Saturday, December 4, 2010
Economic Growth versus Development
Economic Growth versus Development
In the world of economics, growth is the primary metric. It's all about the numbers, and so we try to reach the sky with growth, quarterly, annually. As long as there is growth, we know we are on solid ground. The assumption is that growth is infinite, for there are infinite possibilities for growth if we search for new lands to exploit the labor, resources and addiction to consumerism or things we have programed people to desire, even beyond their needs.
As we look at the global economic crisis and the slowdown in growth, perhaps it is time to ponder this wanton desire for growth, especially when it propels people to spend beyond their means to satisfy the bloody capitalist swine who perpetuate
Two friends enjoying a moment in time, Marvin X and Fahizah. Above: Cornell West with Nefertiti and Amira, daughters of Marvin X. Man on left is John Douimbia (RIP), Marvin X's mentor, founder of the Black Men's Conference, Oakland, 1980.
the world of make believe, including the addiction to growth as the only barometer of successful economic policy.
But we know a child may grow but not develop, thus perhaps we should consider development as essential to economic policy. How many people were employed with jobs at a living wage in the last quarter? How many had health insurance coverage on the job. Did we reach wage parity with Black and white men, white men and white women? How many claimed they were happy on the job in the last quarter or last year? How many feel secure?
What does it really prove to have increased growth and profits? Well, it's all about profit, right?
It's all about making a profit with the cheapest labor and resources, even if we need to start wars to obtain such, even if we must remain on a permanent war footing to satisfy the bastards in the military/corporate/university complex who earn mega salaries with bonuses while the workers are rapidly slipping into poverty or require two salaried persons in the household to make it.
And because the workers have become addicted to things or conspicuous consumption, their lives suffer underdevelopment while the bosses drive them to increase the growth metric, no matter the development metric, especially the human development, after all, we are not talking of abstractions.
We are entering an era, especially here in the Americas, where Latin American or Indigenous peoples are discarding the blatant free market capitalism of the Europeans. The peoples of the Americas want an alternative to naked exploitation of labor and natural resources. Some rather keep their natural resources in the ground rather than give away for little or nothing. Bolivia is considering such with its new found lithium deposits that is needed for batteries and electronic devices. Other nations rather keep their oil in the ground, after all, it is exploited yet the people remain in poverty, ignorance and disease.
And so we are at the precipice of a new economic order. Progressive minded people are urgently seeking alternatives to solve the present global crisis brought about from pure greed and arrogance by the white supremacy bandits.
Is more better or less? Having more is no guarantee of happiness. In the US, workers have two and three cars, closets full of shoes and clothes, yet mates are estranged, suffering physical, verbal and emotional abuse, and of course many chose to remain prisoners of love because they enjoy the golden handcuffs of material security, neglecting to consider their spiritual security.
And so we suffer psychosomatic diseases from stress, cancer, stroke and heart attack, only then do people realize things are an illusion of the monkey mind. They are horrified when they see the poor people pushing shopping carts down the street, yet expressing happiness and joy, yes, while drinking their rot gut wine, but the couple is passionate with each other, laughing and joking as if they were in a palace.
Some economists, Robert Reich, for example, say we have reached the limit of growth, that the only thing possible now in order to have peace in the world is for the rich to share the wealth, yes, return some of the ill gotten gain to the wretched of the earth. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the example of what must be done. They have given back or plan to give billions back to the people. They are encouraging other rich persons to do the same. Perhaps these men understand it is not about growth but development and the transformation of the human spirit beyond the material. Call it joy and happiness!
--Marvin X
12/4/10
Mentors Meet at Marriott
Mentors Meet at Oakland Marriott
Last night black mentors gathered at the Marriott in Oakland, under the leadership of Susan Tayor, formerly of Essence Magazine. Ms Taylor said she got a vision for her mentoring project after reading stories of black trauma and grief in her magazine. Finally she got enough, finding her work with Essence totally exhausting. Welcome to the real world, Susan Taylor. I shared her exhaustion this week at my mentoring project, Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. I was promoting the release of my latest book, Notes on the Wisdom of Action or How to Jump Out of the Box, when a student/teacher arrived, and after seeing my new title, said he wanted me to hurry up and get all the nigguhs out the box so he could get in. Yes, the more we try to get up the mountain in the Sisyphusian tradition, the more we must descend the mountain with the rock in hand, only to begin again. Well, Susan declared we may be on the rough side of the mountain but we can get to the other side. It is not as difficult as it appears. After all, she noted, we are not on the slave ships, in the cotton fields, tarred and lynched for being uppity, hands chopped off for trying to read.
So her mission, in the words of ancestor Marvin Gaye, is to save the children. I had the same mission in mind until I was corrected at a book reading in Philly. As I concluded my reading, the great revolutionary Muhammad Ahmed (Max Stanford), came forward to tell me, "Marvin, we must not only save the children but the adults as well. We gotta save everybody."
And so my focus at Academy of da Corner is children and adults. I talk with weary mothers and fathers as well as discarded, homeless, rejected and despised children. Sometimes I talk with both, giving them advice and direction. Yes, many of the children who pass my Academy are in foster care, and many adults are in recovery, so they all need attention, a kind word, advice on how to handle a critical situation. Even professionals come by asking how to handle a job related issue before they go postal. Of course, a persistent problem is male/female relations. Youth and adults can be heard passing by or standing on the corner talking on the cell phone to a mate or to a friend about a mate they are ready to kill for some sexual or other impropriety. See my book for healing male/female relations The Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 416 pages, $49.95. You can obtain it at the Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway.
Academy of da Corner is a free speech zone, a sacred space for children, youth and adults suffering stress, trauma and unresolved grief. Sometimes when I am exhausted hearing their problems, I must persist because they look me in the eyes with a look that says simply listen to me for a moment, let me vent, please brother! A brother came up to me the other day and said the following, "Fuck the peckerwood, fuck the peckerwood, fuck the peckerwood." Then went on down the street.
Thus we must congratulate Susan Taylor and her brain trust of of educators, intellectuals and spiritual workers. As I write, they are in retreat in Monterrey , training a new group for mentoring. The leaders included Michael Eric Dyson, Dr. Wade Nobles, Joyce E. King, Rev. Andriette Earl, Asha Bandele, Dr. Na'im Akbar, George Fraser, Arnold Perkins, Louis Gossett, Jr., et al. Congresswoman Barbara Lee was honored for helping fund the project called CARES Mentoring Movement, subtitle: Healing What's Hurting Black America.
I shall continue mentoring at Academy of da Corner, since I am comfortable there. I have freedom of speech, although this week my life was threatened because of my mouth. My primary work is my writing so I am not going to stray too far from that. The Academy of da Corner gives me a chance to leave the world of my imagination to encounter reality up close and personal.
Persons interested in mentoring should contact Oakland CARES, otherwise you can come downtown and give me a hand with your children and friends. I've written a manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a Pan African 12-Step Model to assist your own recovery so we can work with our people. Dr. Nathan Hare wrote the foreword, Ptah Allah El wrote the afterword. Peace!
--Marvin X
12/4/10
Marvin X ,Eight Books in 2010
Black Bird Press Books
Marvin X Writes Eight Books in 2010
The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, Volume I
If you want to learn about inspiration and motivation, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.--Ishmael Reed
Hustler’s Guide to the Game Called Life, (Wisdom of Plato Negro, Volume II)
The Mythology of Love, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, 416 pages.
This book is the most wanted title in the Marvin X collection. Youth in the hood fight over it and steal it from each other. Girls say it empowers them, and the boys say it helps them step up their game. Mothers and fathers are demanding their sons and daughters read this. Paradise Jah Love says they fight over it as if it's black gold!
I Am Oscar Grant, essays on Oakland, $19.95. Critical essays on the travesty of American justice in the cold blooded murder of Oscar Grant by a beast in blue uniform.
Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and Yoself, essays on Obama Drama, $19.95.
Marvin X is on the mark again with his accurate observation of the Obama era. The black community was so excited with Obama being the first Black Prez that they forgot he was a politician-not a messiah. Marvin X brings the community back to the reality of what Obama stands for-at the moment! He has not given up on Da Prez, he simply wants people to see what he stands for and what he still has an opportunity to do for our communities. Make sure you put Pull Yo Pants Up Fada Black Prez & Yo Self on your to-buy list It will be the best book you will read in 2010!--Carolyn Mixon
Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies, Guess Editor, Marvin X, 480 pages
In honor of the Journal of Black Poetry, Marvin X collects poetry from throughout the Pan African world. This massive issue is a classic of radical Pan African literature in the 21st century. Amiri Baraka says, "He has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the innovators and founders of the new revolutionary school of African writing."
Notes on the Wisdom of Action or How to Jump Out of the Box
In this collection he calls upon the people to become proactive rather than reactionary, to initiate the movement out the box of oppression by any means necessary, although Marvin X believes in the power of spiritual consciousness to create infinite possibilities toward liberation.
Soulful Musings on Unity of North American Africans, 150 pages
Available from Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702. jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Haki Madhubuti Honored
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 CHICAGO (Nov. 17, 2010)- Third World Press is pleased to announce that activist poet Haki R. Madhubuti, the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University, is one of the esteemed winners of the 9th annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. Professor Madhubuti was honored for his most recent book of poetry, Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1966-2009 published by Chicago-based Third World Press. For the first time in the history of the Hurston/Wright Awards two honorees, Professor Haki R. Madhubuti and the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rita Dove were recipients of the award for poetry. Named for two geniuses of American and world literature, Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, the Hurston/Wright Foundation presents the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards annually to authors of African descent for the year’s best works in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. This year was the first time the Foundation named two winners for poetry. With more than 200 entries submitted each year, the awards are the culmination of a yearlong process involving 12 distinguished judges who serve on four separate juries. Six nominees are selected in each of the four categories. Notables from the literary community who serve on the organization’s advisory board include Toni Morrison, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Chinua Achebe, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Terry McMillan who served as Mistress of Ceremonies at the awards dinner held on Monday, November 15, in Washington D.C. Winners received a statue and a cash prize. The event also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, founded in 1990 by novelist Marita Golden and bibliophile Clyde McElvene as a resource center for writers, readers and supporters of African American literature. During a career spanning more than 40 years and as one of the prime movers of the Black Arts Movement (1965-75), Professor Madhubuti has published more than 28 books and is one of the world’s best-selling authors of poetry and non-fiction, with books in print in excess of 3 million. His Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?: The African American Family in Transition (1990) has sold more than 1 million copies. Popular titles include Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption (1994), GroundWork: New and Selected Poems 1966-1996(1996), HeartLove: Wedding and Love Poems (1998), Tough Notes: A Healing Call For Creating Exceptional Black Men (2002), Run Toward Fear (2004), and YellowBlack: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet's Life (2006), a memoir of the people and places that were a part of his early life. His poetry and essays have been published in more than 100 anthologies.
“This book represents my life’s work,” says Haki R. Madhubuti of the 500-page collection of more than three decades of his distinctive poetry. “This award confirms that reading Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston as a teenager was indeed my impetus for my life’s work as a poet, educator, institution builder and advocate for social and political justice. After reading Richard Wright’s Black Boy, I was inspired to not only find out who I was, but to start a lifelong search for that which is good, correct and just, not only for Black people, but for the great majority of the world’s people who are poor and oppressed. Art and literature are dependable and powerful weapons in the struggle for social equality.” A protégé of the late Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, with whom he shared a long friendship, Professor Madhubuti emerged from a long tradition of social activism via the Black Arts Movement to become a pivotal figure in advocating a strong black literary tradition. He is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, American Book Award and others. Professor Madhubuti founded Third World Press in 1967 and is co-founder of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing and Chicago State University’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program. He is also a founder of the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept School (1969), and a cofounder of Betty Shabazz International Charter School (1998), Barbara A. Sizemore Middle School (2005), and DuSable Leadership Academy (2005), all of which are in Chicago. As the Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor at DePaul University in Chicago, he continues to challenge the status quo in pursuit of justice and peace and advocate for the necessity of art in a violent and discouraging world. Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1966-2009 is published by Third World Press, one of the oldest and most highly respected African American-owned book publishing houses. Founded in 1967, Third World Press has been dedicated to publishing culturally progressive and politically insightful works of fiction and non-fiction for more than four-decades.Third World Press has published the works of poet and publisher Dudley Randall, poets Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Mari Evans and Margaret Walker; editor Hoyt W. Fuller; historians, John Henrik Clarke and Chancellor Williams; Chicago writers, Sterling Plumpp, Useni Eugene Perkins and Jacob Carruthers; playwright and producer Woody King Jr.; writers, Kalamu ya Salaam, Pearl Cleage, Ruby Dee, Ruth Garnett, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Derrick Bell, Gloria Naylor and Lorene Cary; artist Murry DePillars; and continues to publish much of the work by the unforgettable Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks. For more information, please contact Catherine Compton at (773) 651-0700, ext. 30, or email ccompton@thirdworldpressinc.com. For more information on Third World Press titles, visit www.thirdworldpressinc.com |
Saturday, November 27, 2010
The 'Lebanonisation' of Iraq - In Depth - Al Jazeera English
The Art of Deception in the Middle East
The Middle East is the prime area on the planet for the play out of deception in the political arena. Of course, it is original home of the the Assassins, those deceptive, double dealing Medieval hashish smoking Muslims who killed Christians during the Crusades. And since we are in the midst of the neo-Crusades, including the Jewish occupation of Palestine, the US occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, we should look for a repeat of the art of deception in geo-politics. And we find the practice in full bloom. Imagine, the majority hijackers of 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, yet it has not been attacked. Alas, the Bin Laden family members were able to fly out of America when no other plans could fly. The Saudis have not been bombed, though clearly 9/11 was a Saudi theological and mythological adventure. The Saudis are deeply involved in the Iraq Sunni insurgency as well as the Afghanistan Taliban jihad, in coordination with Pakistani Intelligence and USA complicity. Of course in the geo-politics, India is involved to keep the Pakistanis off guard in Kashmir .
So the Saudi offer to mediate the political stalemate in Iraq is subterfuge and political chicanery at best, for Saudi Arabia has no intention whatsoever to allow a functional Shia government in Iraq, especially under the tutelage of Iran, although it is what it is, as they say in the hood.
As per the future, look toward Iran and Turkey to play a vital role, for they are the best answer to any regional solution, even with Iran's present theo-political crisis and its mythological president, though he is no more mythological than the Zionists, the Crusader Americans and the Sunni reactionaries.
Clearly, the time has come for Shia rule, no matter their heretic tendencies. Sunnis, get over it! Swallow the bullet, for the Shias have the guns and shall not give them up any time soon. And war is politics by other means!
We know for a surety that Sunni Muslims have no love for Shia Muslims, never have and never will, for the Shia are heretics of the first order, according to Sunni Muslims, thus, they can be killed at will for heresy, as they killled Hallaj who merely cried Anna Al Haqq or I am the Truth, thus I am Allah--one attribute of Allah is The Truth.
And now the Shia have the grand opportunity to rule in Iraq, across the border from their Shia brothers in Iran, creating a Shia pathway from the Tigress and Euphrates to the Mediterranean.
Hezbollah protects their gateway or "sirata al mustaqim" to the sea.
The Sunnis in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States have conspired with America and the Israeli Zionist entity to insure the destabilization of Iraq if the Shia government refuses to share power with the Sunni. And why should they do so after centuries of Sunni oppression of the Shia?
Yes, the March election has been in a quagmire because the USA, in conspiracy with the Sunni regional powers, have every intention to prevent the installation of a continued Shia regime.
In truth, America doesn't give a damn about Sunni or Shia, all he wants is oil and geo-political domination as required of white supremacy mythology, in unity with Zionist mythology.
And so the latest call for a conference of all parties in Saudi Arabia is but the latest scheme in the diabolical attempt to further the destabilization of the area, mainly to keep the Shia from wielding power history has blessed them with.
According to intelligent sources, it is indeed Shia Iran and Turkey that shall exercise power in the region, especially since they have a history of democratic institutions. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States are Stone Age creatures who are not about to institute democratic reforms. And America is their best buddies as they tread the path of reaction.
We need only recall that in Iran a democratically elected prime minister was overthrown by the CIA and the Shah reinstalled. The Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini ran the Shah out, but then came the Iraq/Iran war that caused the death of millions on both sides, with America supplying the poison gas and other war materials to the Iraqis. Thus America is in no position to play a fair broker. She plays, as they say in hood, dirty pool!
--Marvin X
