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Red Fawn & This Government's History against Indigenous Action

9/28/2019

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Red Fawn Fallis is an Ogala (Sioux) Indigenous activist who was recently convicted to four years in federal prison.  The prison sentence resulted from the charge that Red Fawn fired a gun during the North Dakota anti-pipeline protests in 2016.  Federal police were present during the time this gun was allegedly fired, so Fawn was charged with shooting at these so-called officers.

As is always the case, there are many discrepancies here.  Indigenous activists contend that it wasn't even Red Fawn who fired the weapon and that it was actually fired by someone who appears to have been operating as an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant during the protests.  Red Fawn contends that she had developed a relationship with this person that led up to her being framed for allegedly firing the handgun.

The terms of the plea deal that landed Red Fawn this sentence, after she had steadfast maintained her innocence, is rooted in the racist reality of North Dakota and the understandable belief by Fawn and her supporters that the prospects of a fair trial were nonexistent.  This is a point that people ignorant about the manifestations of white supremacy often fail to detect.  There is a reason why 94% of criminal cases end in plea deals.  That reason is when you are charged with a crime, your options are to extend for a jury trial or take a plea deal.  In most concrete realities, a jury trial means subjecting yourself to the whims, prejudices, and outright racist opinions of a so-called "jury of your peers" which usually ends up being a jury of hardcore racists.  This almost certainly would have been the case had Red Fawn chosen to go to trial.

This sad scenario brings back images of the federal government's terrorist pursuit of American Indian Movement (AIM) activists in the 1970s in Ogala land in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge reservation.  During the years between 1972 and 1976, violence against AIM activists and the Native community at Pine Ridge was so intense that the small reservation had the dubious distinction of serving as the highest murder rate for the entire country.  And, make no mistake about it.  That murder rate resulted from the terror being inflicted against Indigenous people by this government.  The FBI organized, trained, and armed a group AIM labeled the "hang around the fort Indians", or who we would call sellout negroes in our communities.  This group became known as the so-called Guardians of the Ogala Nation or GOONS (more fitting).  The GOONS meted down a reign of terror against the Native communities at Pine Ridge that was fully supported and encouraged by this federal government.  Anna Mae Pictoh Aquash, an AIM activist who dismissed a full ride education from a large university on the East Coast to go and serve the people for AIM at Pine Ridge, was murdered in the course of the terror and no one has ever been brought to justice for her death.  Leonard Peltier was an AIM activist who was framed by the FBI for the deaths of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation, who had no legitimate business there in the first place.  Peltier has languished in prison for 40 years as a result of this injustice.

Red Fawn, Ana Mae Aquash, Leonard Peltier, and so many other Indigenous people are paying the price for standing up against imperialism and against its theft and destruction of Indigenous lands.  As a revolutionary Pan-Africanist, we identify closely with the Indigenous struggle.  Some of our people continue to fail to see why.  That's because some of us have the consciousness of roaches meaning when you see multiple roaches and you kill one, the others don't come to the attacked roache's aide.  Instead, they immediately revert to self preservation by fleeing.  That's the low level of consciousness of some of us, but for us African revolutionaries, we recognize that our Indigenous family is fighting against the same enemy that we fight against.  The same FBI that continues to terrorize them is the same FBI that framed Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association.  The same FBI that staged the murder of 33 Black Panthers.  The same FBI that facilitated the flooding of our communities with illicit drugs while murdering our leaders and sabotaging our political organizations.  

The stronger the Indigenous people struggle is against this government, the stronger our struggle is against this government.  Anyone who cannot see that is either not looking at it or not really concerned about our true freedom and liberation.  The case against Red Fawn Fallis strikes a deep cord in me because it reckons to the fight to free ourselves from this system that oppresses all of humanity.  For those of you who have no current political organizational work, we strongly encourage you to find out what you can do to support Red Fawn and any and all political prisoners being framed for daring to fight against injustice.  Some of you have legal resources and/or other resources.  Contact the people engaged in her defense and help in any way that you can.  And, of course, we continue to encourage you to join organizations and build them into strong fighting units to organize against this terror on a sustainable basis because if we don't do that, the sacrifices from people like Red Fawn will have been in vain.

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Impeachment, Mama's Cooking, Your Life, and White Supremacy

9/27/2019

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My daughter is studying to obtain her Doctorate Degree in Public Health.  Fortunately for her, she was raised on a strict diet of pro-socialism, pro-Africa/Pan-Africanism, and anti-capitalism, anti-white supremacy, and anti-patriarchy.  So, she was probably at least a little better prepared when her instructor group distributed a study earlier this week on health disparities for African and Indigenous women, using the Body Mass Index (BMI) as the basis of the analysis of the study.  To my daughter, and the other brown women participating in this discussions dismay, the study placed the blame for the heath disparities on the women and their "unhealthy" diets and lifestyles.  Of course, the German scientist created BMI was the evidence that the study used to validate its conclusions.  

When my daughter immediately reacted by challenging the legitimacy of the study, the lead tenured professor, a European (white) woman my daughter will need to depend upon to be at least one of the people to sign off on her dissertation, told her that she needed to produce evidence to substantiate her outburst against the study during the discussion.  As is our usual process, that's when my daughter called me to process how she should respond.

There are several elements of white supremacy to this scenario.  If you have a trained perspective on the subject, those elements should be fairly easy to detect, but if you are like most people in this backward society, you have very little background or training to recognize any of this so we will spell them out for you.

The most obvious contradiction in the format of how things are done in this society is so-called scientific measuring components like BMI, created by and for European people, are used as fact for all of humanity so if you don't automatically fit into these types of European paradigms, then we are all taught that the assumption is there's something amiss with you, not the basis of the analysis.  This speaks to Kwame Ture's often quoted (in this blog) statement that the history of Europe is not the history of all of humanity.  Although there are certainly some healthy practices that BMI could be used to illustrate for safer living, BMI alone cannot even begin to tell the story of why colonized women suffer health disparities.  In another very relevant quote, Kwame Ture spoke often of not being able to properly analyze the conditions of oppressed people without including the enemy in the analysis.  In other words, BMI, without encompassing it within the context of a white supremacist system, cannot lead you anywhere on this subject.  Economic inequity that results from systemic white supremacy ensures the majority of colonized women will lack the resources to buy or even have access to healthy food on a consistent basis.  That reality coupled with the massive levels of stress that come with being an oppressed person does more to contribute to those so-called unhealthy eating habits than 2 million types of BMIs could ever explain.  

All of the above should be the obvious aspect of this contradiction.  The more subtle element is the exchange that happens during my daughter's discussion group.  The fact an African woman raised a question about white supremacy as it relates to the materials posing as legitimate academic research, and the response from the person in authority is to place the burden of proof on the person vocalizing the oppression speaks to the reality that colonized people live with everyday in this white supremacist society.  Whether we are talking about Africans and Indigenous people being shot by police or men raping women, this is universally true.  The burden of proof is always on the oppressed classes of people to demonstrate to the segment of the population that is more properly represented by the system that the system is unjust.  You would have a better chance of convincing a fox that they shouldn't want to devour the chicken.  

My daughter's foundation is important.  It is because that orientation makes her instantly desire to fight back whereas the majority of us who lack that type of foundation are likely to just absorb the oppression which contributes to the unhealthy practice that makes life for us much more risky on a physical as well as psychological and spiritual level.  

None of this is designed to be that typically unfortunate liberal capitalist discussion that argues that the problem is white privilege as if the solution to the problem is European people someday waking up to their leveraged position within this society so that they can decide to stand up and save us from this oppression.  This discussion about white supremacy is important to us primarily because we desire to have African and other colonized persons recognize that this system is structured based on our exploitation.  Therefore, we will never have our liberation and freedom until we organize and fight for a better more just system.  This message we also desire to spread to as many Europeans as possible, but the primary focus is clearly on our self determination.  And by fight we mean organize for revolution, plain and simple.  Or, if you don't think revolution is the solution, then we welcome you to come forth with your own version of a collective path toward forward human progress.  

The main point is the pathway to developing any type of effective movement towards impacting and eliminating white supremacy, patriarchy, etc., is first for people to properly understand what those systems are.  What they do.  And, how they adversely impact the masses of people oppressed by them in systemic ways.  That type of mass education around these topics is completely non-existent presently and as a result, people evaluate these topics based on individualistic "what I saw and/or experienced" subjective analysis.  For example, I watched (as long as I could stand it which wasn't long) the Netflix Special by Comedy person Chelsea Handler on white supremacy.  In that documentary, she spent a lot of time talking to Europeans trying to convince them that they have white privilege and the best method she could reference to make her point was her personal experiences.  So, these discussions centered her personal experiences in comparison to the experiences of other racist Europeans.  The obvious weakness of this approach is truth and justice is completely divorced from material reality in this society.  As a result, people have license to make up whatever type of reality for themselves that they desire.  Even those who sit in the presidency in this country practice that level of dishonesty as policy so of course everyday people are going to emulate that backward model.  The danger of this type of subjectivity is that it creates an alternate reality where me as a man has the ability to pretend like my perspective on giving child birth has merit although I will never in life experience it.  Under this reality, I don't even have to study it and no one even challenges my sources for my misinformation.  All that's required in this bourgeoisie reality is for me to have vocal cords and "my truth is worthy of being voiced."  That's utter and complete nonsense.  That's why data based on scientific analysis is a much better method of arriving at any logical conclusions on any subject.  So, instead of relying on people's individual interpretations, we should look at collective data.  If we do that, we see that Europeans convicted for selling and/or possessing a pound of powder cocaine or going to receive much less of a prison sentence than Africans doing the same even if all of the conditions leading up to their arrest are the same.  With this example, which is easily provable as something that happens daily in this society, white supremacy is the only factor that explains the disparity.  And, none of the white supremacy deniers can offer any type of scientific refute to this argument.

In order to raise the bar on the discussion to the level indicated above two things have to happen initially.  Information has to be readily available to everyone on a consistent basis and that information has to be disseminated through mass conversation and discussions.  This process will help in raising the cultural bar around white supremacy, patriarchy, etc.  So, I advocate that we start by organizing discussions around white supremacy.  Since I have books I've written on the subject, I can use those books to anchor discussions around the subject.  I can present plausible and scientific historical and social evidence to give the groundwork for how we got to the point we are at today, and how we can effectively move forward.  I'm organizing such a discussion for you if you are in the Sacramento, California, area.  November 14, 2019 and you can get more details on that event on the events tab of this site.  For those of you in other areas, I'm open and interested in coming to your area to help lead these discussions and if you don't want to work this through me there are more than enough grassroots activists/organizers who are doing similar work everywhere.  The important thing is the ship will never get turned around until enough of us are courageous, consistent, and dedicated enough to start the process.  
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Why Jay Z & those Like Him Make Me Sick to my Stomach

9/22/2019

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The list of these soulless sellouts is overwhelming.  Cosby, Shaq, Zeke, Dak, Michael Vick, etc., but for today, Jay Z is the focal point.  And, I don't own a single Jay Z song.  Yes, although everyone never believes it, there are some of us who really make a solid effort to live by the principles that we profess.  So, not only do I own no Jay Z records, but I never spent a dime on any non-political rap music.  Not Death Row, nothing.  Don't get me twisted.  I'm a complete hip/hop head from the 80s/90s/2000s.  I just preferred the message music of PE, KRS-1, Poor Righteous Teachers, Kam, post NWA/pre Friday Ice Cube, even OutKast, etc.  

My position on the non-political music isn't because I don't recognize the lyrical capabilities of Jay Z, Biggie, etc.  I certainly am well informed about their music e.g. the political and economic developments and downfalls of Death Row Records and others. I'm more knowledgeable about that history than most of the people who spent hours and a fortune getting high to Dr. Dre, Snoop, Bad Boy, etc.  And, of course, we know everything is political so there's really no such thing as non-political music, but for the sake of identification, let's just say the music focused on women's anatomy, sex, money, cars, etc., as opposed to the liberation and salvation of oppressed humanity, that first category we are calling non-political music.

The relevance is Jay Z's music will never be confused with contributing to the advancement of African people and all of society.  He rapped about getting rich and he did.  And most people wish, like he did, that they can become rich also.  This is true because capitalism spends trillions of dollars programming all of us to believe that the most important human goal we can ever produce is that of having more money than we know what to do with.  That programming steers us completely away from understanding and/or caring about who gets screwed when we make all that money.  In fact, the bourgeoisie train us to believe in the individualistic vision of life, meaning when we make money its only because we deserve to make money.  It was ordained by God in our favor.  "Name it and claim it."  When we struggle financially, this backward logic dictates to us that we are downtrodden because of something amiss within us.  We haven't learned to work hard enough.  We lack morality.  We are cursed by God.  Any number of foolish and anti-human values.  This is why when people like Jay Z make millions of dollars, rapping and promoting music that degrades us as human beings, instead of seeing that as exploitation against our people, which it is, we want to see it as creative business planning and implementation.  The absurdity of this logic would also have to posit that the transatlantic slave trade is also creative business and implementation and that's why some people are even ashamedly attempting to depict centuries long terror against our people that way today.  

Jay Z represents the petti-bourgeoisie among our people and as Kwame Ture correctly stated numerous times, the African petty bourgeoisie is the scum of our race.  He's the sad product of the shuffling of the ruling capitalist class in the late 1960s.  During that time, the Black Power movement was creating a new consciousness among African people and everyone else.  We no longer had to follow the crew cut patriotic European man model of human existence.  We were then able to recognize that we had a completely different definition of what it meant to be a human being and most often, that different definition was 100% opposed to the interests of the capitalist system everywhere it exists on earth.  The reality that over 300 U.S. cities burned between 1965 and 1970 is evidence of the extent, even on an unorganized and spontaneous level, that our people were finished with the contradictions of this system.  For the ruling capitalist classes, this period reflected a genuine fear that we could figure out how to step up our opposition.  We could become much better organized and prepared to wage a sustainable resistance to this system.  These people on top studied closely the results of data produced by bodies like the Kerner Commission which warned that the separateness of this country by race would be its undoing.  So, the super-rich convened to discuss how to address this.  How to ensure their interests remained untouched.  And, what they came up with was the need to create a much broader African petti-bourgeoisie class.  These savages understand that every human needs something to believe in so they surmised that they had to give the masses of African people something to believe in.  They concluded that if the masses of European (white) people were able to be pacified by the myth that they could integrate successfully into the capitalist system, why couldn't they pull the same trick on us?  So, McGeorge Bundy (Ford Foundation President), David Rockafeller, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, and other bourgeoisie thinkers and actors devised the concept of "black capitalism."  They fueled this concept by creating and advancing an affirmative action program thus creating more college graduates among the African masses, women, etc.  More businesses through set aside contracts and more opportunities for some of us, a few of us, to integrate into the higher levels of the capitalist system. 

Forty and fifty years later there is a firm African petti-bourgeoisie class in the U.S.  A class that has completely betrayed the sacrifices of our ancestors who fought for us to have opportunities like education so we could use the information to liberate our people.  Instead, this class of sellouts has created the illusion that the purpose of education is for individual enrichment and opportunity.  That these individuals have no obligation to use their entitlements to help the masses of African people and/or humanity.  That they earned their rights based exclusively by their own individual efforts, or at the least, the efforts of their biological families.  

Its important to understand all of this because if you don't, you won't understand where someone like Jay Z comes from.  You won't realize where his ideas came from.  You won't understand how he could say something as stupid as the behavior of African boys is the primary reason they are gunned down so often by police.  You won't realize how he could so easily and effortlessly sell out the protests of African football players against police terrorism.  You won't understand how he could make a deal with the National Football League, not his brothers protesting within the league.  

Without that understanding, you will see nothing wrong with anything Jay Z is doing.  In fact, you will agree with him on most if not all of it.  You will make the ridiculous claim so many of us are making that people are hating on him for doing something.  You will see it that way because you really want to be Jay Z or at least be in his position so you can't condone any criticism of his position because you are hoping that one day, that could be you.

Believe it when we say that this analysis isn't about attempting to change anyone's mind who's in Jay Z's camp.  We would never waste that time because we understand that this is about class contradictions.  Its a question of class struggle.  Anyone who sides with Jay Z and anyone like him is making a decision to be a class enemy of African people and all of humanity.  The expansion of the African petti-bourgeoisie wasn't done to create opportunities for advancement for the masses of African people.  It was to create a small class of African people who would be committed to the interests of the capitalist system so that they would see their role within it as that of holding our people from destroying this system.  In other words, the roles of people like Jay Z, Beyonce, Candace Owens, Barack Obama, Bill Cosby, is to uphold the capitalist system and make African people believe that its our obligation to do so.  It doesn't matter whether these people are democrats, republicans, or allegedly apolitical, all of them represent capitalism because capitalism not only supersedes the electoral political process, it manages and sustains it.  

Our objective here is to declare that we are on the opposite side as Jay Z and all those others.  We are in a war for the future of all of humanity and those people are on a completely different team and/or teams because all of them aren't monolithic.  We are on the team that recognizes that there is no wealth making within the U.S. without pushing your foot further into the neck of Africa and the rest of the exploited world.  Our team wants justice and prosperity for all of humanity and we know that can never happen with the individualistic outlook capitalism keeps forcing down our throats.  It will only happen with worldwide socialism, leading to world communism and there's absolutely no way you can understand any of that by watching and reading from capitalist news sources.  We see our pathway to contributing to this revolutionary process as building the international revolutionary Pan-Africanist movement e.g. one unified socialist Africa.  

We are 100% opposed to the tokenism that Jay Z represents.  We are equally opposed to the efforts the system makes to legitimize its oppression of our people by trotting out sellouts like him or Obama to give their efforts a black face.  And, we are appalled and alarmed at how easy it continues to be to confuse our people by simply getting someone in black face to do the same things to us that this system has been subjugating us to for centuries.  

There is actually one song by Jay Z that I always liked called "Thank You."  Its not even anything about the song.  You know how songs stick with you based on what's happening in your life at the time the song is popular.  That's the deal with that song, but I still never bought it.  And if Jay Z walked by my front door I wouldn't say a word to him.  I would and do speak to houseless people before I'd approach anyone like Jay Z because they have value and substance to me whereas people like him are representative of the master sent to us to keep us under control.  Its 2019.  The system won't send someone like the character played by Samuel L. Jackson in "Django" to represent the master anymore before even the most tepid and worthless of negroes knows how to detect fools like that today.  So, instead, they send out Africans who are cool.  Who they know we will admire and be inspired by their speech.  Their talent, their image of representing us and making it within the master's system.  That's the key to understanding all of this.  Some of you want to make it in the masters system.  Some of us want to burn down the plantation, master and all, and build something better for humanity.  When we are debating about people like Jay Z, that's really the basis of what that conversation is really all about.


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As Men, We Should Discuss the Movie "Hustlers"

9/21/2019

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Besides obviously not wishing to expose the plot of the movie for those who haven't seen it and wish to do so, this commentary is also tempered by our clear understanding that no Hollywood movie is ever going to provide the type of mass level analysis necessary to serve as a tool for our freedom and liberation.  Still, something should be said about this movie, especially as a man/male identifying person who has a genuine concern about patriarchy.  

The line at the very end of the movie by Jennifer Lopez basically sums up the essence of what I believe we should take from the film (you will have to see the movie to know the line.  No spoiler work here), but for these purposes, I'll just say the primary question is whether sex workers are wrong to maximize the amount of money they can get from their male clients.  The movie is based on true life events where a group of women established a ring that practiced leading men on to believe sexual pleasure was imminent just to gain access to the men's large credit limits.  The moral question here is are these women wrong to engage in these behaviors at the financial expense of these men?  My answer is absolutely and resoundingly NO!  As is the case in real life, the "men" we are talking about are men who make these large amounts of money by deceiving and swindling money from everyday people through bank loan scams, investment schemes, and other methods.  And, in the course of interacting with the women, these men display the most barbaric and anti-human behavior against sex workers, treating them like commodities.  The data is overwhelming in illustrating that these women are commonly sexually and physically assaulted in the course of engaging in their work so just like any other worker, when you are abused at work, your tendency will be to do things to resist in any way that you can.  Whether that means taking money from their credit card or calling in sick when you are not really sick, the end result is essentially the same.  And, since I believe workers in all forms of work are exploited, in the case of sex workers in brutal ways, that means they should maximize their ability to benefit from their work in way that they can.  Any man who experiences losing money in a sex work interaction is no different to me than the method banks employ to make up for losses resulting from defaulted loans through their so-called "provision for loan losses."  The rates you pay for your loans has a percentage built into it that compensates for those loans the bank will write off that are not paid back so the price you pay reflects you paying for defaulted loans whether you default on your loans or not.  Well, for sex workers, their provision for loan losses is the ability to gain compensation from men who they can get it from.  For men who utilize sex workers, this is no different to me than the risk you as a consumer take on when accepting any type of loan.  The only difference is the absence of the social stigma with bank loans as opposed to sex work.

Another way to look at this is these men are paying the cost of what the women have to endure from those men who are abusive to them.  As a profession, it makes sense to me that every man who interacts would have to share a portion of that risk/cost just like you have to share a portion in what your loan is priced at rate wise.  Its capitalism 101.  

The larger question is why people have to even engage in professions like sex work in the richest society on earth.  A civilized society would ensure every woman and every person has the opportunity to learn skills while making sure those people are protected by law to have the opportunity to work.  This is a socialist principle of course.  Since no such principles exist here, people are forced to earn money to pay for overpriced housing, food, etc., and for these women in question, sex work becomes that avenue.  In that context, there should be no issue with this except for the fact we live in a capitalist society based on backward Judeo-Christian/Puritan values.  A patriarchal society that makes every woman a commodity.  Consequently, women are blamed for a system that they didn't create. They are simply attempting to survive within it since the society has provided no other mechanisms for them to do so.  

We as men need to talk about and acknowledge the reality that no industry can exist unless there is a market for it.  Sex work wouldn't be a thing unless there were plenty of men, especially men with significant financial resources, who are in the market for sexual services.  None of what I'm saying here is based in devaluing or diminishing the value of sex work.  Although I'm not someone prone to pursue such work (something about having to pay someone to pay attention to me has never appealed to me if you know what I mean), I recognize that the need for these services is something that cannot in any way be blamed on the women participating in this industry.  Instead, what we should be talking about is why our relationships are so dysfunctional so consistently so that we are unable to build the type of healthy intimate connections to other human beings.  And, even when we are able to do this (in a socialist society because it will never happen under capitalism), there is still a place for sex work.  Just not the type of exploitative work that dominates this industry today because once the exploitation is removed the need for the types of activities engaged in by the women in this movie will also be eliminated.  These are the types of conversations we as men and society need to start having. Conversations where men begin to learn how to be accountable for our participation in this reality instead of just systemically blaming women.  

In the interim, we really need to stop demonizing women who participate in sex work, whether we utilize their services or not.  Like anything else, if you disagree with it, don't utilize it, but we really have no use for your efforts to control how women exert their self determination.  No one is interested in anyone's puritanical and judgmental values.  We are interested in helping societies solve their problems and from where we sit, international imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, and other systems of oppression are the primary obstacles to forward human progress, not sex work.    

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What is the True Legacy of Nelson Mandela & African Liberation?

9/14/2019

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Nelson Mandela spent 27 years at Robben Island Prison in Azania (Pan-Africanists inside and outside the country call it by this name instead of South Africa).  For that sacrifice, as well as his commitment to contributing to the anti-apartheid movement in Azania, particularly the mass character of that movement and its armed elements (Spear of the Nation), he deserves recognition.  

The actual question around legacy is larger than Mandela himself.  Its the question of the legacy of the African National Congress (ANC) and its role in current day Azania?  That's a much broader question, but for today, we'll focus more specifically on this same question of legacy as it relates to Mandela.  We can't pretend that this piece can pose as an exhaustive contribution to this debate.  Hopefully, this piece can serve to contribute to the discussion surrounding the iconic image of Mandela, promoted overwhelmingly by capitalism (much the same way this system dominates the image and messaging around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr) compared to the actual work that Mandela carried out.

Full disclosure is that since we are Pan-Africanists, that obviously means (for those with an understanding of the history of African liberation movements, ideologies, and tendencies) we are operating in a different lane from the multi-racial ANC that Mandela championed.  Still, since we are revolutionaries, we understand the steps necessary to lay the foundation for building revolutionary movements.  Mass work is required and that work is centered around raising people's consciousness.  That's why the moment you run into these so-called "activists" out here criticizing any efforts to work with people they or you don't agree with, you should know instantly that those people aren't trying to build revolutionary movements.  Usually, they aren't trying to build anything.  For us, there is still vast potential for many ANC members to decide to abandon their lane and come over to ours.  We have to believe that because we know history.  The Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, (PAC) the clearest on the ground manifestation in Azania to everything we subscribe to and believe, itself emerged out of the ANC in the 1957 Congress of African Peoples where the PAC was created after an ideological split from the ANC.  The Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) also falls within the same framework for Pan-Africanists worldwide that the PAC represents.  So, our point is we don't see the ANC as the enemy.  We may see their ideas and policies as reactionary, but we know the difference between reactionary and counter-revolutionary.  There is a major and significant difference that cannot be dismissed and ignored.  If you don't know that difference, you must figure it out before you talk further around issues like this because otherwise, all you do is contribute confusion.  We don't see the ANC as our enemy and we don't see Mandela as our enemy.  We do have critiques of the pathway Mandela and the ANC chose to pursue as it relates to Azania's future.

There's much that can be said, but we'll start by talking about the last years of apartheid, specifically the period of 1990 to 1994.  Mandela was released in 1990.  And, his release was the direct result of revolutionary forces and their work in that region of the world.  In fact, Mandela's release from prison was a direct consequence (requirement), along with the independence of Namibia, of the hundreds of thousands of Cuban troops - the force fighting alongside Angolans, Mozambiqans, etc., against apartheid supporting forces that sought to subjugate that entire portion of Africa.  In other words, in order for the Cubans to leave, Mandela had to be released and Namibia received its independence.  During this time, there were fierce and hurried negotiations taking place between the ANC and the racist apartheid government, which was closely backed by the U.S. and zionist Israel.  We know the results of the negotiated issued indicated above, but what we don't know is what other agreements the ANC made with those dominant forces of worldwide imperialism?

Despite whatever sentimental attachments people have to Mandela, no one can reasonably deny that backroom deals were made beyond what has been mentioned here.  How else can you explain, as Khalid Muhammad so clearly articulated on the Phil Donahue show in 1994, "how a Black man is imprisoned for 27 years and turns around and becomes president of the same country?"

Unfortunately, there is much stronger evidence of this cooperation.  The government the ANC transitioned into in Azania was a government where the tiny white minority viciously, violently, and systematically controlled all of the vast wealth of that country while the millions of Africans (About 80% of the country's population) controlled less than 5% of that country's wealth.  What did newly installed President Mandela and the ANC actually believe would benefit the masses of Africans in a society where a supposed transition of power took place where the multi-national capitalist corporations - from Debeers, the European entity that controls diamond mining and production, to all of the major automobile manufacturers - remained all of their wealth, control, and influence on policy in the country when their influence clearly is the dominant force that keeps Africans subjugated, disorganized, and oppressed?  Why did Mandela agree to a system in 1994 that eliminated the racial policy of apartheid while keeping intact the brutal economic oppression that system had cultivated for hundreds of years?  That is a critical question because another element of these agreements we know about is the ANC agreed to suspend armed struggle against the white settler regime and that armed resistance was the movement's most powerful leverage against the system.  The other major strength of the movement was the international anti-apartheid movement which clearly lost its legs after Mandela became president and the actual legalized system of apartheid was superficially taken down in 1994.  

Once Mandela was in place as president and the ANC was the governing party in 1994 we have the last 25 years to reflect on what that has meant for the majority of Africans in Azania.  Not only have conditions for those masses not improved e.g. poverty, lack of healthcare, lack of jobs, quality of life, everything, but there is ample evidence that Mandela's new position as the "face of Africa" served to create other challenges that did not benefit the masses of African people.  Somehow, Mandela became the spokesperson for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Africa.  He traveled around to various countries meeting with the leadership, helping convince them to accept IMF terms.  He was instrumental in doing this in Malawi, Mozambique, and other nations.  Malawi, is a clear case of the gangsterism of the IMF/World Bank that Mandela helped instill.  That country has maintained one of the highest percentages of HIV/AIDs rates in the world where roughly four out of 10 people are positive for HIV.  Malawi was spending an average of $15.00 per person USD on HIV/AIDs medications, a heavy burden for the country, but nowhere near enough to meet the challenges required for the health of the people there.  Still, with the imposition of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment loans in Malawi in the 90s, a major hydroelectric plant was constructed in Malawi with IMF funds and today, 25 years later, there isn't one tangible benefit that plant has contributed to the daily lives of Malawi's people.  During that 25 year period, the Malawan government has paid an average of $30 USD to service this IMF/World Bank loan, more than twice what that government has paid for HIV/AIDs medications that have been sorely needed by the populace.  This is the type of "deal" Mandela helped broker for Malawi and many other countries, particularly in Southern Africa.  In Angola, the country where the bulk of those Cubans troops fought alongside Angolans so courageously to help create the leverage that got Mandela released, he helped consolidate the IMF/World Bank structural adjustment loan that created for infrastructure for capitalist corporations in Angola which again did very little to help everyday Angolans.  Meanwhile, the social programs implemented by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) back in the 70s and 80s, when it had a focus on building socialism (being heavily influenced by the African Party of the Independence of Guinea Bissau - PAIGC and before that the Democratic Party of Guinea - PDG), such as education designed to eliminate violent forced castrations against women, saw sharp declines.  The government, pressured by the influence of imperialist organizations like the IMF/World Bank, moved away from its people first socialist practices, and having limited resources to service these corporate heavy loans, diverted resources to these loans.  By the 2000s, education on forced castrations had all but ceased in rural Angola and this unfortunate practice was again, widely practiced among the populace.  

In our humble view, an objective observation of Mandela's legacy since becoming president of Azania was to reduce the militancy against imperialism throughout Africa, specifically Southern Africa, most especially within Azania.  The culture and practice of the so-called "truth and reconciliation committees" a slap in the face to Africa, reflects the heavily slanted thrust towards protecting the interests of the settler white minorities while ignoring the interests of the masses of Africans.  That last sentence is the classic definition of neo-colonialism.  Its very difficult for me to see Mandela's post-apartheid contributions to Azania as anything other than neo-colonialist.  

In the early 60s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped the apartheid regime locate, capture, and imprison Mandela and Mangoliso Sobukwe - the leader of the PAC.  At that time when CIA Director George H.W. Bush played such a significant role in helping capture both freedom fighters, Mandela and Sobukwe were each considered major leaders of the movement for freedom and justice in that country.  Today, everyone knows Mandela while no one outside of us Pan-Africanists knows Sobukwe.  This just seems so symbolic of the strategy that made Mandela iconic while ignoring the needs of our people and our movement for justice in Azania.  And, the problem is that isn't just the case for Azania.  Its the same song and strategy that keeps us subjugated everywhere.  Again, none of what is written here is to attempt to smear Mandela.  We just state history and ask people to piece it together yourselves.  There is an argument about the weakness of political education within the ANC and I would suggest this deficiency is a major reason for this disconnect. 

There are plenty of good people who still believe that we can accomplish our freedom through peaceful negotiations with the enemies of humanity.  Many of you reading this plan to vote for the representatives of the capitalist political parties and you are decent people for the most part, hopefully.  Maybe this was Mandela's challenge.  We don't know.  What we do know is we have to discuss these types of issues so we can figure out how to stop continuing to fall into this same trap.  Twenty five years later, the legacy of Mandela has to conclude that imperialism is still winning in Azania and everywhere else and Mandela unfortunately did quite a bit to contribute to that reality.

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Beyond Boycotts:  Losing the Desire to Ever Watch NFL Games

9/8/2019

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Last Sunday represented the first full day of the 2019 National Football League (NFL) season, but I haven't watched an NFL game since December of 2016.  In fact, the last game I watched was Colin Kaepernick's last game playing in the NFL.  

What I know about the U.S. is the overwhelming majority of people know next to nothing about police agencies.  Where they evolved from.  What the science of their existence looks like.  Why people are outraged at their practices and why protests against them take place.  Most people cannot provide you a comprehensive analysis on any of those things although the topic is in the news cycle pretty much every day.  

Of course, most people don't really care to know much about any of the things mentioned above.  For the majority of people, just relying on their subjective vision of the world, based almost exclusively on their individual experiences, is enough to inform them about why things happen in the world the way they do.  That is true for them until they have an experience with systemic issues.  Then of course, the world should stop to pay attention to what has happened to them, but meanwhile, they don't care for the most part. 

So, I'm not watching to build anything or do anything against those people.  I'm not at all interested in changing their minds about anything on earth.  The reason for my absence form the NFL goes much deeper than that.  I had been a pretty active San Francisco 49er follower since, I admit, their first Superbowl run in 1981.  I paid my dues as a fan too because I continued to follow them through the lean years of the 2000s.  I watched as intensely and diligently when their quarterback was Troy Smith as I did when it was Joe Montana or Steve Young.  And, although I disagreed and was offended by the way the team handled star players like Bryant Young, Frank Gore, Navarro Bowman, and of course, Kaepernick, it was actually something that had nothing to do with the Kaepernick issue and/or the 49ers that made me decide to stop watching indefinitely.  

If you have a soul and you like professional sports in the U.S., you have to establish some level of balance in how you engage these sports because the model of professional athletics is a clear case of well paid slavery.  Everyone is programmed to begrudge the players for making money while paying absolutely no attention to the owners who make much more than the players while having the morality of fresh horse manure.  And, far too many of the players are absolutely disgraceful human beings beyond their ball playing abilities.  Still, I watched because that is my outlet and I felt I did so with integrity.  To me, it was no different, for example, than those who smoke weed as their release, or drink alcohol, things I don't do, when those things are tied to scores of African and other colonized and poor people being killed and incarcerated.  I would never judge those who use those mechanisms and that's why I refused to let people judge me for enjoying four or five football games per year.  

It was when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones offered contracts to Defensive player Greg Hardy and Ezekiel Elliott (the first time), with both accused, and Hardy confirmed, of domestic abuse.  This isn't uncommon in the NFL, but when Jones declared the greatness of these young men while turning around and saying that no one playing for his Cowboys would be permitted to stay with that team if the player participated in any protest against police terrorism.  For me, at that moment, the hypocrisy reached a fever's pitch.  I could no longer justify my watching a game where that level of disrespect for our people was tolerated and the fact Cowboys players like Dak Prescott and Elliott signed on to Jone's comments (like so many current and former NFL players), just made me sick to my stomach.  The hypocrisy of the concussion situation in the NFL just made those issues worse for me.  It was modern day plantation politics.  I wanted no part of it and I decided not to watch.  I said then that I probably wouldn't watch again and three years later I have absolutely no desire to watch an NFL game.  The thought of it still makes me sick to my stomach.

I think for most people, sports is an outlet so I would never shame anyone who still watches.  I will only say that dignity starts with demanding people respect you and to me, for us to succumb to the hypocrisy of professional football and do nothing except keep supporting our team?  At that point we start to earn the disrespect.

All of this runs much deeper than whatever happens to Kaepernick e.g. whether he plays again.  Or, whatever the hell type of modern day hip/hop minstrel show Jay Z is playing for capitalism.  I'm not advocating any boycott against the NFL.  I have my movement work already and its not reformist work so I wouldn't be organizing any boycotts, but I'm not mad at anyone who does that.  My position is more one of self care.  Self respect.  They can take their league and do whatever they want with it.  I can find much more productive things to do with my time and other outlets and I've done that.  Like a long and thought clearing bike ride.  Having more time to write.  Other entertainment, relaxing, and productive activities.  So, I'll wait for the NBA season to start, but I'm under no illusion that they are on any type of higher plain.  In fact, they are probably just a few short clicks from me tuning them out also.  

At some point, we as people have to learn how to not so easily give our power away.  The NFL, NBA, and all professional sporting leagues accept millions of dollars in payoff money from the imperialist U.S. military to promote this pro-America, make America first message which is code for its ok for you to rob and steal the rest of the earth blind.  And, if anyone decides to question your right to do that, you have every right to exterminate them.  We permit them to defend the national song of this country when that song clearly defends and protects the institution of slavery that terrorized our people for centuries.  The entire wealth of this country and the entire capitalist world was built upon our people being terrorized and we accept all of that brutal symbolization just so we can sit on a couch and watch Elliot run for a touchdown.  Or Khalil Mack record a sack.  Or LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard dunk.  We endure all levels of disrespect to get our nails done.  To live in certain neighborhoods.  People openly and overtly disrespect us to our faces and we video them while asking them over and over while they dehumanize us if they mean to behave that way towards us.  All of this is terrible role-modeling for our youth.  Its a major contradiction.  Especially how some of us want to lecture our youth on proper behavior.  Then, we act surprised when our youth don't respond favorably to our messaging.  Why should they?  Where in our lives are we demonstrating dignity to them?  At some point, the question has to be raised with us about how important watching that touchdown is.  And, if you think this is just about watching a sporting event, you are missing the point.  How do you find ways to address the contradictions while still enjoying your love for the game?  Is there a way to do that and if so, what are our ideas on how to accomplish this?  Right now, the only thing happening is we are being disrespected in an open and dismissive way and our response for the most part is go out and buy jerseys and talk trash supporting our teams.  Teams owned by people who view us no differently than the slave masters viewed their slaves.  Take that reality, put it on instant replay, and reevaluate where we stand in relationship to that sad, but true, existence.

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A Revolutionary Pan-Africanist Take on Robert Mugabe's Legacy

9/7/2019

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Yesterday's announcement that long time Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) leader Robert Mugabe had made his physical transition has generated the expected cross spectrum of views on who Mugabe was, what he did, and whether his contribution was a positive one for Africa.  Mugabe died at the age of 95.  He originally rose to leadership within ZANU in 1964 and he remained in that capacity until 2017.  Its his work during that 53 year period that will be assessed here. 

First, we start with the strong positives, because there are many of them.  Mugabe's Shona origins led him to be inspired to become an educator for Zimbabwe's youth.  Known then as Rhodesia - after British colonizer and exploiter Cecil Rhodes - at a very young age, Mugabe became active against the anti-African policies of the criminal British governorship in his country.   Inspired by the example of Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People's Party and the vision of African independence springing from the All African People's Conference in Ghana in 1958, Mugabe heeded the call made by Nkrumah, George Padmore, Amy Jacque Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, and many other Africans during the historic 5th Pan-African Congress in 1945 to initiate mass political parties/organization to wage a relentless struggle for independence throughout Africa.  

The Zimbabwe African Nation Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) arose from that inspiration and Mugabe and ZANU led the way towards independence, but before that, an intense struggle engaged against British colonialism.  Mugabe was captured and imprisoned based on the British wanting to circumvent his leadership.  He spent 13 years in prison between 1963 and 1975 in  time guerrilla struggle took place on various levels throughout the country between his ZANU and the colonial government.  The armed struggle, along with the positive action campaign against colonialism continued up through 1979.  In 1980, the dream of independence was realized and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.  I recall as a very young man being inspired in 1981, shortly after Zimbabwe's independence, when the then racist British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was scheduled to visit Harare, Zimbabwe, for a meeting of bilateral relations between newly independent Zimbabwe and Britain.  Britain's interests in these meetings was mining rights in Zimbabwe's vast diamond and uranium deposits.  During the time her visit was scheduled, an urban rebellion against police terrorism against African people broke out in the then ghetto area of London, England, known as Brixton.  The British police agencies unleashed a vicious and violent level of repression against the African masses in Britain.  Seeing this, Mugabe made international news by canceling his meeting with Thatcher citing that Zimbabwe could not discuss anything with Britain when the colonial power was mistreating African people in such a violent way.  Mugabe's actions, although symbolic, resonated with me because the Africans he was speaking up for in Britain were not just Zimbabwans living in Britain.  They were Africans from everywhere, including mostly Africans born and raised in Britain.  His Pan-African gesture of solidarity inspired young and developing Pan-Africanists like me to see our struggle beyond the theory.  That example was my first time recognizing the power a strong Africa will have for Africans everywhere in bringing us the respect we lack even among ourselves.

From virtually that point forward, most of the perspective presented about Zimbabwe's struggle for self-sufficiency was rooted in the imperialist analysis that the interests of the former colonizers had to be front and center to any legitimate steps towards progress.  Foremost to this point is ZANU's decision to respond to the concerns of its people and implement a land reclamation program in 1990.  The centuries of British intrusion into Africa and the systemic violence that ensured that rule remained in place created guaranteed inequities in the society where the British were afforded the best of resources and opportunities while the Africans in Zimbabwe were criminalized and denied any chance at self determination.  The white population of Zimbabwe has never registered higher than 8% and that percentage hasn't been achieved in 45 years as large numbers of whites have left the country as a result of the land reclamation program.  Colonialism created the disparity where that approximately 5 to 8% of the white population was granted 85% of the best arable land for food production.  And, by "granted" we mean afforded illegal opportunities (similar to the violence, tricks, and deceptive tactics used by Europeans here in the U.S. to steal the Indigenous people's lands) that were denied to the African masses.  Consequently, the white population was able to solidify its privileged position of power and comfort on the backs of the African masses in Zimbabwe.  

Since Africans understand that land means power, ZANU's implementation of the land reclamation program in 1990 was a sincere effort to try and eliminate the systemic disparities that kept Europeans in control and Africans in poverty.  Of course, from the perspective of imperialism, from the very beginning, this program was viewed as an attack against the white populations while it was ignored completely that they got the land themselves by using systemic terrorism to attack the African masses.  The Western imperialist countries led by the U.S. and Britain, imposed brutal sanctions against Zimbabwe making it difficult for them to secure even an aspirin on the international market.  These sanctions led to severe difficulties for a young economy.  Imperialism took advantage of these challenges to accuse Zimbabwe of financial mismanagement.  This is not to say mismanagement wasn't an issue, it is.  This is to say that mismanagement on its own was not the reason for Zimbabwe's financial challenges.  For example, imperialism used its time tested practice of appealing to the fears, primarily of white people, to create the international image that the land reclamation program was an anti-white horde of African savages stealing the lands of these hard working white angels.  Claims of a white genocide were perpetuated throughout the bourgeoisie media while white farmers in Zimbabwe were given unlimited opportunities to generate sympathy for the "terrorism" they were allegedly being subjected to.  At the same time, this racist analysis seemed to many to have validity because Zimbabwe wasn't able to immediately eliminate all of their inequity overnight.  Inequity that took centuries to institutionalize. Plus, Imperialism used the sanctions to utilize the starvation strategy of attempting to starve Zimbabwans away from supporting ZANU and on some levels this immoral tactic appeared to grow some traction.  

Fortunately, ZANU and Zimbabwe continued down the path of land justice and resulting positive changes began to become evident around 2010.  After 20 years of redistributing the fertile land, training Africans how to manage the lands, and providing the necessary support and resources to facilitate all of this, progress was being made.  By 2010, 200,000 Africans had been provided land from the anti-colonial seizures and those Africans began to become proficient in growing core crops like maize, a primary food staple in Zimbabwe.  This success at maize farming resulted in the medium income for Africans in Zimbabwe swelling to levels that were previously unprecedented.  Meanwhile, the white claims of terrorism and mass death at the hands of Africans was proven to be untrue.  Between 1990, the year the program was implemented, and 2018, the last time statistics are provided, only 11 whites have died in land reclamation efforts in Zimbabwe.  And, these were people who refused to step aside and let justice take it course.  The rumors of white women being raped.  Lands being set afire.  Mass confusion and violence against white people.  None of this ever happened in land reclamation Zimbabwe.  As income parity is beginning to happen in Zimbabwe all credible economic sources have had to acknowledge that over the long haul, Zimbabwe's land reclamation program is experiencing undeniable success in ending poverty in the country, despite the continuing international sanctions.  The success of the program has led to a similar program being proposed in Azania (South Africa) at the urging of the masses of people.  Clearly, the suffering of colonized people, whether in Zimbabwe, Azania, the Western Hemisphere, Palestine, Ireland, all can be traced to those lands being stolen from those people.  An obvious solution is in correcting the wrongs of history, especially when those wrongs once corrected will eliminate many of the problems plaguing humanity today.  This is a lesson Zimbabwe, ZANU, and the educator Mugabe have helped the entire world to understand and for that we owe him never ending gratitude.

We have said many times in this blog space that one of the things our movements have to get much better at is learning how to facilitate through adversity e.g. positions and efforts in opposition to our mission.  This has been an issue in all of the revolutionary and progressive efforts we support from Cuba, Libya, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc.  What all of these places have in common though is systemic and organized international efforts to destroy them through illegal sanctions to covert military operations of destabilization, to open hostility and attack.  These things don't excuse our less than stellar efforts at learning how to manage dissent, but it does supply context to why our ability to get better in this area is so difficult.  So, we acknowledge again that this is a shortcoming, but our ability to get better at this doesn't happen with the wave of a wand at the moment of independence or victory during the revolutionary war.  This progress takes place over a generational ideological struggle, meaning it will take us time to understand how to get better in this area because colonialism and capitalism, the systems that have dominated our lives, have shown us nothing except antagonism, individual competition, and hostility.  We have to unlearn those anti-human practices while learning the skills required to learn how to work effectively through disagreements.  have been colonized for so, so long which gives us the right to have time to figure this out and the fact we will make errors in our journey in no way discredits that journey as many on the right and even the so-called left would argue.  Just as it took Zimbabwe's land reclamation program 20 years to begin to show progress, it will take us much more time than that to learn how to effectively resolve our conflicts without them becoming antagonistic.  Also, in order for this learning process to take place, mass political education must be a constant.  The reason we can see the progress we see in revolutionary Cuba is because they recognize the necessity for this political education.  That is the only reason that a Caribbean country, rooted in machismo culture and patriarchy, can evolve to the point of having LGBTQ and anti-racism becoming a part of their school system's core curriculum.  ZANU, despite its great accomplishments previously mentioned, has had no such organized political education process.  So, if you understand that, then it shouldn't be difficult for you to understand why Mugabe and ZANU wouldn't necessarily have the most advanced positions on questions like LBGTQ.  Political consciousness has nothing to do with good intentions and everything to do with mass political education.  Without it, backward positions are going to proliferate and that lack of consciousness will open the door for selfishness and corruption, another serious problem ZANU has grappled with.  Its the consciousness of the masses that leads them to want to protect their collective gains.  Without that process, people will see the struggle as one of getting what they can for themselves to stave off their suffering.  For people in the U.S., a clear example of this is the labor movement in this country.  Any effort to try to improve conditions for low wage workers is always met by higher wage workers with cries of "what about me" and opposition against any unionized effort that doesn't specifically center individual needs and/or desires.  Of course, there is no organized political education process within U.S. labor unions so the workers see the worker struggle through the individualistic vision of capitalist values e.g. me first and not what's good for society. 

We saw much of this within ZANU and imperialism exploited it at every turn despite the fact that there is no larger cauldron of corruption then the centers of imperialism which have absolutely no moral credibility to criticize anyone on this question.  So this lack of political education is a shortcoming and critique that is deserved by ZANU.  Again, this is a challenge that must be addressed in any struggle for justice.

Finally, Robert Mugabe, like all of us, cannot be evaluated strictly based on his errors and shortcomings,  If he were known because he was a serial killer or mass shooter than maybe this would be the correct approach, but since we know him because of his decision to volunteer his life for the forward progress of Africa, than we have to see him within that context.  And by context we mean you may criticize his shortcomings, but if we cannot claim he used his position to advance himself e.g. stealing Zimbabwe's riches, etc., and there is no evidence he did any of that, than we have to conclude that his intentions were sincere in standing up for the people.  He stood up for Zimbabwe, Africa, and humanity.  He was far from perfect and was even reactionary on some questions.  Like anyone, we take the positives and build upon them and we learn from the shortcomings to positively improve upon them.  The worse thing we can ever do is let our enemies dictate any level of analysis we ever have about our own struggle and the people who engage within it.  Imperialism kills millions as policy.  Objectively, we certainly will make errors in our efforts to make a better world.  We absolutely refuse to let anyone tell us anything besides the fact Mugabe is a giant in our history and we will continue to add on to his legacy while improving upon the things that need improving upon in our quest for one unified socialist Africa, world communism, and peace for all of humanity.  

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Can You Not Tell that These are Two Completely Different Bikes?

9/6/2019

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Robert Mugabe, long time leader for the Zimbabwe African National Union, made his physical transition at age 95.  There are so many variables that need to be dissected in order to have a proper historical perspective of Mugabe.  In other words, I had planned to write about that today.  I will certainly write something about Mugabe and Zimbabwe in the next day or so, but for now, I need to raise this seemingly idiotic and ill-relevant topic?  When you look at each bicycle pictured above, do they look in any way like the same bike to you?  I'm asking because the TREK mountain bike - my personal bicycle is red.  The JUMP bike - which can be rented in any area of the city I live in, is the other red bike, like all of them.  

Anyone who knows anything about my personal life knows I've never been about materialism.  Most of my clothes are five or six years old if not older.  My vehicle is 15 years old.  Still, myself and my truck look and operate as well if not better than any of you mired in debt behind those things.  And, I'm not throwing shade at you and your car payment(s).  I'm happy for you.  I'm just clarifying that those things don't really appeal to me anymore.  For the most part, they never did.  And, they never will.  So, my point about the difference in the bikes isn't about  focusing on the difference in value between them.  My point is that it astounds me how much people don't know how to pay attention to anything in this society.  The fact that the only thing people's minds permit them to process is the color of the bikes says a lot.  For one, it says that for the most part, they only see color also with a whole lot of other things too.  

Practically everyday, as I ride my bike around town, someone stops me, some people I know, others I don't, to ask me why I'm locking up a JUMP bike.  That they see me on it all the time and how expensive it must be for me to rent it continuously.  As I sat on a restaurant patio eating dinner one night, with my bike locked to a parking meter about six feet from me, I even observed one young woman stand next to my bike for several moments searching for a JUMP bike bar code to scan with her phone so she could "rent" my bike.  I said nothing to her because I wanted to observe how long it would take her to realize my bike isn't a JUMP bike.  After about 60 seconds of trying to find the bar code, I think she finally realized why she was having so much trouble.  

A lot of people will fail to see the issue I'm presenting here.  I would guess that approximately 75% of the people walking around out here aren't really paying attention to much beyond what's happening in their personal lives.  And the extent to which they pay attention to anything outside of themselves reflects how much they believe everything/anything impacts their personal life.  To those people who live like that, they may think I'm just bringing up a very small issue and making a mountain out of it.  

This discussion is interesting to me because I have lived the last almost 40 years in a virtual state of security every second I'm awake.  The one positive that results from the multiple incidents of racist violence I encountered as a child is those traumatic experiences taught me how to learn how to take care of myself and a major portion of that is being alert at all times.  The young African I've been mentoring just couldn't get over it last night when he attempted to sneak up on me at the coffee shop and I was fully aware of his presence before he reached me.  That's just how many of us have to live our lives.  Women/non-men, LGBTQ persons, and colonized people understand what I'm talking about.  But, my alertness doesn't just extend to security issues.  I try to stay tuned to what's happening in the world.  Since I'm a fighter against injustice, I have to make that commitment to stay informed and I believe its that political education focus that has fed into the security consciousness and every other type of consciousness that exists in my life.  

Lots of people "people watch", but for me, much of that is observing people's social patterns.  This is extremely interesting to me because I operate on the proposition that we don't think for ourselves in this society.  Our thoughts are programmed into us 24/7 by the massive propaganda machine known as the capitalist system.  This is the only explanation that answers why styles can change by the minute, but they will be duplicated by people all over the world.  Dances will be duplicated.  Fashion.  Speech, etc.  And, the people duplicating will never see and/or meet the persons who originated the specific concept so if you think for yourself, how are you learning about all of these things?  The correct answer, not the answer that appeases our fragile egos, but the correct answer, is that we receive nonstop remote control messages that tell us if we wear this we will be cool.  If we drive this car we will be acceptable.  If we use this soap we will not stink.  And this is the backward process from which we go from day to day.  Its an extremely superficial process.  And, its the same superficial process that explains why when I introduce myself as "Ahjamu" (Ah jaa moo), 70% of the time, people's response is "John?"  Its not about making fun of people.  Its not even about me caring about them not hearing my name properly, although I take extra time to pronounce it slowly and clearly.  Its about studying how people are programmed to respond to everything through filters established by this capitalist system.  Colonized people, women, etc., are trained, as are white men, to interpret the world through the vision of European/Judeo/Christian/patriarchal/white supremacist glasses.  Everything from how we see certain communities, lifestyles, neighborhoods, cultures, etc., is shaped by this vision.  And, the fact people cannot tell the difference between two bicycles that beyond their external color bear absolutely no resemblance to one another is simply a manifestation of how much we are programmed to operate on auto pilot.  

The auto pilot that makes it hard for people to see the difference in the bikes is the same auto pilot that makes it hard for people to see the difference in people's experiences.  Like the bikes, to many people, the lives of colonized people, LGBTQ people, is pretty much the same experience as European men.  From a programmed external perspective, this vision becomes reality, even for many non-white men.  

We can address the problem with the bikes because doing so will help us prepare to address a lot of more important questions.  If we all agree to really focus on paying better attention to things (of course coupled with that necessary organized political education process that we just can't go without), maybe we can start learning to really and truly think for ourselves.  We can break this programming.  We can stop the dumbing down process and we can (in the process) start seeing the world in a completely different light.  A light where we can actually change it for the better.  Maybe then, when we do write about much more important things like debating Robert Mugabe's legacy, we will have the tools to make strong independent analysis, independent of that fed into us by our very enemies.

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Tomestone; Wyatt Earp & How We Learn Bourgeoisie Lies as Truth

9/3/2019

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The names Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, along with Doc Holladay, Johnny Ringo, Ike Clanton, and Curly Bill, etc., are well known in U.S. folklore.  Those names are infamous because of the role each of those people played in the notorious gunfight at the OK Corral in Tomestone, Arizona, U.S., in October of 1881.  

Unfortunately, since most people in the U.S. don't have a practice of studying history, or anything else, the bulk of most people's knowledge of the above events is shaped by movies and other popular culture pieces they've seen on the subject.  The 1993 movie "Tomestone" with Kurt Russell as Wyatt and Val Kilmer as Doc Holladay is a common source of understanding about these events for most people, but there are many other recreations.  The gunfight was actually portrayed in an episode of the original Star Trek series.  Kirk, Spook, McCoy, Scottie, and Checkov were banished to Tomestone, Arizona by the alien Malcosions to be the Clantons and Mclaureys to be killed by the Earps and Holladay in the episodes recreation of this gunfight.

The truth in history is that the Earps, including Wyatt, and Holladay, had as checkered a background as any of the Cochise County, Arizona, "Cowboys" e.g. "Curly Bill" Broious, Ringo, the Clantons, Mclaureys.  Wyatt was actually arrested and charged with a variety of crimes before becoming a so-called lawman.  He was incarcerated and would have lived out his life in prison in relative obscurity if he had not escaped from prison.  In other words, Wyatt Earp escapes from prison, becomes a lawman and later uses his reputation to prevent his good friend Doc Holladay from being involuntarily shipped to another state to stand trial for murder.  Meanwhile, Assata Shakur escapes prison in 1979 and is seen by the very same powerful structure that venerates and extols the legends of Earp and Holladay, as a murderous criminal.  Johnny Ringo, an enemy to Wyatt and Doc Holladay, was found dead from a gunshot to the head.  All fingers pointed to Wyatt Earp and Holladay who had been on a rampage against the Cochise County "Cowboys" after Morgan Earp was murdered and no one was brought to justice from that incident.  Earp and Holladay didn't rely on prayers for justice.  They didn't let justice take its course.  When they didn't get what they felt they deserved, they took matters into their own hands.  At the very least, Wyatt Earp and Holladay were gang members who actively retaliated when one of their gang was killed.  And, for that, they are folkheroes, but the Mau Mau, the Maroons, Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers, etc., are criminals for taking matters into their hands when there was enough systemic  injustice against them to make Earp and Holladay's heads swivel off their shoulders.

The point is history would have to judge Shakur as a conscientious freedom fighter while at best showing Earp and Holladay as questionable characters with very limited integrity, but that's not how most people view these circumstances today, is it?  And, this contradiction cannot be seen as an isolated instance.  In fact, we would argue that most history is severely and unashamedly slanted towards the forces supporting imperialism and against the forces of justice.  And, the cold piece about all of this is if you don't actively study history, there is absolutely no way you will be able to know the difference, regardless of how conscious you think you are.  

If you need evidence of how strong this system's propaganda mechanisms are, even over your ever so conscious mind, just think about a time when someone told you that a third party has slandered or otherwise harmed you or people you care about.  When this happened, how quick were you to see right through it as opposed to accepting, on some level, the intended acrimony against the person being snitched on, despite the fact you have no independent evidence besides what you have been told.  And, even if you claim to be the most integrity laced person in the universe, you certainly have been victimized by someone else telling another party something damaging, but untrue, about you.  When the latter happened, how many people you thought you could depend upon immediately believed the slander against you before they even talked to you about it, if they talked to you at all?  So, if we can identify with those examples on any level, we have to recognize how easy it is for capitalism to extend its propaganda message through our self-proclaimed consciousness.  Its an objective fact, if you don't have independent study and analysis, you are unable to prevent yourself from believing the propaganda, at least to some extent.

This is why we label this system generated propaganda as bourgeoisie information.  We call it that because the information has absolutely no concrete connection to material reality.  Its based solely on what the system convinces you to believe on an emotional level because when we think on this level we are unable to ask the appropriate questions.  When we don't ask the right questions, we operate in a reality of lies and confusion.  Again, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holladay are commonly thought of as heroes, although objective evidence says they were no more heroic than their nemesis's who are commonly thought of as criminals.  Meanwhile, a person like Assata is thought of by freedom fighters as the ultimate freedom fighter, yet those freedom fighters can find people among their family and friends who would label Shakur a terrorist without hesitation.  

Being able to recognize and understand bourgeoisie thought is critical in liberating our minds.  The international bourgeoisie, e.g. the capitalist classes, want us to believe things like resistance to efforts to fight oppression is "human nature" in some people, but this analysis strongly represents the bourgeoisie thought model, meaning the logic exists within people's warped minds, but cannot stand up to material reality.  Human nature is the manifestation of things we do by instinct.  How we treat people.  How we respond to people.  How we interact with people, none of these things are driven by instinct as much as they are by how we are socialized.  Yet, if we believe aspects of people's anti-human behavior are somehow "human nature" then we unconsciously accept the notion that those behaviors cannot be changed.  In other words, if we believe someone who says trying to unite humanity against the bourgeoisie is impossible because most people just won't cooperate because that's most people's "human nature" to not cooperate with efforts like that, then we are forced to believe there is nothing more we can do.  The question is when we come to that conclusion, who does that benefit?  Certainly not us because unity is the key to solving pretty much every problem we encounter on this earth.  It benefits the bourgeoisie who never want us to unite because us doing so means trouble for them.  That's why we say bourgeoisie thought because its generated, owned, and perpetuated by the bourgeoisie against the masses of people.

What then do we call healthy, revolutionary, productive thought?  We borrow from Sekou Ture's correct analysis about the people's and anti-people's class.  Bourgeoisie thought is anti-people's class.  Revolutionary anti-capitalist, pro-socialist thought is the people's class thinking.  We would argue that the primary task we have before us is that of convincing people to join organized study processes that are designed to train people how to think people's class instead of anti-people's class.  To get people to see the masses of people on the side of justice like the system has convinced so many of us to see people like Wyatt Earp as a hero, or at least an anti-hero.  Our victory in this regard will be much stronger because it will be rooted in justice instead of lies and hypocrisy.  In this backward society, bourgeoisie thinking has led millions to believe that Columbus was a hero.  That people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington (slaveowners, killers of the Indigenous peoples), Earp, Holladay, Jesse James (an armed robber no less), and Al Capone are to be celebrated.  And all of this backward thinking is of course based in the main prize - that the U.S. is to be celebrated and honored as a heroic and free country instead of the international criminal, bully nation, murderer, thief, and extortionist that it is.  

Whenever we get to the point where we are no longer satisfied with symbolic (in our minds) victories of the power structure acknowledging us in some way, and grow to recognizing that our true power is in getting the masses of people to embrace our correct narrative of history, we will begin to truly win this fight on all levels.  

Wyatt Earp, Doc Holladay, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Bush, Barack Obama, none of them are heroes.  None of them are to ever be celebrated.  Only the masses of people who fight, bleed, and die for justice are to be celebrated.  The moment we institutionalize that thinking, its lights out for the bourgeoisie.  



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Why The Obamas Aren't Held Accountable by Us

9/1/2019

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If you are reading this blog, we can safely assume that at least on some level, you have an interest and respect for politics from a revolutionary Pan-Africanist perspective.  Still, since the methodology of capitalist programming is to make all of us believe capitalist ideals are the end all, we have to say again that our perspective is outside of the bourgeoisie Democratic, Republican, Labor, Likud, Nationalist, and all capitalist political parties.  

So, follow us when we say that most people, especially Africans, love to lament the tragedy of Donald Trump being president.  Clearly, he represents the lowest level of human excrement, but truthfully, he is simply a reflection of the latest desperate state of capitalism.  In other words, he's a varied version of the same thing.  To us, he's just the alter ego of Barack Obama.  In 2008, after this country was wary from the war years of the Bush administration and the stress of the sharp decline of this economy, Obama came along representing the "cool off" period.  He was the calm voice. He was the vision of some perceived progress.  He was hope for so many people.  He was this alleged change he promised everyone.  What that "change" actually looked like was never intentionally defined.

Unfortunately, politicians (for those who may have integrity) don't dictate capitalist politics.  The political and economic interests of capitalism dictates the political direction of this country.  The politicians are simply the vehicles established to get you and me to sign off on that direction.  In 2008 and 2012, Obama was that sign off.  In 2016, with continued unresolved anxiety gripping the majority of people, Trump represents the "enough is enough" period for the masses of European (white) workers who are tired of feeling disrespected.  He also represents an opening for some colonized people who saw a way for them to possibly enter the mainstream.  How else would complete idiots like Candace Owens, Ben Carson, Omarosa, etc., be able to become prosperous?  In a healthy thinking society, no one would be listening to empty holes like these people. 

Trump's tough talk and policies against colonized people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, and every segment of this society lacking power, makes the embattled whites feel hope because Lyndon Johnson's statement was true; "the best way to retain the support of the poorest white man is to keep telling him that he's better than the negro."  These people are proving that they will accept Trump's racist message and policies above any quality changes in their own lives because capitalism has convinced them this is the best they can do.  

All of this works because Trump's supporters cling to the lie that economic conditions have become more stable under his watch simply because that's what he keeps telling them.  In this society, analytical analysis is completely absent meaning people wouldn't have the slightest clue how to evaluate economic strength.  That's why most people go with his lame talk that the stock market is proof of his successes.  Clearly, for any person out here breathing, working, and living, the only logical method to evaluate the economy would have to be how well you are doing today compared to any other period?  Are you finding that you have more disposable income?  The ability to take more and better vacations?  You are able now to do things you just couldn't afford to do before like buy what you need and do what you want to do? Do you have adequate and affordable healthcare? A stable savings account?  Without even the slightest doubt, for the overwhelming majority of us e.g. 99%, the answers to those questions is a resounding no.  So, how is the economy better?  The truth here is when these people say its better they aren't even talking about you and me.  They are talking about it being better for the corporate sector because that's all that matters to them.  And, they are very good at convincing us to view the world through corporate lenses.  So that lie continues because when they say its better, the majority of white people desire to believe there is hope for them and they will continue to believe that as long as us colonized people are being subjugated.

Its the same backward logic that explains why African and other colonized people, so-called progressive people, give Barack, and Michelle, Obama such a pass.  How so many of these people who supported Obama are so unwilling to criticize his administration when criticism is overwhelmingly due.  Remember, we come at this from a revolutionary Pan-Africanist perspective.  This means we are never handcuffed by the liberal need to protect this backward system by claiming it just needs to be reformed.  We have no desire or interest in reforming this system.  We work to destroy it and build a better system.  For us, the pathway for that work travels through Pan-Africanism or one unified socialist Africa.  Whether you understand, support, or respect our position is immaterial.  The point here is we can come to the discussion with objective analysis for why Obama and his regime represented terrorism for the majority of African and other colonized people on the planet.  We can start by reminding you that Obama pushed through that 873 trillion dollar bailout for the "too big to fail" banks in 2008 and 2009.  Those same banks that were initiated with seed money from the transatlantic slave trade.  And, 10 years later, you have seen no measurable improvements and stability in your life from that bailout because those banks unquestionably used that money to invest overseas, in industries exploitative towards humanity, to bolster their wealth.  They didn't invest that money in quality jobs for you which is the lie the Obama administration told you. You cannot name one state in this country that has seen an increase in quality jobs e.g. healthcare, pension, livable wages, yet so many people continue to believe the economy is "better" because people can earn minimum wage at McDonalds and Starbucks.  We can remind you that not only did Obama do nothing to stem the unfortunate and traumatic mass incarceration tide that was waged against our people, but it proliferated under his administration.  We can tell you that despite how much you rail against Trump's racist immigration policies, Obama quietly deported more than a million people a year while he was president.  Police shootings against Africans continued unabated while Obama was president and it was his administration that solidified the African Command program, or Afrocom.  This is the program that built between 75 and 100 U.S. military installations in Africa.  And, although they told you the purpose of those installations was to "protect" Africa we ask you when in history has the U.S. "protected" Africa or even the African people living within it from anything?  The purpose of these military installations is to engage in counter insurgency campaigns to crush rising dissent in Africa.  Our people are waking up and recognizing that the primary problem we face is multi-national corporations dominating Africa.  We know the key to our freedom is driving capitalist corporations out of Africa.  The U.S. military is there to train African military to crush this resistance the same way police agencies crush dissent in this country.  The U.S. is building drone attack factories in African countries like Niger and all of this madness was signed off on by the Obama administration.  Besides the installations, the most prosperous country.  The country that provided hope for all of the rest of Africa.  The only self sufficient country in Africa, was destroyed by the Obama administration.  Libya should be celebrating its 50th commemoration of its Jamahiriya revolution today - September 1st - but instead, Libya is a cauldron of instability and suffering.  And, all of this is so because Obama unleashed his North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing terrorism against Libya and the leadership of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 which murdered the Colonel while destroying Libya's society.  And, I mean completely bombed it into submission.  This included completely destroying the great "man made river" in the Sahara desert.   Called the "8th wonder of the world" during its existence, this innovative dam boasted 1500 dams that pumped 65,500,000 gallons of fresh water into countries like Chad, Sudan, and other portions covered by the Sahara that previously had absolutely no access to clean potable water.  This beautiful reality was created by socialist Libya, not Britain, France, the U.S. or any capitalist country.  This project was benefiting millions of Africans and today its gone.  This eco terrorism was carried out under the order of Barack Obama.  Take that in for a moment.  The most independent country in Africa was completely destroyed by the African president of the U.S.  And, that's not even the real issue because all revolutionaries understand that to be president of the U.S. you have as your first job the maintenance of the capitalist system.  This is true whether you are a representative of colonized people, LGBTG, a woman, a martian, it doesn't matter.  The real issue is most of us won't utter a peep of criticism against Obama despite all of the ill-refutable evidence laid out above.  

Instead, when confronted with any of these facts, the best Obama's supporters can come up with is he and Michelle represent a symbol of hope to our children.  That he had to do those things because of pressure from the Republicans, blah, blah, blah.  The logic of these arguments is surreal.  Historic figures like Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas, and Nicky Barnes provided visions of wealth to our people.  Daddy Grace and Father Divine did that.  The common denominator for all of these people is their example was fueled through participating in the exploitation of our people.  So without question, positive symbolism cannot be separated from our quest for justice.

After the issue of African girls being kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria became known to the general public, Michelle Obama appeared holding a sign that said "bring our girls back" or something to that effect.  I don't know if that picture of her was authentic or not, but whether it was or not, the concept is insane when one considers that her husband's administration killed and severely injured hundreds of thousands of little African girls in his military operations in Libya and Somalia, not to mention Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.  Plus, the heightened aggressiveness and confrontational nature of these traumatized whites against colonized people requires us to organize to prepare ourselves how to successfully put these savages in their place.  Instead, Michelle Obama tells our people "when they go low, we go high."  Clearly, that approach has never worked for us and it never will because its an insult to our dignity as human beings.  When has responding to a bully by "going high" ever gotten that bully to stop bullying you?

We recognize that African people and all oppressed people, beat down by the systemic attacks against us, feel the need to believe we have some victories coming our way.  We know that most of us have no knowledge of our glorious history of fighting back against our oppression every step of the way.  Its obvious that we see our existence as that of sitting around being pummeled by our enemies at their leisure.  As a result, the bar for our dignity is so incredibly low that most of us will accept absolutely anything and call it progress, but this approach is harmful to us.  We must learn to have more respect for ourselves than just being wowed because some individual sits in a position of power for the system that oppresses us.  And, as Franz Fanon told us, it says a lot about how sick we are that we evaluate our worth based on how anything coming from the power structure responds to us.  If the power structure acknowledges it.  If that structure embraces one of us, then to us, that's progress.  Meanwhile, if we struggle to build self-sufficiency outside of the power structure oppressing us. most of us find absolutely no value in that.  Its as Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson once said; "the white man's water is always sweeter."  You cannot gauge progress without including a component that evaluates justice.  Any "upliftment" we experience, even on a symbolic level, that is based on the exploitation of the rest of our African family and/or anyone else, is not progress.  African people in the U.S. talk often about how much other people in this country and around the world don't respect us and our struggle for justice here.  What's so utterly confusing is why the people making this argument believe this to be an issue when they themselves support no other struggles outside of anything directly impacting them.  They know absolutely nothing about what's happening to the rest of our African and human family around the world.  Especially since the suffering of these people is directly linked to how this system operates.  The system that Obama oversaw for eight years.  There's no tangible argument that can call Obama anything except what he is; an operative for international capitalism who's interests are tied to that system and not the freedom and justice of African people and other oppressed communities.  To pretend this is anything else is to discredit yourselves to the entire world along with cementing your legacy in history of that not much different than what you accuse Trump supporters of everyday.
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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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