racist behaviors?  Where are all the police speaking out to contradict the lies being told by these cops who are putting out concocted stories of how these shootings are taking place?  Many of these shootings are taking place with more than one cop present.  Often, in front of several of them.  Never do any of them step forward to tell the truth.  Instead, we have plenty of occurrences when they have been caught protecting the lies and even coaching each other on how to maintain the lies.  This is all ill-refutable without even talking about the fact even the racist Federal Bureau of Investigation had to recently release a report that acknowledged that police departments across the country are infiltrated, and in many cases dominated, by white nationalists, supremacists, and organized racists.  This is nothing new.  This is actually how police departments were originally organized 150 years ago.

So these blatant contradictions are the reasons you won't hear me denouncing the Dallas shootings.  In a society that responds immediately to violence with violence as policy, its dishonest to me for anyone to walk around acting today like you should be shocked that people would respond by taking aggressive action against the police.  Just because I say that, don't twist it to try and say we are advocating snipping at police.  We aren't because that tactic is extremely limited and will do nothing to advance our struggle.  It is an act of desperation by individual(s).  We seek organization as our solution to our problems.  That means a massive political education campaign that is designed to help people, including police, understand that our real enemy, no matter who we are, is the state and our freedom and liberation is only possible when the capitalist system is destroyed.  This is the message for African activists, community members, Trump supporters, and everyone else.  Once we develop that type of political education campaign, our goal is to get police to start stepping up and refusing to be a part of the oppressive machine they work for.  Stop participating in the blue wall of silence.  With that level of organization, we can isolate the most problematic and violent elements who repress us and deal with them accordingly.  That's organization, not adventurism.

Still, don't come at us talking about how stressed police are today.  What the police feel today we feel as African people everyday of our existence.  I'm just the messenger, but I'm telling you right now that until we begin to build organizational capacity to confront these problems, you can expect more of what happened in Dallas last night and you know we will get many, many, more police killings of our people.  So, the message is capitalism is unhealthy for all of us, including the police.  Still need to know what you can do?  Get organized because after the rallies and marches, that's the only way we can build capacity to solve the problems.  That's if you are concerned about solving the problem and not just getting to a place where you don't feel bad.

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Defining a Good Job and Why So few Folks who Have One.

7/6/2016

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A good job is obviously one that brings you a sense of fulfillment while carrying it out.  Since you are going to spend so much time there, more than you will with your loved ones, than this is a pretty important requirement.  Other equally important characteristics of a good job are livable wages, quality health care, and a good retirement program.  This means a wage that permits you to have a roof over your head, place food on the table, pay all your necessities, and have enough left over to save for a rainy day and enjoy some of the fun in life every once in a while.  Good health care is an easy part of the definition for anyone who has suffered, or had family members suffer, serious health problems.  You shouldn't confuse quality health care with health insurance.  These two things are not the same thing.  In fact, there is a saying in this capitalist country that health insurance is only good until you get really sick.  Good health care would be the type of health care people have in socialist Cuba.  First in quality and last in cost e.g. free of charge.  Since the profit oriented health care system in operation within the U.S. is the farthest thing from what exists in Cuba today, having health insurance that covers as much of your health needs as possible is the closest thing that exists to quality health care in this society.  Health costs here are so expensive that you are clearly much better off with insurance than without it.  So, our definition of a good job in this society includes having health insurance.  Lastly, a good retirement program that is set up to give you options to put money aside for the day when you no longer want to, or have the capacity to, work. 

These are our definitions for a good job.  Quality wages.  Quality health care.  And, a quality retirement program.  I didn't include the fulfillment piece for this part because there are multitudes of studies that confirm that if workers are provided the three definitions I'm giving here, the path to fulfillment is much easier to achieve.  Typically this is going to be true if the worker is less likely to be burdened with the fear of not being able to pay bills, help a family member who is sick, or deal with having to work when the mind, body, or both, no longer has capacity to cooperate.  These are the definitions.  And, I'll bet that the chances are absolutely outstanding that you cannot name five people you know under the age of 40 who have jobs like this.   Why?  A clue to the answer is that WalMart is the number one employer in the world today and within the U.S., ran by the Walton family.   The number two employer is Koch Industries, ran by Charles and David Koch.  What the criminally thug Walton and Koch families are doing is presenting a widely accepted model of labor where jobs have become defined based on different criteria than what I've provided here.  Today, the typical job is less than 40 hours, which means its practically impossible to quality for health insurance the way the requirements are usually set up.  Wages are as low as they can be kept.  And, safety at the job is no longer a priority.  Retirement programs are so rare that most workers under 40 would have a hard time even defining what a 401k or pension plan is.  The worker is prevented from having the resources to fight for better work conditions - called collective bargaining - and most states are "at will" employers meaning they can terminate you without even giving you a reason, the exact opposite of collective bargaining, which has just cause, a process where employers have to demonstrate a reason for terminating you.

Just cause and collective bargaining are components of belonging to a labor union.  So, its no accident that you can easily see a direct correlation between the reduction in quality jobs as defined above and the reduction of people who are unionized.  In fact, 26 of the 24 states in the U.S. no longer have collective bargaining as a mandatory process.  These states are dishonestly labeled as "right to work" states, as if people would have chosen minimum wage, no benefit, no retirement programs, if they had understood how to act in a way that wasn't against their interest when they voted in "right to work."  You see, in the U.S., you are "free" to screw yourself in favor of multi-national corporations.  In this country, someone can sell you open air for 5 million dollars and if you agree to it, even if your ability to make a clear decision is questionable, unless there are obvious issues, that's considered good business.  That's capitalism for you.

Those 26 non-collective bargaining states have also permitted corporations to contract out jobs to other countries, a practice that has severe restrictions in work environments where a labor contract is in operation.  This is why it would be hysterical if it wasn't so pitiful that so many people seem to really believe that a clown like Donald Trump can create jobs for them.  He's directly benefited from pushing workers down.  He has a long history of endorsing those same tactics in his own businesses, but people in the U.S. are driven by emotion and ego, not science and research.  And just so you don't confuse this site for one that suggests Hillary is any better, understand that we got collective bargaining from organizing, not from the demopublican party.  They represent the establishment that is holding workers hostage today. 

Finally, its worth mentioning that even a bad union is better than no union at all.  If this wasn't true, how do you explain that workers who work in the 24 collective bargaining states make more, have better health benefits, better retirement, and safer work conditions than any workers who do comparable work in the 26 non-collective bargaining states.  The corporate propaganda is that if you had a bad experience with a union that is justification to categorically reject unions forever.  This logic is absurd and in no other area of your life do you function that way.  You have a bad relationship so you become a monk after that or do you keep working to create a better relationship?  You have a bad experience at a church you belonged to so you denounce your religion or you keep working for a better manifestation of your faith?  You eat something you don't like so you starve yourself until death?

Workers in the U.S. are being fed a scam.  The capitalists use your ignorance and fear of people different than you to create a racist opposition to immigrants of color, the very same trick they used against White workers when slavery was ended.  During that time, the newly "freed" Africans were no threat of the wages and stability of White workers any more than immigrant labor is a threat to your terrible job today.  Someone from Mexico isn't taking your job in the U.S.  That job was shipped to Mexico and the person working your job down there is getting nothing compared to how your job used to be when you had it.  In fact, that person is doing worse than you are doing in your terrible job because the winner in this system isn't one worker over another.  Its the Waltons, Kochs, and all the other capitalists and their supporters. 

People in this country have to start waking up to these obvious facts before we reach a point of no return.  Union density had been reduced from almost 40% of the workplace in the 70s to barely 10% now. with almost all of that density being held in public sector jobs (meaning a very small percentage of private sector jobs have collective bargaining).  This explains the constant effort to privatize every job in the public sector to further the erosion of public services.  Services like the job my father held for decades for the U.S. Post Office.  A job which permitted him to save some coins so that his hardheaded son could attend college, something he never had an option to do.  That permitted me to benefit and pay for my own advanced degree education and send my daughter to college.  At least I learned how to read which permitted me to become a critical thinker (with the help of the All African People's Revolutionary Party's work study process) which has made me the organizer I'm proud to be today.  These are all examples of how people can make some progress economically people.  You can listen to the fools tell you that collective bargaining holds you back all you want.  They are telling you that if your wages are bargained collectively, you may have to settle for a wage that you could have negotiated higher based on your own individual skills.  This is nonsense and you know that because every job you have ever had that wasn't unionized permitted you the option of negotiating your wage.  What stopped you?  And if you ever tried that and requested something higher than the employer was willing to pay you, how did that work out for you with that job?

I'm not interested in becoming a prostitute for the super rich any more than I am right now.  They are currently pimping the entire world and they even have many working class people (primarily white) shilling for them under the lie that they will make their lives better.  When you can find one time a millionaire, whether democrat or republican, made the lives of you and the people in your community better, you be sure to let me know.  I'll wait.  Your life gets better only when you decide to get with other people and make things better.  And that has to mean some type of confrontation with the powers that be who control all the cards.  To win, requires organization.  Period.  Anyone telling you any differently is selling you a bag of human waste.




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Burning U.S. Flags:  Symbolizing A Change in Consciousness

7/4/2016

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Full disclosure, I have been participating in U.S., confederate, and other imperialist flag burning ceremonies since the late 1970s.  And, for as long as I'm able, I'll continue to participate in these ceremonies?  Why?  Because the U.S. flag and all the oppressive flags are symbols of the might of this system.  The problem is its a might that is contrived and maintained through institutions of exploitation.  In other words, if America ever could be classified as a great country, whatever that means, it gets there through its exploitation of Africa, African people, and many other citizens and places on the Earth.  In fact, this entire capitalist economy is based on that exploitation so by burning the rag, I mean flag, the statement is being made that we do not submit to your authority, your system, or your backward vicious values.  Instead, we are committed to working to change the system into something much better where people matter more than profit (read socialism).

Since I've been burning flags for quite some time, I have seen the development in consciousness over the years.  When I was a youngster, it was strictly the most radical and militant who would even consider participating in such a ceremony.  Today has seen an evolution where many of the people who appear for events like the "Fourth of the Lie" event we sponsored today, are people who five years ago would never have set foot into such an event with such a focus.  I talked to dozens of people today who have been driven to a much more radicalized consciousness because of the naked inequities of the capitalist system, which being in such a severe state of decline is unable to provide the quality of crumbs, or any crumbs at all, to so many people that the system has relied upon to keep its mystique and it's power.  Today, more and more people are realizing that their interests are tied to the masses of people on the Earth, not the few capitalist class people who own and control everything.


Actually,  the move to the right you are witnessing in Europe and the U.S. today is a manifestation of the last remnants of working class Europeans who are willing to place their lot with the capitalist classes.  I say last remnants because more and more Europeans (White people) are waking up and realizing they have been had.  They are understanding that the capitalist system has lied to them and told them that it and its interests is their identity.  The truth is the capitalist doesn't care one bit about working class Europeans. It never has, but now, its decline has pushed it to the brink where it can no longer afford to offer the promise of entitlement of comfort that it has dangled in front of working White people for four hundred years.  

So, what we are seeing more and more of today is European folks, young European folks, who are wanting to get involved and do something about challenging this backward system.  And, they are approaching it in a much more correct way e.g. fighting for a better society for their future and the future of humanity instead of looking at it like they need to support our African liberation struggle as if we need them in order for us to achieve one unified socialist Africa.  We will do that on our own.  We don't need the European community to help us with that.  We do ask those Europeans to organize the masses of your people, starting with your families, who are being confused everyday, especially on an imperialist day like today, into believing they have some common interests with the capitalist classes who benefit from this system in its present form.  Europeans activists have their work cut out.  They have to do work to convince their people that they are not the Rockerfellers or even the Clintons or the Trumps.  They have to convince their parents, siblings, friends, and co-workers, that believing that Donald Trump will bring quality jobs into their lives is about as naive and ignorant as one person can be.  The lack of quality jobs is because capitalism's decline has seen it ship jobs over into other international markets for cheaper labor.  The capitalist system, through the lie of "right to work" has been able to eliminate collective bargaining from most of the states in the U.S. thus reducing wages, benefits, etc.  This has been possible because the masses of working White people have permitted themselves to become convinced that labor unions are against their interests when the truth is even a bad labor union is better for workers than no union at all.  The masses of working White people have continued to accept the lie of white supremacy; being led like dumb sheep into turning against workers of color while united with the very elites who are the direct cause of their oppression.  With a strong labor movement, there is no movement of jobs overseas.  There is no "right to work" where people make less than they do in any state that has collective bargaining (investigate that fact yourself - please).  This theft of wages has become such the norm that most people cannot identify five people they know today who have a job with quality wages, good health care, and a retirement program.  This is the reality that most White people have been tricked into supporting and White activists have your hands full working with these folks to wake them up.

Meanwhile, this is the moment of vindication for African activists.  We  have told you this day would be coming for quite some time now.  You can get mad at us and tell us to go back to Africa all you want, but the truth is we didn't even have to invite your sons and daughters out today.  They came on their own.  And they are so hungry for something better than the capitalist garbage that you are trying to feed to them that we had to share much of today to speakers for the Marilyn Buck Abolitionist Collective (anti-capitalist primarily White organization here that some of us African revolutionaries help form) because of the need to direct the multitudes of White youth present towards something.  And you better believe that we were pleased with the numbers of young Africans out today who are interested in getting involved.  And, as always, we were happy to talk to each and every one of them.

So, if your face is bunched up because some flags got burned (at least three of them at our event alone) recognize that if I were you, I wouldn't even be concerned about that worthless rag.  You have bigger concerns.  While you are directing your white supremacist influenced anger towards us (no matter your nationality/race, etc) know that your children are listening to us.  They are listening because you have no credibility with them because you have sold them out for a decadent system that has feasted off of humanity long enough to the point where its days are numbered and everyone can see it except you.

As for me.  From the flag that was given to me for graduating high school to the flag given to me when my father died (he was an veteran of U.S. imperialist forces - unfortunately) to the flags present today, all of them were burned and may they burn in hell.  Its just a symbol.  A symbol of a system that is burning.  Some of you are just so consumed with confusion you can't yet smell the smoke.
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    I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle."  Our brains are muscles.  Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve.  Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"

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