Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Haitian Declaration of Independence

Haiti’s Founding Document Found in London
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: March 31, 2010
New York Times

There is no prouder moment in Haiti’s history than Jan. 1, 1804, when a band of statesmen-warriors declared independence from France, casting off colonialism and slavery to become the world’s first black republic.


Haitian Declaration of Independence (pdf)
They proclaimed their freedom boldly — “we must live independent or die,” they wrote — but for decades, Haiti lacked its own official copy of those words. Its Declaration of Independence existed only in handwritten duplicate or in newspapers. Until now.
A Canadian graduate student at Duke University, Julia Gaffield, has unearthed from the British National Archives the first known, government-issued version of Haiti’s founding document. The eight-page pamphlet, now visible online, gives scholars new insights into a period with few primary sources. But for Haitian intellectuals, the discovery has taken on even broader significance.

That the document would be found in February, just weeks after the earthquake that killed so many; that its authenticity would be confirmed in time for the donor conference that could define Haiti’s future — some see providence at work.
“It’s a strange thing in the period of the earthquake we find the first document that made the state,” said Patrick Tardieu, an archivist at the Library of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit in Port-au-Prince. “People were searching for this for a very long time.”
Indeed, decades ago, Haiti’s leaders went hunting for a declaration they could call their own for the country’s 150th anniversary. Researchers combed Haiti’s libraries. Newspapers in the United States, which printed full versions of the declaration when it was made, were also considered a possible source.
But the originals seemed to have been thrown out or destroyed. In December 1952, the Haitian intellectual Edmond Mangonès wrote to his country’s Commission of Social Sciences to report that “the mystery of the original of our national Declaration of Independence” had not been solved. “All searches to date have been in vain,” he said.
Enter Ms. Gaffield, 26. She said she fell in love with Haiti while at the University of Toronto. It was 2004, Jean-Bertrand Aristide had just been ousted, and after a trip to Haiti, where she worked with street children, she decided to study its origins as a nation.
That eventually took her to Duke University, and last year, to the National Archives of Jamaica in Kingston. There, she found a letter from a British official who had just returned from Haiti around the time of its revolution.
“He wrote a letter to the governor saying, ‘Here is this interesting document that I received when I was in Haiti,’ ” she said. “And he said the declaration ‘had not been but one hour from the press.’ ”
The document he mentioned, though, was missing. She headed for London. On Feb. 2, she found herself poring through the leather-bound binders of Britain’s National Archives. About 100 pages into the book of Jamaican records from 1804, she came across a delicate, yellowed set of pages.
“What I first noticed was across the top it said, ‘Liberté ou La Mort,’ ” she said. There were a few differences from the accepted text of Thomas Madiou, the 19th-century historian who wrote a definitive, multivolume history of the country. Haiti was spelled Hayti in the pamphlet, for example, and in one sentence, Mr. Madiou seemed to have seen “idéux” (ideals) when the print shows it to be “fléaux” (ills).
The bottom of the last page read “De l’Imprimerie du Gouvernement.” That made it the official declaration historians had been looking for. In the hushed London library — even cameras snapping photos of important documents must be on silent mode — Ms. Gaffield could only smirk.
“Being very excited in a document reading room is a bit of a challenge,” she said. “You have to keep it all inside.”
Later that day, she e-mailed her Ph.D. advisers at Duke. They were thrilled. “It is a lost treasure,” said Deborah Jenson, a professor of French who has been overseeing Ms. Gaffield’s research. “This is really the first copy that is directly tied to the Haitian government.”
Professor Jenson said no manuscript version of the declaration with signatures — along the lines of the United States’ document — seemed to have existed. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s revolutionary leader, delivered the declaration as a speech on Jan. 1, 1804, and then had it printed over the next few months. Historians believe that he and others overlooked documentary preservation because they were too worried about another French invasion.
“They were building forts,” said Prof. Laurent M. Dubois, a historian of Haiti at Duke. “It’s part of the larger story: that Haiti knew it was going to be isolated, it knew it was attacking this broader social order.”
He said the pamphlet showed that Haiti was intent on sending out the declaration to get the world to understand its position. “This was a gesture of reaching out, of saying, ‘We have these grievances, and we have decided we have to be independent, to refuse and resist this social order we have lived under,’ ” Professor Dubois said. “They wanted recognition.”
That is exactly what some Haitians hope Ms. Gaffield’s find will bring to Haiti today. Mr. Tardieu said he dreamed of seeing the document returned to its home — “it would be the greatest gift,” he said — while others are praying that its discovery alone will reawaken the world to Haiti’s strong sense of self-determination.
“In the context of the Haitian tragedy, it is important for Haitians and the rest of the world to remember the independence of Haiti,” said Leslie Manigat, a historian who briefly served as Haiti’s president in 1988.
“We must recover,” he said, shouting in order to be heard through a phone in Port-au-Prince that cut out repeatedly. “We must find an alternative to the traditional meaning of independence, now, in the new world.”

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

People I know –a man called Slim

Rodney D. Coates

Some people will take you out for little more than a bottle of Ripple or a pack of Cigarettes. I mean, really, for many life ain’t worth a dollar or the paper it’s printed on. But then those peeps ain’t from my hood. There, you can find really stand up folks, who will take a slug for a brother or put one in to make a point. And then there was Slim. Almost on any day you could find Slim, leaning up against the telephone pole or sitting on the curb or scrunched up in the abandoned door way of a store that closed long back when. Even though the winter winds would blow cold air so frigid it would make the snot freeze on your nose, Slim didn’t give up that corner. He would greet us as we trudged through the dirty grey, black snow –crossing Broadway along 15th street.

15th street –was that strange no-where land where anything could happen, but mostly for us it was the boundary between our world and that forbidden zone that lurked to drag us into drugs, booze, broken dreams, and faded glories. 15th street –Slim’s world that only the fallen walked indiscriminately, and only the foolish tread without trepidation. But 15th street was the constant that immiscibly separated –yet synergistically involved. Two warring souls trapped in the cosmic construct of our being. Willing us to be damned or determined or was it damned determined to rise up from this pit. And there was Slim, staggeringly steadfast in his unwillingness to avoid anything close to work, unless it to open his bottle of Ripple.

Where you boyz up to?

School?

You boyz stay in school, don’t be no fool, and get the funk offa this here corner. Notin but death hangs out here.

Yes sir?

“Don’t need to call me sir .. Slim does just fine, just fine.”

Crazy laughing, nobody knows the depths of his insanity.

Then he slurs:

I ain’t near that crazy. Member –you work crazy, don’t let crazy work you, cause if crazy do you then you be gone for sure..for sure you be gone down that river where nobody returns cause there ain’t nothing to return from, cause you gone lost all your …..

We still walking, Slim still taking, funny nobody every waited till Slim finished, but then he never finished a sentence before he lost track of what he was saying. But he was Slim, and he was a friend of mine.

Fixin to find nother corner soon, this’n here gone trackin the riff-raff, no-account junkies. They steal you blind to get their fix, no self-respecting wino’d have anything to do wit dem. No, no self-respecting …hey you kids?

Yes

You better stay in school. Don’t wanna end up like ole Slim, standing on this here corner, nobody knows my name –but evbody calls’ me Slim. I ain’t no slim why once I weighed moren 200 pounds. But that was…that was…she used to call me….

Tears slip down a dirty face, as memories cascade against the traces of yesterday when another stood in this space.

You boys get on to school, now ya hear. Listen to ole Slim –this ain’t the life you need to live, dis ain’t the world that you need to cover, this nightmare ain’t the end of your dreams tis the beginning of your pain. Go on now…leave Slim to his Ripple.

Walking, long past that corner, long past that moment, long past the time when the best friend we had was a man called Slim.

for more of my work please go to:

http://www.redroom.com/author/rodney-d-coates

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Black Bird Press News and Review: Henry Ramsey


The Life Story of Henry Ramsey, Jr.

An Autobiography;
Hardscratch Press 2008


“Henry Ramsey's open-ended conversation with his descendants is a gift for any reader. His frank and eloquent account of the journey from Jim Crow childhood to a life of activism, public service, and high achievement will be familiar to some, a revelation to others. The challenge he issues is for all: Never forget our past. Never stop working for our future. Always cherish our children.” —Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO, NAACP


(The Life Story of Henry Ramsey Jr., of Rocky Mount, N.C., and Berkeley, Calif., is 6x9 inches, 600 pages, soft-cover, with many photographs and a full index; $25. ISBN: 978-0-9789979-3-9. For more information or to order, contact the author at hramseyjr@aol.com or the publisher at jrbpels@hardscratchpress.com. )




Stylistically, Henry's story is a hodge podge of genres. It could have been a conventional autobiography with the classic example"Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington. There are indications of this as Henry commences with his origins and upbringing in a South Carolina segregated small-town environment.


As Henry's story progresses we have all th trappings of a Horatio Alger, rags to riches, bootstrap pull-up that pervades Booker' story as Henry succeeded from a high school drop -out to law school graduate (Boalt Hall, U.C. Berkeley); attorney; superior court, Alameda County; and Dean of Howard University Law School.

Then again it could have been a coming of age piece in the vein of Salinger's “Catcher in the Rye” given that Henry reflects on growing up in the aforementioned environment as somewhat of a rebel who questioned the status quo and certain aspects of familial and societal authority. There is also the question of identity as he grew up thinking that his name was Charles Arthur Tillman, Jr., and at age 17 learned that his true name was Henry Ramsey, Jr.

This context includes a spirit of adventure for, during his boyhood, Henry is shuttled between Rocky Mount, South Carolina, and Philadelphia due to dysfunction in his nuclear family. Eventually he drops out of school and joins the U.S. Air Force which provides additional series of adventures in the dynamics of growing into manhood.


Another direction that Henry's story could have followed is the compilation of disconnected but somewhat related memoirs. On a broader scale we have the guidance for this genre provided by
Du Bois' “Souls of Black Folk”. After all, Henry expressly states in his introduction that his reason for writing and publishing the story is to leave his children and grandchildren a record of family history and, apparently, documentation of his thinking on the great issues of religion and politics, including his role as a social and political activist.

In this connection he also shares personal experience and thoughts about treating and coping with medical impairments. Of course, if Henry's only motive for writing was to leave a record for his family, there would be no need for producing such a polished tone or promoting public book signings. Fortunately, for us, he has made his story available to the public at large.

If Henry had placed his story in any one of he foregoing genres and created a cohesive framework for tying it into that genre we may have been spared the somewhat pedantic resort to rather copious, often gratuitous, footnotes throughout each chapter which made for awkward reading.

On balance, Henry's story includes compelling accounts of his representation during the 60's of Richmond's Black police officers' effort to combat white officers racist conduct perpetrated against members of Richmond's African-American community. Similarly Henry gives a detailed report of how he intervened following the death of George Jackson at San Quentin and mobilized the support of Willie Brown, Ron Dellums, the late Carlton Goodlet and Rev. Cecil Williams to access the prison for the purpose of observing the condition of inmates.

At that time Brown was a member of the California Assembly, Dellums a member of Congress, Goodlet a physician and publisher of the Sun Reporter and Williams, of course a Reverend at Glide Church.

Henry was candid throughout the writing of his story. This is especially true when he explains the two instances of regrettable past behavior resulting from poor judgment on his part that caused him to be denied appointment to a Federal Court judgeship.


Equally impressive is Henry's discussion of his battle with diabetes. What makes this discussion valuable is not only the telling of his personal ordeal but the rather extensive medial research that Henry amassed and furnished for the benefit of his readers.

One of the more controversial chapters includes Henry's argument against the existence of God. In doing so, he first sets forth the traditional philosophical and theological theories advanced to support God's existence. Then one by one he methodically spells out his own cogent arguments why these concepts are invalid and why God does not exist.

A significant portion of Henry's story tends to be tedious or esoteric. An example of the former is Henry furnishing an overly detailed list of objectives for his deanship or the bit too extensive account of negotiations related to law school personnel matters. In regard to esoteric, I suspect that much of Henry's discussion of his involvement with judiciary organizations as well as activities related to the Judicial Council and judicial procedure is more suited to the interest of his professional peers than to the average reader.


Overall, Henry's story is highly informative and exhibits the writing craft of a skilled technician. As a special bonus it includes some great photographs, particularly those from the period when Henry, Willie and Ron had heads that were covered with a substantial body of natural black hair.
--Aubrey LaBrie
A Black Dialogue Brother
January 2010
Black Revolutionary Action Movement
The materials in this collection--which center mainly, but not solely, on the political activities and literature of the Revolutionary Action Movement from the early 1960's through the early 1970's--were compiled from the personal archives of Akbar Muhammed Ahmed (Max Stanford), John H. Bracey, Jr., and Ernest Allen, Jr. Founded in 1962, RAM was a "low-profile" organization which sought to transcend what it perceived as the "narrow orientations" of existing Civil Rights organizations (which tended to concentrate on "middle-class" cultural assimilation and patchwork social reform) as well as bourgeois-nationalist organizations (which tended to stress capita] accumulation and withdrawal from mass struggle). In contrast, RAM sought to popularize a program of self-determination for Afro-Americans by means of armed struggle, with the ultimate form of American society conceived in terms of social cooperation rather than capitalist individualism. Included here are internal RAM documents, publicly disseminated RAM literature, as well as media accounts of the organization and its members. An incomplete file of Robert F. Williams' Crusader newsletter, published in exile from Cuba and China, is also Included, as is a full catalog of Soulbook magazine, a west coast-based journal of revolutionary nationalist persuasion.
Much of the history of black political movements of the 1960's is incomplete--if not inaccurate--in part because records of small but extremely Influential organizations such as RAM have not been publicly available until now. For example, RAM influence was felt at one time or another in organizations as diverse as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. This is not a complete collection of RAM documents, however: an unknown (but apparently small) number of items were lost as people moved from one locale to another during the "tumultuous Sixties"; on several occasions, documents seized during the course of arrest of RAM leaders were never returned to them following their trials. No doubt such lapses will be lamented by future political activists and scholars, as they are by us today. But the main body of materials remains intact.Today we are quite conscious of, and perhaps occasionally embarrassed by, the shortcomings of these materials at the level of political analysis; given the historical discontinuities induced within post-World War II American society by the crushing of radical movements, such analytical weaknesses now seem to have been Inevitable. But no matter. For their presentation today in microform, it is hoped, will aid in the accurate reconstruction of the history of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. May they also aid in a coherent program for genuine Afro-American liberation.

Ernest Allen, Jr.
Amherst, MA / August 1979

Book Review: We Will Return in the Whirlwind

Book Review: We Will Return
In the Whirlwind





Black Radical Organizations 1960 – 1975
By Muhammad Ahmad (Maxwell Stanford Jr.).
(Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 2007. Pp.378, Notes, Appendix, $18.00)




This book is a participant – observer investigation into four of the main radical black organizations in America between 1960 – 1975: the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW); exploring their strengths, weaknesses and contradictions. Here is a close to complete analysis of the African American contribution to world revolution through the study of the aforementioned organizations, complete with discussion of their necessary predecessors and conclusions. Considering the time line of 1960 to 1975, this book presents the history of the African-American radical tradition in terms of the overlapping and interrelatedness of the said organizations with raising the consciousness of African Americans as well as all of humanity.


This book is a must read for those members of my age group (the hip hop generation) and below who would otherwise not have a chance to receive this wisdom at the feet of our elders who participate(d) and engage(d) in revolutionary struggle.


Particularly powerful is the qualitative method of inquiry, the blending of the dialectical material analysis with personal reflection, since Ahmed was a participant and not just a mere observer. This is the first time I have read an African theoretician apply dialectical method to African reality in such a clear manner. Of course the few limitations occur only because Ahmed's competency is limited to his experience; his attempt to write a historiography of the Black Panthers is problematic however, especially out here in Oakland.

There is a lack of continuity from RAM to BPP to the contemporary contribution to revolutionary consciousness. I say this because of the claim that Kwame Ture made on the origins of the BPP; both he and Ahmed tie them to Lowndes County but in different ways; also because Ahmed could have done more research and documentation on local origins of the BPP and thus reached clearer conclusions.

When looking at Ahmed's ideological foundations, mentors to his personal development, I can be thankful that he wrote this book and honored Mr. Boggs' requirement of informing the future to talk about generations of the revolutionary and radical tradition that they are part of and must advance from. Reading this book, I can see why many of my comrades do the work that they do, I can also see the impact RAM had on national efforts toward liberation.

Crucial is the manner in which Africans apply dialectical thinking to daily life. I maintain that dialectical historical materialism is older than Marx or Hegel. It is nothing more than a modern way to talk about Maat, the foundation of African thought. As we recall, dialectics is the art of argumentation, one of the seven liberal arts of the traditional mystery system that G. M. James talks about in Stolen Legacy. Sometimes the term logic is used interchangeably with and substituted for dialectics. Logic is nothing more than the rules of thinking, the ability to rationalize, to speak. The materialist aspect was a European contribution to this law of opposites in order to control and manipulate nature.

A couple of concerns I have with the book include the question of the invisibility of the NOI in his analysis. There is no doubt the heavy influence the NOI had organizationally on the black liberation movement. Also there was a lack of West coast primary sources, some of the narrative concerning California in particular, I thought was at best incomplete. The West coast was presented as lacking strong ideology and organizational skills, except when somehow tied to the national concerted effort which Ahmed admits was a constant problem due to serious reactionary forces, internal and external.

James Boggs was able to see a change in the American interpretation of Marxism (another contribution of African philosophy), advancing C.L.R. James analysis which led to their ideological split. Concerning the Boggs/ James connection, Ahmad refers to the Boggs' as mentors to RAM. In discussing the Boggs', Ahmed mentions how they split from James over ideology, specifically over the need to for American socialist theory to take into account the phenomena of cybernation in American factories at the time. For the Boggs' the need to develop theory from the practice of Detroit labor was imperative while according to Ahmed, C.L.R. James seems to gloss over this point in his analysis. I didn't want to say too much specifically about the organizations due to the way Ahmed weaves his story together, showing the contradictions he saw in each organization and how they're overall efforts contributed to the national cause of black liberation.

I wasn't clear on Dr. Muhammad's secondary discussion of the establishment of Black studies in national colleges and universities. As an alumni of the Pan Afrikan Student's Union, the ideological descendant of the original Black Student Union at the San Francisco State University, I was extremely critical on what Ahmed had to say on these matters, to cross reference it with my own experiences. Perhaps I was expecting too much from him. Perhaps, indeed, We Will Return in the Whirlwind is a brief introduction into a world of unrecorded and undocumented revolutionary ideas and actions.

In conclusion this is a must read for student organizations and grassroots community organizers. All too often we reinvent the wheel. This book is invaluable in terms of visualizing, conceiving and emulating an African standard.

He seemed to do a thorough job with SNCC and Ram. My critique mainly stems from the lack of discussion of the NOI in this time span; how he spoke about Malcolm X without mentioning the ideological development he acquired from his activity in the NOI; and with the organization of the BPP. Admittedly, I don't see the connection between DRUM and the BPP (unless Ahmed himself is the link via RAM).


Concerning the whole question of Marxism and Africa, at Mamadou Lumumba's (Ken Freeman) memorial Baba Lumumba (Ken's brother) mentioned how his brother struggled to reconcile Marxist Leninist thinking with African culture. I see this same tendency in Ahmed's writing. For me, dialectical historical materialism equates with Maat. Therefore, many of our black Marxists overemphasize Hegelian thinking in our struggle for total liberation. I think that understanding is a direct result of how the Hegelian paradigm in many ways perverted our movement; because the white academics make it look so advanced-- at least it did to Negroes in the early 20th century. Garvey was the main one to warn about getting too close to the Communists, that we should return to our African philosophy.

Consequently, this is where the question of the 'West coast contribution' enters the story . Yes, San Francisco 1968 was the epicenter of black studies, but what did it produce? For one thing it produced a new school of thought beyond the Marxist-Leninist paradigm. Even Nkrumah refined those ideas for the Afrikan situation. I'm merely pointing out that when an Afrikan refines European ideas (which came from self anyway), that Afrikan is making a contribution to Afrikan philosophy. Then the question becomes , who were some one of the first Afrikans to popularize and refine Marxist – Leninism for Afrikans? You gotta mention C.L.R. James down to Huey Newton.

--Ramal Lamar

Ramal Lamar is a graduate student in Logic and an associate of the Plato Negro Academy of Da Corner. He teachers Math at Berkeley Continuation High School.
http://www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Two Poems for Marvin X Madpoet


Street Spirits

(For Marvin X)

under a red sky
you have roamed
the streets of San Francisco
rapping about homeless blues
in your poetry
in your life
in your spirit

under a red sky
i saw you
once selling the Poetry Flash
to rich tourists and wondered
whether you would become
the next Bob Kaufman

under a red sky
you have roamed the beaches
of the Golden State
praying here and there
remembering your sweet Sherley
confessing your sins and mistakes

under a red sky
you have remembered
that a poet is full
of great feelings
of love
for God
for self
for others
whether the poet
is homeless
or not

under a red sky
you have helped me
to embrace
the street spirits
and the rays
of a red sun
with your poetry
with your life
with your spirit.

--J. Vern Cromartie
© 2005

Another One for Marvin X

start out in Fowler
go to Fresno
and fall in love forever
with a deep chocolate woman
who loves you and your poetry

you know she loves you
forever like the waves
rolling in the dock of the bay

she loved you

this woman loved you
when she breathed
her last breath

sometimes you see her
in your sleep
and you wonder
about what could have been
about what should have been
about what was your flight
to love forever

the power of love
is holy

Jimi Hendix
knew this holiness
in his dreams
when he sang
deep into the night
about the
power of love

if you want to follow
on the mantle of Jeremiah
let the power of love
drench your soul
forever.

--J. Vern Cromartie
© 2006

Dr. J. Vern Cromartie is a poet and chair of the Sociology Department at
Contra Costa College. He is a former student of Marvin X when he taught
drama at Laney College. Dr. Cromartie recently delivered a research
paper on Marvin X's brief tenure at UC Berkeley. www.marvinxoneducation.blogspot.com
www.academyofdacorner.blogspot.com

Saturday, March 13, 2010

The Parable of the Fire
Parable of the Fire
There was a pile of weeds in the backyard. They were an eyesore to the neighborhood. People complained until the man in the white house decided to burn them down. He lighted the pile of weeds and they began to burn. Then a wind came and started blowing the embers into the field nearby. The man saw he could have a problem if he didn't do something quickly, so he grabbed the water hose and began sprinkling water on the pile of weeds.
He put water on the top of the pile and the flames seemed to subside. He continued pouring water on the top of the pile until he thought the fire was out, since he didn't see anymore flames. He went inside and went to sleep. While he was asleep the smoldering fire underneath began to burn again until the flames could be seen by neighbors who called the fire department. They rushed to the scene. When the man heard the fire trucks he got up and ran outside to see the pile of weeds flaming high with embers going up into the night sky.
The firemen put out the fire and told the man to get out of the way so they could finish the job he had half done. He did as told and the firemen extinguished the fire, including the smoldering weeds on the bottom.The firemen told him to never forget the fire underneath that can smolder for days and flame up periodically, depending on the wind. Just because you put water on the top, don't think the fire is out. Remember the smoldering flames underneath that must be suppressed.2/19/10

The condition of the American economic and financial crisis is analogous to the Parable of the Fire. The fire took place in the back yard of the White House. The President was the man trying to put the fire out. He applied the socalled conservative voodoo trickle down theory to the fire, starting at the top as the President did with his bailout of the banks, insurance companies and corporations. While the trickle down theory did assuage the meltdown, the crucial factor was not at the top but the fire smoldering underneath.
But being so smart he outsmarted himself, the President proclaimed a victory over the crisis, even though the fire underneath was yet burning with unemployment, mortgage debt, homelessness and growing anger among the people since many were also starving for they were without money for basic survival.

The President even continued sleeping without addressing the issue at hand, jobs, jobs, jobs, rather he focused on health insurance that even if passed would be unaffordable since people are unemployed. Like the man putting out the fire, his energy was misplaced though well meaning.
The neighbors who called the fire department are all those who were for him initially and even those who were against him.
The fire is causing a symbiotic unity among the people that will likely cause his removal from the White House. Yes, dissatisfaction brings about a change, real change. It appears the President will be evicted from the White House after his first term. The winds are gathering to sweep him from office. The winds of war are yet blowing in the East, costing him trillions of dollars.
There are even little fires in the fields nearby caused by the embers blowing in the wind. The global financial system is yet burning. Greece is on fire and other nations are no out of danger. There is the fire of the drug war on the President's border.
Seven thousand murders in the last few years. Even inside the border there is fire in the cities, with thousands murdered in the inner cities, yet we hear nothing from the sleeping President.
He promises to address the problem of education, housing and employment with the avowed enemies of his country before addressing the smoldering fire of discontent in his backyard. We wonder does he hear the cries of the people or is the siren of the fire truck so deafening that it drowns out the voices of those suffering on the bottom of the pile of weeds.
--Marvin X
2/20/10