Democracy Now! / By Amy Goodman and Grace Lee Boggs

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"The Answers Are Coming from the Bottom": Legendary Detroit Activist Grace Lee Boggs on the US Social Forum

Boggs calls Detroit a "symbol of a new kind of society, of people who grow their own food, of people who try and help each other."

June 23, 2010  |  

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW

Amy Goodman: We're on the road in Detroit on the opening day of the US Social Forum. Thousands of people are here for one of the largest gatherings of grassroots activists and community organizers in the country. The event this week marks the second time the Social Forum has been held in the United States. The first one was three years ago in Atlanta.

Detroit is a city with one of the highest unemployment and foreclosure rates in the country. But to many longtime Detroit-based activists, the city today is not just a picture of devastation and ruin. To them, Detroit is a city of hope, a place that seeks to nurture sustainability and community building.

Democracy Now!'s Anjali Kamat and I spoke to the legendary Detroit-based radical organizer and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs. Born to Chinese immigrant parents in 1915, Grace Lee Boggs has been involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements for over the past seven decades. Along with her late husband Jimmy Boggs, Grace has been at the forefront of efforts to rebuild urban communities. In 1992, she co-founded the Detroit Summer youth program to renew her city. Grace Lee Boggs turns ninety-five this week and is speaking at a number of events at the Social Forum, including a public conversation with Immanuel Wallerstein.

On Monday night, we visited Grace Lee Boggs at her home in Detroit on the east side, where she has lived for over fifty years. The city is considering declaring her home to be a historical landmark because it has served as an incubator for countless social justice organizations. We asked Grace Lee Boggs to talk about the importance of the US Social Forum coming to Detroit.

Grace Lee Boggs: You know, the World Social Forums began after the Battle of Seattle in 1999. And the slogan, "Another World Is Possible," emerged out of a completely new mentality, when people recognized that essentially those in control are dysfunctional and that the old social democracy dependence on those in power to give you things, that period is over.

And I think it's really wonderful that the Social Forum decided to come to Detroit, because Detroit, which was once the symbol of miracles of industrialization and then became the symbol of the devastation of deindustrialization, is now the symbol of a new kind of society, of people who grow their own food, of people who try and help each other, to how we begin to think, not so much of getting jobs and advancing our own fortunes, but how we depend on each other. I mean, it's another world that we're creating here in Detroit. And we had to. I mean, we didn't do so because we are better people than anybody else, but when you look out and all you see is vacant lots, when all you see is devastation, when all you see--do you look at it as a curse, or do you look at it as a possibility, as having potential? And we here in Detroit had to begin doing that for our own humanity.

Anjali Kamat: So what do you think the rest of the United States can learn from Detroit?

Boggs: Well, I'm hoping they will learn, and I spoke to two young groups today, one of them from California and another one from Ithaca, New York. Downtown they had come in vans for the Social Forum. I hope they understand from Detroit that all of us, each of us, can become a cultural creative. That's what's taking place. We are creating a new culture. And we're not doing it because we are such wonderful people. We're doing it because we had to, I mean, not only to survive materially, but to survive as human beings. We couldn't give up. And that's why I think--that's what I hope people will learn, because the United States is going through some difficult times, and unless we understand that, and that that is what it means to evolve, not--to see what is negative as a potential positive.

Goodman: Grace Lee Boggs, we're here with you in Detroit at the time of the US Social Forum--Detroit, the center of the fossil fuel economy--at a time where, in the Gulf of Mexico, it's experiencing the worst environmental catastrophe in US history, the BP oil geyser. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are continuing. How do you put these together? And what needs to be done about them?

Boggs: Well, I think we have to see this as an opportunity and not just as a danger. I mean, it's difficult to do that and look at the catastrophe in the Gulf and to look at what's happening in Afghanistan and not think that the world has come to an end. But it's a fantastic opportunity to--you see this T-shirt? It says, "Revolution is evolution." It's this fantastic opportunity to advance our humanity, to become more creative, to know that there are other ways to live and the way that we have lived has been at the expense of so much, so many other people and so many of the earth, and that we don't have to live that way, that that only was only 300 years, that before that, people thought that the earth was more important than land and that work was more important than a job. This capitalist society has not lasted forever; it's only a few hundred years old.

Goodman: Your assessment of how President Obama is dealing with these issues? Exacerbating them or solving them?

Boggs: Well, I think that anyone who attempts a top-down solution can't succeed. And I don't think that, from the very beginning, he was so close to the grassroots. I think that he had--I think he--I don't know. I remember asking Bill Ayers once, who knew Obama in Chicago, "How would you characterize him?" He says, "He's a very ambitious person. He believes in advancing and climbing the ladder." A lot of people believe that, that when you climb the ladder, and you end in the White House, and you have the Pentagon, and you don't--and you rehire Bob Gates and Lawrence Summers. It's very sad. It's very sad. But I think it's very helpful to understand that, you know, when--I'm going to be talking to Wallerstein. Wallerstein understands how the feudal lords could not run European society, how the serfs were running into the cities, how disease was spreading, and they became dysfunctional. And I think we see the dysfunction in the White House. We see the dysfunction at the top level. We see how they propose top-down solutions for education, for example: testing, more testing, more standardized testing, punishment. The answers can't come from the top. And that's why Detroit's so important, why the Social Forum is so important. The answers are coming more from the bottom.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!.

 

Listen to the program online:

Download ashes1.mp3

In the summer of 1967 chaos broke out in the streets of Detroit. After five days of violence 43 were dead, thousands were injured and over 4000 people had been arrested.

This summer – forty years later – Michigan Radio takes an in-depth look at the deadliest riot of the 1960's. Why did the riots begin? What fueled them? And, have we ever really recovered?

Our documentary, "Ashes to Hope: Overcoming the Detroit Riots" explores how the riots affected people, neighborhoods and even music. It explores questions such as: Whether it was truly a riot? Or, a rebellion? Is the "white-flight" that we see today in Detroit a consequence of the riots? Did the riots cripple the relationship between the state of Michigan and Detroit?

We also hear from Michigan Radio reporters as well as first-hand accounts of what it was like to be in Detroit during the riot.

If you have comments or questions about "Ashes to Hope" e-mail us here.

>via: http://www.michiganradio.org/ashestohope.html

Sandra Nkaké "Stay True"

Sandra Nkake + Erik Truffaz + Sly Johnson // Tard Au Bard - 2 avril 2009 

Sandra Nkaké - Happy

Sandra Nkaké - Higher

Sixth Annual Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award Camber Press is pleased to announce the return of our annual poetry chapbook award. Our ethos is to publish contemporary poetry exhibiting lucid delivery while not sacrificing emotional depth, mastery of craft, or originality. The Sixth Annual Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award Deadline: September 15, 2010 First Prize: $1,000 and publication of chapbook Judge: Stuart Dischell Submission guidelines: The winning poet will receive $1,000 and have his or her manuscript published by Camber Press, Inc. Only typed manuscripts no greater than 24 pages of original English-language poems will be considered. Manuscripts must include a cover page listing the author's name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and manuscript title. Names should not appear anywhere else. A title page with no biographical information and a table of contents should follow. Simultaneous submissions are allowed if Camber Press is immediately notified of acceptance elsewhere. Submissions will be recycled, not returned. Include a self-addressed, stamped postcard if you wish acknowledgment of receipt. A $15 entry fee payable to Camber Press must accompany all submissions. International submissions are $15 provided they are in US funds on a US bank. Submissions must be postmarked no later than September 15, 2010. The winner will be announced no later than November 1, 2010, on the Camber Press Web site. E-mail us for a PDF of these guidelines. Send entries to: Camber Press Poetry Award 807 Central Avenue Suite 2 Peekskill, NY 10566 Other details: If some or all poems in your manuscript have been previously published in literary journals or reviews, please include this information in an acknowledgments page. Any manuscript previously published as a whole in book form is not eligible. Multiple manuscripts by the same writer will be accepted if submitted with a corresponding entry fee for each work. If the poet's name is present anywhere on the manuscript aside from the cover page, the entry will be disqualified. If the poet needs to refer to his/herself during the poem, a pseudonym must be used. Please do not send corrections or additions. The winner will be allowed to make revisions before publication. Submissions postmarked after September 15, 2010 will not be considered for the contest. Total manuscript pages do not translate to an equal number of book pages. Line length, stanza breaks, book sections, type size, margins, and other factors affect the number of pages a finished book will be. If unsure how many pages your book will be or if your manuscript is too long, visit your local library. Look at Camber Press titles and poetry chapbooks from other publishers. By comparing these with your own poems, you can estimate the approximate book length of your manuscript. Covers, tables of contents, dedication pages, acknowledgements pages, etc., do not count toward the total of 24 pages. "No greater than 24 pages" does not mean your manuscript need be 24 pages. To date, no poet submitting 24 pages has won the Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award. Please think of your best poems first, manuscript flow second, and "24 pages," if ever, last. If you wish to bind your manuscript(s), please use a paperclip. Folders, binders, "bullnose" clips, and staples are not encouraged. Please do not send your manuscript via a carrier requiring a signature for delivery. Not only is this is an unnecessary expense for writers, we find the USPS does a more than adequate job of delivering to our location. Submissions will be recycled, not returned. Do not send a return envelope or return postage. Never send your only copy of your manuscript anywhere. To be advised of future Camber Press news, please join our e-mail newsletter list. Camber Press will not sell, trade, or distribute your e-mail address to any other company, organization, or individual. We don't like spam, either. An e-mail to the same address will remove you from our future mailings. About our judge, Stuart Dischell Stuart Dischell is the author of Good Hope Road, a 1991 National Poetry Series Selection, (Viking, 1993), Evenings & Avenues (Penguin, 1996), Dig Safe (Penguin, 2003), and Backwards Days (Penguin, 2007). Dischell's poems have been widely published in journals such as The New Republic, Ploughshares, Slate, The Kenyon Review, and in anthologies including Hammer and Blaze, The Pushcart Prize, and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems. A recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, he teaches in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Greensboro, the Sarah Lawrence Summer Literary Seminars, and in the Low Residency MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. A PDF of the above submission guidelines is available here. Last year, Mark Doty chose Gregory Randall's Double Happiness in a blind submission similar to the above guidelines. It will be published later this year. Camber Press is thoroughly devoted to maintaining the integrity of our competitions. Judges are directed to discard any manuscript where the writer of the work can be identified, where they have had a personal relationship with the poet, or if they have contributed in the making of the manuscript. Camber Press does not choose writers or judges based on race, sex, color, religion, age, national origin, physical ability/handicap, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity or geographic location. Manuscripts are chosen for publication based solely upon quality of work. Judges are chosen because we like their writings and because they are willing to support small presses and independent bookstores. We thank you for your interest in submitting your work. Camber Press looks forward to publishing new, talented writers for the rest of the world to discover along with us. At this time we have several other manuscripts in production for publication, and we are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts outside this competition. Watch our Web site for announcements on the winning manuscript and forthcoming awards in both poetry and fiction.

 

 

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---- 2010 Submission Guidelines ----

$500 and 50 copies of the winning chapbook will be awarded to the winner. In addition to the prize winner, at least one other manuscript will be published under a standard royalty contract (author paid 10% of press run). Everyone is allowed to submit regardless of previous publication history. Every entrant will receive the equivalent cost of the entry fee in Pavement Saw Press titles.

Unlike many publishers whose collections are printed one copy at a time and therefore lack a large circulation, our chapbooks are published in a first edition of 400 copies plus overage. While chapbooks rarely receive exposure, ours have been reviewed in Poets and Writers, Publishers Weekly, The Georgia Review, Small Press Review and many others. Our previous winners have had subsequent full length books appear from a bevy of publishers including Curbstone Press, Cleveland State University Press, Bear Star Press, University of Georgia, and Hanging Loose Press.

Submit up to 32 pages of poetry. Include a signed cover letter with your name, address, phone number, e-mail, publication credits, a brief biography and the title of the chapbook. Include a cover page with your contact information and the chapbook title. Include a second page with the chapbook title only. Do not include your name on any pages inside the manuscript except for the first title page. No need for a contents page. All chapbooks are selected blindly / anonymously. Manuscripts will be considered until December 31st, 2010. Entry fee: $15 for mailed US entries, $18 for mailed overseas entries, $21 electronic (world wide).

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We will then send you an e-mail confirmation as well as where to e-mail the manuscript. Electronic submissions need to be sent as PDF files or as word (.doc or .docx) files. Other formats are not accepted. The extra cost is to cover the paypal fees as well as the time, labor, ink, and so on, to print out your manuscript.

If you wish to send via regular mail accompany your manuscript with a check in the amount of $15.00 payable to Pavement Saw Press. All contributors to the contest will receive books, chapbooks and journals equal to, or more than, the entry fee. Add $3 (US) for other countries to cover the extra postal charge. Do not include an SASE for notification of results. Do not send the only copy of your work. All manuscripts are recycled and individual comments on the manuscripts cannot be made. This year the editor will be the judge and, as it should be, he promises not to chose former students, former or potential sexual partners, press interns, or people that can make him famous. A decision will be reached in March. Entries should be sent to our address at the bottom of the page.

 

 

Entries should be sent to:

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The First Spoken Ink Audiostory Competition

Submissions are invited of stories of no more than 1,500 words.

Stories must be the original work of the author, and must not have been published before in any medium.

The stories must be sent by email to competition@spokenink.co.uk as attachments, and must be in .doc, .rtf or .pdf format.

A long list of ten stories will be posted on the site.

On our distinguished judging panel are:
Prunella Scales, the actress (Sybil Fawlty),
Ra Page, publisher and founder of Comma Press specialising in short stories
Sue Arnold, audiobook columnist on the Guardian
Adam Marek, author (finalist in the Sunday Times short story competition 2010)
and Edmund Caldecott and Constantine Gregory of Spoken Ink

A short list of three stories will be selected by our panel, recorded and posted on the site. The public may then vote on them.

The winner will receive £250, second prize is £50, and third prize £25

Copyright of the material remains with the author, but Spokenink shall have non-exclusive rights to publish the stories for free audio download for a period of two years.

The competition closes on 31st July 2010.

The winner will be announced in late September/early October 2010.

To keep you informed, there will be regular updates in our newsletters.

A fee of £4 must be paid for each submission, and you may make as many submissions as you wish.

By entering the competition, you agree to the conditions above.

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We look forward to reading your stories! Good luck!

Entry fee: £4.00

 

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To pay, supply the required details above, then click to use our secure payment method. After successful payment, you will be supplied with a unique payment code. You will need both the payment code and the 'Author's name' as proof of payment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

President Obama meeting with General McChrystal

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Rolling Stone Reporter Speaks Realism

Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone article on General Stanley McChrystal, tells Al Jazeera what the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan was trying to achieve by giving a journalist so much access. (June 23, 2010)

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McChrystal Survived Tillman Cover-Up And Detainee Abuse, But Not Rolling Stone's Profile

First Posted: 06-23-10 03:25 PM   |   Updated: 06-23-10 03:25 PM

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Stanley McChrystal, the general and chief architect of the counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, was relieved of his command on Wednesday, following a series of disparaging quotes that he and his aides made about the president and civilian leadership.

It was a remarkable conclusion to a frantic two-day period of frenzied coverage, climaxing with a Rose Garden appearance in which the president explained his rationale. In the end, it will remain a confounding episode for both historians and politicos alike. It was not McChrystal's connections to a scarring episode of detainee abuse and the cover-up of a revered soldier's death or his disparagement of the vice president's proposal for Afghanistan that did the general in. It was a series of interviews withRolling Stone magazine, of all things.

"The conduct represented in the recently published article," said President Obama, "does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general."

Indeed, as Obama spoke in front of a throng of reporters at the Rose Garden, it seemed nearly surreal to imagine that a freelance reporter -- fortuitously embedded with McChrystal during an alcohol-filled bus trip from Paris to Berlin (the flight had been canceled due to volcanic activity in Iceland) -- had put the wheels in motion. McChrystal, after all, had made gaffes before, including publicly mocking Joe Biden's preference for a limited troop presence in Afghanistan ("Chaos-stan" he chided). More than that, he had been either intimately connected or directly tied to two very controversial episodes in recent military history. And no one seemed to notice.

McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan when Army Ranger and former football star Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. He approved the paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star for dying in the line "of enemy fire" -- and he was "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" contained therein, according to an investigation -- despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that Tillman had died in an episode of fratricide. That episode barely registered with the public or, for that matter, Congress, when McChrystal went before the Senate Armed Services Committee waiting to take over control in Afghanistan. The one person who questioned whether more answers were needed was journalist Jon Krakauer who had just penned a book on Tillman's death and thought the general's explanations were "preposterous" and "unbelievable."

The second episode was even less well-known. Years after the Tillman death, McChrystal was mentioned several times in a report by Human Rights Watch which documented the abuse and torture of detained prisoners at Camp Nama in Iraq. A soldier, quoted anonymously in the findings, recalled seeing McChrystal at the facility "a couple of times." It was also reported that the general himself said there was no way that the Red Cross would ever be allowed through the door at Nama -- where treatment of detainees was so bad, it earned the nickname Nasty Ass Military Area.

"It is not easy to say what his role was accurately because the entire program of detention and interrogation going on there remains highly classified," said John Siston, an author of the Human Rights Watch report. "But HRW was able to learn enough to say that he was in the chain of command that oversaw the operations of that special task force and the interrogation unit that took care of the detainees that that special task force detained."

Nama, like Tillman, never played a role in McChrystal's quick ascendancy through the military ranks. Indeed, one of the most ignored nuggets in the Rolling Stone piece involved the general and his staff prepping for tough questioning on both of these topics, only to discover that Congress didn't care.

In May 2009, as McChrystal prepared for his confirmation hearings, his staff prepared him for hard questions about Camp Nama and the Tillman cover-up. But the scandals barely made a ripple in Congress, and McChrystal was soon on his way back to Kabul to run the war in Afghanistan.

Congress it seemed was more invested in moving forward than looking back. And so it was that McChrystal became embroiled in a career-threatening controversy only after the Rolling Stonepiece raised questions as to whether his shaky relationship with civilian leadership would compromise the Afghan mission.

It wasn't an unworthy basis for the general's dismissal though it may have fallen a bit short of the official definition of insubordination (but not by much). But it was telling for some that after dodging several other bullets, it was an article in a music magazine (and not even a cover article at that) that did the trick.

"Given that there are a lot of unanswered questions about McChrystal's role in detainee abuse in Iraq," Stacy Sullivan, a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch said hours before his resignation, "it would be ironic if a few careless comments to Rolling Stone magazine were to bring about his undoing."

>via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/23/mcchrystal-survived-tillm_n_622919.html

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As it happened: Gen McChrystal controversy

President Obama: McChrystal's conduct "does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general" LIVE TEXT COMMENTARY (all times EDT: GMT -4)   By Matthew Danzico, Washington   2030 Thanks for joining our live coverage of the General Stanley McChrystal controversy today. We've appreciated all your comments and insights along the way. As always, the BBC News website will continue to provide the latest news and analysis on this story as it develops.     2026 The BBC's David Willis in Washington Next week the Senate will be asked to approve General Petraeus' appointment as Stanley McChrystal's successor. Given his reputation that is expected to be a formality, whereupon he could be on the ground in Afghanistan in a matter of weeks. But this is a man likely to be cautious about timings, possibly including President Obama's commitment to bring troops home by this time next year. Giving evidence to Congress last week, the general said: "'In a perfect world Mr chairman we have to be very careful with timelines.'"   2014 Charles from Oklahoma City, OK writes: If some lieutenant or captain spoke to the press disparagingly of Gen McChrystal, that would be insubordination and a court marshal offence. The troops need to see that what applies to them also applies to their commanders. Obama did the right thing. Have Your Say     2010 A grim statistic to put today's events in context is that June looks set to be confirmed as the deadliest month for the Nato-led forces in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. A total of 76 international service members have died this month - including 46 Americans.     1942 Bob from Suffolk, UK writes: An elected official of a government has no right to 'sack' a highly trained soldier from his given job. War and peace is given by good soldiering not tit for tat politics. Have Your Say     1937 The White House says President Obama has spoken to President Hamid Karzai, telling him a change in command does not change US policy in Afghanistan.     1920 Toby Harnden, Daily Telegraph The way Obama fired McChrystal was choreographed to humiliate the general and bolster the president's credentials as a macho man. So much for "no drama Obama". The manner of the firing came dangerously close to putting political theatre and image-burnishing above the conduct of a war.   1917 Sadiq Mehdi from Los Angeles, California writes: General McChrystal was correct to speak his mind if he saw appropriate. One should not get to such heights in the army if their opinion does not matter. Shame on you US army for letting your top general get treated this way. You all can lose life and limb for this administration but if you have an opinion, you are fired.  Have Your Say     1915 Kori Schake, a former professor at the US Military Academy at West Point, tells MSNBC Gen McChrystal was "the centre of gravity of political relationships with President Karzai and other Afghan and regional leaders".     1909 Great metaphor from contributing analyst Ted Koppel on BBC World News America - comparing Mr Obama to a circus performer with a foot on two horses. Worth watching in full. Ted Koppel's unique view of McChrystal affair     1902 Gert from the Bronx, New York tweets: I think what happened to General McChrystal is absolutely unfair and unacceptable. Focus on BP instead, Obamster. Read Gert's tweets     1856 Karen Freeman tweets: You ever hear the saying "loose lips sink ships", Gen McChrystal? Why would a decorated soldier compromise a mission? Read Karefreeman's tweets     1837 The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington The president's appeal for unity within his national security team was telling: the rivalries and lack of trust between key members of the team, as well as their differing views on President Karzai, are fairly well known. Gen McChrystal was only part of that dysfunctional setup.     1835 High stakes gambling analogies abound in correspondent David Martin's report on the McChrystal affair for the CBS Evening News. This is not "double down", this is Mr Obama's "all in" moment, Martin says.     1817 Retired US Army four-star Gen Barry McCaffrey tells MSNBC that his main concern with the resignation of Gen McChrystal is "the time factor". He says that the war in Afghanistan is unpredictable, and that Gen McChrystal is "probably the best counterterrorism person we have produced in the war." Gen McCaffrey says that it is unfortunate that Gen McCaffrey "brought along this commando group of staffers" who "started talking badly about the chain of command".   1757 The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington By getting rid of his undiplomatic general, President Obama doubtless hopes to reassert his authority over the military and political strategy. But with a review of that strategy due in September, he may decide that other changes are needed too.     Obama's national security team on Afghanistan and Pakistan met, minus Gen McChrystal. His replacement, Gen Petraeus is seated far left.   1748 The White House has released information on President Obama's earlier phone call with British PM David Cameron (see1529). Mr Cameron confirmed that UK Lt Gen Nick Parker will serve as the acting Commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan until a replacement is approved. Gen Parker sent a message to the president saying the mission "would not miss a beat".     1711 The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Washington The interesting thing here is that President Obama actually picked up on one of the things that was clear from that Rolling Stone article - there have been divisions here in Washington between the military and the civilian side. And in the civilian side, there has been a lot of back biting and sniping between high profile figures behind the scenes.   1703 All the background noise so far suggests that General Petraeus will have a quick and easy confirmation hearing in the Senate, which must approve his nomination by the president (see 1642)     1655 The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington Obama had to choose between continuity in leadership of the war effort at a crucial time for Afghanistan and unity within a leadership that showed respect for him as commander in chief. By choosing Petraeus he probably managed to get both. Petraeus, the man who turned around Iraq, is in essence the one who devised the counterinsurgency strategy that McChrystal was implementing. As head of Centcom, he was also in charge of Afghanistan and has travelled there regularly. He's also in regular, close contact with Pakistan's top brass, a key to the regional strategy.     1649 John Price from Port Richey, Florida writes: Obama is too thin-skinned. He just can't handle the truth. McChrystal was frustrated over not being able to get the White House support. Obama reacted wrong, perhaps a beer together in the Rose Garden while they talked things over would have been more appropriate, then send Gen McChrystal back to work with a renewed mutual understanding of each other, and the war. Petraeus, while an excellent general, should be allowed to do what he was doing, which will be rather difficult from Afghanistan.  Have Your Say   1642 Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, says Gen Petraeus' nomination hearing "will be no later than next Tuesday".   The Afghan deputy speaker on Gen Petraeus   1633 Former CIA Covert Operations Officer Mike Baker tells CNN that President Obama "handled it the only way he could." Mr Obama could not overlook the statements made by General McChrystal, Baker says, but he question whether McChrystal's controvers

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Uganda: Place Your Bets -- Oil Prosperity or "Resource Curse"

 

Yep, energy companies found 700m barrels of commercially viable oil in the pristine Albertine Graben region, of Uganda, "representing the first major petroleum strike in east Africa." Using Paul Collier's "Resource Curse" analysis... (6.17 mins in)

...Anne Perkins rates Uganda's chances of getting out of  the oil trap alive:

The underlying factor is invariably low income. In that context, the prospect of the vast proceeds of globally scarce natural resources greatly sharpens competition for control over them. But natural resources do not only corrupt the political process in the obvious sense of illicit financial gain for a few (often abetted by global corporate greed), they also profoundly affect the relationship between politicians and voters.

As Collier points out, the opposite of the cry of American independence, no taxation without representation, is also true. There is no representation without taxation. Where a government's income comes from oil rather than the people, it becomes all too easy to ignore the people.

The final destabilising element in Collier's analysis is a question of geography: often the source of this new wealth is concentrated in one area, usually remote. In countries with an uneasy balance of ethnicities, it is easy to skew a fragile co-existence with what Collier calls the "romantic propaganda of identity politics". And secessionists with access to revenue from the disputed natural resource can all too easily arm themselves.

Uganda fits all perilously neatly into this mould. So the challenge is on to make oil pay for society as a whole, to turn curse into blessing.

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MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2010

What Happened to the Black Literary Canon?

June 22, 2010

tags: African Americans, Barack Obama, Black Literary Canon

by The Blogger

One of my fondest childhood memories was going into a closet in our home where my father kept some of his books. My Pop was an auto-mechanic, a blue collar guy, so you would think his reading selection would be limited to those five inch thick repair manuals that grease monkeys always kept handy for the latest technological change to a vehicle’s specs. That was not the case with my old man. From The Autobiography of Malcolm X to Sammy Davis Jr.’s, Yes I Can, my Pop kept a wide variety of books at his disposal. Invariably many of these books dealt with either a Black figure or some issue of Black life. As a Haitian immigrant having lived less than a decade in the United States at that time, my father’s interest in such books was a testimony to the extent he placed importance on awareness of the plight of the Black community in his adopted homeland. There was also the assortment of old Time Magazine issues with pictures of Richard Nixon, Black Panthers, and global conflicts in that same literary treasure trove. So for me, reading books and magazines always had the connotation of something serious people should do. My Pop was a serious man, so for him to be spending time indulging in this material meant that this was an endeavor I needed to engage in.

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Fast Forward to my college years in the late 80s. Though not a period known to produce a level of social consciousness and protest activity of note in comparison to the 1960s, a variety of factors made the late 1980s a time in which being a student of color on campus required one to have a degree of familiarity with a certain canon of books that, if lacking, could have one’s dedication to “the cause” called into question. Horrific Apartheid in South Africa, the advent of culturally aware Hip Hop Music, and the debates around Afro-centricity created an air of racial awareness and a level of political acumen that required students of my era to be familiar with what I call “The Black Literary Canon.” These were books that made up the intellectual arsenal that students of color would discuss, debate, and even sometimes use to show off to the ladies to make themselves seem like the “deep brother” on campus.

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From James Baldwin’s, The Fire Next Time, E. Franklin Frazier’s, Black Bourgeoisie, Cater G. Woodson’s, The Mis-Education of the Negro to Cheik Anta Diop’s, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, Black students from this period had at least a basic command of texts that offered not only a guide through the confusing matrix of race and identity many had to navigate, they imbued students with a sense of cultural integrity that ensured that any offense hurled at the collective psyche of Black Consciousness would be met with the harsh reprisal.

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Moving on to today when the nature of music, especially Hip Hop, has shifted from cultural awareness to capturing the latest designer brand or flashy piece of jewelry, and instead of having to spend hours in the university library to find answers to the most basic question you perform a Google search on your smart phone, it brings one to ask: What happened to the traditional Black Literary Canon? Is there any importance or even relevance placed by todays 20 somethings on maintaining the level of cultural and racial integrity that was so crucial to young people from my era so as to avoid being given the most offensive title of: “The Lost Brother or Sister?” Is the “Obama generation” even remotely concerned with answering those nagging questions of racial identity, or have they assumed the more commercially palatable and socially convenient mantra of “transcending race” to move to the Utopian ever so tranquil “post-racial America.”  A position that does nothing but anesthetize people of color into avoiding the recognition that some of the most horrid racial injustices in American society are occurring today even in the age of Obama. How much have we transcended race when political movements like the Tea Party are premised on the “otherness” of the first Black president.

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As New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow stated in his startling piece Black in the Age of Obama:

A May report from the Pew Research Center found that blacks were the most likely to get higher-priced subprime loans, leading to higher foreclosure rates. In fact, blacks have displaced Hispanics as the group with the lowest homeownership rates.

According to the most recent jobs data, not only is the unemployment rate for blacks nearly twice that of whites, the gap in some important demographics has widened rapidly since Obama took office. The unemployment rate over that time for white college graduates under 24 years old grew by about 20 percent. For their black cohorts, the rate grew by about twice that much.

And a report published last month by the Department of Agriculture found that in 2008, “food insecurity” for American households had risen to record levels, with black children being the most likely to experience that food insecurity.

Things on the racial front are just as bad.

We are now inundated with examples of overt racism on a scale to which we are unaccustomed. Any protester with a racist poster can hijack a news cycle, while a racist image can live forever on the Internet. In fact, racially offensive images of the first couple are so prolific online that Google now runs an apologetic ad with the results of image searches of them

In no way can President Obama be made to blame for these realities. But the greater question is this: how can we expect the young bright minds the Black Community offers to combat these ever increasing racial realities if the intellectual arsenal of books and authors that were once heralded as crucial to ones personal edification become relics in the age of facebook, twitter, and the blogosphere? Have we come to a point where being post-racial is not a personal choice young people make in order to function under the accepted norms of todays America, but a consequence of the lack of awareness and knowledge of the multi-generational struggle people of color have waged throughout the world to obtain freedom? If so, perhaps there is a need for us to dust off those old books and re-investigate that Black Literary Canon. Because if history does not provide us with the cultural armor to withstand these impending racial attacks, we will be doomed to live the worst of our existence in the future instead of celebrating overcoming our obstacles from the past.