Table of Contents

There are 16 chapters in this issue

About BlackCommentator.com

Cover Story - Sequestration - Balancing The Budget On The Backs Of The Majority - A View from the Battlefield By Jamala Rogers, BC Editorial Board

The Haunted Bush Library - BC Political Cartoon By Chuck Siler

U.S. Death Row Survivors Are One For Ten - Color of Law By David A. Love, JD

Obama’s hostility towards Venezuela - The African World - By Bill Fletcher, Jr. - BC Editorial Board

Mechanical Killers that can Wait Years to Find Their Victims - Solidarity America - By John Funiciello - BC Columnist

Tell the Whole Truth - Nafsi ya Jamii - By Wilson Riles - BC Columnist

Jason Collins: The Great Black Hope - Inclusion By the Reverend Irene Monroe, BC Editorial Board

Facebook FBI - Political Cartoon By Eric Garcia, Chicago IL

Preparing for Malcolm X’s 88th Birthday - Worrill’s World - By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD - BC Columnist

After The Gun Control Filibuster, The Immigration Debate Got More Complicated - Between The Lines - By Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, PhD - BC Columnist

A “Laboratory of Democracy”: Kazakhstan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Wisconsin’s Black Prison Population - Represent Our Resistance - By Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD - BC Editorial Board

Detached from Compassion By Margaret Rose Dominado, BC Guest Commentator

Silence Really Is Betrayal - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BC Editorial Board

Quote to Ponder: "Those that have the privilege to know, have the duty to act.” - Albert Einstein

Duty To Act - Art By Doug Minkler, Berkeley CA

This is an eBook version of BlackCommentator.com - An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace.

BC Provides commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world.

BC was established April 5, 2002 and is published weekly on Thursday.

Executive Editor: David A. Love, JD - Managing Editor: Nancy Littlefield, MBA - Publisher: Peter Gamble

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Members of the BCEditorial Board represent African Americans and the African world. Theyare dedicated activists, thinkers and writers. The BC Editorial Board includes the following in alphabetical order by last name:

Lola Adesioye, Carl Bloice,Julian Bond, Rose Brewer PhD, Horace Campbell PhD, Imani Countess,Lenore Jean Daniels PhD, Bill Fletcher Jr., James Jennings PhD, BadiliJones, Martin Kilson PhD, Sharon Kyle JD, David A. Love JD, JulianneMalveaux PhD, Manning Marable PhD, Syreeta McFadden, The Reverend IreneMonroe, Leith Mullings PhD, Jacqui Patterson, Larry Pinkney, StevenPitts PhD, Barbara Ransby PhD, Jamala Rogers, Ethel Long-Scott, Amy V.Simmons, William L. (Bill) Strickland, Chuck Turner, Nathaniel Turner,Ron Walters PhD, Emira Woods, Jeanne Woods JD.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

In a best case scenario for a squeaking wheel getting the oil, we saw the coming together of media, the airline companies and the Congress itself. But the passage of the bill to ease the FAA’s pain happened so fast, you probably did not see it.

Last week the Congress wasted no time fixing one of the many budget cuts activated under sequestration: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cuts in air traffic personnel resulting in 1,000 daily flight delays. That’s because over 47,000 FAA employees have been forced into taking furlough days and 149 airport towers were closed.

According to an analysis of mainstream media by the Huffington Post, the sequestrations impact on FAA was mentioned far more often than the impacts on areas like Head Start or Medicare. Commerce was being stymied and the One Percenters’ mobility was definitely curtailed. The airline companies filed a suit in federal court. The rest is history.

Sequestration was the ultimate chicken game between the Republican and Democrats in Congress. When the Congressional Chuckleheads couldn’t come to agreement over debt reduction and tax increases, they all signed off on the Budget Control Act which aimed to cut domestic spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years - $85 billion in this fiscal year alone. Since the cuts would be across the board and affecting projects of both parties, the illogical thinking was that the draconian and cavalier slashes would never happen. Wrong!

All governmental agencies face the cutbacks from defense to parks to health. The Congressional Budget Office estimates sequestration will cost around 750,000 jobs in total. Economic experts project a huge, negative impact on the economy. Once again, Congress proves that it knows nothing about job creation or economic development.

You may not necessarily care if tours of the White House have been scrapped or that certain national parks will be closed. However, the “rolling impact” as described by the Obama Administration will ultimately be catastrophic for the 99 Percenters. Head Start will lose about 70,000 of the 1 million slots for children of poor and working class families. Cancer clinics are already refusing Medicaid patients because there’s no money for pay for the expensive treatments. Vouchers for Section 8 housing and other housing subsidies are at a standstill. Senior citizens who depend on Meals on Wheels will have to look elsewhere for food but not at food pantries - they are also shutting down. Unemployment payments, emergency disaster assistance, scientific research grants, small business loans and more are all in peril.

This is just the beginning of the Congress’ austerity plan for America. And because the cuts will be slow and not affect all families in the same way, it is sure to become the new normal if we don’t aggressively fight back.

We are already seeing that potential sequestration damage is being adjusted as the ruling class experiences inconvenience or loss in profits.

Despite sequestration, nearly $5 billion was recently added to tighten U.S. borders over the next five years. This government has already spent about $18 billion on immigration enforcement this last fiscal year, more than all other law enforcement agencies combined. This includes the purchase of ten drones which cost $18 million each and $3000 an hour to operate. I’m not an investigative reporter but I’d bet that the drone contractor is a friend of a Congressperson or two.

When it became known that meat and poultry plants would be shut down and inspections limited, the meat and poultry lobbyists went into high gear. Congress passed a bill that allowed the Department of Agriculture to move funds around in the budget to cover returning inspectors to their jobs. Can’t have those One Percenters going out to dinner and not being able order their Kobe steaks!

In some cases, the sequestration has actually helped the corporate bloodsuckers. For example, two of the five offices in the labor department who are dealing with a backlog of mine-safety appeals will close and almost half of the attorneys hired to prosecute mine companies will be laid off in about a month. The big mining companies may not be held accountable for their criminal negligence that has led to death and injury of mineworkers. This action comes right in the middle of the United Mineworkers Union taking Peabody Coal to federal court for refusing to pay health care and other benefits.

Congress needs to hear from us in a powerful and organized way, demanding that they come up with a humane and balanced approach to these cuts. Tell them you know they exempted their salaries from the knife but millions of Americans will be adversely affected by the sequestration as the various agencies implement their budget decisions. Outline how you think the money for drones at the borders could be better spent. Let them know that you already anticipate there’s going to be an outcry for more money to the War on Terror coffers in the wake of the Boston bombing. Tell them that you are part of a wave of citizens engaging in democratizing government budgets so that the real needs of the majority of people are met and not a hand full of elites getting goodies at taxpayers’ expense.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, is the leader of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the Black Radical Congress National Organizer. Additionally, she is an Alston-Bannerman Fellow. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It – A Chronicle of Struggle. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.

May 02, 2013 -Issue 515

BlackCommentator.com artist/cartoonist Charles E. "Chuck" Siler's works feature a variety of themes ranging from New Orleans' lively and unique jazz scene to its lively and equally unique political scene. He uses his art and political cartoons to comment on life's complexities, warts and beauty marks.

His creations include fine watercolors and acrylics and pen and ink cartoons. His cartoons are featured on a regular basis in The Louisiana Weekly.

A Katrina evacuee, Siler has spoken on New Orleans history across the USA at universities and culural events.

Click here to contact Mr. Siler

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

In the past four decades, 142 men and women were liberated from death row because they were innocent. Given that 1,328 people have been executed in the U.S. since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, it means that there is one death row survivor for every ten prisoners that have been executed.

Surely, many would be surprised at the high odds of innocent people being executed, which speaks to a criminal justice system riddled with problems, including witness misidentification, prosecutorial misconduct, incompetent lawyering, raw racism and class bias. Perhaps we’ll never know how many more innocent people have met their demise by way of the hangman’s noose, firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber or lethal injection.

One of those 142 survivors is Delbert Tibbs of Chicago. Tibbs was released from Florida’s death row after spending 3 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. A former seminary student, Tibbs was traveling in Florida when he was stopped by the state police. He became a suspect in the rape of 16-year-old Cynthia Nadeau and the murder of Terry Milroy, her friend, in Fort Myers. Nadeau told the police that the killer was a 5-foot-6, dark-skinned black man with a big afro. Meanwhile, Delbert was 6-foot-3 with a light complexion and short-cropped hair. But after seeing some photos, she identified Delbert. Further, a jailhouse informant claimed Tibbs confessed to the rape and murder. An all white jury found him guilty in under two days. The informant—who was facing a life sentence for rape—later recanted, saying he lied in the hopes of securing a lenient sentence.

Tibbs is one of ten exonerated death row survivors featured in a film project called One For Ten. This unique project is a labor of love for award-winning British documentarians Will Francome and Mark Pizzey, who run ReelNice, a London-based production company. Francome authored the Mumia Abu-Jamal documentary In Prison My Whole Life, while Pizzey is a cameraman, producer and director who has worked for outlets such as BBC, ITV and the History Channel.

The ReelNice film crew are traveling across the U.S. in an RV, interviewing exonerated former death row prisoners and memorializing their experiences. And as they film each exoneree, typically in a day, they edit the raw footage the following day and upload the film online. And the project is highly interactive, relying on social media and input from the general public, who can also download the films and share with their communities, schools or organizations.

The artists providing the narration for the films include Danny Glover, Jeremy Irons, Lily Tomlin, Lewis Black, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, and Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three. Plus, the interactive documentary project has the endorsement and support of a host of individuals and human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Focus, Equal Justice USA, the Innocence Project and Witness to Innocence and others.

These stories are compelling and inspiring, but their release from prison—where they awaited execution an average of 10 years, often in solitary confinement—does not make their problems go away. Although innocent, life for them oftentimes is not rosy. At the very least, many individuals face trauma, social stigma, difficulty finding employment and the impossible task of making up for lost time. Family members and friends died while they were away. Most of all, most death row survivors receive no compensation from the government for their wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

As One For Ten shows, far more than statistics of the criminal justice system, the exonerated are real people who have survived a living nightmare. And they are here to tell you about it and teach you something in the process.

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor and Columnist, David A. Love, JD, is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty. He is, is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. and a contributor to The Huffington Post, the Grio, The Progressive Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, In These Times and Philadelphia Independent Media Center. He also blogs at davidalove.com, NewsOne, Daily Kos, and Open Salon. Click here to contact Mr. Love.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

When President Obama was first elected, in 2008, much of the world waited to see what sorts of changes he would introduce in the relationship of the US towards the rest of the planet. In fact, he was very prematurely awarded the Nobel Peace Prize based on expectations that the US would pull back from wars and bullying. Even skeptical leaders, such as the late President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Despite the hopes and prayers, this administration has done precious little to rebuild ties with countries that were threatened by the Bush administration. Case in point: Venezuela.

The most recent issue, which is highly ironic to say the least, has been the refusal of the Obama administration - at least as of the writing of this commentary - to recognize the results of the recent Venezuelan election. By a slim majority, President Nicolas Maduro won his race for office. The opposition in Venezuela cried foul, as was expected. Yet the Venezuelan elections have not been challenged by independent observers. Rather, there has been a recognition that the election results were close, a phenomenon with which we in the USA should be quite familiar.

What happened next was odd. The USA refused to recognize the results of the election claiming that there was a need for a recount. Now, let’s get this one straight. From the country that in November 2000 had an election that was stolen (Bush v Gore) and where a recount was stopped by the Supreme Court, we have the audacity to demand that another country carry out a recount? In fact, the USA is asking a country that has elections that have consistently been proven to have been clean to conduct a recount?

Despite the fine rhetoric, the Obama administration has continued the tried and true path of most US administrations in treating Latin America as if it is the backyard of the United States. Rather than recognizing the sordid history of the relationship between the USA and Latin America, whereby the US has consistently intervened politically, militarily and economically in the internal affairs of the region, the Obama administration seems to be following a path of more subtle destabilization. It has offered fine rhetoric about better relationships with the rest of the hemisphere. At the same time it has reinforced a traditional US dominationist role. A case in point was the Honduran coup of 2009 where the Obama administration first condemned the coup. This was then followed by US efforts which undermined attempts to return the rightfully elected president to office.

The behavior of the Obama administration gives every Latin American and Caribbean leader pause since, in effect, it suggests that the USA will continue to exert its influence, not through diplomacy but through implied threats. In the case of Venezuela, the failure to recognize the legitimate Venezuelan elections is tantamount to giving the signal that a coup in Venezuela would be a legitimate response.

No more nice speeches, Mr. President. If you want to act like Teddy Roosevelt, let’s be more honest.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfricaForum, and the author of “They’re Bankrupting Us” - And Twenty Other Myths about Unions. He is also the co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice, which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

Whether dropped from aircraft, shot from artillery pieces, or delivered by missile, cluster bombs can disperse dozens or even hundreds of so-called “bomblets” that can lie in fields for years, waiting for the unsuspecting child, farmer, or pastoralist to pick it up or otherwise disturb its rest.

This is what happens every day in a number of countries that have been the scenes of battles and of wars, even though the overt hostilities have ceased long ago. By one estimate, reported in Truthout.com little more than a year ago, “every 20 minutes, a landmine explodes and 50 to 100 grams of TNT blast into the victim's foot, leg and other parts of the body.” In Cambodia, where the estimate is that four million mines still wait for victims, one in 230 people have lost a leg, or more, to landmines.

The small, “anti-personnel” devices (either cluster bomblets or mines) are made to wound or kill, and they are designed to cause disruption in the daily lives of the people who have been unfortunate enough to be the targets. Most often, the targets are people who must work their fields or paddies to grow food for themselves and their small societies.

Cluster munitions were used by the U.S. in an effort to keep the North Vietnamese from sending supplies and troops to the south through Laos and Cambodia. The landscape was liberally littered with the deadly devices. A large bomb that consists of many smaller bombs was dropped and the smaller devices scatter over the land. When thousands of these bombs are dropped, it is easy to imagine what it might be like for those who must go out into the fields to grow their food. The devices harm both humans and animals. When a draft animal that is necessary for food cultivation is injured, it sharply reduces the productivity of the farmer, or makes it impossible to do the work of growing food.

Such weapons have been used in many countries since World War II and the stockpile of them around the world is staggering. According to the United States Campaign to Ban Land Mines (USCBLM), there were 40 countries and territories affected by the presence of unexploded munitions as of 2012. During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped 19 million in Cambodia, 70 million in Vietnam and 208 million in Laos, but the production of mines and cluster bombs did not end with that war. More than 70 countries stockpiled over a billion submunitions in 2012 and the United States stockpile contained at least 730 million submunitions, according to the USCBLM.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the mines targeted mostly armed forces in any conflict, but, by the end of the century, the vast majority of victims have been civilians. In fact, they have been targeted, as much as anything, to “demoralize” the enemy. According to the 2012 Cluster Munition Monitor report, “94 percent of registered casualties are civilians and 40 percent are children.”

The bomblets contain shards of plastic or small metal pieces like BB shot or small ball bearings, or some other materials that are designed to rend flesh when they explode, much like the design of the crude but effective bomb that was used in the Boston Marathon bombing a few weeks ago. It was the same devastating effect during the race that the smaller bombs inflict and the two Boston bombs killed or maimed hundreds. The panic and fear that ran through the city and, later, the nearby community of Watertown, was almost instantaneous. The lockdown was nearly complete until the two suspects were accounted for, one killed in a shootout and the other captured.

If there were several hundred thousand cluster bombs scattered about the city and suburbs, imagine the fear among the people. They would be afraid to go to their jobs, to the supermarket, to the drug store, or to their churches, synagogues or mosques. The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines says, “It is estimated that there are 500,000 survivors of accidents caused by landmines, cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war worldwide. In addition, millions of people live under the threat of those weapons, sometimes decades after (the) conflict.” In 2012, there were 40 countries and territories affected by the presence of land mines or cluster bombs.

For the people who live in those areas, especially where the bomblets lie most thickly, they are careful when they go to the well or river for water, or when they leave home to tend their fields or rice paddies, or when they go into the forest for firewood or wood to build a shelter for themselves or their livestock. There is great fear, but they must carry on their normal day’s work. Truthout noted in 2011: “With landmines supplied by China, the Khmer Rouge subsequently mined rice paddies and country paths used by Cambodian peasants to punish and starve them.”

The Khmer Rouge laid their deadly devices in the 1970s, into the 1980s during the civil war and the killing fields. Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined areas in the world, by some estimates, with as many as 10 million mines, in a country of 11.5 million people. The Cambodian Mine Action Center estimates that there are 4-6 million mines. Tourists are warned by the same agency: “…it is always wise to talk to local people before going off for a walk in remote areas, particularly forested areas. Cambodia is not yet a country where backpacking in the mountains is a good idea. Sticking to the normal tourist circuits is fine, but if you want to rent a motorcycle and ride the back roads of Siem Reap or Battambang provinces you must ask about mine safety first. Similarly, if one wants to cross the border from Thailand anywhere but the open crossing points on main roadways, then you need to consult with local people about particular pathways.”

Such is the fear generated by the seeding of the countryside with hundreds of thousands or millions of mines and cluster bombs. The two are somewhat different, but the effects are the same and, generally, children are the most pathetic victims of the explosions. It’s hard to imagine dealing with unseen and unheard devices that kill randomly along roads, in fields, and sometimes around places of worship. Virtually everywhere. It would not be surprising that there would be a high level of post-traumatic-stress disorder among people who live with the possibility of being blown up at any time, on any day.

It is the same fear of the people who suffered through the horror of the Boston Marathon bombing. Many of its victims will be seeking treatment for PTSD, but for many in the world’s mined nations, there is no treatment, either emotional or mental or physical, such as a child who, limb sewed up at the end, has to learn to live and work on a crutch made of a tree branch.

A majority of the world’s nations have signed a convention that prohibits the production, sale, distribution, and use of cluster and landmine munitions, but some of the countries with the largest economies and militaries have not signed it. Among the non-signers are the U.S., Russia, China, India and most Middle Eastern states.

The cost of manufacturing so-called submunitions is cheap, $3 to $30 each, but the cost to detect them and destroy them is expensive, with the United Nations estimating that, at the current rate, “it will take 1,100 years to clear all remaining landmines.” This would be at a cost of some $33 billion, if no new mines are manufactured, and if they are not used. It is a daunting task and the burden seems to be on the peoples of the world who can least afford to deal with such mayhem, peasant farmers, indigenous tribes, pastoralists, and those who live a subsistence life.

There are groups worldwide which are attempting to bring the production and use of cluster bombs and landmines to a halt, but the going is tough for them. The power of the weapons manufacturers is great and the corporate chiefs have the ear of the leaders of the most powerful governments, the places where these weapons are produced.

These nations do not make war against each other. Rather, they use the weapons against those who have no means to resist and who suffer the most from their use. A human rights group has said that the U.S. has not used cluster bombs since 2003 (think Iraq War). Well, that’s good, but not signing the agreement not to produce, sell, distribute, or use cluster bombs allows American arms manufacturers to continue to produce them.

The U.S. will sign the agreement when the American people demand that they do, knowing that people just like them would be the targets of cluster and landmine munitions.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

In the “creases” and “folds” of “America’s” Weltanschauung, hidden tendencies are encouraged and perspectives exist that are downright nasty. These mental viruses (memes), these shades that cast shadows over clear consciousness, and these mind-sight-blinkers often go unnoticed and overlooked for hundreds of years. They shape how we see the world and what we “know” of the real world. Sometimes we are lucky enough to find the paths that trace the development of these intellectual-cultural-fur-balls and sometimes we have the chance to clean up our “mental guts.” Often these discoveries are made at times of great crisis. And too infrequently, even then, elements remain hidden that threaten us at our foundations. Almost always, the lethal conflicts that divide us arise from the often tangled roots of these foundational mental memes.

What am I talking about?

Let me unveil the latest example that I am aware of as follows. How do we perceive or measure human happiness and society’s progress towards improving such? This concept is almost permanently encrusted with memes that lead to really nasty results, paralyzed thinking, and a strong sense of hopelessness that change will ever occur. An off-world alien would undoubtedly be flabbergasted that a sentient species could be so thoroughly tangled up over the fundamental question of species happiness and health. Too many of us are still so “deafened and blinded” by misaligned memes that we believe that slavery can be good for a people in any circumstances! Too many believe that it is OK to snatch a people’s children, transport them hundreds of miles, punish them to keep them from speaking their language, and indoctrinate them with self-deprecating, foreign understandings and behaviors. Too many still believe that the accumulation of material things with limited utility beyond acquisition is a measure of happiness and success. Currently nearly every nation on the planet uses calculations of societal well being that measures the material accumulation in the wake of extreme misery and disaster, the material accumulation necessary to fulfill basic needs, and the material accumulation in excess of basic needs equally. No distinction is made among these three ends for accumulation and the direct measures of health and well being are essentially ignored. This is a glaring example of our seeming total capture by the memes of Western culture as we tumble toward species extinction.

I am, of course, talking about an aspect of rapacious global capitalism. And I join with the readers of these pages in calling for the elimination of this bizarre operational belief system that is founded on power over others, the unreality of infinite planetary materiality, and an unending reliance on human creativity to find brief paths to avoid disaster. Capitalism evolved from mercantilism which evolved from feudalism with a carefully structured perception of humankind’s improvement that hid the inhuman atrocities. That is why opposition to capitalism is not sufficient for turning us in a fundamentally new direction. We must reach back in time and reach deep down to those fur-balls of memes that are entangled in the foundations of our Weltanschauung and that blind and deafen us to the futility of our liberal (less radical) prescriptions. Otherwise we are libel to reinvent the horrors in any new liberal formation. I was recently pleased and surprised to find a historical look at the innards of capitalism - accounting - that called for radical restructuring of our national measurements of societal health.

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance by Jane Gleeson-White was the book that presented this historical review of accounting. One would think that the history of business accounting would be very, very boring and of no importance. So I thought also, except for two experiences that hooked me into reading this history. Experience has taught me that it is often the boring stuff that contains the deepest hidden meme entanglements that trip us up. In the murky pool of cultural beliefs that we think are settled, certain, and resolved lurks these misused or misaligned memes. I also - while channel surfing - happened on to CSPAN’s Book TV series where author Gleeson-White was talking. I paused to watch a young Caucasian woman from Australia talk about ancient Venice. A number of threads of operational historical memes crossed.

Ms. Gleeson-White writes about the mid-Thirteenth Century when “…Venice put the demands of commerce high above the rule of the Church.” The Holy Roman Catholic Church stood, ostensibly, in opposition to the sin of usury (making money off money) and rallied all of Christendom to fight the Islamic power of the time, the Ottoman Turks who had captured the great Mediterranean trading center of Constantinople. The Church invoked frequent Crusades (Jihads) against the Islamic world and Christian knights and armies traveled through Northern Italy leaving payments and war booty on the way South and again on their return. The Venetian Republic (a city state) made peace with the Ottoman Empire and handsomely benefited from trading between the warring Christian and Islamic power centers. Using the methods of Arabic traders and the mathematical accounting efficiency of calculating with Arabic numerology - as opposed to the clumsiness of Roman numerology - the Venetians not only prospered; they became a commercial learning center that drew students from all over the known world. At its most basic, international global trading is rooted in cultural war.

The book, Double Entry, points to the teaching of Luca Pacioli as the source for the understanding “that the purpose of every merchant is ‘to make a lawful and reasonable profit so as to keep up his business.’” In that era “when this was not so self-evident the tools for calculating profit - especially the Venetian bookkeeping system - were not widely used.” The mystery of Arabic numerology was encapsulated in the religious fervor for salvation and well being that was being squandered by the corruption that was present in the Medici dominated Catholic Church, positively coloring the fabulous success of Venetian merchants. These newly successful merchants lavished riches on the Church and on artists such as Leonardo di Vinci and on the newly invented printing presses that spread their commercial “gospel” far and wide. It signaled the birth of a powerful competing value system that enveloped the Church’s rejection of science and offered the salvation of pre-death status in society and riches based on the accumulation of materiality.

The Holy Roman Church itself became “drunk” with imperialism, wars, and decadence. It turned its back on “Sabbath economics” and the First Century Christian abhorrence for suppression of the poor. Christianity in much of Medieval Europe regarded charging any interest for loans as sinful. This abhorrence for taking advantage of the poor has universality. “Some of the earliest known condemnations of usury come from the Vedic texts of India. Similar condemnations are found in religious texts from Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” (Wikipedia) Still today, Islam in many parts of the world forbids the application of interest. Profit, which is a form of interest, is foundationally a sin. Rapacious global capitalism has proven itself sinful.

Ms. Gleeson-White’s book goes on to trace the evolution of double entry bookkeeping (accounting) to its ignoble status today, what with LIBOR, Enron, AIG, etc. The book begins and ends with a lament for an alternative calculation for measuring human happiness and worth other than that derivative of Double Entry accounting, the Gross National Product or the Domestic National Product. No one should in any way confuse national prosperity with the GNP. A misstep 600 years old ought not to be influencing us today. No congressperson, especially not Keith Ellison, need feel bad that cuts in the U.S. national defense spending means a reduction in the GNP since the GNP is a misreading of national well being and because defense spending is the type of government spending that has the lowest multiplier rate of spinoff benefits to other parts of the economy. There are a number of other measurements available but it will take more of us unmasking the tangled memes buried deep within our psyches for us to use them and hear them with understanding. It is time to tell the whole truth.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Wilson Riles, is a former Oakland, CA City Council Member. Click here to contact Mr. Riles.

May 02, 2013 -Issue 515

The professional sports world has been waiting for a Jason Collins moment - a gay athlete currently playing in a major league to come out publicly. What you may not know is that the subtext is that it was hoped the moment would star an African American male.

The African American community, let alone the sports world, desperately needed an openly gay current male professional player.

Collins, who deliberately wore the jersey number, "98," to honor slain gay student Matthew Shepard during the 2012 - 13 NBA season, is a 7' 0" center for the Washington Wizards, a former Boston Celtic, and is also African American. Closeted for all of his professional playing life, until now, Collins told "Sports Illustrated," why he finally came out.

"I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, my old roommate at Stanford and now a Massachusetts congressman, told me he had just marched in Boston's 2012 Gay Pride Parade. I'm seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy....I wanted to do the right thing and not hide anymore."

LGBTQ athletes must constantly monitor how they are being perceived by teammates, coaches, endorsers and the media in order to avoid suspicion. They are expected to maintain a public silence and decorum so that their identity does not tarnish the rest of the team.

In what will now hopefully become the last closet where LGBTQ hide their sexual orientation, thanks to Collins, the sports world's hyper-masculine and testosterone-driven milieu might actually begin to loosen its homophobic hold, especially among black athletes.

Doc Rivers, coach of the Boston Celtics and African American, is revered among black athletes.

Having coached Collins for 32 games before Collins was traded to the Washington Wizard, Doc Rivers remarks help spread a message of acceptance.

"I'm really proud of Jason. He still can play. He'll be active in our league, I hope, and we can get by this - get past this. I think it would be terrific for the league. More than anything, it would just be terrific for mankind, my gosh."

In terms of when and how you come out personally, timing is everything. So, too, in coming out professionally.

The statement, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay” by Collins in the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated is as momentous as renown comedienne Ellen DeGeneres' quote "Yep, I’m Gay" appeared on the cover of the April 14, 1997 issue of "Time Magazine."

Although the time span between the two statements is 16 years, and many more advances and civil rights have been afforded to us lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans, we know we're still a nation grappling with the issue.

While both Collins and DeGeneres give a public face and personal testimonies of their struggle of being closeted about their sexual orientation, their messages reach and resonate within only certain pockets of the American population and not others. And within those pockets of the American populace, the reprisal and applause they also receive for coming out still fracture along several fault lines, with professional sports being one of them.

When Ellen so boldly came out in 1997 she received a torrent of praises from the LGBTQ community and our allies. But "her career puttered and stalled out for the three years following her coming out," and her impact did little for both the world of sports and for many straight and LGBTQ in the African American community in understanding the deleterious effects of homophobia. (It was still being argued, as now, in many African American communities that homosexuality is a "white disease" and not a civil right.)

In the sports world most women athletes, even today, are assumed to either be lesbians and/ or unfeminine. For example, in many African American communities Olympic basketball player Lisa Leslie was perceived to be a “girly-girly;” therefore, not a lesbian, but certainly a weak and non-aggressive player. Tennis phenoms, the William Sisters, are aggressive players but too muscular, especially Serena, to be seen as feminine.

LBT women in professional sports have come out of the closet while playing, at least, two decades before the "Jason Collins watershed moment."

While race plays a factor in the African American community coming to grips with its homophobia, especially in the world of sports, so, too, does gender.

Case in point: Just last month, Brittney Griner, also an African American like Collins, is a 6-foot-8, three-time All-America center and was the number one pick in the WNBA draft announced she was a lesbian. It wasn’t considered a big news story.

In 1997, a pregnant Sheryl Swoopes - three-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time MVP of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) - promoting a heterosexual face for the WNBA was the cover-girl for the premiere issue of "Sports Illustrated Women." At the time Swoopes was married to her male high school sweetheart. That was considered a big news story. But so too in 2005, when Swoopes came out as a lesbian, becoming the second in the WNBA, and endorsed the lesbian travel company "Olivia." She was at the time partnered with Alisa Scott, an assistant coach for the Houston Comets that Sheryl played for from 1997- -2007. And in 2011, it was another big news story because she was with a male.

To incurable homophobes, especially of the fundamentalist Christian variety, who pedal their "nurture vs. nature" rhetoric that homosexuality is curable with reparative therapies, they saw Swoopes as the prodigal daughter who had finally found her way home to Jesus.

Many of my heterosexual African American brothers, Chris Unclesho, the man Swoopes was then engaged to marry, was the MAN! A bona fide "dyke whisperer" who had turned Swoopes out to the sexual joys of what it is to be with a man.

But long before Swoopes, Griner and Collins, both tennis greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova came out in 1981.

Martina was publicly taunted for not only being a lesbian but for also not bringing femininity and beauty to her game. Her muscular physique and supposedly masculine appearance killed not only sponsor endorsements but also attempted to kill her spirit in playing the game.

With the sports world celebrating Collins news, Navratilova has joined in voicing her joy in an op-ed she wrote for SI.com.

"Now that Jason Collins has come out, he is the proverbial game-changer. One of the last bastions of homophobia has been challenged. How many LGBT kids, once closeted, are now more likely to pursue a team sport and won't be scared away by a straight culture? Collins has led the way to freedom. Yes, freedom - because that closet is completely and utterly suffocating. It's only when you come out that you can breathe properly."

Navratilova is correct in stating that Collins is a "game-changer," because he stands on all the LGBTQ shoulders in sports before him.

Truth be told, Collins is not the first professional gay or black athlete to come out. He’s not even the first professional athlete to come out while playing.

But in a sports world that has become overwhelmingly shaped by African American male players and masculinity, thr Collins coming out celebration has everything to do with timing, gender, race and many more straight brothers embracing their gay brethren.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Click here to contact the Rev. Monroe.

May 02, 2013 -Issue 515

BlackCommentator.com cartoonist/artist Eric Garcia produces "historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about contemporary issues”. That’s how Garcia describes his artwork. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media, from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to sculpture installations, Garcia’s art has a common goal of educating and challenging. Click here to contact brother Eric. His website is southvalleyart.com. Follow Eric on twitter garciaink@twitter.com or friend Eric J. Garcia on facebook.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

Special Note: My family and I would like to thank all of you who expressed your love and support for the passing into eternity of my father Walter F. Worrill. Your support lifted our spirits.

Since the untimely transition of Malcolm X in 1965, movement forces throughout the world have consistently commemorated his birthday. Malcolm X was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska.

It was on February 21, 1965 that Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, New York by forces that were trying to stop his impact on our movement. They were not successful. He will forever remain our “Shining Black Prince.”

Malcolm X is a man who should be studied carefully in our efforts to examine a critical period in our history - the 1960s. For it was during this period that Malcolm X became an internationally known and respected African in America leader, whose ideas were widely discussed and debated.

It was through the Nation of Islam, under the leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that Malcolm X was given an opportunity to develop his tremendous talents as a teacher, researcher, orator, and organizer.
Malcolm X joined the Nation of Islam while in prison in 1952. After his release in the mid 1950s, Malcolm X became a full–time minister for the Nation of Islam that became one of the most important organizations in the history of African in America, people. From his main base in Harlem, at Mosque Number 7, he launched his talents on the world.

Malcolm X was a revolutionary who presented a model of Black manhood that shook the world. When Malcolm X finally left the Nation of Islam, because of internal differences, he decided to take his first trip to Mother Africa. Malcolm spent five weeks in Africa, from April 13th to May 21st, 1964.

This trip helped reestablish our links with the movement to reclaim “Africa for the Africans.” Malcolm met many of the leaders and people of Africa. He visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Nigeria, Ghana, Monrovia, Liberia, Senegal, Tanzania, Guinea, Morocco, and Algeria.

This trip and subsequent trips abroad helped Malcolm sharpen his understanding of the worldwide system of white supremacy as the number one enemy of African people throughout the world. This has not changed.
After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm began to broaden his organizing strategies by attempting to reach out and work with many of the more established civil rights organizations and movement tendencies to a common organizational vehicle. Malcolm began building this vehicle through his establishment of the Organization for Afro–American Unity (OAAU).

Malcolm felt that a United Front was the necessary mechanism by which the political consciousness of African people in America could be raised. Also, he felt that this United Front would be the common voice we needed to represent the Black Liberation movement in this country. Many of us are still working to build this United Front concept of organizing toward our liberation in America.

In the spirit of Malcolm, let us summarize his contributions:

1. Malcolm X was a concrete example that if you discipline yourself and find a new outlook on life you can transform your behavior.

2. From 1952 - 1963, Malcolm X helped the Honorable Elijah Muhammad build the Nation of Islam into a powerful force.

3. During this same period, Malcolm became the spokesman for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, and thus, became a spokesman for the Black Nationalist Movement in one of the most important periods in our history - the period of the mid 1950s through the 1960s.

4. In this role, Malcolm articulated many important concepts and ideas that helped strengthen the Black Nationalist Movement in this country, as well as, the Civil Rights Movement. His speech, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” still rings in our ears. His conception of the role of “House Negroes” vs. “Field Negroes” is still with us today. And his coining he phrase, “By Any Means Necessary” are just a few of the ideas and concepts that concretely impacted the Black movement.

5. Malcolm X defined Black Nationalism in simple terminology that appealed to the Black masses when he said, “the political philosophy of Black nationalism is that Blacks should control the politics and politicians in our own community... The economic philosophy of Black Nationalism must be designed to re–educate our community to the importance of controlling the economy in which we live by owning and operating the businesses. The social philosophy of Black nationalism is we must become socially mature enough to realize the responsibility on us to elevate the conditions and standards of our community to a higher level.”

6. Malcolm X linked the Black struggle in this country with the struggle of African people around the world.

7. Malcolm helped shape Black peoples pride in themselves and by so doing, he exposed, by teaching, that the greatest crime of white people was they taught us to hate ourselves. It was Malcolm’s spirit that generated the Black Pride, Black Studies, and Black Power phases of our movement.

So, on the one hand, Malcolm helped internationalize our struggle and on the other hand, he linked it up to the mass struggle and issues that faced our people in America. By taking this approach, Malcolm was able to provide a basis for the continued historical efforts to build worldwide African unity.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

The Republican’s success, in the intentional blocking of gun control legislation, has some very significant ramifications for the Obama policy agenda. It was painful to watch our president have to publicly scold Congress for failing to do something the whole nation wanted and needed, gun control legislation. When you can shoot a Congresswoman, shoot up a theater and 20 elementary school children and you still can’t get legislation out of Congress, something is wrong with the system. Government is broken. It is too simplistic to just say it’s a faction of Congress thumbing its nose up at President Obama. It’s deeper than that.

We know having war weapons circulating in our society is more than dangerous. It’s simply reckless. At the very time we’re having a national conversation about the re-emergence of terrorism with the Boston bombing, the failures of intelligence and the concern of the weaponry that was in possession of the bombers has alarmed the nation, Congress’ “gang of eight” were successful in getting more stringent background checks filibustered. The conversation went from an assault weapon bans to background checks to no legislation, at all, in four short months.

To quote President Obama, “Shame on Congress.”

Now the same ones that blocked gun reform have turned their attention to the immigration debate. And with the Boston bombers having been Russian immigrants, who flew completely under the radar of homeland security, the immigration debate has now become much more complicated. “It’s complicated” is now more than just a Facebook status designation.

Life is complicated enough without having interlopers and obstructionists in the mix. Nothing is our society is clearly “just black or white” anymore, gun control and immigration, included. Both represent the two biggest complications facing American society, yet we don’t know how to get at it because you have so many people seeking to twist the conversation and disrupt the mix for commonsense solutions. Mastering the politics of grand distraction make those who should be irrelevant to a process, the center of the discussion. It’s easier to block something than to make something happen. Congress has been infiltrated with “blockers.”

Just like communities have their interlopers and obstructionists (blockers) misrepresenting complicated scenarios, Congress has its interlopers and obstructionists misrepresenting already complicated policy discussions, like gun control and immigration. Ideological “radicalism” is as dangerous in Congress as religious radicalism is to the larger society. Radicalism, in and of itself, represents a grand distortion of very real issues in our society. We end up talking more about the distortions than about the underlining issues that caused the problem. Radicals become grand distractors, who often succeed at diverting attention away from the key issues to some ancillary point that collapses the focus needed to address real problems. People who should be ancillary to the process become intertwined in the conversation - not to solve the problem, but to twist the problem even further - adding unneeded and unnecessary complications to the mix.

That’s what interlopers do - distract and disrupt, not resolve. That’s where we are right now. The “gang of eight” was successful in blocking background checks. And they’re bragging about it. So guns that shouldn’t even be in our society, are still for sale and easily accessed, as the Boston bombers demonstrated. Well, how does that affect immigration reform?

The nation still hasn’t connected the dots from September 11th (12 years ago). Terrorism has been so disproportionately intermixed with war and militarism, that the focus has been on Middle Eastern and Islamic populations. So much so that domestic terrorists who “don’t fit the profile” move freely throughout society. Immigration has been disproportionately focused on keeping illegal Latinos (and Haitians) out of the country. Whether it’s a valid conversation or not, it has been the dominant discussion.

Further, the immigration debate intersects with homeland security concerns that those who migrate from the Middle East, where animus toward Americans is now at its highest. The cultural resistance toward Arabs, Iraqis, Iranians, Sihks, East Indians, Armanians has caused Americans to develop “phobias” beyond reason. Eastern Europeans have flown below the radar in the immigration debate. The alleged Boston bombers were Russian. They were documented. They were considered “acceptable immigrants.” Yet, they were radicals who moved between Russia, the U.S. and others countries quite freely, and though involved in “suspicious activity,” weren’t considered a national threat. Simply put, the government was looking in the wrong places and were profiling - not the wrong people but - people who fit the so-called “dark-skinned” theories to which terrorism has most been constructed around.

The immigration debate will now take a twist and Congress’ gang of eight stand ready to interlope themselves in the debate in a way that will sideline any pragmatic approach to immigration reform.
The border security conversation that has blocked the President’s “pathway to citizenship” policy approach on immigration reform in the past, will now reappear. They are already suggesting that the President’s bill undermines national security. How do you argue against that in the aftermath of the Boston bombings? Apples and oranges have just been mixed.

Like I said, immigration reform just became more complicated. The White House now needs to put, “It’s Complicated” on its Facebook status of its relationship on immigration reform.

Because it is.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of REAL EYEZ: Race, Reality and Politics In 21st Century Popular Culture and Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Twitter @dranthonysamad. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

-George Orwell, 1984

Liberals have traditionally endorsed empire. They have occupied the forefront of imperial ambition...

-Neil Smith, The Endgame of Globalization

Today, corporate power and corporate think rule at most of the major universities in the United States. University administrators, donning tuxedos, roll out the red carpet, and close deals with the corporate world across polished conference tables, behind closed doors. Campuses like the University of Wisconsin-Madison are almost hard to find amidst the neon corporate logos and luxury highrises. The atmosphere is a far cry from that of 1967 when students protested the presence of Dow Chemical and its development of napalm-b used during the Vietnam War.

Those days in October 1967 are gone. Welcome progress!

According to an investigative report by Allen Ruff and Steve Horn, “‘Great Game’ Part One: The World Bank Brings Nazarbayev University to Kazakhstan,” (Counterpunch, December 13, 2012), the University of Wisconsin-Madison has entered into a partnership “with the authoritarian regime in Kazakhstan under the dictatorial rule of the country’s ‘Leader for Life,’ Nursultan Nazarbayev.” (Allen Ruff is a US historian and independent writer on foreign policy issues. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Steve Horn is a Madison, WI-based freelance investigative journalist and Research Fellow at DeSmogBlog.)

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is not alone. The World Bank brokered and “sealed deals” with “ten major U.S. and British universities and scientific research institutes,” “tasked to design and guide the specialized colleges at the country’s newly constructed showcase university” - the “multi-billion dollar Nazarbayev University. These institutions include Harvard University, Duke University, the University of Chicago-affiliated Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of California’s Lawrence Berkeley-Laboratory (U.S. campuses). As Ruff and Horn point out, these are institutions that “portray themselves as bulwarks of academic freedom of expression and inquiry, liberal tolerance, ‘ethical conduct’ and the rule of law.”

At the launching of the new Nazarbayev University (NU) in 2010, the ruler for life expressed his wish that young people study at NU: Yes, he agreed to the campus receiving his namesake - “so don’t let me down.”

The year before Ruff and Horn wrote this expose, on December 15, 2011, “Kazakhstan state security forces opened fire with U.S.-supplied weapons on oil workers on strike.” They dared to demand an increase in wages and better working conditions, according to Ruff and Horn. Fifteen workers were killed and another 70 wounded (Ruff and Horn).

On that same day, the day U.S.-supplied weapons were employed to mow down striking workers, “Western faculty members and administrators” were in Astana, Kazakhstan to shake hands with their new partners outside the new campus.

Unfortunately, this is no longer shocking. The U.S., as principle, shakes hands with dictators, supplies weapons to oppressive regimes, while it educates the world on how a true democracy operates. U.S. educational institutions have always been party to the spread of this democracy aboard. Partnerships and contracts between these educational institutions and U.S.-government / corporate / capitalist regime, has been long in the making. In fact, I would suggest it is rather euphemistic to speak of “partnerships” when it is really about corporate domination here and aboard.

This is a “partnership” made possible through capitalism’s representatives: World Bank, U.S. Empire, and the Willing, or should I say, the eager greedy looking to expand possibilities for profits. This is not about education, except as these institutions clone the next generations that will do their part to wheel and deal on behalf of capitalism.

As Ruff and Horn discuss at length, Kazakhstan has noted human rights violations, including those sighted by (of all things) “the U.S. State Department” in 2011, in which it listed the country’s “significant” offenses, including “restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; and lack of an independent judiciary and due process, especially in dealing with pervasive corruption and law enforcement and judicial abuse.”

Seems familiar!

Journalists critical of the government are “jailed and physically attacked.”

Again, sounds familiar! U.S.-sponsored one world approach to resistance of any kind. In the meantime, “education” goes on.

Ruff and Horn are particularly disturbed that the University of Wisconsin administration has justified its “partnership” with the Kazakhstan regime, citing the “Wisconsin Idea” as the primary motivation.

This is the first time I heard of the Wisconsin Idea, and I have taught at three UW campuses since 2000, prior to be blacklisted in 2006. In “partnership” with the U.S. Empire, I would say it is similar to the “American Dream” - it looks good on paper, sounds good in a lofty rhetorical speeches, but try finding it on the ground. I had to look up a definition of this Wisconsin Idea.

The Wisconsin Idea is apparently a Progressive-Era “political policy” to “foster public universities’ contributions to the state.” Under the Wisconsin Idea, these public educational institutions are suppose to direct research “at solving problems that are important to the state” and to conduct “outreach activities.” The Wisconsin Idea represents the state “as the laboratory of democracy.” The universities “embraced” the Wisconsin Idea and vowed to “solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state.” (Wiki-Pedia, and Wisconsin Historical Society).

On April 16, 2012, The Badger Herald cited the criticism waged by Ruff and Horn against the University of Wisconsin and its betrayal of the Wisconsin Idea. It also cited the university’s response: Not only will this partnership allow the campus to “spread the ‘Wisconsin Idea’ globally,” but “it would be a fitting extension of the ‘Wisconsin Idea’ for universities all over the world to dedicate themselves to doing work beyond the classroom that addresses the needs and concerns of their regions,’” according to Bill Graf, coordinator of the Wisconsin Idea Project.

And expansion of the Wisconsin Idea or the American Dream or Bush II’s “freedom,” and Obama’s “just wars,” is the American Way! It certainly is the corporate / capitalists way of operating globally!

I know Allen Ruff. He is a long-time activist in Madison, Wisconsin, and I am grateful for this report from Ruff and Horn.

But here is my take on this story. The University of Wisconsin’s “embrace” of the Wisconsin Idea is as problematic as its current project to “spread” the Wisconsin Idea in Kazakhstan.

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s 2011 Headcount of Faculty and Staff by Gender and Race/Ethnicity, there are a total of 2,173 faculty but 49 are Black (23 women and 26 men) and 76 are Brown. The campus has 101 Blacks serving as academic staff. In terms of the administration, there are 25 Blacks in the category of executives/directors/administrators.

As of 2010, 7.3% of the Madison population is Black, only 0.4 is Indigenous, while 78.9% is white (U.S. Census).

If you cannot find the Wisconsin Idea on the ground at the University or at other workplace (Blacks are barely hired here), look to the Wisconsin prisons.

On April 24, 2013, National Public Radio, NPR (“Why Does Wisconsin Lock Up More Black Men Than Any Other State”) ran a story on Wisconsin and its Black prison population. Blacks make up 6.5% of the state’s population, (“national average 6.7%”), but “about 1 in 8 black men of working age (13 percent) are in state prisons or jails.” This, from a new study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the NPR report states. The study “found that the state has the highest percentage of incarcerated black men in the country.”

Wisconsin incarcerates Black men at the rate of 12.8%. Yet, out of 42, 595 students enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 2012-2013 only 1220 are Black. Read more here.

The state of Wisconsin also “leads the nation in the percentage” of Indigenous men “residing behind bars; 1 in 13” Indigenous men are incarcerated in the state (NPR).

Most of this incarcerated population representing the Black, Brown, and Red humanity in Wisconsin are serving time for non-violent and drug-related offenses.

And do not for a minute suspect that the predominantly white population of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison smoke marijuana or engage in any illegal drug use!

It may seem that we are a long way from Kazakhstan and the celebration of its relationship with the University of Wisconsin. But we are not. You could say that the Wisconsin Idea went astray in Kazakhstan. But did it? Was it only with these “strategic contracts” in a “dictatorial” country that we find this Progressive-Era political policy evaporated?

Was the Wisconsin Idea ever intended to serve all the citizens of Wisconsin? Or was it no more than the “American Dream,” and we know the reality of that myth for Black Americans.

At any rate, corporate / capitalist America wins! It spreads its laboratories of democracy, whether it indoctrinates or imprisons.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has a Doctorate in Modern American Literature/Cultural Theory. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

After 48 hours of the harrowing incident in the Boston marathon, a fertilizer plant explosion wiped out a street in West Texas killing 15 people and an estimated two hundred men, women and children injured with broken bones, burns, wounds and head trauma. There were 75 homes damaged beyond repair as well as a 50-unit apartment complex reduced to sticks and stones. This means, more than a hundred families are homeless. There was no report or news coverage on how many were children under five years old who do not have the safety and security of their home and family. There was no report or news coverage of what happened to the residents of the nursing home whose building was severely damaged from the blast. Most of these nursing home residents are elderly and disabled requiring long term nursing care.

The community in West Texas is small with a population of roughly 2,800 people. They were all fleeing for their lives during the blast. Most of the emergency responders felt it was their last call. They bravely rushed through the smoke and fire to save lives. Unfortunately, nobody cheered for them. The streets were empty. No media coverage to highlight their heroic deeds.

Every time I turned on the TV to watch the news, the story of the two brothers suspected to be responsible for the Boston bombing appeared on my screen even if I switched channels. I can hardly get some stories from the Texas explosion and I have to search the Internet for more information and stories about the blast. It struck me how the coverage of the Texas explosion was dwarfed in comparison to the Boston bombing incident which, by the way, has a billion hits on Google news while the Texas explosion got only a bit over a hundred thousand hits.

I began to wonder whether we are indeed losing interest on human lives and the suffering of other people. Have we been so dehumanized that we are becoming more detached from our souls where compassion resides? It looks like the chase and capture of the suspects of the Boston bombing is more interesting and even entertaining, like a movie, than the human interest story of a small, unheard of community in Texas. On the other hand, I also wonder if we have lost our minds to the media and allowed them to shape our perception of reality and dictate our reactions to certain events through subliminal conditioning. Thoughts?

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Margaret Rose Dominado is a nurse from the Philippines withthree decades of professional experience in public health and nursingeducation. Earned her Master of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.) degree fromthe University of Phoenix with a membership to the Honor Society ofNursing-Sigma Theta Tau International. Actively involved with Katarungan - International Center for Peace, Justice and Human Rights in the Philippines based in Washington, D.C. Click here to contact Ms. Dominado.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

“I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

- Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

Much of the leadership of the so-called 'progressives' in the U.S. has for the past five years amply and repeatedly demonstrated what can only be accurately described as crass opportunism and hypocrisy.

When U.S. wars of imperialism and aggression, predicated upon lies, were being waged by the George W. Bush regime, so-called 'progressives' were loudly denouncing such polices. But ever since the onslaught of the double-talking, war mongering, drone man, “Kill List' Barack Obama and his Democrat and Republican minions, their silence has been deafening and their ongoing complicity in this regard, against everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth can only be described as despicable.

In this year of 2013, Barack Obama, with the continuing silence and complicity of much of the leadership of so-called progressives in the U.S. has already gone far beyond the egregious actions of his predecessors in the White House. Progressives are hypocritically rationalizing perpetual U.S. wars, drones, Guantanamo, the NDAA, Obama's 'Kill List,' intense government subterfuge & entrapment, outrageous corporate hegemony, and the flagrant disregard for civil liberties, human rights, the U.S. Constitution, and international law. These so-called progressives in this nation are in fact helping to facilitate the veiled, velvet-gloved de facto U.S. fascism in 'black face' of Barack Obama.

This complicity on the part of many so-called progressives in this nation did not begin in 2013. It has been ongoing for years now. In the November, 2009, Born Black Magazine article titled, Silence of the Lambs? Liberal Hypocrisy and the Complicity of the Left, I wrote in relevant part, “In fact, the black elite (working in conjunction with the white elite) are key linchpins for the deepening unemployment, economic oppression, and disenfranchisement of the masses of everyday Black people, and indeed all economically oppressed and disenfranchised people. None of this is mere happenstance. It is ever so deliberate.”

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made crystal clear, “There is a time when silence is betrayal.” The silence and betrayal by 'progressives' in their onerous and hypocritical support for the constant outrages against everyday people, nationally and globally, by the Obama/Biden regime speaks volumes as to how incredibly disingenuous and dangerous they actually are. These supposed progressives are not progressive at all. They are opportunistic frauds and hypocrites – enemies of the ordinary everyday struggling Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of this nation and world.

We must remember the words of Malcolm X, when he said, “I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” The leadership of the fake progressives in this nation are not “for truth” nor are they “for justice.” They are for themselves, and certainly not for “humanity as a whole.”

Silence is complicity and it really is betrayal – betrayal of the aspirations and legitimate needs of everyday people. Our task is to be true to principles in this long and protracted people's struggle. It is time to creatively build a conscious people's movement that is steeped firmly in principles that is an integral part of the everyday people's in this nation that “benefits humanity as a whole.”

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward...!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to view Larry’s interview of October 26, 2012. Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

More about Albert Einstein

May 02, 2013 - Issue 515

Doug Minkler is a San Francisco Bay Area poster maker specializing in fund raising, outreach and educational posters. Contact Mr. Minkler.