Urban News Features

The Revolution Must Be Financed By James Clingman

Blackonomics

The Revolution Must Be Financed
By James Clingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When it comes to gaining true freedom, the words and actions of our most revered Black authentic leaders emphasized economic empowerment. Unfortunately, many of those who spoke the truth and tried to establish an economic foundation for Black people were ostracized, caricatured, vilified, and even assassinated. Despite their sacrifices and refusals to back down from fighting for the most important collective aspect of true freedom, economic empowerment, the vast majority of Black folks either ignored them or chose to follow Black “misleaders” who took our people down the wrong road.

Now in 2014, Black folks are still suffering from and languishing in the results of having put all our eggs in the political basket, instead of holding on to what we had built and owned prior to the 1960’s. Today we are still caught up in the same nonsensical approach to true freedom that got us into our dire situation in the first place. So, what do we do at this point?

We know two things for sure: Most of us Black Nationalists are often long on rhetoric and short on cash; and, everything that happens in this country begins and/or ends with somebody writing a check. Therefore, as one of our most respected leaders, Marcus Garvey, showed us back in the 1920’s, we must have businesses and we must have money, collectively and individually, in order to be truly free. Thus, any “revolution” we talk about must be financed, just as Garvey’s revolution had to be. He raised millions from Black people, encouraged entrepreneurship, and started several businesses himself. As a Nationalist, Garvey knew that without an economic foundation Black people would be lost, so he led the way to get likeminded Blacks to put their money where their mouths were.

Our current need for capital must be satisfied if we are going to build on Garvey’s vision, and if we are going to build collective economic empowerment. How do we do that? Three ways: Real Estate (when the market is right), Investments (stocks, etc.) and business ownership. My emphasis is on business ownership, which does not always mean having a storefront. It could mean working from home on the Internet. It could mean getting involved in money-making efforts that require very little work at all, via MLM (Multi-level Marketing) companies, but please do your due diligence and be careful.

Those who remember the MATAH Network know that it was a modified MLM, and worked quite well for those who participated. There are a few that I would recommend today, especially the one I am involved with, but whatever you feel about any of the three ways to create wealth, and whichever you choose, follow through and stay the course; we need capital and we need it now, because the revolution must be financed.

It would be very disingenuous of me to have written so much about this subject and not have participated in the solutions I have offered over the years. As a reflection of my commitment to Black economic empowerment, I have supported Black businesses, taught entrepreneurship and business planning, advocated for Black businesses, started Black chambers of commerce, established an entrepreneurship high school, founded the charitable Internet entity called the Blackonomics Million Dollar Club (BMDC), and I have enrolled and participated in MLM efforts at the request of friends and associates. I continue that commitment today because we will never have what we say we need until we are willing to sacrifice and put forth the appropriate effort.

So, the message here is something we have been saying for a long time, “To have economic empowerment, we must have consciousness and capital.” While there are a relative few “conscious capitalists” among our people, we still need many more, and there are ways and means to reach that ideal. As for me, I have joined with a close friend and business associate, Dr. Nathaniel Chism, founder of www.PowernomicsNetwork.com, of course from Dr. Claud Anderson’s book, Powernomics, to obtain more capital. As a result, I am looking to partner with just three more individuals who are serious about the fact that we must have capital in order to finance our individual and collective freedom—and willing to do something about it.

Currently we are financing our own oppression; we must start financing our own freedom by moving beyond the empty rhetoric, the futile marches, and the useless anger offered as solutions by a few of our “leaders.” Black folks need real power, and being financially independent is all the power necessary to be free. Yes, our revolution must be financed; and we must work to become individually empowered to achieve that goal. We like to quote, “Freedom ain’t free” and “Nobody frees a slave; a slave must free himself.” It’s way past time we put some action behind those quotes.

The Correct Answer By William E. Spriggs

Jan. 19, 2014

The Correct Answer

By William E. Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.) - This time of year college students cram for final exams. They get graded in a very stark right-or-wrong fashion. Splitting the difference between a bad guess and the right answer is not rewarded. Unfortunately, Washington is locked in such a crazy struggle. Five years after Wall Street’s fall, the economy still is more than 1 million payroll jobs short of where things stood at the last peak of the labor market.

Median household income is still below the peak, meaning more than half of America's households are behind where they were five years ago. The poverty level of America’s children is higher, and state and local revenues only recovered last fiscal year, leaving hundreds of thousands of fewer teachers and larger class sizes for our children. Our nation’s total output is more than $1 trillion less than where it would be if we could get to full employment. Clearly, the right answer to this set of problems is for massive government action to kick start the economy to address the woes of the American people.

But what we have is a Washington elite preoccupied by its fetish with federal deficits and a Republican party blinded by ideology to shrink the government to the size the 1 percent is willing to pay for (meaning not very much at all). There is such a disconnect between Congress and the problems of America’s households that whatever President Barack Obama might do is stuck in the muck of policy group-think.

The last employment numbers only encourage a group-think that believes the economy is doing well. November’s numbers boosted the average monthly job growth to a level that could get private-sector jobs back to their January 2008 peak within six months—in mid-2014. But rising to the job levels of more than six years ago means that would leave the deficit of all the new job entrants over that six-year period—almost 8 million jobs needed!

Unemployment is like landing on fly paper. It is easy to get stuck. From one month to the next, the majority of the unemployed remain unemployed. Of the nearly 10.7 million people looking unsuccessfully for work in October, 6.7 million remained unemployed in November. More give up and drop out of the labor force, quitting their searches—2.4 million—than leave unemployment by finding a job, 2.1 million; and unfortunately, 1.6 million people who had been employed in October joined the rank of the unemployed in November. For millions of people, we are simply not addressing the immediate need to create job opportunities.

After weeks of deliberating, Congress appears to have reached a budget compromise. Fortunately, it makes a sizable portion of the sequestration cuts in federal spending go away, making the federal government less a drag on the economy. It will help create more jobs but only a tiny dent. And it is being done by punishing federal workers—both civilian and military—by reducing their retirement benefits. And federal unemployment benefits are set to expire for 1.3 million still stuck in the unemployment queue, leaving them with no relief.

Back in October, there were 2.87 unemployed workers for each job opening. This is why more than 4 million Americans remained unemployed for more than 27 weeks. The loss of income for these families is a strain and part of the reason household incomes remain below their peak of five years ago.

The Congressional Budget Office has shown that unemployment benefits help stimulate the economy more than any other government program. It is only common sense. Unemployed workers need to make rent or mortgage payments, buy groceries and pay utilities. With the fall in income from a job loss, all unemployment benefits are put to use. And, unlike a tax cut that a Wall Street broker might use to go take a ski trip to St. Moritz, those grocery bills and utilities are dollars that circulate in the local economy.

A compromise that splits the difference between not extending unemployment benefits and choosing to extend them is moving away from the right answer. As the bumper sticker says, “I’d agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.”

Reflections On a Dreamer by Dr. E. Faye Williams

Jan. 18, 2014

Reflections On a Dreamer
By Dr. E. Faye Williams

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - During the period of December-January of each year, the holidays speed through in rapid succession, leaving little time for measured thought and peaceful contemplation. First, comes the joy of Christmas and the associated effort to demonstrate our love of friends and relatives with the lavish gifts. This is followed by the hope that comes with the birth of a New Year. We have an overindulgent celebration, as well as the annual exercise of making promises to ourselves called New Year’s Resolutions. Soon after we make them, we routinely break them!

It isn’t until mid-January that most of us slow down and begin to think about the true “meaning and value of life,” the significance of the events we’ve thus far experienced, and our aspirations for the future. For many of us, this contemplative assessment of what life really holds is intrinsically connected to the celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The 2013 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice brought an even greater significance to my reflections.

In the keynote speech of his life ("I Have a Dream"), Dr. King addressed the issues of racial discrimination and injustice of his time and of the preceding 100 years. For those of us old enough to have witnessed the first March, it seems almost inconceivable that 50 years could pass so quickly. Although significant progress has been made, we still find ourselves mired in many of the same challenges of which Dr. King originally spoke.

Since the election of Barack Obama as the first Black President, many argue that this has signaled the end of the systemic racism and discrimination that we know has hobbled us in nearly every facet of our lives. It’s suggested that President Obama's election ushered in a post-racial period in America. We can acknowledge that while the most egregious acts of racial violence may have lessened, we have entered into a period of reactionary legislative, judicial and economic violence that threatens to return us to a condition of servitude. As I use the word lessened, I am painfully aware of the recent violence against Black people in Texas, Florida, Georgia and elsewhere.

Dr. King spoke dramatically of trials and tribulations from which we emerged. Like most of us of that generation, we stood as witnesses to never-ending, daily injustices. In our eagerness to shield our children from the trauma of racism and the memories of disparagement that can cast a shadow over confidence and self-esteem, we stopped teaching the lessons of running the race in the dust of last place. Yes, many of our children are succeeding, but too many don’t have an appreciation for moving through the dust of the rear to the fresh air at the front of the pack. Too many adults have not made ourselves as available as we should to show them the way.

As was the case when Dr. King uttered the words "I have a dream", our struggle continues. We must prepare for course corrections and adjustments to even the best of plans. Our history has shown us capable of overcoming the most horrendous obstacles.

Many who control public policy work to the destruction of our dreams, with the intent of forcing us to surrender. The clarity provided by the experience of our history says that a plan is in place to erode confidence in our President and in those individuals and institutions we have come to trust in the protection of our rights.

Our dreams are our own and their realization isn’t based upon the agreement of those external to us. We’re the masters of our fate and will ultimately determine when we can finally utter the words, "Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

(Dr. Williams is Chair of the National Congress of Black Women. www.nationalcongressbw.org. 202/678-6788.)

Change Comes When Change is Demanded By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Jan. 19, 2014

Change Comes When Change is Demanded
By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The 50th Anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a war on poverty brought long overdue attention to his commitment. Today, with one in five children in America still raised in poverty, an accounting is vital as part of a renewed commitment.

But largely absent from the debate around the war on poverty is any sense of its context. Johnson’s program was bold and courageous. Medicare and expanded Social Security dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly and the disabled. Food stamps and infant nutrition virtually erased malnutrition among children. Medicaid and hikes in the minimum wage helped lift the floor under the working poor. Head start, aid to schools in impoverished neighborhoods, and later Pell grants contributed directly to rising high school and college graduation rates.

The Jobs Corps provided training and jobs for the unemployed, with a particular emphasis on Appalachia and rural poverty. The National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and National Public Radio nourished minds as well. Most creative was the Office of Economic Opportunity, situated in the White House itself, and focused on engaging “maximum feasible participation” in poor neighborhoods, so that recipients of aid could express their needs and create their own strategies. Johnson’s program was an institutional response, enlisting the resources and the capacities of the federal government to address poverty and racial division.

But we should remember, as we head to the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, what Johnson was responding to. He wasn’t simply reacting to entrenched poverty and racial segregation; those were not new. Johnson’s program was the government’s response to the call issued by Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. At the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, Dr. King issued his dream. From his cell in Birmingham, he issued his moral challenge. In his 1964 State of the Union and his later address at the University of Michigan, President Johnson issued his response.

This is important in today’s debate. Many comment on how timid our politics are now, how tied into knots, even as poverty is getting worse and the middle class is struggling. The economy is rigged to benefit only the few, while most Americans struggle to stay afloat. Yet there is little response from Washington. Affordable health care is essential, but reform has been met with unrelenting hostility. The Republican majority in the House has forced cuts in food stamps, dropped children from Head Start, cut aid to poor schools and even rejected continuing emergency jobless benefits.

Rather than a war on poverty, they seem intent on waging a war on the poor. But focus on the inadequacy of the response ignores the other missing factor: the inadequacy of the call. The poor are only beginning to find their voice, as witnessed in the protests of fast food workers. The movement for justice has only begun to stir, with voters forcing increases in the minimum wage in states and localities.

Those who benefit from the current arrangements will not lead the change. Political reformers face implacable, and well-funded, opposition. What is needed is for citizens of conscience to join with the oppressed to issue a moral call for change. Build that call to a tide that cannot be turned and then, and only then, will there be a response. Dr. King led a movement that issued a stirring call for justice. Lyndon Johnson used his remarkable skills to drive an unprecedented response to that call.

The prophet and the president were both remarkable leaders. We may not look on their like again. But even so, one thing is still clear: When we build the demand for change, leaders will arise to offer the response.

Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is president/CEO of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition

Loyalty to Principles, Not People by Julianne Malveaux

Jan. 18, 2014

Loyalty to Principles, Not People

By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire) - Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates isn’t the first political appointee to analyze the work of an administration he served, even as that administration continued to operate.

In 1999, while President Bill Clinton was still in office, long time staffer and confidant, Stephanopoulos wrote of his disenchantment with his political mentor after the Monica Lewinsky story broke. Stephanopoulos’ memoir was achingly personal, because even as it offered a look at the way the Clinton White House worked and a bird’s eye view of the 1992 campaign, it also offered a look at a man’s inner life, and the emotional turmoil he experienced as he struggled to reconcile the Bill Clinton he admired with a Clinton he, perhaps, reviled. At the time, many marveled at the perceived disloyalty of Stephanopoulos.

Shouldn’t he have waited until the Clintons had left the White House? What did the Clintons think? How would this frank disloyalty play out? Fifteen years later, President Clinton is sitting on top of the world with his Global Initiative, Hillary Rodham Clinton is the leading contender for the 2016 Presidential nomination, and George Stephanopoulos is front and center at ABC News.

Now Robert Gates has written a tell-all about his time as Secretary of Defense, titled Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (2014). Would that he’d written something as personally searching as George Stephanopoulos did. Instead, he’s got fingers to point, axes to grind, bridges to burn, even as the Obama administration continues to deal with issues that Gates had the opportunity to weigh in on while he served as Secretary of Defense. Duty is pointedly critical of nearly everyone – Congress, Vice President Biden, President Obama, the National Security Council staff, the White House staff, you name it. People have focused on the hits the Obama administration took from Gates’ poison pen, and many have raised the question about his lack of loyalty to the Obama Administration. From my perspective, Mr. Gates was disloyal to himself and to our nation, not to President Obama personally.

If he felt as strongly as he says he did, that the Obama administration should have made different defense decisions, why didn’t he say so? He talks about biting his tongue while in the White House. Why? So he could loosen it up when he got out. Had Gates been loyal to those who he pledged to serve, he would have immersed himself in the work of being Defense Secretary instead of describing himself as both contemptuous and bored. It’s that question of loyalty that plagues me with Gates, more so than Stephanopoulos. Does truth trump loyalty? When?

I think of these men when I think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his unwavering loyalty to social and economic justice. He didn’t care that his opposition to the War in Vietnam was seen as disloyal to a President who responded to Dr. King’s activism on poverty issues by creating a war on poverty. He didn’t care that his opposition to Vietnam got him uninvited to some of the venues where he was once quite sought after. He could have waited until “later” to write and talk about what would have happened. Somehow he knew, though, that there was no later, and so he wrote a book, Why We Can’t Wait (1964).

It is perhaps unfair to compare the moral fiber of Stephanopoulos and Gates to that of Dr. King, but one cannot help note that Stephanopoulos and Gates have been criticized for being disloyal to presidents. What about principle?

There is such a thing as misplaced loyalty, as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s aide Bridget Ann Kelly is about to find out. Kelly is said to have been the mastermind behind the several-day shut down of lanes on the George Washington Bridge during peak traffic hours to cause a little retaliatory confusion for Fort Lee, New Jersey, whose mayor did not support Christie’s re-election.

Christie says he doesn’t know anything about the bridge scandal, but that his loyal (and now resigned) aide did this on her own. Really? Not without a nudge from above? Kelly may value loyalty to one man over her commitment to serve the people of New Jersey (or just Chris Christie), which is not unusual. Just disappointing.

Both Kelly and Gates should ponder King as they go about their tasks on the official Dr. King holiday. King talked about what it meant to be unpopular because of political decision, and declared himself a drum major for justice. Bridget Kelly, Robert Gates, George Stephanopoulos, what are you drum majors for?