More evidence reveals that in another part of the "belly" at some distance from the cheerleaders are the people of conscience, the believers in democracy, the peacemakers, and the people who cry out for equity and justice.  We dread nourishing the "Beast," but are forced to contribute.  We witnessed our leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers, among others assassinated.  We were horrified and terrorized by these events.  As a result we are afraid.  We live in fear.  We are being terrorized now by the relentless gutting of the US Constitution, our social contract, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of our own Bill of Rights, of international laws and treaties, and of environmental regulations.  Yes, we are the dissenters, the manufactured enemies, the labor unions, the uneducated and the undereducated, the uninsured, the illiterate, the underpaid, the heavily taxed, the poor, the unemployed, the ever growing number of can't-make-the-rent Wal-Mart employees, the voiceless, the marginalized, the Muslims who are the scapegoats of the day, the people from Afghanistan and Iraq who come from the places where the "Beast" is currently having a feeding frenzy, and the unjustly incarcerated. 

Since the US military, with all of its weapons of mass destruction cannot make the dollar the center of the world economy, the redlining of America will be a long-term, indefinite process.  I agree, its impact won't be pretty.  But, it will substantially weaken the "Beast," enough, perhaps, to permit the many ill at ease, forced inhabitants of the "belly" to escape into a saner world.  Once free from bondage, the key to our survival depends on our willingness to become steadfast in our convictions, vigilant, informed, and focused.  We must support one another with sincerity.  Cynthia McKinney said, "We must offer true friendship..." because, as Dr. King said, "There will be some difficult times ahead."

Thanks once again for a prescient article, far ahead of the mainstream media, which offers infotainment to anesthetize the masses.   The coming retrenchment you speak of seems unavoidable with at least another year of Bush and neocons steering the ship of state toward the shoals.   Current trade agreements plus those on the drawing board – FTAA and CAFTA, plus 30-32 bilateral trade agreements being pushed through almost faster than the trade ambassadors can sign them – will administer the coup de grace to the American economy, ably assisted by further planned tax cuts for the wealthy, further dismantling of the social safety nets, and massive wartime profiteering. 

The result will most certainly be, as you predict, a time of retrenchment for Black Americans, but also for wedge politics against every possible group that can be singled out to blame for the dire financial straits so many will find themselves in.  The truth is that working families have been on a long, slow slide since 1968, when income inequality, according to GINI measures, was the most equal it has been in modern history. The most recent figures rank the US at number 79 in the world in terms of relative income equality, between Moldova and Thailand – and the data in this 2002 report is based on records that are now 4 - 5 years old.  It's evident that 2003 figures would find the US even further down, among Burkina Faso and Malaysia. 

http://www.925iwish.com/distribution.html

The propagandists of corporate America can't afford to have Americans wake up and realize the source of their misery, so the Republican party will play wedge politics for all it's worth.  We see it in the Medicare pork-fest, where younger Americans are told that seniors are picking their pockets for their own selfish gain; that refrain will be repeated during the '04 campaign when Bush rolls out his plan for partial privatization of Social Security.  We see union workers blamed for the offshoring of jobs, we see those opposed to tax cuts for the wealthy blamed for pushing corporations offshore, we see every single social program blamed for "raising my taxes higher than they've ever been," as goes the mantra from the Limbaugh flock – at a time when federal taxes are lower than they've been since pre-Kennedy days. 

The plain truth is that even if the countries of the world hold off on extensive redlining, and even if they delay switching to the Euro – which has been under consideration by the EU, Russia, and the OPEC countries – the US economy simply isn't sustainable.  We have an unsustainable debt, an unsustainable budget deficit, and an unsustainable trade deficit that's worsening every year.  American workers are being required to compete for jobs with Chinese workers who are paid $1.00 a day, and they'll soon also be required to compete with an even greater influx of Mexican workers, imported by the Bush administration specifically for the purpose of forcing domestic labor costs still lower.  Professionals whose jobs have gone to India or who have been replaced domestically by H1-B and L-1 workers will be competing for fast food jobs or work as a night janitor, forcing still more workers with high school diplomas, or less, out of the workforce. 

Bush's "ownership society" plan will do away with employer-provided health care, pensions, and employer contributions to unemployment insurance (for the few in this country who qualify under the stringent rules).  Instead, Americans will be expected to put aside money (in spite of real unemployment figures of upwards of 10%) in separate savings accounts for their health care and retirement, and the plan is for taxpayer dollars to provide a one-time pittance called a "personal re-employment account," with which those whose jobs have gone away will be expected to pay house payments, child care, retraining expenses and perhaps relocation expenses.  Once that's gone, there'll be no more assistance.

Under the no-tax, cheap labor Republicans as represented by Grover Norquist and a host of Senators and House members, American workers will be treated as they're regarded: as lazy bums who must be forced to go to work and forced to take personal responsibility in order to prevent them from following their "normal inclinations" to sit around and demand a free ride.  Bush calls this his "self-reliance, industriousness and responsibility" plan – a phrase which rings with contempt for the average American.   Workers can take at least meager solace in knowing that American seniors are also going to be expected to "take personal responsibility" for much of their own health care.  The "personal responsibility" crowd in Congress, who couldn't vote fast enough to overturn an amendment that would make them live by whatever "benefits" they offered seniors, have stated clearly that seniors as well as others aren't having to pay enough out of pocket for their health care, and so are frivolously consuming far more scarce health care dollars than necessary; this makes them responsible for much of the increased cost of medical care in the U.S., according to the corporate libertarians' version of the story.   

It is indeed time for militancy in the U.S. as everyone who's not in the top 1% prepares to retrench.  But we're all in this together, and I hope our militancy will include efforts to make common cause with all of the other disenfranchised groups as we redirect people's attention to the corporate oligarchs who have engineered misery never seen in the U.S. since the Great Depression.

Republicans and DLC Democrats to a certain extent will make every effort to divide us by color, gender, religion, age, and national origin so that we're too busy blaming one another to band together against the real authors of our misery.  Let's reach out to each other in our militancy, and while we're at it reach out to citizens of other countries as well who have suffered from greedy, self-serving U.S. trade agreements.  They're ahead of us in mobilization, having suffered longer, and in ways many of us in this country are only about to experience. 

Thank you once again for seeing the big picture and sounding the warning.

Well, better late than never. As fascinating a read as this commentary makes it comes nearly 40 years after the fact.  America's economic slide began in the early 1960's when the overall rate of profit for U.S. corporations began to slump. Ironically (perhaps) America's economic downturn began at the height of the civil rights movement, which then witnessed the dismantling of the economic base of black communities through government policies such as urban renewal (removal) and private industry's beginning the trend to move industrial enterprises over seas.

At the least, Black America has been well into the long, deep slide for at least two and half decades. What we are likely to witness, if the author is accurate, is an intensification of the slide. Furthermore the visible wealth displayed in such locales as Atlanta is illusory. Nearly 40 years after affirmative action the mean net wealth of black families is just one-eight of that of white families – less than before affirmative action.

Black reparations as a matter of public policy cannot help but positively impact the entire U.S. economy.  Reparations Now!

Good insights into the competition between the euro and dollar for preeminence as the world's reserve currencies, and the potential impact on the African American community. However, people who have some capital might just pool their capital and buy euros and gold. On the other hand the preeminence of the dollar with its attendant balance of payments problems only helped those who traded on the stock market or imported products from Asia and Europe. It's a good thing that the dollar has some competition not only from the euro but also from gold, but it's unclear whether those Asian nations (China, Japan and Taiwan especially) that fund the U.S. balance of payment deficits would want to pull the plug by cashing in and switching to euros. They might just decide to diversify – holding percentages of both currencies.

Your point about Africa being beyond the pale for serious political analysis is quite correct however. Africa has 4 OPEC members and Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Sudan also produce oil and would no doubt take cues from OPEC. South Africa is the world's second largest producer of gold and has been reaping benefits form the recent increase in gold prices which has had a positive effect on the rand. The problem in Africa in general is debt, lack of capital, low exchange rates, and unemployment, but  there are exceptions. Botswana holds lost of reserves, so too Namibia.  We must recognize that Africa is almost as big as North and South America combined and that its population is some 850 million people, which makes for a lot of economic variety from region to region. But, in general, most Africans are not worse off than most blacks in South America or Haiti or most Indians in India.

Given the size of Africa, most people never experience war as the media might erroneously suggest. But there is a general problem: an evident disconnect between governments and their populaces – from Egypt down to Cape Town. Yet because of the West's intrinsic and seemingly invincible racism Africa always gets a bad press which exaggerates and fabricates as it sees fit. However, the whites and Lebanese who flock to Africa to do business or just enjoy never want to leave. Or if they leave they always rush back, so maybe it can't be all that miserable for everybody. I meet them all the time.

If oil-producing nations switched to "market basket" pricing – a prudent and rational form of diversification – it would have nearly the same effect as a switch to the euro. An imperial dollar cannot sit in a market basket with the rest of the crowd and remain... imperial. The dollar would no longer constitute such a fearsome “strategic asset” for use as a weapon against the rest of humanity – a huge step towards ending America’s “unnatural” advantage.

Thanks for continuing to function as a voice of reason by cautioning of hard times ahead for Black Americans. Too many of us remain in a state of denial about how easily the economic gains of the past 50 years could be lost. We indeed live a tenuous existence in this country, as detailed in Samuel Yette's The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America. It is my fear that as a group, we're simply not prepared for the troubled times which will inevitably arrive at our doorsteps.

Had the Joneses understood the ways of the white folks in charge of the justice system, even on a local level, there is no way Peri would have advised Marcus to be cooperative with police and “tell them anything they wanted to know,” even without an attorney in the room. Few black parents would have told their black male child, suspected of raping a white girl, to do such a thing, and precisely because they would understand the intrinsic danger of the lamb trying to make nice with the wolves who have encircled it.

I hope that some remediation of the injustice done to Marcus Dixon is possible. I hope that some appeal to higher authorities is possible. This is no way to treat a valuable and intelligent human being. To express manifestations of love with another human being is not a grave sin. May common decency eventually prevail.

Thank you for being such a clear writer and making it plain about white supremacy domination in Amerika. The sex across color line thing is so deep, it’s hard to know where to start. You have explained in no uncertain terms where the source of white supremacy behavior needs to be addressed: in the kitchens and mirrors of white Amerika. This is why Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) in the mid-1960s told whites to go home to their own communities and organize against racial injustice and racist behavior. Most importantly, your writings on the whole underbelly of the racial divide need to be used to teach and awaken today's adults and youth who live in a make believe world.

George Bush and John Ashcroft don’t want you to hear about White Terror, understandably fearing that the lyrics of white supremacy strike the same racial chords as the Pirates’ own War on Terror theme, itself a rearrangement of the many martial tunes written throughout American history in praise Manifest Destiny. Less than a decade ago Timothy McVeigh’s band of terrorists got carried away with the logic of America as a White Man’s Country, and may have cost the Republicans the White House in 1996. That’s why the homeland security colors didn’t change in May of this year, when federal agents arrested a white racist couple dealing in weapons of mass destruction in a small town near Tyler, Texas. The feds seized a cyanide bomb capable of unleashing a deadly, poison cloud, chemicals and components for additional WMDs, gas masks, 100 conventional bombs, an arsenal of automatic weapons, silencers and half a million rounds of ammunition….

Tens of thousands of members of a racist legion operate openly in every corner of the nation – men, women, juveniles, extended families, cells, gangs, churches, clans, militias, border armies, all engaged in what they consider to be a war to the death against non-white America….

But these are white Americans with special dispensation to engage in an ancient yet familiar rampage. They can hide in plain sight, because nobody’s really looking.

I was delighted to see your cover story on "White Terror."  I am a longtime civil rights worker in John Ashcroft's hometown, Springfield, Missouri and have volunteered to go undercover working with the (pre-Ashcroft) FBI to meet with white supremacists. 
 
Just since his appointment as Attorney General, we have had a Hammerskin Nation concert celebrating Hitler's birthday; the desecration of our Jewish cemetery; a stabbing by skinheads of a black man who was with a white woman in a local Denney's restaurant; the murder of a mixed blood foster child by a white foster parent and a hanging of a Kenyan immigrant from a tower in downtown Springfield that duplicated a 1906 Easter Weekend triple lynching here.

The local police pretended the concert did not take place, made no arrests in the cemetery desecration or the stabbing, refused to deal with racism in the death of foster child Dominic James and immediately declared Leonard Gakinya's hanging to be a suicide without acknowledging that Gakinya had made an internal affairs complaint about his mistreatment by Springfield police and immigration jailers the week before his body was found.

Dominic James' killer, John Dilley, was found guilty of child abuse but remains free on a $3,500 bond. Many blacks accused of nonviolent crimes are jailed before trial on bail in the $50,000 to one million dollar range. There is great disparity in bail set for white methamphetamine dealers and black crack users even though Greene County, Missouri has one of the highest rates of meth labs in the USA.

No one has ever spent a moment in jail for a hate crime here even though the region is home to dozens of KKK, Christian Identity and other racist groups. It was bad here before our homeboy became Attorney General. It is much worse now.

Your articles are informative and timely. I was not aware of the situation in Texas and was very pleased with your reporting on this issue.

I hope to see more such articles in the future. In my humble opinion this is a great source of your strength and value as an online publication.

If Africa’s true objective is independence (and it should be), then it is imperative that the continent abandon all vestiges of its colonial past. This includes institutions like the British Commonwealth that deprive Africans of the freedom to fully exercise their right to self-determination….

For purposes of security and future prosperity, Africa does not need the guidance and protection of its colonial masters. Africa must unite as never before and strengthen the relationships between African countries and other underdeveloped countries throughout the world. To hell with the Commonwealth! Africa has its own future to build.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mark Fancher's article. I was even more thrilled to note that he has written a book titled "The Splintering of Global Africa: Capitalism's War Against Pan-Africanism." I have searched for it on websites where I find most books I need, including rare, out of print ones, but I can't find it.

Thank you so much for your very kind comments. You can order the book from me, or you can have your local bookstore special order it. If you want it direct, you may send a check for $15 (includes postage) payable to Mark Fancher, P.O. Box 4112, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Thank you again. Victory is certain.

When Johnson was recently discharged she said that she didn’t regret her military career. I find it very difficult to believe that she is telling the truth. A mere $500 per month is not enough money to justify being shot in both ankles, held prisoner, and suffer post traumatic stress. In my latest fantasy I hear Iraq war veterans say the following. “I got screwed. I was sent on a fool’s errand and I’m mad. I wish I had taken out college loans instead of believing that stupid commercial that said I would be an army of one. If I had it to do over again I wouldn’t go.”

I enjoyed your article and the overall point made by the late Gen. Butler was well taken. However, you miss one point with the words you would like for Ms. Johnson to have said:

" ... I wish I had taken out college loans instead of believing that stupid commercial that said I would be an army of one. ..."

If the option of obtaining a college degree and well-paying job was available to everyone, then the Army would never be able to meet any enlistment quota. However, we know there are several problems for graduating high school students (please note I do not mean to imply that any of these may or may not apply to Ms. Johnson individually):

1. The cost of attendance in residence at almost any state college or university is not taken care of by financial aid plus the "expected family contribution." Thus, unless a family has the means and will to contribute substantially more than "expected," that option won't work.

2. A two-year degree at a local community college here in West Virginia will help you obtain an $8.50 per hour job with something that more or less could pass off as health insurance, as opposed to the going rate of $6.50 to $7 for high school grads without the benefit of this training. While enrollment rates in these programs is relatively high, the lack of opportunity does function as a deterrent.

3. And finally, and most importantly, there are millions of high school graduates who have neither the aptitude nor the interest in attending college. These individuals also deserve decent employment, not dreams that someday 97 percent of Americans will obtain college degrees. And throughout history, these are the individuals who have borne the brunt of infantry service.

The Lyons saga should be an opportunity for introspection for others as well. I admit that until the scandal broke I did not know who headed the NBC although I belong to a member church. I am still uninvolved with church affairs. Lyons thievery was committed in part because of this detachment and subsequent lack of oversight. When combined with knee jerk reactions to defend black people in trouble and “don’t criticize the preacher” attitudes, it is easy for the Lyons of the world to do their worst.

Thank you so much for saying what a lot of other feel but don't have the platform to express ourselves.

I live in Philadelphia and was invited to present a program showing churches how to develop programs for ex-offenders, last spring. Before I could present, the 15 or so local ministers were discussing how much money they would send to Rev. Lyons this year because they had done this since his incarceration. It totally amazed me that with all the priorities of life and death issues surrounding our communities, sending money to this felon occupied a significant period of time. Of course I was grilled about where the money would come from to help ex-offenders from the community and unless I could tell them where to get the money, forget ex-offenders.

By the way, I got lost going to the church and was unsure until I saw the Lexus's, BMW's, and other high-end cars parked outside and then knew I had to be at the right place.

I'm a Black Commentator subscriber who awaits anxiously each Thursday for you to deliver your weekly, precious pearls of wisdom. And this week, you hit a homerun that would make Josh Gibson blush! I, too, was a Bible thumping Missionary Baptist, who became disillusioned with some con-artist-styled "Pastuhs" who used the Bible and Black folks' predicament of "dire straits" to fleece the flock. I converted to Islam for a few years and now am back trying to fit into the Missionary Baptist scheme of things once again.

You wouldn't believe it, but maybe you would, but here in Indianapolis, we have two big time, mega-ministers who are playing king of the hill with Black folks' hard earned money. One minister will build a mega-church one month and seemingly, the next month be outmatched by the other mega-minister. One newly arrived "Pastuh" has convinced his flock (hmmm) to buy him a jet plane so that he can fly to his "other" church down south every other week. The flock agreed and now he has new jet plane, but wait a minute...his wife is asking for a matching jet for her travel. Ms. Kimberley, I kid you not. Some "Pastuhs" here are more concerned with big mansions, multi-Mercedes and trying to be Pacer star, Reggie Millers' next door neighbor while in the inner-cities, Black folks are losing jobs, homes, getting on welfare and losing faith in God. There used to be a time when some "Pastuhs" believed in saving souls but now it seems like it’s getting to be a "Pimp Hustle." When will we wake up and drive out the money changers?

There are some decent, sincere African-American ministers who truly are about the word, but the insincere, con-artists get all the ink!!!

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been particularly vulnerable to the pressures exerted by the pro-Israel lobby. In 2002 Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Earl Hilliard of Alabama were both defeated by challengers who raised large sums of money from Jewish groups outside of their states. Both McKinney and Hilliard committed the sin of being even handed. The message was not lost on other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Toe the line or lose your seat….

The issues raised by this concentration of power effect more than the election chances of black politicians. The same forces that give black politicians pause when dealing with Israel also helped bring about the disastrous American invasion of Iraq. The neo-conservatives who run Bush foreign police advocated this war partly on the premise that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was good for Israel. I wonder when someone will experience an epiphany and figure out that expanding settlements on the West Bank hurts Israel.

In a recent article you wrote about the pressure to support Ariel Sharon's policies on Black politicians, you gave no mention of the existence of a strong pro-peace voice in the Jewish world, led by The Tikkun Community. Did you not see the full page ad we recently bought in the NY Times in support of the Geneva Accord? Have you not been aware of our activities? If not, would you please do something to rectify this in a future column by suggesting to your readers that they a) join the Tikkun community (co-chaired by Cornel West, Professor at Princeton U. and Susannah Heschel, chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth) and b) come to the Teach-In to Congress in support of the Geneva Accord for Middle East Peace which will take place in D.C. April 24-27th.

To get the full picture of our perspective on why the only way to be pro-Israel is to be pro-Palestine as well, and the only way to be pro-Palestine is to be pro-Israel as well (we call this our "progressive Middle Path), please read our website www.tikkun.org or subscribe to Tikkun Magazine or read my new book Healing Israel/Palestine.

I am aware of the Tikkun Community and its support of the Geneva peace accord. However, the purpose of my column was to bring attention to those forces whose intolerance for differing views has posed such a grave danger to America and to the world.

I applaud your efforts but frankly it is far more important for readers to be aware of the challenge posed by the anti-peace elements who are committed to silencing those who do not move to their marching orders. McKinney and Hilliard are no longer in Congress because their local constituencies and larger constituencies across the country were surprised by the effort to defeat them and were therefore unprepared to marshal the financial and political support that might have kept them in office. I find it amusing that current members of Congress used precious time to discuss whether the name "French" should be applied to a fried potato but others have been removed who spoke to one of the most serious issues of our time. In the interests of our democracy we must not allow the fate of McKinney and Hilliard to be repeated again.

I've so thoroughly "had it" with Israel, from the propaganda they tried to drum into my head in Hebrew School, to the current Nazi-like suppression of Palestinians, that I believe I've lost my ability to think "even handedly."

I write columns for CounterPunch, and it is interesting that, though I point out that I'm no more "Jewish" in my beliefs than I am Muslim or Catholic, I am often labeled "self-hating Jew" for criticizing a Nation State that has nothing to do with me or my ethnicity, much less religion (of which I have none).

Be that as it may, I think the Democrats showed their true colors when they refused to stand up for Cynthia McKinney. She was a victim of Republican shenanigans and New York area Zionist money, yet not a word was said in her defense by the "leading Democrats."

In fact, the only words of criticism for Israel's barbarity and AIPAC’s frightening influence (after all, Israel, despite the so called "special relationship" is NOT America; it's citizens should be no more important to the decisions of Congress than French or Egyptian citizens) seem to come from black members of Congress, and they must pay dearly for them. It is precisely Dean's "support" for Israel that cancels him out, on my list, as someone who will be considerably different from Bush. But it's never enough. One must bow to the right wing fundamentalist Christians and Jewish Zionists in absolute submission, or one does not "support Israel," or for that matter, America.

Those who support U.S. policy in the mid-east in general, and Israel's suppression of the Palestinians in particular have no right, as you intimated, to feign shock or surprise when the next suicide bomber literally blows up in their face.

Thank you very much for the article about the Israeli Lobby and the CBC. Years ago now, when the First Intifada was raging, CBC held a hearing and when they agreed to let myself and a colleague “testify,” the then Executive Director of AIPAC (Tom Dine) pulled out.

Thank you Ms. Kimberley it seems someone has the guts to speak the truth. I personally find it quite disturbing that my brother is currently serving in Iraq to rid Saddam of WMD, just in case he decides to attack Israel, when that country is the only country in the Middle East with the nuclear bomb! But they are defenseless – just how stupid does this administration think I am!

I just read your article concerning the reservations that Cummings had about endorsing Dean. Even though the endorsement was carried out, it still raises the question for me; why do we as people of African descent have to seek other people to look out for our interest. Why does not some black elected official have the nerve to say we should initially support Sharpton, who is of our kind? Once the primary is over then we can negotiate our support for the winner if the winner is not Sharpton. Are we afraid to be free?

In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. He did it in a shameful way – by dividing Americans against one another, stirring up racial prejudices and bringing out the worst in people.

They called it the "Southern Strategy," and the Republicans have been using it ever since. Nixon pioneered it, and Ronald Reagan perfected it, using phrases like "racial quotas" and "welfare queens" to convince white Americans that minorities were to blame for all of America's problems.

The Republican Party would never win elections if they came out and said their core agenda was about selling America piece by piece to their campaign contributors and making sure that wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

To distract people from their real agenda, they run elections based on race, dividing us, instead of uniting us.

I am again hopeful. To hear a mainstream white candidate speak so clearly on how a wealthy class of political campaigners use the politics of hate and lies to pit white folk against black folk and others is stunning. I hope it isn't an aberration. And I hope white folk can really shed their seemingly comfortable place of self-delusion and see the real center of their problems: It ain't black folk. Thanks for your wonderful and insightful coverage.

It is difficult to imagine that the administration would allow such a productive proceeding to occur. However, events since Saddam’s capture…confirm that the Bush men are incapable of escaping, or even recognizing, the trap they have set for themselves, one that is likely to accelerate the dissolution of their fragile arrangements with the Iraqi appointees, and seems certain to further alienate world opinion.

Although any trial decided upon should blow up in their faces, I think, unfortunately, they've got contingency plans they don't intend us to find out about; among them, perhaps:

(a) suitable open-court testimony – in return for a nominal sentence and then profitable exile for him and his family in the Witness Protection Program – from a powerful minion like Tariq Aziz; who might also give location-points in the desert of pre-planted WMD evidence;

(b) Hussein being found conveniently dead in his cell from suicide or heart-attack before his court appearance;

(c) postponing the trial until early November, before damage is done at the hustings.

And other carefully planned covert scenarios which I'm sure are being considered right now and which most Americans will be easily guided away from suspecting.

There is no way in this world or the next to come that Saddam can get a fair trial. There is an old Negro Folktale about a chicken getting a fair trial when the judge is a fox and the jury is composed of foxes.

I don't know what Saddam did because all that are accusing him are liars, but in order for him to do what he did he had to have plenty of help from both the United States and Britain alike as well as for those 59 Other Welfare States that form the Coalition of the Willing.

Like the Prophet that the Bush insiders claim to serve and model themselves on and after, said to those about to stone the woman who committed adultery: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

The fact of the matter is, there’s nothing whatever that’s seriously radical or progressive about hip-hop ideas and values. It is sad that there are university academics among us like Michael Dyson and Todd Boyd (respectively at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California) who fail to recognize the political emptiness of most hip-hop expression. Hip-hop entertainers and its entertainment modalities do not represent a “new worldview” for African Americans. Quite the contrary, the “hip-hop worldview” is nothing other than an updated face on the old-hat, crude, anti-humanistic values of hedonism and materialism.

The article by Dr. Martin Kilson was right on time. As a 29 year old member of the Hip Hop Generation, I view Michael Dyson, and Tavis Smiley as minstrel and side show. Nothing can compare to the sacrifices, blood, sweat, and tears that our predecessors contributed. Lately, Michael Dyson, Tavis Smiley and company are holding a tour throughout the country called Pass the Mic at a cost of $50 plus. The civil rights movement was about sacrifice. Unfortunately, Michael Dyson and Tavis Smiley seek capitalism.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I would like to tell you that your website is one of the best designed ever. Congratulation. I am an Iraqi woman writer and I sometimes republish some of your articles (after translating them into Arabic) in my website (www.iraqpatrol.com) which is in Arabic.

Wishing you the best.