Sept. 8, 2013

What Does Limited Action Mean?
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Barack Obama stepped on a big limb when he threatened “limited action” against Syria because the country allegedly used chemical weapons against their own people.  There are international bans against the use of chemical weapons, with Syria one of few countries not supporting the ban. 

Chemical weapons allegedly killed more than 1400 Syrians, and the ongoing civil war may have killed as many as 100,000.  President Obama announced his willingness to act on Syria’s domestic chemical intrusion before Labor Day, but he has now backpedaled and asked for Congressional input in his decision.  What will he do if Congress says no?  Will he face the international community conceding that he has less power than he thought, or will he go ahead and take military action without congressional approval?

Reportedly, US troops in the Middle East were ready to follow the orders of the Commander-in-Chief before they got orders to slow down any action.  Perhaps President Obama is finally listening to the sentiment of the American people, who, according to several polls, do not support action against Syria.  Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and dozens of other members of Congress sent the President a letter urging debate on any military action against Syria.  Does the urgency of a strike against Syria recede over time?

Have we learned the lessons of Iran, Afghanistan, and, yes, Vietnam?  In the last case, “simple” military action led us into a war that lasted for nearly a decade, and the loss of tens of thousands of lives.  The “end” of that war was hardly decisive, with a withdrawal that didn’t so much save the day as salvage the our nation’s bruised ego.  If allegations against Syria are true, they have clearly crossed a line.  Still, it is not clear that unilateral action from the United States is the solution.  While the United Nations is not always as effective as it might be, I’d prefer United Nations concurrence to United States leadership in this matter.

From Iraq, we must remember that verification of the use of chemical weapons is key to any action.  I’ll never forget Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up a small container and saying, “this could be anthrax”.  Turns out, it wasn’t.  Based on that vivid display, we stepped up our action against Iraq, and a decade later we are still there.  General Powell said that if we broke it, we have to fix it.  We’ve not fixed it -- we are withdrawing, and billions of dollars and thousands of lives later, the situation is almost as murky as it was when we entered that country.

What will we do if Syria chooses to respond to our “limited” military action? Action and counteraction are the first steps to war.  We aren’t ready for that!  We’ve got existing military commitments, and an already-challenged budget, something not often mentioned in the face of this impending crisis.  Military experts say Syrian action could cost “about” $100 million.  Depending on escalation, we could easily end up in billion-dollar territory.

Meanwhile Congress and the President are on a budget brink.  Government could actually shut down at the end of the fiscal year unless unlikely compromises are made.  Will President Obama be forced to offer budget concessions in order to get Republican votes to support limited action against Syria?  If he does, what implications will that have on the domestic budget, especially in the face of budget austerity?  Will the money to cover a Syria strike come from the already-cut food stamps program, from sparsely funded education programs, from already-embattled health care?

President Bill Clinton reportedly supports military action against Syria, and regrets that the United States did not get involved in the massacre in Rwanda that claimed nearly a million lives.  With Rwanda, though, a bipartisan group of legislators pushed Clinton to take the case against Rwanda to the United Nations and he did not.  President Obama has not suggested United Nations cooperation but instead insisted that it is time to take action.

Where is the peace movement?  Are they shying off their traditional anti-war stance because President Obama, not President Bush, is in the White House?  Once, you could count on groups like Code Pink to lift their voices against military action.  Now their silence speaks volumes.

There are alternatives to “limited military action” in Syria; those alternatives have yet to be explored.  We shouldn’t involve ourselves in what might be a multi-billion dollar action just so President Obama can sell wolf tickets (or bragging rights) and count on Congress to cash them.

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.

Digital Equality: A key Economic Opportunity and Civil Rights Issue for the 21st Century
 By Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The question of equality was a catalyst for the creation of this great Republic. The need for new ideas and approaches led our forefathers to be innovative. One hundred and fifty years ago, President Lincoln employed such thinking in the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation that changed the course of history and the destiny of millions of new Americans. Fifty years ago, a coalition of civil rights, social justice and labor leaders organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which had as its core purpose equity in jobs, education, and justice for all Americans.

Sept. 8, 2013

Reality Check
The FBI and I Have a Dream
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - According to reporter, Tony Capaccio, in the August 28, 2013 Washington Post, “The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech inspired the world. It also galvanized the FBI into undertaking one of its biggest surveillance operations in history.” A 1976 report of the Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities said that “The FBI’s program to destroy Dr. King as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement entailed efforts to discredit him with churches, universities and the press.”

While most commentary on the 1963 speech and most commentary at the recent 50^th Anniversary celebration focused on the “I Have a Dream” section of the speech it is clear that the FBI paid close attention its other sections including Dr. King’s assertion that “In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir…It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned.

Instead of honoring this obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt… So we have come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI cronies were also alarmed when Dr. King insisted that “We have also come to this spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now (Italics his)….Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valleys of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the movement and to underestimate the determination of the Negro….Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwind of revolt will continue to shake the foundation of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”

It would seem that at least one of the speakers at the anniversary celebration would have mentioned the FBI’s reaction to Dr. King’s speech. Instead they continued to swoon over “I Have a Dream.” If they are serious those who profess an ardent devotion to Dr. King’s legacy should be guided by the perceptive bluntness of the above and the practical, action-oriented, solutions-oriented, non-dreaming guidelines he presented in his last, must-read book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Otherwise they are just blowing smoke.

Sept. 2, 2013

President Obama Challenges America:  ‘Keep Marching’
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Standing in the very spot where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood 50 years before, President Barack Obama – America’s first Black President, challenged the nation to take a lesson from the past and keep marching.

“Because they kept marching, America changed.  Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed.  Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed.  Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed, and Congress changed, and, yes, eventually, the White House changed,” he said to enthusiastic applause.

It was the “Let Freedom Ring” Ceremony, commemorating the 50^th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The drizzly Aug. 28 day did not deter thousands from coming to witness the event. The crowd of people lined the mall from the Lincoln Memorial, where King spoke in 1963, around the Tidal Basin and almost back to the Washington Monument.  In fact, hundreds left the event after standing in line for hours due to a bottleneck at security gates for the event that was billed as “free and open” to the public.

But for the thousands that remained, chanting and cheering from what seemed like miles away, President Obama exhorted them to march in a new way.

“That tireless teacher who gets to class early and stays late and dips into her own pocket to buy supplies because she believes that every child is her charge  - she’s marching. That successful businessman who doesn't have to but pays his workers a fair wage and then offers a shot to a man, maybe an ex-con who is down on his luck - he’s marching.   

“The mother who pours her love into her daughter so that she grows up with the confidence to walk through the same door as anybody’s son - she’s marching.   The father who realizes the most important job he’ll ever have is raising his boy right, even if he didn't have a father - especially if he didn't have a father at home - he’s marching.  The battle-scarred veterans who devote themselves not only to helping their fellow warriors stand again, and walk again, and run again, but to keep serving their country when they come home - they are marching,” he said to applause.  

Facing new inequities in America, President Obama did not shy away from the realities of the moment.

“Inequality has steadily risen over the decades.  Upward mobility has become harder.  In too many communities across this country, in cities and suburbs and rural hamlets, the shadow of poverty casts a pall over our youth, their lives a fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects, inadequate health care and perennial violence,” he said.

“Yes, there have been examples of success within Black America that would have been unimaginable a half century ago…But, as has already been noted, Black unemployment has remained almost twice as high as White unemployment, Latino unemployment close behind.  The gap in wealth between races has not lessened, it's grown.  And as President Clinton indicated, the position of all working Americans, regardless of color, has eroded, making the dream Dr. King described even more elusive.”

Three presidents – Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter – addressed the crowd, in addition to luminaries that included Oprah Winfrey, Martin Luther King III, the Rev. Bernice King and Congressman John Lewis.

With the Trayvon Martin case still heavy on the minds of justice-seekers, Clinton stressed that Dr. King, “urged the victims of racial violence to meet White Americans with an outstretched hand; not a clinched fist. And in so doing, proved the redeeming power of unearned suffering.”

President Carter drew applause from the crowd when he pointed to the inequities of the criminal justice system. “There are more than 835,000 African-American men in prison, five times as many as when I left office. And with one third of all African-American males being destined to be in prison in our lifetime, there is a tremendous agenda ahead of us,” Carter said.

Rev. Bernice King, with the intense cadence of her father, delivered a fiery speech, also outlining the gross injustices of 2013.

“We come once again to let freedom ring. Because if freedom stops ringing, then the sound will disappear and the atmosphere will be charged with something else,” she said. “We are still crippled by practices and policies steeped in racial pride, hatred and hostility, some of which have us standing our ground rather than finding common ground. We are still chained by economic disparity, income and class inequality and conditions of poverty for many of God’s children around this nation and the world. We are still bound by civil unrest and apparent social biases in a world that often times degenerates into violence and destruction; especially against women and children. We are at this landing, and now we must break the cycle,” she said. “The Profit King spoke the vision. He made it plain. And we must run with it in this generation.”

The chiming of a bell at exactly 3 p.m. was intended to mark the moment that Dr. King proclaimed the words, "Let Freedom Ring!...From Every Mountain Side, Let Freedom Ring!"

President Obama, the final speaker, encouraged the nation that if they continue to march – not just in the streets, but in the ways he outlined – change will be inevitable.

“America, I know the road will be long, but I know we can get there.  Yes, we will stumble, but I know we’ll get back up.  That’s how a movement happens.  That’s how history bends.  That's how when somebody is faint of heart, somebody else brings them along and says, come on, we’re marching,” he said. “We might not face the same dangers of 1963, but the fierce urgency of now remains. We may never duplicate the swelling crowds and dazzling procession of that day so long ago - no one can match King’s brilliance - but the same flame that lit the heart of all who are willing to take a first step for justice, I know that flame remains.”