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Wednesday, May 17, 2017
black arts movement international: ben f. jones art in cuba
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Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Caribbean: Violence in Paradise
Caribbean countries laud themselves on offering idyllic settings where sandy beaches, calming calypso and a laid-back lifestyle beckon.
But behind the happy-go-lucky image, the region also harbors a darker side: violent crime and a tolerance for domestic violence.
According to a new study, “Restoring Paradise in the Caribbean: Combatting Violence with Numbers,” the region has some of the lowest victimization by property crime in the world but one of the world’s highest violent crime rates. Nearly 1 in 3 citizens has lost someone to violence, and individuals are more likely to be a victim of assault or a threat than anywhere else in the hemisphere.
“Tourists, who are not targets of this violent crime in the Caribbean, may be completely unaware that Caribbean citizens are becoming increasingly concerned, and for valid reasons, about violence,” said Heather Sutton, the lead researcher behind the Inter-American Development Bank study based on victimization surveys and released Tuesday during an Inter-American Dialogue panel discussion in Washington, D.C. “Caribbean governments are making significant efforts and spending robust amounts of their budgets trying to solve this problem.”
The study focuses on five Caribbean countries — the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. Some 3,000 individuals living in each country’s capital were surveyed. Rather than rely solely on police homicide reports, researchers questioned the victims of crime, 47 percent of whom don’t report incidents to law enforcement.
Rising crime rates, especially soaring homicide rates in a country like Jamaica, have long been a leading concern in the region and remain a persistent challenge. Another Inter-American Development Bank study, for example, found that one in four Bahamian businesses had been victimized by crime in 2013-14 and crime was a major concern for Bahamians, who last week kicked out the ruling government of the past five years in a general election and ushered in the opposition.
This week, the chamber of commerce president in Clarendon, Jamaica, complained that an increase in reports of murders, robberies, extortion, and other unlawful activities in the parish were scaring off investors. The parish was cited earlier this month by Jamaica’s National Security Minister Robert Montague as one of the places where fear of victimization remained high despite a 2016 Jamaican crime survey showing victimization levels declining nationally.
Members of the Mobile Reserve, an arm of the national police, patrol the neighborhood of Dunkirk in Kingston, Jamaica, June 6, 2013.
ANDREA BRUCE NYT
Dr. David Allen, a psychiatrist who studies crime in the Bahamas and examines the stories behind the incidents, said the findings of the Caribbean Crime Victimization Survey correspond to what he’s uncovered during his decade of research. Allen has blamed the island-nation’s increase in violence on the Bahamas’s crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and the country’s economic downturn. It has led, he said, to a breakdown of family values and the formation of youth gangs.
“Crime is a public health problem,” he said. “Public health means it cannot be solved just by law enforcement.”
Allen says what is needed, not only in the Bahamas but throughout the Caribbean, is an anti-crime or citizens’ protection council, where victims and even perpetrators of crime join with clergy, businesses owners, government ministers, police and other law enforcement personnel to study the problem and come up with solutions. One place where they can start is with the victims, he said, who are often forgotten. The victims, in turn, victimize others because of their anger resulting from their trauma.
“There is a high traumatization rate,” Allen said. “If a person is traumatized, particularly a child, they will go into more violence.”
Sutton said researchers not only found that revenge attacks were a common motivation behind homicides in the Bahamas, but children who are either victims of violence or witnessed violence in their homes risk becoming perpetrators of violence.
“This is a red flag and this is one of the drivers of the high levels of crime we are seeing — exposure to violence,” she said.
The Caribbean, she noted, has a high level of tolerance for violence in the home, violence against women and physical discipline. For example, a majority, 66 percent, of Caribbean respondents supported physically disciplining a child who misbehaved, while one in three Caribbean adults — more so than those in Latin America or the United States — had no issues with wife-beating if a woman is unfaithful.
But while rising crime threatens to taint the Caribbean’s image , Sutton noted that the crime is not everywhere and is often far from the luxurious, tourists resorts that the region has become dependent on. Still, crime is costly, with the survey estimating that it costs the Caribbean 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product, with Barbados being the country least affected and the Bahamas most affected.
Meanwhile, the region’s crime victims are often concentrated in poorer communities where graffiti, trash and abandoned buildings are the norm, trust among neighbors is low and gangs are aplenty.
“Overall, most violent crimes were committed in victims’ neighborhoods or homes,” the study found. “Residents are more likely to be attacked or threatened by someone they know than to be robbed by a stranger.”
The survey found that in Port of Spain, Trinidad, for example, crime is also highly concentrated in certain street segments within neighborhoods.
“Three percent of street segments concentrated 50 percent of all crimes,” the study found.
Though their prevalence and power vary from country to country, gangs are responsible for most of the crime and violence in the Caribbean, according to the study.
Some 28 percent of the Caribbean Crime Victimization Survey respondents reported a gang presence in their neighborhood. Gang presence was highest in the capital areas of the countries with the highest rates of homicide, assault and threat: Port of Spain (49 percent), New Providence (39 percent), and Kingston (32 percent). Among respondents with gangs in their neighborhood, more than half said that gangs interfere with everyday activities.
“We’ve got kids having to go through different turfs owned by different gangs to go to school,” said Allen, the psychiatrist.
“Life has become cheap,” Allen added. “Before we had to bring in killers to do the dirty work. Now we have local killers. Before they killed in the dark, now they kill in the daylight and they kill anywhere.”
And they are doing it with guns in the Bahamas, where the survey found that firearms are involved in 82 percent of the homicides, compared to 73 percent in Jamaica and 73 percent in Trinidad and Tobago.
“Greater use of firearms in assaults and robberies leadsto a higher rate of homicides levels,” said Sutton, noting that Barbados and Suriname had relatively low homicide rates compared to the other countries and half of the violent crimes were committed with knives.
Sutton said the hope is that the study will help Caribbean governments, which now spend more on policing than justice, to better use their limited resources to fight violent crime. Among some of the initiatives already taking place is “hot spot” policing in Trinidad and Tobago. Using data, police have figured out what hours of the day and what streets a crime is likely to take place and as a result, increase patrols in those areas.
“They found in fact a 44 percent reduction in crime in those neighborhoods where they are doing increased patrolling,” Sutton said.
But she cautioned that policing is not the only solution to this problem.
“You really need need to have stronger prevention initiatives,” she said.
Sista Gwen Patton, Presente'
Veteran Alabama Freedom Fighter, Dr Gwen Patton has joined the Ancestors. She was a key SNCC Organizer and Leader who was instrumental in bringing Malcolm X down to Alabama to speak to young people in 1965... just days before his assassination. Sister Gwen was also in the forefront of fighting for equity between Sisters & Brothers in and out of the Movement. She was also a key organizer against the Draft and the War in Vietnam helping to organize a National Black Antiwar AntiDraft Union (NBWADU) during the late 1960s and 70s. Sister Gwen went on to become an activist educator and Movement archivist. While in SNCC, she survived two suspicious car accidents with leg injuries (often, SNCC workers would be harrassed by racists on the remote back roads of southern states). Look here for more biographical info of Sister Dr Gwen Patton.... --SEA
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Dr. Gwendolyn M. Patton has been a freedom fighter since birth. In her own words: "I was a Movement child and conscious since I was nine years old, in 1952, when I had my first conscious protest in Montgomery, Alabama. My grandmother’s rental property was the Freedom House for SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) organizers. In 1960, when I was 16, I wanted to go to Raleigh, North Carolina for the historic sit-ins, but I couldn’t. When I went to Tuskegee in 1961 as a student, the sit-ins occurred and SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) became a natural organization for me to join — unlike the preacher-dominated and male-controlled SCLC. In SNCC it was a natural peer relationship.
I was Student Body President at Tuskegee and helped establish a strong community relationship. We raised the term 'relevance' in terms of education and inquiry."
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I was Student Body President at Tuskegee and helped establish a strong community relationship. We raised the term 'relevance' in terms of education and inquiry."
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from Scott Douglass in Birmingham:
Reception in Honor of Freedom Fighter Dr. Gwen PattonTrenholm State College Library3086 Mobile HwyMontgomery, AL 36108Thursday, May 18, 20175:30pm - 6:30pmDelta Sigma ThetaMontgomery AlumnaeOmega Omega ServiceRoss-Clayton Funeral Home1412 Adams Ave.Montgomery, AL 36104Friday, May 19, 20176:00pmFuneralHutchinson Missionary Baptist Church860 Grove StreetMontgomery, AL 36104Saturday, May 20, 201711:00am
Monday, May 15, 2017
Palestianian Nakba, 69 years
PALESTINE by Marvin X (Imam Maalik El Muhajir)
I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew
Abraham is not my father, Palestine is not my home
But I would fight any man
Who kicked me out of my house
To dwell in a tent
I would fight
To the ends of the earth
Someone who said to me
I want your house
Because my father lived here
Two thousand years ago
I want your land
Because my father lived here
Two thousand years ago.
Jets would not stop me
From returning to my home
Uncle toms would not stop me
Cluster bombs would not stop me
Bullets I would defy.
No man can take the house of another
And expect to live in peace
There is no peace for thieves
There is no peace for those who murder
For myths and ancient rituals
Wail at the wall
Settle in "Judea" and "Samaria"
But fate awaits you
You will never sleep with peace
You will never walk without listening.
I shall cross the River Jordan
With Justice in my hand
I shall return to Jerusalem
And establish my house of peace,
Thus said the Lord.
© 2000 by Marvin X (Imam Maalik El Muhajir)
On Monday, May 15, 2017, 4:15:04 AM PDT, Genny Lim wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Palestinian BDS National Committee <mail@bdsnationalcommittee.org>
Date: Mon, May 15, 2017 at 3:00 AM
Subject: Today Marks 69th Anniversary of Palestinian Nakba
To: gennyeshe@gmail.com
From: Palestinian BDS National Committee <mail@bdsnationalcommittee.org>
Date: Mon, May 15, 2017 at 3:00 AM
Subject: Today Marks 69th Anniversary of Palestinian Nakba
To: gennyeshe@gmail.com
Dear BDS movement supporter,
Today,
on the 69th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, the BNC released the
statement below. You can also view it on our website here.
Thank you for your continuing solidarity,
Guman Mussa
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
The Palestinian Nakba, 1948
BDS: Upholding our Rights, Resisting the Ongoing Nakba
The BNC Commemorates the 69th Anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba
It is possible…
It is possible at least sometimes…
It is possible especially now
To ride a horse
Inside a prison cell
And run away…
It is possible for prison walls
To disappear.
For the cell to become a distant land
Without frontiers
May 15, 2017, Occupied Palestine – Today marks the 69th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba,
the mass expulsion of Palestinians from our homeland. Between 1947 and
1949, Zionist paramilitaries, and subsequently Israeli forces, made 750,000 to one million indigenous Palestinians into refugees to establish a Jewish-majority state in Palestine.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on people of conscience the world over to further intensify BDS campaigns to end academic, cultural, sports, military and economic links of complicity with Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. This is the most effective means of standing with the Palestinian people in pursuing our inherent and UN-stipulated rights, and nonviolently resisting the ongoing, intensifying Nakba.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on people of conscience the world over to further intensify BDS campaigns to end academic, cultural, sports, military and economic links of complicity with Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. This is the most effective means of standing with the Palestinian people in pursuing our inherent and UN-stipulated rights, and nonviolently resisting the ongoing, intensifying Nakba.
The Israeli regime today is ruthlessly pursuing the one
constant strategy of its settler-colonial project —the simultaneous
pillage and colonization of as much Palestinian land as possible and the
gradual ethnic cleansing of as many Palestinians as practical without evoking international sanctions.
Following in the footsteps of all previous Israeli
governments, the current far-right government, the most openly racist in
Israel’s history, is heeding the words of the Zionist leader Ze’ev
Jabotinsky who wrote in 1923:
"Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised. [...] Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population—behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach."
Sixty-nine years after the systematic, premeditated
uprooting and dispossession of most of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs
from the land of Palestine at the hands of Zionist gangs and later the
state of Israel, the Nakba is not over. Israel is intent on building its
“iron wall” in Palestinian minds, not just our lands, through its
sprawling illegal settlements and concrete walls in the occupied
Palestinian territory, its genocidal siege of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, its denial of the Palestinian refugee’s right to return, its racist laws and policies against Palestinians inside Israel, and its escalating, violent ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev).
It is sparing no brutality in its relentless, desperate attempts to
sear into our consciousness the futility of resistance and the vainness
of hope.
The present mass hunger strike by over one thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the grassroots support that it has triggered give us hope.
The growing support for BDS among international trade unions, including the most recent adoption by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO)
– representing over 910,000 workers – of an “international economic,
cultural and academic boycott of Israel” to achieve comprehensive
Palestinian rights, gives us hope.
The fact the none of the 26 Oscar nominees offered a free, $55,000-valued trip by the Israeli government accepted the propaganda gift and that six out of eleven National Football League players turned down a similar Israeli junket gives us hope.
The BDS movement has succeeded in sharply raising the price
of corporate complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian
people. It has compelled companies of the size of Orange and Veolia to end their complicity and pushed global giant G4S to
begin exiting the Israeli market. Churches, city councils and thousands
around the world have pledged to boycott Hewlett Packard (HP)
for its deep complicity in Israel’s occupation and apartheid. This
gives us and many human rights campaigns around the world great hope.
The Barcelona municipality’s
decision to end complicity with Israel’s occupation, coming on the
heels of tens of local councils in the Spanish state declaring
themselves “Israeli apartheid free zones,” give us hope.
The divestment by some of the largest mainline churches in the US, including the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ, from Israeli banks or complicit international corporations gives us hope.
The spread of remarkably effective BDS campaigns from South
Africa to South Korea, from Egypt to Chile, and from the UK to the US
gives us real hope.
The growing intersectional coalitions
that are emerging in many countries, organically re-connecting the
struggle for Palestinian rights with the diverse international struggles
for racial, economic, gender, climate and indigenous justice give us
unlimited hope.
In 1968, twenty years after the Nakba but unrelated to it, Dr. Martin Luther King
said, “There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace
without justice.” For seven decades, and against all odds, Palestinians
have continued to assert our inalienable right to self-determination and
to genuine peace, which can only stem from freedom, justice and
equality.
But to reach that just peace we realize that we must
nourish our hope for a dignified life with our boundless commitment to
resist injustice, resist apathy and, crucially, resist their “iron
walls” of despair.
In this context, the Palestinian-led, global BDS movement with its impressive growth
and unquestionable impact is today an indispensable component of our
popular resistance and the most promising form of international
solidarity with our struggle for rights.
No iron wall of theirs can suppress or overshadow the rising sun of our emancipation.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and
supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Visit www.bdsmovement.net and follow @BDSmovement
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Why No Red, Black and Green banners fly in the BAMBD? Goddamn!
3rd Street Poles Get Red, Black and Green Stripes In Honor Of Bayview's Black Heritage
The project was spearheaded by District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen, who issued a statement explaining the reasoning behind the painting:
“The intention of painting the flagpoles is to create a unifying cultural marker for the Bayview, in the same vein as the Italian flags painted on poles in North Beach, the designation of Calle 24 in the Mission and the bilingual street signs and gates upon entering Chinatown.With Black History Month around the corner, many neighbors were pleased to see the tribute to African-Americans' community legacy. Several early risers in the community took photos of the poles being painted, expressing their gratitude.
This is about branding the Bayview neighborhood to honor and pay respect to the decades of contributions that African-Americans have made to the southeast neighborhood and to the city. It’s also beautification for the streetscape.”
Mental Health in Oakland's BAMBD
When Marvin X called mental health healing a priority at the founding of Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District, he was laughed at and derided. Today, BAMBD co-founder Paul Cobb suggested BAMBD's headquarters should be at Oakland's John George Psychiatric Hospital. When Marvin was asked what should be done with the Technical Assistance grant from Carmel Developers, again he was laughed at when he suggested the TA grant should be for mental health treatment. He was told the TA grant should be for infrastructure development.
Oakland's "Plato, Rumi, Hafeez, Saadi" replied, "The BAMBD people, i.e., youth, adults, businesspersons, developers, all need the mental infrastructure to make any positive contribution in the district, otherwise it shall slowly morph into the Miller Lite cultural districts that proliferate America, perpetuating the world of make believe and conspicuous consumption (Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie), with the added menace of gentrification or ethnic cleansing in the sick name of modernization, i.e., displacement. The "moderns" think buildings are the bedrock of culture when it is the minds and hearts and creativity of the people that propel culture into the now and future.
For sure, Oakland BAMBD will not get off the ground until sound minds can meet and agree to disagree on certain points of concern. When those of the radical Black Arts Movement can meet with the conservative political, business and artistic community, there shall be the grand possibility of progress.
We, Black Arts Movement radical artists, must realize a cultural district is a communal endeavor, not the vision of any well meaning visionary, until then the district will be in contention with many forces that are symbiotic and must therefore be synchronized for the better good.
At this hour, the pressing need is for all those contending forces to meet so they can, in the words of Prophet Isaiah, "reason together...." After all, Oakland is a model city of radicalism and if such model will survive the present era, all conscious people must form the united front Ancestor Amiri Baraka called for in his last days.
To date, the BAMBD has received nothing but crumbs, no operating budget, no general fund, not one dollar to its BAMBD Billion Dollar Fund. But BAMBD associates have received kibbles and bits from side deals made with developers and others with an interest in controlling and dominating the district.
Let it be known the BAMBD radical fringe is open to working with liberals and conservatives within the district, whether artists, businesspersons, workers, toward the long-term existence of said district, i.e., for the next 25 to 50 years as envisioned in the City of Oakland's Downtown Plan.
--Marvin X
Mental Health in da Hood or A Day in the Life of North American African Families Anonymous
Case #1
This has been a hectic week in our work as a lay mental health counselor. In one case, we walked a family member back from the black hole of depression after her family saw her on Facebook as a rising star and suggested she was being pimped and exploited by publishers and agents managing her budding professional career. She did not inform family members she had paid for her promotional project and was in no way being exploited. In fact, most of her "dream team:" of promoters, managers, agents, photographers and editors, worked for free because they appreciated her talent and believed in her message of healing from a plethora of traumatic situations. But her family's negative response to her attempt at transforming her life of horror into one of success, joy and happiness, sent the budding star into depression, being able to recover her mental equilibrium after a long distance conversation with her counselor. He told her she was once the stone the builders rejected that has now become the cornerstone to lead her family out of the cycle of generational mental trauma and despair. Her mentally ill mother who had been abused by her mother who was abused by her mother, told her daughter she would be the mother's slave because the mother loved her three sons but hated the little smart mouth bitch who was regularly confined to her room for days, weeks, beaten and deprived of food. Writing her memoir has been therapeutic and her mental strength increases with each passing day. She has been blessed with so much talent, no power on earth can block her success as a professional artist and healer in the Black Arts Movement tradition of spiritual and cultural consciousness combined with political activism to uplift herself and her downtrodden people.
Case #2
This mother of twin boys has been a regular victim of abuse from them due to their manic depression augmented be refusing to take their meds, instead, relying on marijuana and other unknown substances they are induced to buy from the boys in da hood, especially to entice them to become gang members since they live on a block where there are regular shootings and police situations. Alas, lately, the police have been called to their house because they get out of control fighting each other and turning their wrath on the mother who has received injuries from head to toe, including black eyes, busted lips,leg and arm bruises that have been reported to the police and courts. One son is presently in a mental health confinement center, the other son is wearing an ankle bracelet, but are scheduled for residential home confinement and/or juvenile hall confinement. The traumatized mother is at wits end from mental and physical abuse, has lost weight, appetite and suffered anxiety attacks for which she is taking medication, along with other meds for loss of appetite.
Of course she loves her twin boys but they are totally out of control, especially when they will not take their meds but manage to buy marijuana from their friends and come home high and attempt to eat everything in the refrigerator. She informed one son, "If you fucked up, don't come home. I never came home fucked up. Go down the street to your father's house and tell him you fucked up! But he's sicker than you. He's been giving you five and ten dollars so you can buy marijuana." Alas, the father saw his father shoot his mother but didn't kill her. One of the twins that the father discriminates against recently told his father, "I am going to kill you or get my boys on the block to take you out!"
The mother will be happy to get the boys in a long term facility as she has done all she can and is clear her life may be in danger unless they enjoy behavior modification. Although the father lives nearby, he is of no support since he suffers generational mental illness as well.
Case #3
This mother lives homeless to keep her mentally ill son from living with her. We have gone to the mental institution with this mother but we were not able to visit the son because he was under medication and in a zombi state of mind. Instead, we talked with other patients in the visiting room who were from many ethnic groups and mostly young people. This mother is conscious her sons malady is a situational disorder as Fanon described in Wretched of the Earth, or as Dr. Nathan Hare has noted in his writings. Oppression and white supremacy are the primary causes of North American Africans mental health issues, as well as physical health and spiritual health issues.
The mother begged me for a solution. Of course, liberation from oppression is the ultimate solution. Pending national liberation, we suggest neural placidity or a change of environment that will cause a change in the brain cells. We were fortunate to experience neural placidity ourselves when we were fortunate to escape to the foothills of Northern California for five years to enjoy solitude that allowed us to heal from the deaths of a son and a partner. It our solitude, we wrote five books in five years and most importantly, enjoyed a peace of mind in nature never before experienced. In our time alone in the mountains, we enjoyed the beauty of nature, birds, bees, deer, wild turkeys, hawk, horses, cows, bulls, frogs, sun, wind, well water sweeter than juice, but most of all, we healed from the death of a son and a lover.
Case #4
Ok, love is beyond race, love is love and race is race. My sister married a white man who continued calling her his "nigger bitch!" In truth, I could not sock him in the mouth since my six sisters called themselves bitches and behaved as such.
And yet who can deny that being part of a family with hundred of relatives, and yes, mostly by blood and marriage, is a wonderful thing, something undeniable truthful and beautiful. The only tragedy is not taking advantage of this family opportunity since we know the white world of white supremacy is a family affair. We have no idea of the family and blood connections of white supremacy family relations.
Navigating the perilous Mental Landscape
Like the earthquake in Japan, man too is in mental motion, a mind quake of the most devastating degree that is rocking his mental equilibrium to the core!
We must be aware of the times and what must be done. A blind man named Ray Charles told us "the world is in an uproar, the danger zone is everywhere...." And so it is, ancestor Ray, there is turbulence in the land and in man, woman and children. As the earth enters another 25,000 year cycle of history with the coming New Age of high spiritual consciousness, there are many who remain deaf, dumb and blind to present and future events, even though the news is full of rapidly changing events in the global village. One would need to be in worse shape than Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder not to see the earth is in transformation, even Nature itself. The ice is melting, the sea rising, the forests burning, earthquakes and tsunamis , drought, famine, pestilence, in diverse places, just as Jesus predicted.
Apparently, many do not believe what Jesus said even when they see events he predicted before their very eyes, on the news, Twitter, Facebook, Cable TV and elsewhere. He said mother would be against child and child against mother and father. Did he not say brother would be against brother and sister against sister? And do we not see this in our social relations today.
It is crystal clear to me we are in times in which a friend is no longer a friend, a wife and husband no longer wife and husband. There is no love between them. Husbands and wives say the horrible things to each other. Daughters and sons say the most wretched things to their parents, often when the parents are helping them.
But when the danger zone is everywhere, no one, no relationships are exempt from the turmoil sweeping the old order out and ushering in the New Era. But there is an almost organic relationship between the earth quaking and the minds of men, women and children becoming totally unbalanced. In this time of radical change of Nature and man, those with no understanding shall become unglued, losing their fragile mental equilibrium or simply tripping out. Ultimately, they become a danger to themselves and others and must be committed, for they are not the person we knew only yesterday. Today they are a total stranger who does not know us, cannot even recognize us, yet we have known them since childhood. They could be a sibling yet they do not act like there is any blood relationship between us. We behave like total strangers.
It could be parent/child relationships that come to such a low point children will sue parents or visa versa. In short the love is gone. Amiri Baraka tells us in his play A Black Mass, "Where the souls print should be there is only a cellulose pouch of disgusting habits...."
As we walk the streets be very careful what you say to people, for they are on edge, on the precipice, ready to strike out at the slightest perceived negative incident, or wrong word uttered.
Yes, they are ready to kill, so be aware as you make your daily round.
The political/economic atmosphere is charged with venom, but it is misplaced aggression, for no one is going after the bankers, the loan sharks, the Wall Street financiers who were casino gamblers with the wealth of the people, stealing 13 trillion dollars in the sub prime housing scam.
And yet hardly a banker is in jail, meanwhile 2.4 million mostly poor are incarcerated for petty crimes, additionally they suffer drug abuse and mental illness, not to mention lack of proper legal representation at the time of their trials. The only white man doing time is the one who stole from the rich, not the poor. Those who robbed the poor are yet receiving multimillion dollar bonuses while 30 million workers are unemployed and millions are now homeless.
It is this atmosphere that is so unsettling to the mental state of those who were already suffering stress from the general hostile environment, from bad food, the media dispensing
information from the world of make believe and promoting the addiction to white supremacy conspicuous consumption
How do we move from problem to solution, from addiction to recovery, from sickness to healing?
The Buddhists says knowledge plus the right action. We must first understand the time and what must be done. These are perilous times, very dangerous, thus one must tip through the tulips, through the mind fields that lay before us, behind us, to the right and to the left.
We must practice eternal vigilance and stay on guard against being deceived. There are those who wish to deceive us so that we remain victims of the slave system. They will not tell us all the institutions are exhausted, political, economic, educational, religious, marital. None of these shall continue with business as usual. They must and shall undergo radical structural change, if not simply thrown into the dustbin of history where they belonged long ago.
Those not prepared for radical change shall be blown by the wayside where they shall inhabit the lower realms of an animal existence until they die or recover from savagery and come into the era of civility and spirituality beyond religiosity.
Those who are a danger to themselves and others will need to be confined to a program of long term recovery, a rehabilitation of their disgusting habits, namely greed, ego, pride, lust, arrogance, and other deadly sins, and most importantly the inability to practice freedom, justice and equality, constitutionally unable to share the wealth and practice democracy or the consent of the governed.
The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end, or rather what goes around comes around. What we are witnessing and experiencing is not linear time but circular, for we shall continue, but only those who are able to jump out of the box of the old structures into the new.
The fearless ones, they shall be successful. Those not motivated by the illusions of the monkey mind shall be successful. We pray for the others who persist in their inordinancy, blindly wandering on, as the Qur'an says.
--Marvin X
4/7/11
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2012
Navigating the Perilous Mental Landscape
Navigating the perilous Mental Landscape
Like the earthquake in Japan, man too is in mental motion, a mind quake of the most devastating degree that is rocking his mental equilibrium to the core!
We must be aware of the times and what must be done. A blind man named Ray Charles told us "the world is in an uproar, the danger zone is everywhere...." And so it is, ancestor Ray, there is turbulence in the land and in man, woman and children. As the earth enters another 25,000 year cycle of history with the coming New Age of high spiritual consciousness, there are many who remain deaf, dumb and blind to present and future events, even though the news is full of rapidly changing events in the global village. One would need to be in worse shape than Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder not to see the earth is in transformation, even Nature itself. The ice is melting, the sea rising, the forests burning, earthquakes and tsunamis , drought, famine, pestilence, in diverse places, just as Jesus predicted.
Apparently, many do not believe what Jesus said even when they see events he predicted before their very eyes, on the news, Twitter, Facebook, Cable TV and elsewhere. He said mother would be against child and child against mother and father. Did he not say brother would be against brother and sister against sister? And do we not see this in our social relations today.
It is crystal clear to me we are in times in which a friend is no longer a friend, a wife and husband no longer wife and husband. There is no love between them. Husbands and wives say the horrible things to each other. Daughters and sons say the most wretched things to their parents, often when the parents are helping them.
But when the danger zone is everywhere, no one, no relationships are exempt from the turmoil sweeping the old order out and ushering in the New Era. But there is an almost organic relationship between the earth quaking and the minds of men, women and children becoming totally unbalanced. In this time of radical change of Nature and man, those with no understanding shall become unglued, losing their fragile mental equilibrium or simply tripping out. Ultimately, they become a danger to themselves and others and must be committed, for they are not the person we knew only yesterday. Today they are a total stranger who does not know us, cannot even recognize us, yet we have known them since childhood. They could be a sibling yet they do not act like there is any blood relationship between us. We behave like total strangers.
It could be parent/child relationships that come to such a low point children will sue parents or visa versa. In short the love is gone. Amiri Baraka tells us in his play A Black Mass, "Where the souls print should be there is only a cellulose pouch of disgusting habits...."
As we walk the streets be very careful what you say to people, for they are on edge, on the precipice, ready to strike out at the slightest perceived negative incident, or wrong word uttered.
Yes, they are ready to kill, so be aware as you make your daily round.
The political/economic atmosphere is charged with venom, but it is misplaced aggression, for no one is going after the bankers, the loan sharks, the Wall Street financiers who were casino gamblers with the wealth of the people, stealing 13 trillion dollars in the sub prime housing scam.
And yet hardly a banker is in jail, meanwhile 2.4 million mostly poor are incarcerated for petty crimes, additionally they suffer drug abuse and mental illness, not to mention lack of proper legal representation at the time of their trials. The only white man doing time is the one who stole from the rich, not the poor. Those who robbed the poor are yet receiving multimillion dollar bonuses while 30 million workers are unemployed and millions are now homeless.
It is this atmosphere that is so unsettling to the mental state of those who were already suffering stress from the general hostile environment, from bad food, the media dispensing
information from the world of make believe and promoting the addiction to white supremacy conspicuous consumption
How do we move from problem to solution, from addiction to recovery, from sickness to healing?
The Buddhists says knowledge plus the right action. We must first understand the time and what must be done. These are perilous times, very dangerous, thus one must tip through the tulips, through the mind fields that lay before us, behind us, to the right and to the left.
We must practice eternal vigilance and stay on guard against being deceived. There are those who wish to deceive us so that we remain victims of the slave system. They will not tell us all the institutions are exhausted, political, economic, educational, religious, marital. None of these shall continue with business as usual. They must and shall undergo radical structural change, if not simply thrown into the dustbin of history where they belonged long ago.
Those not prepared for radical change shall be blown by the wayside where they shall inhabit the lower realms of an animal existence until they die or recover from savagery and come into the era of civility and spirituality beyond religiosity.
Those who are a danger to themselves and others will need to be confined to a program of long term recovery, a rehabilitation of their disgusting habits, namely greed, ego, pride, lust, arrogance, and other deadly sins, and most importantly the inability to practice freedom, justice and equality, constitutionally unable to share the wealth and practice democracy or the consent of the governed.
The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end, or rather what goes around comes around. What we are witnessing and experiencing is not linear time but circular, for we shall continue, but only those who are able to jump out of the box of the old structures into the new.
The fearless ones, they shall be successful. Those not motivated by the illusions of the monkey mind shall be successful. We pray for the others who persist in their inordinancy, blindly wandering on, as the Qur'an says.
--Marvin X
4/7/11
Saturday, May 6, 2017
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