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Volume 9 Issue 8…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…February 24, 2006

Sounding the Alarm

By John Burl Smith

As one of a few people who talked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the evening he was assassinated (4-4-68), his admonition to the Invaders to “Develop a new psychology to plan our actions and a new philosophy to explain those actions” is clearer today. To a black power advocate, his statement seemed to be more open-handed-turn-the-other-cheek submissiveness, rather than the clinched-fist defiance black power advocated. However, today it is clear, Dr. King sounded the alarm for a change that had already begun that only a few recognized.

Today, the evidence of his brilliant observation is glaringly clear. Dr. King’s call for a new psychology and philosophy recognized that lynching, the color line and black and white signs had been unmasked as devices of psychological slavery. After dismantling Reconstruction, whites employed terrorist tactics to reinforce obvious barriers of discrimination. Hiding behind Ku Klux Klan hoods, whites terrorized and dominated our lives. Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) legalized this state terror. Preachers disguised their racist separate-but-equal philosophy with the Bible.

Black leaders, like W. E. B. Dubois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary B. Talbert, Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Walter White and Thurgood Marshall, countered this reign of terror with valiant efforts to speak truth to power. Blacks laid life and limb on the line until the Supreme Court struck down legal racism in Board of Education vs. Topeka (1954). It was the psychology of civil rights and philosophy of open non-violent resistance that exposed segregation as apartheid in America.

A visionary, Dr. King looked beyond the veil of history that day and saw the reality of tomorrow. A prophetic alarm back then, Dr. King related the difficulty of introducing new ideas and young leadership into SCLC. He came back to Memphis to talk with the Invaders, because as young leaders, we had been excluded from the march that ended in a riot. He confided that, “Leaders do not live forever. They have the responsibility to water the roots of their organization with new blood in order to grow new branches of leaders. If they do not bring in young leaders, as old leaders die, the organization dies. ”

Today, black people are experiencing Dr. King’s worst fears. They face the future without any idea of where future leaders will emerge. Without a clear psychology and philosophy for the future, the NAACP selected a leader from corporate America. Membership drives flounder because most young people do not identify with its leaders, see the significance of the organization or relate to its goals. Black icons or images and symbols of success are reflected by people whose only connection to blacks is selling them something or ripping them off for their votes or tax dollars.

Black people are being farmed and sharecropped by everyone from everywhere. Businesses blacks could not get financed and jobs they could not get during segregation are given to legal and illegal immigrants or sent out of the country. Blacks are the only people without a psychology and philosophy to teach their children who they are. With the passing of each day, the Middle Passage gets wider, and we are further removed from Africa, our roots. Today, we are on the verge of becoming people who do not identify with themselves. That should be alarming; it was to Dr. King.

Comments from the Bat Cave

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is on a winter break from what he calls “the drudgery of school.” This is the first time the Georgia school system has offered this winter hiatus, which includes Presidents’ Day. However, with a major project due the first day back, the schoolwork continues through this unexpected break. Thus, according to the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro, “This is a false holiday!”

Intuit’s Vibe

Changing of the Guard

By Yohannes Sharriff

Trumpets blow calling home

So many of our heroes and icons

This is the changing of the guard!

Richard Kirksey said, “The past proceeds all futures”

Beautiful as Queen Nzinga, my newborn niece

Radiating questions of fate

Her eyes scream, “Give me a chance to see sunshine!

Let the devil turn his back and I will fly!”

Chains and starvation will not restrain my wings

It crushes me that her innocent eyes

Must see the Birth of nation in a slave ship’s belly.

Whipped, raped and stripped of culture

Our people packed in cramped quarters

Surviving death, the stench of feces and rotten flesh

She needs to know

She is as ancient as the ocean

Placed between us and home.

Breathing deeply and holding hands

We emerge from these waters

And make our way to shore

Like hurricanes and Haitian refugees

We make our way to shore

Not quite sure where we are

We make our way down this road

Dark as the moonless night

In 1945, my father’s family fled from Mississippi

Stealth a necessity, the Klan might see the beams

So no headlights on this road

Oppressive as Jim Crow and reconstruction

The shackles we cannot see

Bind the minds of so many of my peers

Sharecrop in corporate fields

Cotton between their ears

Our worst fear has come

Sleight of hand replaced the black and white signs

With biased questions on standardized tests.

Out-dated textbooks and inferior technology

Underpaid and overworked teachers

Produce disinterested students

Who sit behind the bars on school doors and do time

Controlled by a wireless remote

We are ticking time bombs

Ready to explode the prison population

Programmed by poverty and public education

W.E.B. Dubois seems so far away

When trap stars are the only tangible example of success

Survivors of the war on black power

All crack out on Reganomics

We lost our way down this yellow brick road

But don’t be deceived

This spiritual war is for the minds of the future.

The shackles have gone virtual!

We must let our babies know

They’re in danger like the black vote

So many still believe in a white Jesus

And Europeans were right to enslave

And give religion to us heathens

Underexposed and unaware of who we are

How can we appreciate our inheritance,

Our ancestor’s sacrifice?

So, tonight this poem is for all the giants

Who laid down their lives so I can stand on this stage

No black face, no shuck and jive

Defiant as Frederick Douglass risking life and limb

Twice to escape the plantation

Defiant as Ida B. Wells exposing the myths

And lies behind lynching

Defiant as “Ali boom-baya!”

Defiant as Muhammad Ali saying,

“No Vietnamese ever called me Nigga”

Defiant as David Walker’s Appeal

Defiant as Dave Chappelle’s ticket to Africa

Defiant as Harriett Tubman

Going back for whomever she could find

We, the new leaders, must step behind the wheel

Shhhh...The baby’s asleep.

And I see the elders in the rear view mirror taking care

Thank you for getting us here

Please continue to be our signpost

Ancestors guide our way home

We’ve come so far

Yet, we still are so far from home

Disgruntled wants to know: GOP congressional leaders consult with the Bush administration before making any decision. There is neither checks nor balances against executive power; the US has an imperial leader. A previous royal used illegal campaign funds and intrusive surveillance to gather unsavory information on friends and foes. Could the current administration have “enemies’ lists” that show members of Congress cross-dress, watch porno, engage in extra-martial affairs and illicit sex, cheat on their taxes or some other illegal or politically detrimental acts? If so, it would explain why they genuflect before George W. Bush!

Disgruntled feels: Distraction! The sale of US ports to a foreign country is a serious security issue. The Carlyle Group of some other well-connected company will probably benefit from the transaction. We have known about this imminent sale for weeks. Now, the media and members of Congress are gravely concerned to the exclusion of all else. Forget the warrantless wiretaps and the need for an independent investigator, Able Danger, the outing of Valerie Plame and its Iran-Turkey-nuclear weapons connection. Forget Jack Abramoff and his ties to the White House, deficits, debts and tax cuts. Wake up people! This is mass distraction in action!

Bit of History

Imperial President Richard Nixon (1913-1994)

The second of five sons born to Francis and Hannah Milhous Nixon, Richard Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California. Raised as an evangelical Quaker, his upbringing prohibited drinking, dancing, gambling and swearing. Nixon grew up in Whittier, California, where he attended Fullerton High (1926-28) and Whittier High Schools (1928-30); he graduated first in his class and won a full tuition scholarship to Harvard. Unable to afford the living expenses, he attended Whittier College. In 1934, he graduated and received a full scholarship to Duke University School of Law in Durham, N.C.

Nixon earned his law degree (1937), returned to California, passed the bar exam and began his legal practice with a small law firm in La Mirada. He met Pat, a high-school teacher; the couple married and had two daughters -- Tricia and Julie.

During WW II, Nixon, a naval officer, served in the supply corps stationed in the South Pacific. Known for his poker prowess, he won a large sum, which helped finance his 1946 run for Congress. In an aggressive campaign, Nixon easily beat Democrat Jerry Voorhis. He served on several high-profile committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee and handily won re-election.

Nixon defeated US Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas in his 1950 bid for the US Senate. During the campaign, Nixon accused Douglas of having left-wing sympathies. He called her the "Pink Lady;" the Independent Review dubbed him "Tricky Dick."

In 1952, Nixon was elected Vice President on Dwight D. Eisenhower's ticket. He made the office a highly visible base from which to launch a bid for president. He narrowly lost to John F. Kennedy in his 1960 run for president. After his unsuccessful bid for California governor (1962), Nixon moved to New York City and became a well-paid senior partner in the leading law firm of Nixon Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander.

Nominated for president in 1968, Nixon appealed to a "silent majority" of social conservatives and promised with "new leadership to end the war and win the peace in the Pacific." Under the Nixon Doctrine of "Vietnamization," the US trained and armed South Vietnamese forces in a bid to allow US troop withdrawals. In March 1969, Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia, escalating the war.

Following his 1972 defeat of Democrat George McGovern, the Nixon administration became embroiled in controversy surrounding a break-in of the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate hotel and office complex by members of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). As the Watergate scandal widened, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned for accepting bribes. Nixon, an “unindicted co-conspirator,” announced his resignation on August 8, 1974. On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford gave Nixon a blanket pardon. Viewed by critics as a quid pro quo for Nixon’s resignation, the pardon was cited as a major reason for Ford's 1976 defeat.

Beyond Watergate, Nixon, after Congress checked his war powers by cutting off Vietnam War funding, ended US involvement in Indochina (1973). Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1974) negotiated agreements between Israel, Egypt and Syria. Détente led to improved relations with China; Nixon became the first US president to visit that nation. With the Soviet Union, he entered Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, which led to signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He took the US dollar off the gold standard.

Called “New Federalism,” Nixon’s domestic policy produced revenue sharing, anti-crime laws and a more conservative court. He signed bills lowering the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH to conserve gasoline, installed wage/price controls to abate inflation, ended the draft and created environment protection and space shuttle programs.

In his last years, Nixon gained praise as an elder statesman. He wrote many books after his departure from politics, including his memoirs. On April 18, 1994, Nixon suffered a major stroke and died April 22 in New York. (Sources: www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rn37.html, http://en.wikipedia.org and www.geocities.com/Heartland/2328/rmn.htm)

Politics Y2K6

George W. Bush: Nixon II?

Angry over George W. Bush administration’s imperialism and attempts to consolidate power in the presidency by destroying constitutional checks and balances, critics charge Bush is another Adolf Hitler. The comparison generates vociferous objections from Bush supporters. Acceding the point that Bush is no Hitler, there is a more realistic comparison in the presidency of Richard Milhous Nixon.

On domestic and foreign affairs, Bush compares favorably with the 37th US President. Like Bush, Nixon sought to concentrate power in the Oval Office. He cited executive privilege to thwart congressional oversight, denying the legislative branch its constitutional right to check and balance executive power. Secretive, Nixon, like Bush would be, if Congress acted responsibly, was often at odds with Congress. In an interview with David Frost, Nixon explained executive privilege: "When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal."

No small government conservatives, Nixon and Bush expanded the federal bureaucracy. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, increased defense spending for wars of choice on multiple fronts and a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Nixon and Bush promised to change the courts. Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, Supreme Court decisions on civil rights, particularly school desegregation and busing, antagonized conservatives, particularly in the South, a group Nixon sought to appease. In nominating strict constructionists that shared their judicial philosophy, Nixon and Bush insisted it was “the job of the courts to interpret the law, not make the law.” So, each sought nominees that would follow the framers’ ‘original intent.’

Like Bush, who supports Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf and prefers Arab sheiks, shahs and kings to democratically elected regimes, whether in the Middle East or South America, Nixon supported Pakistani strongman General Yahya Khan despite widespread human rights violations. He vocally abused democratically elected leaders in private taped conversations, while he supported South American dictators, including Augusto Pinochet of Chile.

Nixon and Bush claimed to want reconciliation in order to bring a bitterly divided nation together. Yet, each practiced division. The pair’s views on the poor are strikingly similar. Reformers that dismantled programs that fought poverty, Nixon claimed to end the “condescending politics of paternalism” in favor of individual and local responsibility in overcoming poverty, while Bush looked to faith-based groups to provide social programs to aid the poor. Bush’s “soft bigotry of low expectations, a phrased often repeated in talking about his underfunded “No Child Left Behind” education program screams condescension.

Similar to Bush’s proposed cuts in domestic spending programs, Nixon’s 1973-1974 budget proposed abolishing federal programs that aided the unemployed, mentally ill, veterans, college students and others. He also proposed discontinuing urban renewal, assistance for hospital construction and reducing the school lunch program.

On the economy, to get reelected, Nixon abandoned any pretext of fiscal conservatism. Favoring big business, he cut taxes and increased spending. An accommodating Federal Reserve Board lowered interest rates to encourage business borrowing and job creation. In the short-run, long enough to cement his reelection, incomes rose and unemployment fell, but stagflation, rising prices and falling output, followed. In all the above respects and more, including corruption, Bush is more like Nixon than Hitler

Hood Notes

Nixon Quotes

As Nixon resigned in disgrace, he still protested, "I'm not a crook!" Yet, tapes released after his ignoble departure and death paint a different picture. In his own words, Nixon was fully engaged in the Watergate break-in cover-up.

The tapes also show his true feelings on his secret war in Cambodia and the media. On the latter, Nixon said, "I think that the ability of the American people to review all that there is to know about their president using a microscope is wonderful. Still, I think some people get a little carried away when they take out their proctoscopes."

Nixon held strong negative views of blacks and Jews. On one tape, Nixon said, “I have the greatest affection for them [blacks], but I know they're not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time, they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.”

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