|
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Pianist Alfie Politt at the Henry Box Brown Festival, Philadelphia
The Brothers' Network is proud to partner with the Philadelphia Jazz Project to present Alfie Politt as part of the Henry Box Brown Festival.
Marvin X speaks on KPOO 89.5FM (kpoo.com), tonight, 10pm (pst) Terry Collins Show
Marvin X speaks tonight on KPOO radio at 10pm. kpoo.com. Accompanied by his star student Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Marvin will discuss The World According to Marvin X at 70 (May 29, 1944). Marvin and Dr. Nzinga will read from their original writings.
Dr. Nzinga was a student of X's when he taught theatre at Laney College, 1981. She directed and performed in his play In the Name of Love, 1991, and his docudrama One Day in the Life, 1996-2002 (Recovery Theatre), the longest running Black play in the Bay. Ishmael Reed said, "One Day in the Life is the most powerful drama I've seen."
Dr. Nzinga has established her own theatre in West Oakland and is producing the entire cycle of plays by August Wilson with her Lower Bottom Playaz.
Terry Collins of KPOO will interview Marvin and Ayodele
Monday, May 26, 2014
Miles Davis - Time After Time (Live 1985)
If you fall I will catch you
time after time....--Cyndi Lauper
If you are by yourself and fall, who will lift you up, so two are better than one.--Ecclesiastes
HUNGER STRIKE FOR SYRIA, AMERICA, NIGERIA, PALESTINE, AFGHANISTAN, YEMEN
I will hunger strike for three days for Syria and the world. This world needs help. JB said hep! Imagine the young man committing mass murder because he couldn't find a girlfriend, but alas, he wasn't in tune with himself, how could he connect with a girl/woman?
The power hungry fight for the cause of continued oppression, not freedom. There are multiple fighters in Syria for multiple causes, few of them give a damn about the Syrian people, they are obsessed with their cause, for this or that ideology or sectarian theology. In three days I will be 70 years old. The world was at war when I was born, May 29, 1944, and there has been war ever since. I suspect there shall be wars and rumors of war after I am long gone, for some war is money, good for the economy of the globalists, who have no loyalty to anything or anyone except greed, who seem to enjoy the crushing of bones and spilling of blood. And then they wonder why their children are going stark raving mad. Baldwin said the murder of my child will not make your child safe.
--Marvin X
The war in Syria is part of the world war against the freedom of human beings. Freedom is for all, not a family, a sect or religious group. The rape and torture of men, women and children is a reality in Syria as well as Nigeria and America. The children kidnapped in Nigeria are no different from the sexually exploited children in Syria and the children on the streets of America, especially Oakland's International Blvd, where children of all ethnic groups (10, 11,12 years old) are sexually exploited day and night. We must all transcend religiosity, sectarianism and dogmatism. From Syria to America, the patriarchal mentality of domination must be uprooted and cast into the dustbin of history!
--Marvin X
5/25/14
Comment:
Tell it, my friend. All people of conscience, and especially those who dream of a day of equal citizenship for all in a truly free and pluralistic, human-rights-respecting, secular, sovereign Syria, appreciate your stand.
--Dr. Mohja Kahf, Syrian poet/professor for non-violence in Syria
The power hungry fight for the cause of continued oppression, not freedom. There are multiple fighters in Syria for multiple causes, few of them give a damn about the Syrian people, they are obsessed with their cause, for this or that ideology or sectarian theology. In three days I will be 70 years old. The world was at war when I was born, May 29, 1944, and there has been war ever since. I suspect there shall be wars and rumors of war after I am long gone, for some war is money, good for the economy of the globalists, who have no loyalty to anything or anyone except greed, who seem to enjoy the crushing of bones and spilling of blood. And then they wonder why their children are going stark raving mad. Baldwin said the murder of my child will not make your child safe.
--Marvin X
The war in Syria is part of the world war against the freedom of human beings. Freedom is for all, not a family, a sect or religious group. The rape and torture of men, women and children is a reality in Syria as well as Nigeria and America. The children kidnapped in Nigeria are no different from the sexually exploited children in Syria and the children on the streets of America, especially Oakland's International Blvd, where children of all ethnic groups (10, 11,12 years old) are sexually exploited day and night. We must all transcend religiosity, sectarianism and dogmatism. From Syria to America, the patriarchal mentality of domination must be uprooted and cast into the dustbin of history!
--Marvin X
5/25/14
Comment:
Tell it, my friend. All people of conscience, and especially those who dream of a day of equal citizenship for all in a truly free and pluralistic, human-rights-respecting, secular, sovereign Syria, appreciate your stand.
--Dr. Mohja Kahf, Syrian poet/professor for non-violence in Syria
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Obama slips into Afghanistan to extend the permanent war
Obama slips into Afghanistan to visit US troops
By JULIE PACE10 hours ago
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (AP) — President Barack Obama, on a surprise holiday visit to this sprawling military base, said Sunday he was close to a decision about the number of U.S. troops who will remain after year's end in America's longest war.
"We are aware of the sacrifices so many have made," Obama said after a briefing by Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, the top American commander in Afghanistan. "We'll probably be announcing some decisions fairly shortly."
The decision may come Wednesday when Obama delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.
Air Force One landed at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, after an overnight flight from Washington. Obama was scheduled to spend just a few hours on the base and had no plans to travel to Kabul, the capital, to meet with Hamid Karzai, the mercurial president who has had a tumultuous relationship with the White House.
Obama's surprise trip came as the U.S. and NATO withdraw most of their forces ahead of a year-end deadline.
Obama is seeking to keep a small number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 to train Afghan security forces and conduct counterterrorism missions. But that plan is contingent on Karzai's successor signing a bilateral security agreement that Karzai has refused to authorize.
Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Obama had not finalized the troop decision and no announcement was expected during the Afghanistan visit.
At least 2,181 members of the U.S. military have died during the nearly 13-year Afghan war and thousands more have been wounded. There are still about 32,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, down from a high of 100,000 in mid-2010, when as Obama sent in additional soldiers to quell escalating violence.
Obama said he saw a poster of the Twin Towers, downed in the 2001 terrorist attacks, when he arrived at the briefing building. "It's a reminder of why we're here," he said.
This was Obama's fourth visit to Afghanistan as president, but his first since winning re-election in 2012.
Rhodes said Obama was passing on a meeting with Karzai in order to avoid injecting himself into Afghanistan's presidential elections. Karzai was given advance notice of Obama's trip, Rhodes said, though it was unclear how far ahead of time.
In addition to the briefing by U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, Obama planned to speak to troops at Bagram and visit the injured being treated at a base hospital.
Obama was accompanied by a few advisers, including senior counselor John Podesta, whose son is serving in Afghanistan. Also along was country singer Brad Paisley, who was to perform for U.S. troops.
As is typical of recent presidential trips to war zones, the White House did not announce Obama's visit in advance. Media traveling with Obama for the 13-hour flight had to agree to keep the trip secret until the president arrived at the air base.
Obama's visit was taking place against the backdrop of growing outrage in the United States over the treatment of America's war veterans. More than two dozen veterans' hospitals across America are under investigation over allegations of treatment delays and deaths, putting greater scrutiny on the Department of Veterans Affairs. The agency already was struggling to keep up with the influx of forces returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama has staked much of his foreign policy philosophy on ending the two wars he inherited from his predecessor, George W. Bush.
The final American troops withdrew from Iraq in the closing days of 2011 after the U.S. and Iraq failed to reach a security agreement to keep a small American residual force in the country. In the years that have followed the American withdrawal, Iraq has been battered by resurgent waves of violence.
U.S. officials say they're trying to avoid a similar scenario in Afghanistan. While combat forces are due to depart at the end of this year, Obama administration officials have pressed to keep some troops in Afghanistan after 2014 to continue training the Afghan security forces and undertake counterterrorism missions.
Pentagon officials have pushed for as many as 10,000 troops; others in the administration favor as few as 5,000 troops. Obama has insisted he will not keep any Americans in Afghanistan without a signed security agreement that would grant those forces immunity from Afghan law.
U.S. officials had hoped plans a post-2014 force would be well underway by this point. But Karzai stunned U.S. officials this year by saying he would not sign the security agreement even though he helped negotiate the terms. The move signaled that Karzai does not want his legacy to include a commitment to allow the deployment of international troops in his country any longer.
Karzai's decision compounded his already tense relationship with officials in Washington who have grown increasingly frustrated by his anti-American rhetoric and decision to release prisoners over the objections of U.S. officials. Obama and Karzai have spoken just once in the past year.
Karzai, the only president Afghans have known since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban's Islamic rule, was constitutionally barred from running for a third term this year. An election to choose his successor was held this month, with the top two candidates advancing to a June runoff.
Both of those candidates, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, have promised a fresh start with the West and pledged to move ahead with the security pact with the U.S.
Iran: Jihad til America is no more!
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, all but said on Sunday that negotiations over the country’s illicit nuclear program are over and that the Islamic Republic’s ideals include destroying America.
“Those (Iranians) who want to promote negotiation and surrender to the oppressors and blame the Islamic Republic as a warmonger in reality commit treason,” Khamenei told a meeting of members of parliament, according to the regime’s Fars News Agency.
Khamenei emphasized that without a combative mindset, the regime cannot reach its higher Islamic role against the “oppressors’ front.”
“The reason for continuation of this battle is not the warmongering of the Islamic Republic. Logic and reason command that for Iran, in order to pass through a region full of pirates, needs to arm itself and must have the capability to defend itself,” he said.
“Today’s world is full of thieves and plunderers of human honor, dignity and morality who are equipped with knowledge, wealth and power, and under the pretence of humanity easily commit crimes and betray human ideals and start wars in different parts of the world.”
In response to a question by a parliamentarian on how long this battle will continue, Khamenei said,“Battle and jihad are endless because evil and its front continue to exist. … This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors’ front with America at the head of it, which has expanded its claws on human mind, body and thought. … This requires a difficult and lengthy struggle and need for great strides.”
Khamenei cited the scientific advancement of the country. “The accelerated scientific advancement of the last 12 years cannot stop under any circumstances,” he said, referring to the strides the regime has made toward becoming a nuclear power.
As reported on May 19 on The Daily Caller, Iran has put up new roadblocks to reaching a deal with the P5+1 world powers over its illicit nuclear program. The powers are the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany.
Three days of negotiations in the fourth round of Geneva meetings ended recently without concrete results when the Iranian team presented the country’s new “red lines” — diminishing any hope by the Obama administration to claim victory in its approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, according to reports from Iran.
The Obama administration had hoped that with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif showing an eagerness to solve the nuclear issue and address the West’s concerns, there would be a possibility for a negotiated solution. An interim agreement penned last November in Geneva was touted as a “historic nuclear deal.”
Under that agreement, Iran, in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, limited its enrichment activity to the 5 percent level with a current stockpile of over 10 tons (enough for six nuclear bombs), converted much of its 20 percent enriched stock to harmless oxide and agreed to allow more intrusive inspections of its nuclear plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspections were limited to only agreed-upon facilities.
The Iranian delegation last week presented new red lines that could not be crossed, including the expansion of the country’s research and development for its nuclear program, the need of the country to continue enrichment, and the fact that the country’s ballistic missile program — despite U.N. sanctions — is not up for negotiation.
At the same time, IAEA officials met again with their Iranian counterparts last week in Tehran to discuss information on the work on detonators and needed collaboration by the regime to clear outstanding issues on its nuclear program as part of seven transparency steps Iran had agreed to fulfill by May 15, which has yet to take place.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and author of the award winning book “A Time to Betray” (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).
Memorial Day, a poem by Marvin X
I am a veteran
Not of foreign battlefields
Like my father in world war one
My uncles in world war two
And Korea
Or my friends from Vietnam
And even the Congo “police action”
But veteran none the less
Exiled and jailed because I refused
To visit Vietnam as a running dog for imperialism
So I visited Canada, Mexico and Belize
Then Federal prison for a minute
But veteran I am of the war in the hood
The war of domestic colonialism and neo-colonialism
White supremacy in black face war
Fighting for black power that turned white
Or was always white as in the other white people
So war it was and is
Every day without end no RR no respite just war
For colors like kindergarten children war
For turf warriors don’t own and run when popo comes
War for drugs and guns and women
War for hatred jealousy
Dante got a scholarship but couldn’t get on the plane
The boyz in the hood met him on the block and jacked him
Relieved him of his gear shot him in the head because he could read
Play basketball had all the pretty girls a square
The boyz wanted him dead like themselves
Wanted him to have a shrine with liquor bottles and teddy bears
And candles
Wanted his mama and daddy to weep and mourn at the funeral
Like all the other moms and dads and uncle aunts cousins
Why should he make it out the war zone
The blood and broken bones of war in the hood
No veterans day no benefits no mental health sessions
No conversation who cares who wants to know about the dead
In the hood
the warriors gone down in the ghetto night
We heard the Uzi at 3am and saw the body on the steps until 3 pm
When the coroner finally arrived as children passed from school
I am the veteran of ghetto wars of liberation that were aborted
And morphed into wars of self destruction
With drugs supplied from police vans
Guns diverted from the army base and sold 24/7 behind the Arab store.
Junior is 14 but the main arms merchant in the hood
He sells guns from his backpack
His daddy wants to know how he get all them guns
But Junior don’t tell cause he warrior
He’s lost more friends than I the elder
What can I tell him about death and blood and bones
He says he will get rich or die trying
But life is for love not money
And if he lives he will learn.
If he makes it out the war zone to another world
Where they murder in suits and suites
And golf courses and yachts
if he makes it even beyond this world
He will learn that love is better than money
For he was once on the auction block and sold as a thing
For money, yes, for the love of money but not for love
And so his memory is short and absent of truth
The war in the hood has tricked him into the slave past
Like a programmed monkey he acts out the slave auction
The sale of himself on the corner with his homeys
Trying to pose cool in the war zone
I will tell him the truth and maybe one day it will hit him like a bullet
In the head
It will hit him multiple times in the brain until he awakens to the real battle
In the turf of his mind.
And he will stand tall and deliver himself to the altar of truth to be a witness
Along with his homeys
They will take charge of their posts
They will indeed claim their turf and it will be theirs forever
Not for a moment in the night
But in the day and in the tomorrows
And the war will be over
No more sorrow no more blood and bones
No more shrines on the corner with liquor bottles teddy bears and candles.
--Marvin X
25 May 2007
Brooklyn NY
This poem appears in the anthology Stand Our Ground, edited by Euwarde Asayande, dedicated to Trayvon Martin and Merissa Axleander.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
His Black Consciousness Program Rocked the Bay Area like no other black panthers black arts black studies kwanza Khalid Ab...