I think it is ridiculously egregious to lay blame at the feet of Mandela for the economic conditions faced by many black South Africans today. In an interview with The Real News Network, author and filmaker, Danny Schecter explains just why such criticisms often fail to reflect the political reality as it were. For some, had Mandela simply nationalized major industries things would be much better economically for blacks

Check out this excerpt:

… what we do know, though, is that the ANC, when it came to power, was more preoccupied with political change than with economic change. And I think the problems that we’re facing in South Africa today and in many other countries are because movements for change don’t focus on economics. They mostly focus on politics.

First of all, let’s recognize that Mandela was part of a collective leadership of the ANC. Everything that was done by the party was not done by him, and everything that he did was not necessarily supported at every stage by the party.

He was a leader, a visionary figure, and a reconciler, a person who could reach beyond the confrontation that was brewing in South Africa and avert a race war and promote reconciliation at a time when no one thought that would be possible.

So let’s start with the positives. The positives is that apartheid was demolished, that a multiracial government was formed in South Africa, that the country held its first democratic elections in which everyone participated. That was largely part of his, really, forte.

He was not an economist, and a lot of people in the ANC were rather naive about economics. They were being promised all sorts of things by Western companies and Western governments that never came to fruition.

But this was also a period when their allies, the Soviet Union, basically had fallen apart, and many of the countries that they had been allied with were not able to help them.

So, in essence, they had to be pragmatic. They had to find a way to move forward with as much support as they could achieve.

Now, in the course of that, they made deals which in retrospect and in hindsight don’t look very good, deals with the IMF, deals with the World Bank, deals with various companies who were promising to make changes but didn’t really quite make them.

Mandela was, you know, a steward of all this. He was a president, a political leader, but not necessarily the person calling all the shots, in the same way that Obama is the president but Wall Street calls a lot of the economic shots. So it’s unfair to dump all of this on him.

And what we do know, though, is that the ANC, when it came to power, was more preoccupied with political change than with economic change. And I think the problems that we’re facing in South Africa today and in many other countries are because movements for change don’t focus on economics. They mostly focus on politics.

Watch the full interview below:

Take a look at the following:

Look, it’s unrealistic to expect Mandela who served a five-year-term to have ended the longstanding income inequality between blacks and whites in South Africa. Think about it, apartheid started in 1948 and ended as a legislated governing institution in the early 1990s. For me, it’s hard to fathom how Mandela, who as president inherited an economy that was ravaged by sanctions could have sought badly needed foreign investors by nationalizing industries. Even more realistic is this notion that blacks in South Africa were to be better off economically, immediately. Hell, slavery in America ended 150-years ago and yet the wealth gap between blacks and whites in America persists. But, I suppose in the minds of many forty acres and a mule not-having-ass so-called revolutionary thinking minds, Mandela was supposed to deliver diamonds and bricks of gold to the home of people who never even had an opportunity to vote before he stepped on the scene. Yeah, Mandela was a sellout, right?

The post South Africa’s Income Inequality isn’t Nelson Mandela’s Fault appeared first on Madness & Reality.

As the environment deteriorates the local papers report of Federal funding and the plans to disperse said funds to the community.

If you didn’t know any better you’d think the people destroy their own environment. But how can the citizens of urban towns be held responsible for buildings, streets, and schools that decay due to age and neglect? Since when did citizens control public works projects…?

Can low class Blacks really be in charge of those who lack ethics and any semblance of public service?

Can low class blacks get recognition when they must seek it from a group of people who benefit from the unwritten beneficial rules of the haves?

The ignorance is deep rooted, generational and decisive. There is a system in place that allows the exploitation of urban Blacks and Latinos (and other poor) that benefits everyone on the hierarchy of importance with the people of color being the lowest on the totem pole of needs.

Nepotism is a favorite pastime among the ownership class.

Having the right connections, or resources, like white skin and a penis, can easily gain one a position of authority over other groups. Nepotism is a disease (or benefit of being the ‘in power’ group-depending on how you look at it) that makes every other level of society ill.

And this is why some Blacks from certain towns just don’t bother to play the game.

There is an invisible wall of exclusion that exists between potential, aspiration and impossibility.

Ethnocentrism is the belief that one holds in which the person (unlike the subject) projects their own experiences and expectations onto people (the subject) who is essentially unlike them. There is a different sets of circumstances and resources, yet those who view the world through an ethnocentric lens expect similar outcome from diverse starting points.

It’s one of my favorite social science terms, because I was aware of it before I knew these things had their own specific word.

There is no one to complain to when the culprit of whatever abuse suffered is by the hands of someone attached to someone way more important than you could ever hope to be.

And even better than that, an attempt at finding ‘justice’ for yourself through the normal channels may very well leave you targeted, in jail, or dead. Any attorney will tell you, a matter of justice and guilt versus innocence is all a matter of financial resources and perception.

It all depends on who you piss off, of course.

Of course, you can apply for certain jobs, you can attempt to purchase certain property and you can hope to achieve a high enough stature where the hope to escape from poverty and violence is within your reach, but sometimes it’s not. And sometimes you can’t, because you aren’t allowed to move up, or out, so instead you just stay put and hope for the best.

You get used to being in an environment surrounded by only one type of race. A slow paced one.

And you don’t really notice the Asian person, the Latino person, or the random illusive race tanned person when they first begin to frequent your hood.

But you dam sure notice the White folks, and everybody here knows… White men bring problems to Black people. No race likes to see White men frequenting homogenous non-White areas. We just don’t say it because then White folks get mad and you know how that goes.

Since when, I ask you, have Black people ever looked on with a smile on their face when they see White men suddenly interested in the lives of Blacks in general……..?

Plantation overseer, segregation authoritative figures……….same shit to poor modern Black folks.

Sorry to bust your bubble and make you feel like an outsider, but yeah, you are and no one asked you to come here.

Before you make a weak attempt at a joke, let me be clear, the presence of white people isn’t a magical cleansing of all things bad.

The presence of White people is usually a cause for alarm actually.

If White people are coming by and running through your neighborhood you can rest assured, its for no good.

Some folks here are under the impression that White men (in general) bring with them some magical form of protection and peace.

You can’t find a White man in a Black concentrated area when you need um, and you never could.

From slavery up until now, low class Blacks and the general White population have been segregated but for interactions with Whites playing the part of police, authorities, doctors, census takers, political representatives, or pastors that won’t do shit for us or our business owners other than figure out how to exploit us.

Being forced to shake hands with the devil is not conducive to human interaction among equals.

And I’m so sure that some white folks do mean no harm. They want to live and mind their business like anybody else, but the kind of White men that frequent Blackistan in the darkest hour are just as much predators as any Black man on the corner is presumed to be, if not more so.

Shit, when I see a White man approaching me, or wandering around the neighborhood, I look around for the presence of Black men. Those men would be my protection, because Black men, for whatever reason, will chase white men away in times like these.

Think I’m exaggerating? Maybe they’re protecting me so that they can abuse me instead? It’s hard to tell when you are a female.

I was recently accosted by a White man in a BMW as he slowly cruised down my block. He pulled ahead of me, and then stopped to look out the window of his car. I presumed he was looking for an address, until he asked if ‘he could drop me off somewhere’ and before I could answer, since I was in shock, he added insult to injury by finishing with ‘Are you hungry? I”ll take you somewhere and feed you and we can hang out?’

Had this been another time, and another place (same Tracy) I would have screamed like a banshee and hurled the nearest heavy object at his head. And I have very good aim.

I wear dresses down to my ankles, I am much slimmer than I am thick, I am walking down a tree lined, a day light bright, quiet residential street, one black away from the brand spanking new police station, but I am not safe from the White man from town.

He’s no different than the negroes that bother me every morning as I go for my sunrise walk. I wish they would all fall silent, and blind so that women can have some agency and peace while making our way in the world.

Since White men are allowed to come and go at will with the presumption of everlasting innocence by those people whom you call ‘authorities’, it’s easy for them to drop into the inner city hood to do their dirt.

What dirt is that, you ask?

White men from town come looking for certain things….

Low cost and easily accessible sex.

Abundant, affordable, and open market drug acquisition.

They come to take the things they want, like real estate, resources, or other valuable things that are ‘there for the taking’………

Ask the Native Americans, the Africans, the dam near anybody else, who comes to take from poor people of color?

White men from town……..

White men from town come looking for pussy.

Delectable, young, cheap and readily available for those with the time, money and desire to have their pick.

Dating isn’t about getting to know someone in the inner city.

Dating is about getting your immediate needs met.

Be it sex or food. ‘

Money or resources.

It’s no coincidence that traditional dates often revolve around food. And you may not see the connection here but read really slow so you can understand.

A male courts a woman by offering resources, one of which is the ability to feed her, and support her lifestyle, in exchange for her time, her body and her consideration.

Strangely enough, there seems to a consistent supply of ‘needers’ and those who have enough to spare.

White men cruise the streets of Blackistan looking for young girls (or boys which is becoming much more popular) desperate enough to be willing to trade their bodies for a meal. There’s no implied interest in anything besides using her for cheap and easy sex. When you come across Black women who are scared and suspicious of White men in general, remember my words.

White men in authority take advantage of their power and the perception of their complexion. Teachers, the police, coaches, religious figures, counselors, bosses, and a host of other people offer resources to ‘the needy’ through the barter of flesh.

When a White man wants something from a low class Black woman, it’s not often her hand in marriage, or her phone number for a date.

Black women are becoming passe in the White man’s pursuits.

“Car dating” is the white man’s new obsession, strangely enough the palate of these predatory White men is no longer satisfied by poor brown women, and now his interest, I see, has turned to Black males who are willing to be used so that they can eat for another day or two.

White men from town come looking for drugs.

Every one in my childhood home of Jersey City knew that the town was segregated.

You knew, because your family and friends discussed it openly, that Black people aren’t safe when they cross Kennedy Blvd towards West Side Avenue. Crossing into the ‘wrong side’ of the street may find you being pursued by an angry mob for sport, beaten and occasionally left for dead behind a shopping mall.

White kids knew not to cross Kennedy Blvd toward Bergen Avenue unless they didn’t value their lives. They would find themselves robbed of whatever valuables they had, and occasionally chased away but never killed, by the Black residents who kept the Whites from intruding.

Black people know not to kill White people.

The cops don’t come for us when we call them to save our lives but everybody knows that if there is a White person in distress the entire Black section would be on military lock down.

Calling 911 is a joke…..that wasn’t a song. Its a social reality when you are poor and black.

White men from town aren’t wanted in low class Black areas. We got enough problems already, and when do Black people benefit from White people coming to their aid? They bring diseases, lies, corruption, exploitation, death, and every White man has the power to take your life and go Scott free.

We know this.

We see enough of you when we go to court to stand for charges that may or may not even be real, given to us by White men from towns that are far from here, yet these White men travel to our towns to police as modern day cowboys. They drive around in the sweltering heat with windows rolled up, cool and carefree in air condition paid for by tax money, their dark shades on, and wry smiles on their faces as they make sure you see them seeing you. Because Niggas are always in need of being watched or else they misbehave!

They slow down when they approach, you hear them over your shoulder, they are the overseers, the modern day ‘law’ in old Western cowboy movies.

They are here but they don’t come when you call them.

Why are they here?

White men from town aren’t wanted in low class Black areas because with your face comes the reminder that you are here to pick among humans for your entertainment and consumption.

White men from town aren’t welcomed here because with you comes death, and destruction and no justification or redemption.

Everybody knows about you, White man from town, the only person not in on the joke is you.

White men from town may want to earnestly help, but just like the imaginary Good Black men go silent during discussions of Black male exploitation, there will need to be some White men who challenge those White men that are comfortable with keeping the needy needy so that they can enjoy the never ending fire sale of vices and the spoils that come along with the privilege of being preferred.

The post White Man From Town: The Reason You Aren’t Wanted Here appeared first on Madness & Reality.

We’re all Austrians now…

 — Ron Paul, during post-Iowa Caucus speech

Much has been written about Ron Paul’s “honesty” and adherence to libertarian ideology since he has surged (somewhat) in the reality show/ clown care debacle also known as the Republican Primary. Paul is kookier than a Laoruche fan on crack, but that doesn’t mean shit these days. Two major influences on Paul are Ayn Rand, the cult figure, former Hollywood hack-turned-novelist, and Austrian economist, Frederick von Hayek. American libertarianism would be unthinkable without Ayn Rand’s influence. Even an establishment conservative like Rush Limbaugh has occasionally shown signs of having been influenced by Rand’s ideas, albeit indirectly, through second or third-hand sources. His attempt to defend the “greed” of the eighties borrows heavily from Rand. Before Rand, only a handful of iconoclasts and other eccentrics would have dared defend greed in public.

Rand’s followers, who often come off as cultists (as do Ron Paul fanatics) attempt to paint her philosophy as grounded in logic and reason, but nothing could be further from the truth. Her understanding of the mechanics of the human brain, or the role of emotions, for example, has nothing to do with modern science or empirical research.

When I was growing up, reading Alisa Zino’yevna (aka Ayn Rand) was almost a family tradition. It was necessary reading in our household. My father would often give each one of us something to read and then we would have to discuss it critically. He also encouraged me to read Walt Whitman and other American transcendentalists — which was probably the antithesis of Rand’s “objectivism.” Looking back, I see he was trying to show me how to think critically — how to hold two opposing ideas at once and come away with something of value and original.

I think Rand appeals to young people because it is a philosophy mired in the lower levels of moral reasoning. It appeals to young people because it addresses an immature, self-centered slice of life. In fact, previous posts of mine have been a refutation of Rand’s “philosophy.” Her epistemology has been taken apart by others, no need to revisit that here. I mention Rand today because she connects to the first part of my series on the history of humankind’s struggle to define freedom.

By the 1950s, both fascism and its antithesis, communism, had redefined freedom, but largely failed to deliver anything resembling freedom when implemented by the likes of Stalin and Mussolini. A ramped up Cold War with the Soviet Union was being waged and the biggest thing then was the Red Scare (communists were the Muslims in the 1950s) and the threat of nuclear war. Unbelievably, people were actually buying “bunkers” to protect themselves from radioactive fallout in those days. Today, we’re bombing innocent people in bunkers in far off lands.

In the 1950s, both Rand and Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek proposed a new vision of freedom. Their freedom was more of a negative type freedom. They asserted that self-interest controlled all human behavior, and the only true measure of what was best for individuals were their belongings or what they were attempting to accumulate. This “market” of getting and hoarding, acted out simultaneously by millions of people in a society as complex and huge as the United States, for example, produced hundreds of millions of individual “decisions” every moment. Hayek suggested there existed a force of nature, the product and consequences of all these individual buying and selling behaviors, which he called the “free market.” At the same time, Ayn Rand’s hugely popular novels, the Fountainhead and her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, championed a philosophy of greed and an enlightened self-interest similar to von Hayek’s.

Freedom was being redefined.

Instead of being a collaborative effort, the result of a society working together to provide for the basic needs of the individual, the family, and society, freedom was now being reconceptualized as the individual’s ability and right to act in his or her total freedom for selfish self-fulfillment, regardless of the consequences to others (within certain limitations). Freedom was a negative force in the worldview of von Hayek, his student Milton Friedman (father of the Chicago School of libertarian economics), and Ayn Rand’s objectivism. This freedom was more of a freedom “from” than a freedom “to”: freedom from social obligation, freedom from taxation; freedom from government assistance or protection (now perceived as “interference” or “serfdom”); freedom to consider one’s needs and wants, because if each individual followed his selfish desires, the mass of individuals acting in concert in a “free market” would result in a utopia.

Shades of Thomas Friedman! The world is flat, burn the fuckin’ olive tree and hock the goddamned Lexus!

This vision claims to be the true vision of a free world. Its creators claimed that a world where government limited nothing but violence and all markets were free — market here meaning the behavior of individuals or collectives of individuals (corporations) — had never before been attempted. Their opponents, progressives and liberals, pointed out that their system had in fact been tried many times throughout history, and was the history of every civilization of the most chaotic eras (feudal times comes to mind). Lacking a true social contract and interdependence, these societies were characterized by physical and economic violence. In this social schematic, those most willing and able to plunder would rise to the top of the economic heap. In the past, they were rightfully called robber barons and today are diagnosed as sociopaths.

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, think tanks funded by wealthy individuals and multinational corporations joined forces with subservient politicians to win the “battle of ideas.” Greed, combined with a blind belief in free markets, was their dogma. This movement brought into power both the feeble-minded Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. Reagan would oversee the greatest redistribution of wealth and the destruction of Labor. Both Thatcher and Reagan would turn government into a force against labor, both busting powerful unions in their respective countries. Both “freed” markets by dropping tariffs and undoing regulations. In both instances, industry fled both countries, to wherever labor was cheapest, and the middle class was rudely bent over and fucked without so much as a kiss.

This new economic religion would be put into operation in Chile with disastrous results. Poverty and wealth gaps would increase dramatically and the privatization of the social security system threw even more people into abject poverty. Of course, a few bankers, industrialists, and politicians became wealthy.

After the downfall of the Soviet Union, Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys,” not satisfied with the failures their policies created in Chile, would apply this system with equally disastrous results in Russia. Undaunted and in need of a new country to experiment on, they found a series of willing dupes starting with the inept Ronald Reagan on through to George W. Bush, whose entire cabinet was made up of people who shared the von Hayek/ Rand worldview. The result, as we all have seen, has been a failure of historic proportions. Well-paying jobs were replaced with jobs whose only requirement was that workers ask the question, “Do you want fries with that?”and with social mobility dropping and wealth gaps increasing to levels not seen for over a hundred years.

This is where we are living today and there are people still demanding we continue on this road to serfdom.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The post Ron Paul and the Downsizing of Freedom appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Sometimes I want to just speak the way I do naturally about the things I feel about passionately!

And I really feel some way about myself and all things related to my vagina. I love my coochie, it does amazing things for me and others. My vagina and others contributes to your life in ways that you have not often considered.

I often wonder why other people aren’t more concerned with her safety and health, at least concerned enough to want what’s right for her and other vagina?

Sometimes there are no need for fancy ass words and comparisons when I see outlandish shit like this recent article on Aljazeera about the statistics surrounding Cervical Cancer and why the women in certain US states are more likely to die if they are unfortunate enough to develop this disease.

But every year 4,000 American women die from the disease, most of them in the South. For instance, a woman in Mississippi is nearly twice as likely to die from cervical cancer as an average American woman.

The issue is not that states like Mississippi are poorer and therefore have less capital available to provide for such services as cancer screenings.

No, that would be the easy answer. That’s the answer a simple person would come up with, A+B=C, however, things are not as simple as some people need them to be in order to understand the bigger picture.

The seemingly obvious answer is that Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, and therefore must have a lot of residents without health insurance. But when Mississippi is compared to a state like California, which has a similar rate of uninsured people, Mississippi’s death rate from cervical cancer remains extraordinary: 75 per cent higher than that in California.

The issue is not with the population and some dysfunctional underestimation of the severity of cervical cancer, rather the debate is about ideology and some babbling bullshit that has nothing to do with the realities of disease and medicine.

Cervical cancer is a hotly-debated political topic in the United States right now – a debate fuelled largely by Republican presidential contenders. The cancer is caused by strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted. As a result, discourse on cervical cancer centres around whether or not newly available vaccines to prevent the disease encourage promiscuity.

So why does Mississippi have a 75% higher death rate for cervical cancer then a place just as big and just as wide?

I’m sure the people in Mississippi would love to know. Well the answer is quite simple…

Mississippi politicians believe that unborn and not yet conceived babies have a right to life so in order to protect these babies (that have not yet been conceived or born) the state refuses to provide funding to Planned Parenthood through the Title X program because Planned Parenthood supports a women’s right to terminate a pregnancy, among other service they provide to the uninsured community.

Title X DOES NOT provide funds to Planned Parenthood FOR termination of pregnancy but Pro-Life Advi-holes still somehow confuse you into thinking that Planned Parenthood=Abortion. And it doesn’t, but even if it did. So the fuck what?

Title X is a Federal Program that grants money to states which in turn disperse the money to counties in order for them to provide medical services to those that do not have health insurance.

Some states allow Planned Parenthood to provide the majority of health services to the uninsured and funds them sufficiently which enables the facility to charge reasonable fees for treatment costs such as cancer screening.

Planned Parenthood is also clean, efficient, compassionate and easily accessible to the low income and excluded demographic (read: inner city/poor and/or immigrant population). I don’t even need to get into the validity of having respectable, responsible, and clean facilities; many a state agency could take a que from the quality of service of Planned Parenthood.

What makes Mississippi fail is their decision to keep their Title X money within the state offices and burn it up within the Department of Health and Human Services. California grants their money to the private non-profit Planned Parenthood.

Because of this difference in the allocation of funds California cancer patients have a chance at survival; Mississippi cancer patients not so much.

In Mississippi, a woman you love may be allowed to die because her health care is treated like an administrative nuance.

When you live in a state that runs public clinics that are not accessible and where the staff are ignorant of their own practice policies you will catch cancer or any other reproductive disease and you will more than likely die.

You will die because the decision on whether or not you can or cannot have the medicine that will save your life (before or after your life is in jeopardy) is being made by people that disrespect the vagina for stupid reasons that you silently consent to.

You or a woman you love may die of cervical cancer whether she fucked or not.

The argument is that the vaccine may save your life or the life of a woman you love but may also somehow allow you or her to feel free/able/brave/confident (what’s the word I’m looking for?) enough to one day go out and have sex. The vaccine may cause fucking….you can’t have it because you might have sex. I wonder how that works if you are married? Or not religious?

I wonder why more people aren’t concerned by these phantom moral police that jeopardize the survival of the vagina. Religious fear of the potential future fuck of some random woman is not a good enough reason ONE SINGLE WOMAN TO DIE.

On the other hand, Planned Parenthood’s primary focus is women’s health care. In fact, it is the US’ largest provider of women’s healthcare. It provides birth control, emergency contraception, pregnancy testing, sexually-transmitted infection treatment, breast exams and cervical cancer screening. One in five American women use Planned Parenthood at some point during their lifetime.

Planned Parenthood is the sole provider of care and services to nearly 17 million uninsured women in the United States. 

In February 2011, the US House of Representatives successfully passed a bill introduced by Congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) to completely eliminate Title X – and offered nothing in its place. Early next year, when the president releases his proposed budget for 2013, the same is expected to happen again – except that this time, in this campaign season of cost-cutting one-upmanship, the Senate might go along and really end the programme.

People have allowed the ideology of the Right to Life advocates to strangle Planned Parenthood’s existence into near extinction and with that the lives of many women will be lost. I hope not to be one of them.

Why this isn’t an issue for you I do not know. Maybe you don’t like pussy or you hate your Mother for shitting you out. I don’t know.

But if so, FUCK YOU then!

I don’t need an audience to scream and I don’t need back up to know when I’m right and shit is wrong. And that shit is wrong.

I’m not the only woman out here with a vagina.

My daughter has one.

Your Mamma has one.

And I’ll bet my last Newport cigarette on the fact that your Grandmother had one too.

So why don’t you find it counter productive that ideology pretends to be Pro-Life for imaginary unborn babies yet they are willing to jeopardize the women that give babies the lives in which they hold so precious?

Riddle me that, Batman?

The post You’re Pro-Life But Not When It Comes to Women?! appeared first on Madness & Reality.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that there was some civil unrest going on in the United Kingdom. I saw news of the events passing through my timeline with enough frequency to know that this is something serious.

I didn’t realize how serious until I accidently looked up at the television while CNN was on and caught a video that showed a flicker of buildings burning and the police hauling ass in the opposite direction as mobs of people rushed towards them. I had no details as to what the riot was about but the sight of cops running with the same fear on their face as they instill in others is always a pleasant surprise.

And it’s not like I haven’t seen my fair share of riots; I was at work during the Rodney King riots. Me and the overnight crew at McDonald’s marveled at the shit kicking going on in Cali.

Up until last night I would have sworn that no body does a better riot then California.

I stand corrected.

You may think I am making light of the financial and social price tag attached to such a display of civil unrest. I’m not.

“Civilized societies” frowned upon it’s citizens using aggression and force to convey their feelings to the ruling class. Riots have always been something people are discouraged to do.

What good can come of it after all?

I’m sure life is shook up a bit for the citizens and all that burning and car beating will surely have to be paid for by someone. The citizens will bear the burden of the cost to rebuild; be it through taxes or through private insurance deductibles by those who can afford to own property and pay insurance deductibles.

No. Public opinion condemns citizens for utilizing a lesser form of frustration.

However, if you look at the broader situation you’ll soon notice that the rioters of the UK were showing exactly what they should have been showing.

Sometimes when people don’t listen it helps to throw things.

We teach children that tantrums are never good. Civilized people are supposed to use their words to communicate. We teach children to ask and wait for an answer; we teach them to be content with what we as adults give them. Children are taught to be seen and not heard and to not show their displeasure when their expectations and needs aren’t met to their satisfaction because we satisfy our needs and give children what we want them to have. Children are trained to acknowledge that someone is in charge and it’s not them until a child hurls a sippy cup across the room and nails you in the forehead.

Now whose in charge?

Tantrums are like riots; they both convey the most basic form of frustration, rage and a momentary loss of tempered sanity.

I think a riot is in order for the people of London; the disjointed quality of life that has been common in the country for years has caused a class of people that feel helpless.

The richest 10% of the population have enjoyed an increase of wealth while the average citizen has the opportunity for social mobility that is worse than several developing countries.

London’s poorer sections have to deal with police brutality as a way of life. The volatile relationship between private citizens and the police that patrol these neighborhoods shows no room for civility. When courts have neglected to find any officer guilty of police brutality in the suspicious deaths of over 300 people then public can’t help but to question authority.

The unemployment is record high and people are told it’s their faults they are without work.

I don’t judge the riots going on in London.

I only wonder how long it will be before the citizens of the United States show out in public and selfishly demand some satisfaction.

Are the people of the UK wrong for rioting?

Better yet, is there ever a justifiable reason for rioting? Take into consideration how aggressive public dissent has bought about social change. Should we consider this the early days of anarchy? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that this revolution is being televised.

The post Burn, Baby, Burn: Why United States Citizens Should Follow the UK's Lead appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Child advocates originally fought to improve the speed of the systems in place for processing potential parents. The demand for more stringent laws are now meant to protect these same children. Simplifying the system actually back fired on them.

Industry leaders are calling it a tragedy since what had the potential to serve as a support system has now been reduced to a political platform and the people suffering the most are the same children who these programs were supposed to benefit. The amount of children bought into the United States through adoption has taken a sharp decline showing over a 50% drop in the number of adoptions in less than 10 years.

Image Via Link

Those that support a reduction in children placed through International adoption believe now is a perfect time to improve the systems of support available within a country rather than seeking to ‘export’ the problems they face with displaced children. The idea is that International adoption should be a last resort and not treated as a convenience. Though placement within a child’s own country is not always possible; some cultures do not accept outsiders into their families. Focus is now on those children who are currently in orphanages waiting for homes; their fate is yet to be determined.

While bureaucratic red tape and sensationalized media attention clash…..homeless children wait on someone to give a fuck. As an adoptee I have my personal feelings about the entire system of foster care which may be different from those Hallmark card loving folks whose eyes tear up when they see Sally Struthers on tv late at night.

How do you feel about international adoption? Should the children stay in their own country or be placed anywhere there is an available family?

Do you think the countries should scale back their willingness to allow international adoption and should instead work with the families to alleviate the circumstances that are causing the upset in the family structure? Or is that too much to ask of government officials and adoption is justified under such circumstances.

The post Importing Children For Adoption: Why Being Like Bradgalina and Madge Isn't Cool No More appeared first on Madness & Reality.

“Do I gotta sell me a whole lotta crack, for decent shelter, and clothes on my back? Or should I just wait for help from Bush, or Jesse Jackson, and Operation Push.” – Ice Cube, “Bird In The Hand”

I read a recent story in the Washington Post featuring a local Memphis kid, Kenneth Roberson, and his struggles to find employment. The dramatic irony or should I say the hard reality of this story, is that the young man featured happened to be a member of the graduating class of Memphis’ Booker T. Washington High School, the school who won president Obama’s Race To The Top commencement challenge. As the winner of said challenge, president Obama was the key note speaker at their commencement ceremony a few weeks ago. I watched the event myself, and I must say he left a group of kids in one of this cities most impoverished zip codes inspired and full of hope. However, as the saying goes: reality bites; and for ypung Black males like Roberson, that promising future looks rather bleak.

Just in case you haven’t been paying attention to this site or any legitimate news source via the media, the economy, though slowly getting better, hasn’t and isn’t recovering fast enough. Unemployment is still relatively high; but you’d probably not know that considering all the talk of Medicare, Paul Ryan, deficits, and Sarah Palin’s American short-bus tour. Yes folks, it’s still pretty bad. Want to know how bad? OK, lemme tell you. According to the government reports, Black male employment has hit it’s lowest levels in forty years. Did you get that? Black male unemployment has hit a forty year high.
If the election of America’s first African-American president was expected to give blacks an economic boost, it hasn’t emerged yet. Indeed, the percentage of African-American men with a job has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1972, according to the government’s monthly jobs report released last week.

Even as the economy added a better-than-expected 244,000 jobs, the percentage of black males over 20 who are currently employed dropped slightly to 56.9, the Labor Department’s April report shows. For whites, the equivalent figure is 68.1 percent.

Before this recession, the percentage of black adult men with a job had never dropped below 60 percent, according to Labor Department statistics.

And among blacks, it’s not just men who are suffering. Just 51.5 percent of African-Americans across the board–compared to 59.5 percent of whites–have a job, the numbers show. That’s the lowest level for blacks since 1984. (That group includes 16- to 19-year-olds, who are employed at a far lower rate than their elders.)

These employment rates are calculated differently from the top-line unemployment rate, which includes only those actively looking for work, and inched back up last month to 9 percent.

[…] And employers’ hiring practices may be making the problem worse. As we’ve reported, online job listings telling the unemployed not to apply have proliferated in recent years. The federal government is currently probing whether such listings illegally discriminate against African Americans, who are disproportionately likely to be among the jobless.

Nonetheless, much of the media has focused on the travails of educated white men–still a comparatively flourishing group–during the downturn. (source)Look, the way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with being hopeful as the young man featured in the Washington Post piece who even graduated in the top five of his class. Sure, he has a parial scholarship to attend college, and yes, his future may look brighter than others in his graduating class. But the truth is, hope doesn’t pay the bills. And especially if you’re a Black man with a family, or the responsibility of financially supporting and providing for your kids? Hope won’t feed them, nor is hope acceptable by the child support court.

Yep, the child support man ain’t tynna hear about how tough it is for brothas.

So just what exactly are Black men to do? Well, outside of going back to school and becoming better or higher skilled to secure a not-so-shitty position the next time the economy tanks (currently there aren’t regulations to prevent it). The only advice I have to give to brothas is simple. Fellas, you only have two options at this point. That would be, you either join the military, or figure out a way to spend time in prison. But if you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it.
A continued hemorrhaging of jobs in urban areas, a decline of jobs that pay well but don’t require lots of education, and a decline in government jobs in cities, , have all combined to hurt black males, he said.

Losses in good-paying manufacturing jobs also have hit black men hard, said Harry Holzer, author of “Where Are All the Good Jobs Going?” and public policy professor at Georgetown University.

Even though we’re in a recovery, he said, “it’s been very, very slow, and black men are showing the least progress with little sign so far that unemployment rates are improving.”

[…] Georgetown’s Holzer said low-income black men are among the biggest casualties of the recession. “Less-educated black men have been taking a beating for decades,” he said. “They are more likely to drop out of labor market, and more likely to get into the justice system.”

Because many lag in the classroom when they’re young, he said, “they’re having the most difficulty transitioning to a new service-based economy where education matters more.”

Many face long-term financial problems and criminal records, he noted, and these two factors can spell doom for job seekers.

[…] It’s not just poorer men who are suffering, said Chad Dion Lassiter, president of the Black Men at Penn School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice. Middle- and upper-income educated black men, he said, are also feeling the job-market squeeze.

“There’s unemployment and underemployment among men with degrees and credentials,” he said. “They are not getting jobs, or (they are) getting jobs at a lower salary than their white male counterparts.”

Michael, 34, of Washington, D.C., is a college graduate but still can’t find a good job after being laid off from a $70,000-a-year job in 2008. He did not want his full name used for fear it would hurt his chances of landing a job.

“My unemployment benefits expired over one year
 ago and I am staying with my girlfriend in her cramped apartment,
dependent on her support,” he said. “Black men are the first to suffer from unemployment and the last to
 recover. No programs exist to help us, and I cannot think of a single
policy in place beneficial to the black man — I’m angry, depressed, 
frustrated and helpless.” (source)Sounds messed up I know. But the government fails to talk or produce a real jobs bill, what else is there. I mean hell, look at the White House’s proposed budget for 2012. In it, they are proposing an increase in spending on the military, as well as an increase in funding for federal prisons (they’re gonna build more of them). So again, for young Black males this seems to be the only viable option. I would say slinging crack might not be a bad idea since they’ve reduced sentencing guidelines, but crack devastates our communities.

Of course Wall Street has done a better job of destroying our communities; hell, when crack was king, at least there was “wealth” in the hood unlike today after the housing bubble burst. But anywhichaways, while some of you still continue to tout arguments against a “Black Agenda”, do checkout what some well educated and Progressive white folks are saying in the following clip, as to how and what government (lead by the White House) can actually be doing to create jobs, much to the benefit of unemployed Black men and other minorities.

Sure the White House cannot do anything specifically for Black people or Black men. However, as the following clip from economics professor, L. Randall Wray, much can be done to put funds into the hands of the unemployed in the most affected areas via government funded jobs programs. He is developing policies to promote true full employment, focusing on Hyman P. Minsky’s “employer of last resort” proposal as a way to bring low-skilled, prime-age males back into the labor force. Wray’s research has appeared in numerous books and journals including Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Journal of Economic Issues, Review of Political Economy, Review of Social Economy.

Whether Obama has the political will to push something like this through is the question. But I tell you what, doing nothing about the issue only costs us in the long run. The crisis is not behind us, folks; and how long Black men must suffer before proclaiming enough is enough is the question; this ain’t a game, folks..

More at The Real News

The post Black Male Employment Hits 40-Year Low: What’s A Black Man To Do In This Economy? appeared first on Madness & Reality.

And they voted in a Democrat…

Paul Ryan by DonkeyHotey

Sure, you say that it’s just one measly district, but I believe this is a bad omen for the knuckle-dragging twats on the right. For one, they poured enormous amounts of money and resources into this election — in what should’ve been a cakewalk. The right wing parade of national batshittery passed by the district to lend their name recognition and support. They poured millions and made what should’ve been an inconsequential election in Armpit, USA into a do-or-die for the Ryan plan…

And they lost.

They lost because this was a referendum on right wing fiscal policies — mostly rehashed dismal failures of past decades: rob from the poor to give to the rich. Otherwise known as Reaganomics, supply-side, trickle down bullshit. Bush I had it right: it’s magical thinking dressed as economic policy, or better put: Voodoo Economics.

Public Policy Polling shows why this election is very important moving on:

Congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular and voters think they’re doing an even worse job than the Democrats they put out of office six months ago. That was true in NY-26 and that’s true nationally. Last month we found nationally that 43% of voters thought House Republicans were doing a worse job than the Democrats did while in the majority to only 36% who felt they were an improvement. Even in NY-26, which voted 13 points more Republican than the country as a whole in 2008, 38% of voters think the Republicans are doing a worse job than the Democrats to only 34% who think they’re an improvement. You can talk about Jack Davis all you want but the reality is that if voters thought House Republicans were bringing the improvement they hoped for when they went to vote last November Jane Corwin would have won tonight…
And believe me, the take-away here — the chum in the water — is that House Democratic candidates will run against John Boehner and the Ryan plan next year. Again, Public Policy Polling lays out the cruel numbers:

Boehner’s approval rating nationally is a 25/42 spread and even in this traditionally Republican district it’s a 28/45 spread. Barack Obama’s not popular in this district either, don’t get me wrong- his approval is a 42/51 breakdown. But it’s remarkable that his net approval is 8 points better than Boehner’s in a district that John McCain won by 6 points in 2008. Again you can talk about Jack Davis all day but if John Boehner was more popular than Barack Obama in this district, as you would certainly have expected the case to be, then Jane Corwin would have won tonight.Interesting times indeed…

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Update #1 (h/t Steve Benen)
Last night’s was a huge upset — a body blow against the conservative agenda, but it’s also the latest in a spate of recent victories for democrats…
New Hampshire: Last week, there was a special election in a state House district where Republicans have dominated for years. The Democratic candidate won in a landslide, even after a local town clerk illegally required photo IDs to vote.Florida: Also last week, Jacksonville was home to a high-profile mayoral race, and the state GOP touted the election as the first warning shot of the 2012 cycle. Instead, voters elected Democrat Alvin Brown — Jacksonville’s first African-American mayor — stunning the Republican establishment statewide.Wisconsin: Three weeks ago, there was a special election in a Wisconsin state Assembly district that has been represented by a Republican for 16 years. In this case, the Democrat won by eight points.Maine: Two weeks ago, there was a special election to fill a vacancy in the state Senate, in a district that has been very competitive in the recent past. In this case, the Democrat won by a crushing 2-to-1 margin. This is not to say that Dems have recovered from a brutal 2010. Dems withstood a smackdown after doing well in 2009 special elections, for example. In addition, Let me be clear: last night’s winner is at best a Blue Dog democrat, hardly something progressives should celebrate. Still…
Conservatives began the year with the help of a passive corporate-run media with all the national momentum going for them. However, after a series of losses in races Republicans should have won easily, it is clear (except to conservatives, apparently) that the American public isn’t buying what the GOP is selling.

The post Breaking: AP calls NY’s 26th District for Hochul… the DEM appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Last week I got involved in a nice discussion with my brothers over at The Urban Politico. Central to the discussion was the question: What exactly can president Obama do about the job crisis faced by Black people? It was a nice exchange, one where I learned a thing or two. However, I was left with the impression that, well, there is absolutely nothing the president can do beyond passage of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.

Yeah RiPPa, the prez can’t make them folks hire people, nor can the gov’t create jobs; that’s up to Wall Street! Besides, Negroes are lazy and they ain’t trynna find work; yep, they love Welfare and that ain’t finna change!

Now of course you know I’m not of that belief or opinion; and yes, there is something the president and by extension the gov’t can do; yeah, how’s that $26 billion in tax cuts for small businesses of a jobs bill working out while Wall Street sits on $1 trillion in cash? But at any rate, I think it’s pretty sad that while we’re in the midst of economic recovery, that we’re talking about deficits and not job creation, which is needed to boost the economy. As opposed to a discussion of necessary but painful budget cuts to help in deficit reduction.

Folks, that’s ass-backwards and here’s why:

More at The Real News
BIO: Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the U.S. Most recently, he co-authored the reports Job Opportunities for the Green Economy (June 2008) and Green Recovery(September 2008), exploring the broader economic benefits of large-scale investments in a clean-energy economy in the U.S. He has worked with the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa on policies to promote to promote decent employment expansion and poverty reduction in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. He has also worked with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and as a member of the Capital Formation Subcouncil of the U.S. Competiveness Policy Council.

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