Oct 27, 2011

Learning To Take What You Want Lawfully: Better Than Begging and Sit-Ins

Altering the status quo: A new paradigm and way of operating (for Americans in the 21st Century Global Economy and World):

Subject: A Lesson Yet To Be Learned By Dependent Americans

Americans, must learn how to get what they want, desire and need for themselves as opposed to asking permission, begging or depending on a 3rd party or institution, government or private, to give or to get it for them. I will begin with this, if the late infamous sociologist E. Franklin Frazier were alive today, he might be surprised at what transpired a half-century following the 'Southern Migration'.

It was at a time in America, during the 20th Century, when many Americans who lived in Southern cities migrated from the bucolic South into the northern industrial centers, ostensibly to find work and to establish a better, creative and more satisfactory standard as well as a way of living.

Initially, not only did they find that there were in fact good jobs and plenty of them in the north, many members of the transplanted farming workforce were eventually able to purchase automobiles, homes, their own businesses (not enough of them), send their kids to school and to travel back and forth at will, between the north and south. For many of them the north was Xanadu, and they returned to visit family members and friends that were left behind, and to bring them to the north to live with them, or to eventually get a start of their own. And at the same time, some of the new transplants, migrated to other regions in the northern United States, many as far away as California and Oregon.

And who wouldn't applaud the spirit of frontier individuals who got up, out and did something for themselves, by relocating, in hopes of improving their lives and the lives of the individuals that were closest to them, that they loved. However, as it turned out, 50 years turned out to be a short period of time than was expected and everything did not go according to plan. Why?

Many of the migrators unwittingly gave up their independence, and instead became dependents on a system that would one day soon fail them. Eventually, modernization, specialization, globalization, extirpation and greed altered the landscape in the new frontier, just as industrialization once did . AND BOTH HAVE come back to bite them, the ones who are still around. So now what happens to the migrators and the ones that they left behind?

At our organization, HOP, we recognize that substituting long-term independence for short-term gain, only resulted and results in, another form of dependency. We also learned and are teaching anyone who will listen that dependency of any sort is never a good, unless you are an infant, invalid or are past the prime of life and require assistance from some other person or institution.

Many of the former migrationists, who have not or are unable to return to the modernized South, and have been 'left behind', along with their offspring likely rue the day that they left what they had before, something that belonged to them and gave life to both them and their loved ones. I wonder how many of the prodigals who returned home, have run into “I told you so brothers and sisters”, who are no longer willing to share the family plot?

In San Jose California, the black population in a city of 1 million has shrunk to 2 percent of the total population. Why? Because the cost of living is extremely high, and unemployment is of the highest in the nation, especially for minorities, some say. Depending on who you believe, the unemployment rate for youngsters in California, hovers at somewhere around 30 to 40%.

What is the lesson that needs to be learned? I believe that it is this: never, ever put yourself in the position that many of us did before, by outsourcing the responsibility for our outcomes and placing them into the hands of 3rd parties. The latter made us slaves to a system and individuals that eventually abandoned us. Was that their fault?

Did family or other sociological conditioning play a role? I am certain that it did, but on the other hand, we had choices to make and many of us made the wrong choices, and that was to become dependents as opposed to independent.

My dad always said this: “you have to learn to make it for yourself in this world, and to save money, don't spend it”. I can't say that I always listened, instead, I, like many other Americans did, placed too much trust in an illusory economic or better yet macroeconomic system, that eventually changed and left many of us out in the cold.

To be blunt, too many of the descendants of former social Darwinian migrators to the north as well others like them have gone back to the future in this sense: they are simply pursuing and waiting for the next wave of geniuses, new technologies, the government, a philanthropist or another individual to rescue and provide them what they should have learned to provide for themselves.

I remind you that prior to the time of the Southern Diaspora, many of the Americans who followed the migratory path to the north, had up and until that point in time, relied on their own ingenuity in most instances, to cut out an existence for themselves and their families to survive. Sadly, many of these families even considered themselves to be backwards, and some behind at the times, according to northern standards. However the truth is that they were as out front and on the cutting edge as any other modern entrepreneur happened to be.

By contrast, what today's Wall Street marchers are doing, in my opinion, is to continue to ask someone or some other institution to give to them or take care of them when really all that they they have to do is to go and get what they want, and to do so without asking anyone for permission. This same misguided and misinformed behavior, in my opinion, is being repeated all across the nation it would seem. Are the banks corrupt, is greed rampant, is the government likely complicit? I could answer yes to every one of these questions. However, is the solution to go and demand or beg the government, purported crooks, thieves and scalawags to do the right thing, or to risk being arrested?

To me the right thing to do is for these and other Americans, who are waiting for Superman, or to be rescued by some government agency, is to instead go and use your knowledge and brainpower to change the direction of the economic stream, and to get what you want, as opposed to begging for what someone else has, and does not intend to give or share it with you.

The American economic prosperity stream, has been mostly headed in the direction of the watershed that benefits a few Americans, particularly in the the last 2 decades. So what do you do when that happens? I believe that you go downstream, head off the waterway, and get some buckets of water, in this case currency, for yourselves. Why? The truth of the matter is that in the final analysis, the majority of Americans will have to make it for themselves, and the sooner that they come to grips with the fact, the better.

The former dependency paradigm', which has been relied upon in this nation for over the past half-century is outdated. And today, living under that kind of conditioning, operant or classical, take your pick - has been the bane of the American citizen-worker now going on 5 or 6 years, if not more. It has been time for Americans to take responsibility for their own destinies and to become independent entrepreneurs.

Interestingly enough, and a half-century after following the northern migration - for a myriad of reasons, many of the former road warriors and their descendants are headed home in order to reclaim what was there's in the first place. And what must they think, the ones who have returned home to cities where a couple of decades ago manufacturers from the north uprooted too, relocated, followed the path to the south and built factories in southern states where labor costs were cheaper, the places that the northern migrators abandoned in the first place?

The shelf life for the Hi-tech worker, on average, appears to have been less than that of workers in the former industrial and manufacturing trades. Specialization in the Hi-tech industry has in fact eliminated banking, newspapers, journalism jobs too. So what is the answer, and what does one do when the jobs are going away, or fell to pay a living wage.

At HOP, we believe that it is time for all of us to go back to the future, and what we are doing is to teach individuals who have fallen out of the system, and some through the once vaunted social safety net, to reframe their thinking, and that it is time to go back to the future. In other words, those Americans that have been conditioned to believe that someone has the responsibility for taking care of them, will have to alter their ways of thinking and doing things.

Another part of the conditioned response and expectation of most Americans is that without capital, they cannot create a start for themselves. And that we believe is categorically untrue. In fact we believe that all of us are social capital, which is the kind of capital that is needed to get going again. The facts belie the notion that without “capital”, nothing can be formulated or started. You cannot do anything within reason, it all depends upon what you believe and if you really intend to do it.

Many successful entrepreneurs began operating, without capital, what have become some of the most successful enterprises and multinational enterprises that have become the envy of the world, and some of them have become some of the most successful business people rightly or wrongly in the world.
And there lies the rub, too many of the other respondent and brainwashed Americans are simply waiting for the government, private industry … to do for them what they have not understood yet that they need to do for themselves, that is to take control of their own destines, and to learn to do for themselves again, or for the first time, regardless of what the government, private industry, an investor or anyone else does or does not do for them.

Remember that famous line from the movie Jurassic Park, when Ellie Satler's character, expressed to Jurassic Park's creator, John Hammond, this sobering line: “that's the illusion, you never had control of this place”. Most Americans, labor under the illusion that they are in control of this place, America, and they simply are not - at least not at this time. And the reason that they are not in charge, is because they have never taken charge or understood that they could be in charge!

On the other hand, American can be in charge, if they ever decide that they need to be in charge and did something about it. Right now, Americans are content to simply complain to someone who will listen like a Representative in Government, a President, a radio talkshow host ... and afterward they hope to experience a different outcome. But how long would it last, if a modicum of change were to occur at all. We believe that it is time to 'get in the real world', and to stop begging, marching, sitting-in and instead to go and get what you want or need.

What we are doing within our organization is to reteach our people about a paradigm that works, in other words to step back and away from the conditioning that they received before, the dependency dynamic is what I called it, and instead to move to the front and to take charge of your lives.

Also we ask our people to do this, instead of focusing on finding a job, step away from that kind of conditioned response too, and instead create an income producing opportunity for themselves. Once enough people engage in self-creation as opposed to dependency-waiting, marching, sitting-in or begging the government, an individual or any one else, the landscape of the current American economy will be transmogrified. Also, the average American citizen will have new trading partners inside and outside of the United States of America, including his peers and new associates and partners, speaking of social networking.

And if adhered to, eventually the new American entrepreneur will reclaim what had been unwittingly handed over, and the people again will have reclaimed the housing industry, manufacturing, technology, agriculture, education, hospitalization, indemnification, and this nation will finally be what it was purported to be from the onset.

The American GDP, hovers at right around 14 to 15Trillion. All that one really needs to do is to 'change the change', that no longer works, beginning with the space that is in between their ears. Next, Americans must refuse to give change to individuals who refuse to change or give into change themselves.

In other words, it is a new day so let's create a new economy, one that will eventually outstrip the incumbent one and allow some individuals and corporations to either go out of business or survive, but no longer with our hard-earned money.

A thousand mile journey begins with one step, so step by step, as opposed to outsourcing the responsibility for your and your family and friend's future to someone else, we can climb out of this hole that we temporarily find ourselves. Finally, learn that whenever you operate under the existing paradigm, you empower the person, government or other organization that you are begging or expecting to give you something in return that altogether are the sources of your current pain., and you let them.

And what have we learned again, in summary:

  1. Never outsource the responsibility for you or your families future into someone else's hands.

  2. That the motivation behind most capitalists, was and is to ultimately create income producing opportunities and wealth for themselves as well as income for their shareholders and their families.

Lord, what might E. Franklin Frazier have advised the former road warriors, if he had a crystal ball and could have peered into the the future before they struck out on the clay. He too might have warned them to “go or stay and whatever you do create opportunities for yourself and others because otherwise, I see you returning by the way that you left, with very little to show for all of your trouble. Wake up Americans, even the ones who have jobs, incomes, savings and investments, for as you can see you are not secure either!

Peace and Grace

P.S. If there is a mistake that came out of the Civil Rights Movement, other Americans have learned to march too, instead of learning to create positive social change themselves!

Oct 6, 2011

The American Black Janjaweed and The Re-Elect Obama Presidential Election Campaign

Picture on the Right: Current and former members of HOP: The Outdoor Citizens Coalition and Think Tank Of Santa Clara County California.

The American Black Janjaweed: That is how I ended up referring to black Americans, to their chagrin, who attacked me during the run up to the election in 2008, given my refusal to support or vote for the young neophyte, Senator Barack Hussein Obama, to become President of the United States of America. In fact, another African nationalist, who was living homeless in the country at the time, I might add,, referred to me as a gradualist, (in other words a person who was saying that it was not time for a black to be President of the United States yet).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He also completely ignored my rational for taking the position that I did at the time about the young neophyte candidate, U.S. Senator Barack Obama Hussein. For me, it didn't matter who it would have been at the time, I would have said the same thing to or about them, if they were where he happened to be at that stage of the learning curve. Why? Because after engaging in extensive research about the young 'inchoate wanna be candidate', his policies, his capitulations and his mostly lack of experience and knowledge at that time, I was confident that he had not done enough to prepare himself for the job of being President of the United States of America, even though his heart was apparently in the right place. I suspect that any one of us has overreached at one time or another in our lives.


Approximately 4 years later, I still find myself fighting with remnants of the black Janjaweed in America, in this context, 'blacks who attack and kill other blacks', for economic and political reasons However, my prediction of 4 years ago, that it would take the neophyte, President Obama, roughly 4 years to come up to speed, in order to be a capable and effective President has been confirmed.


Nearly 3 years later, and having gained the experience and understanding that he needed before taking on the task of an Executive, he is starting to come into his own. At this morning's White House Press Conference, there appeared to be 'A Raisin In The Son'. Apparently, he has learned how, no more Mr. Nice Guy and Gal, Washington DC works. And as a result, he has begun to speak truth to venal American power brokers on the Right, and appears to be ready to steer the ship into a different and a better heading.


If he will do the following:

  1. Correct the juvenile mistakes that made before, with respect to enforcing the unfair and unsavory aspects of American domestic and foreign policy, that invariably end up unfairly favoring one group or nation over another, (specifically when either of the two are simply seeking what most Americans are seeking after, freedom, self-determination and equal access ...

  2. Continue to push back against the sophisticated but venal counter-forces around the nation in our nation's Capitol (in the manner that he spoke out to Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and the Republicrats this morning) and other individuals on the Right (and Joe Lieberman) who love to foment war, domestically and abroad, or could care less about freedoms and equal access by disparate people in America and around the world.

  3. Rebuild relations with individuals and groups that the other side may not care for, including the Wright Reverend and others, that he should not have discarded before, who shaped and stood by him, simply because members of the dominant culture were coming over to his house, get it?.

  4. Stop striking out at blacks and other suffering people, because he is frustrated with his white nemesis' on the Right, who are the actual 'complainants' in this nation, even after he has compromised with them for nearly 3 years now, and to no avail. They will never be satisfied!.

  5. If , when, and wherever he goes to town, take a detour from hobnobbing with the rich and famous, get out of the limousine and speak with 'outdoor citizens', homeless people ... about their concerns. And, please stop having, 'citizens of the USA, who are entitled to all of the rights and protections of the Constitution of the United States swept away from the streets, 'their homes', because their Presidential leader is in town.

  6. Stop the ignoble murder of freedom-fighters in this and other nations of the world in the name of venal American hegemony, Southern white supremacy and economic exploitation. Remember, these are individuals who are simply doing what most black Americans, including him, have had to do in terms of the fight for full justice and equal access to the opportunity structures of this nation...

  7. Stop being a puppet in the hands of the venal right and stand up for truth and justice like MLK did, even if it costs you.

I can sum up everything that I have written in a few words, “simply fight for justice for all people, even white people', in and around the world. For as a black American, it is not enough for me to say these words, that the President of the United States is black, and therefore, I will vote for him. I don't care what color the President happens to be, however, the President, whomever it turns out to be, ought to stand up and fight for freedom and justice, and manage the country with all of its citizens in mind.


Then, and as far as I would be concerned, I would be pleased to not only vote for the current President, I would also register and encourage others individuals to do the same. It has been years since I have been a Deputy Registrar. The President should remember that he had a mandate, and that most Americans and the world were with him.


In fact, he can still get the majority of them back and trounce the venal Republican agenda once and for all,if he would remember and take charge of what was 4 years ago, an American styled world-wide People's Revolution. The latter could result in yes, a New World order, that would mean new friends for the United States, the cessation of hostilities around the world, renewed peace, trade, aid and cooperation around the world (even between nations that were once considered hostile or were hostile to each other). .


The young neophyte President Obama stumbled before, however, he does not have to remain there, stuck in primordial mud. He stumbled before, however, he can get light the fires of a peaceful worldwide revolution again, if he were to stop doing business as usual. And this time around, he will have on board individuals who before, like me, that were skeptical of the leader of the of currently diffused Revolution.


We will see if the nearly 3-year old President, understands where he stands in terms of history, a person who has the ability and with a bit of courage, to change not only America's, but the worldwide landscape, to include support and participation from the emerging nations of the world. Imagine, America, China, Russia, Cuba, Bolivia, nations in the Middle-East, Israel, Syria … all friends and trading partners, and the end of control by Southern Strategist''s, that will become a part of America and the world's historical past.


When they are divested of their racist and less than connubial power, the whole world can come together, I believe, and there will be peace in the world. Southern strategists, to include many Republicans don't want that, they want to dominate the world, its resources, its islets and its terrain and its people.


The question is does the emerging President Obama, understand where he is or could be, in terms of his place in time as President of the United States? And if the American people will wake up, those who are in slumber, the will understand that with the right motives, we can have peace, and we will no longer have to sacrifice our sons and daughters in the name of American greed and non-cooperation by the greedy American.

Peace & Grace

All of us together, can make a difference: America is the seed that can harvest justice in America and around the world!


Picture above are a few independent outdoor-citizens in the region, who are working, instead of waiting on Washington DC, in order to improve their lives, and those of other people in and around the world!