Sunday, December 29, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Nelson Mandela:
The South African leader rose from rural obscurity to become one of the world's most respected and loved figures.
National Anthem South Africa - Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - Khayelitsha United Mambazo Choir
Nelson Mandela: A nation's father
Former South African president's struggle and sacrifices made him one of the world's most revered statesmen.
Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mviza in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. His father was a counselor to a local king. He chose for his son the name Rolihlahla, which translated from Xhosa means literally “pulling a branch off a tree” — or, more colloquially, “troublemaker.” A schoolteacher would confer upon him the name Nelson.
Nelson Mandela in 1937, around the time he began college. As a youth, he enjoyed gardening and boxing.
He joined the African National Congress in 1943 to resist the apartheid system devised by the all-white National Party. He thereafter helped to found the ANC Youth League.
The ANC was outlawed in 1960 and Mandela went underground. He was eventually arrested and charged with seeking to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1964.
Nelson Mandela spent a sizable part of his life incarcerated in prison, yet retained a mass appeal that few world leaders could ever hope to match.
One of the world's most recognisable fighters against inequality and oppression, he spent 27 years in prison for his active opposition to South Africa's racist apartheid regime. He then rose to become the country's first democratically elected president - a position that he voluntarily retired from after just one term.
Throughout the anti-apartheid struggle and during his years as a national leader, he maintained a commitment to socialist values and always defended those who were oppressed. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
With his first wife Evelyn, in 1944, left. They had four children before divorcing in 1958. The same year, Mandela married Winnie, right, they had two daughters. He would ultimately divorce her as well and remarry again in 1998.
Key moments of Mandela's history with the US
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” — Nelson Mandela
Mandela release from prison speech (full speech)
ESPY Awards - Nelson Mandela
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
brian simpson - bali
Globetrotting to lush, soft, rich, sparkly sanded shores along glistening springs and supple waves gliding gently into a daydream of unparelleled consequence in some unknown reality of Bali. Could one ever go there? Could one ever experience such exotic fluidity of mind, body and soul in an actual place that is not of one's imagination? With this music you can almost get there. Listen and keep trying to blend a vision of reality somewhere deep in your mind.
brian simpson - in motion
Sink into a seaside chair, relax, swiggle your toes in the sand, feel the gentle breezes as they playfully swirl by. The water is gently lapping the shore and cleaning your soul as it cleans the sands -- of time. Relax and enjoy a mesmerizing moment in space and time.
brian simpson - summer's end
Whew! We finally have to face the reality that the wisp of summer's trail will soon be gone with the way of the whorl of the wind, as the chill of autumn is softly decending upon our surroundings. Listen to this and let the soft memories of summer seep into your soul. Remember the bright, warm experiences of days gone slipping by into our past. Keep those thoughts protected and shielded from the frigid breezes that inevitably must come. Allow "Summer's End" to spark the fires for getting us through the winter months until spring evolves again.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Elizabeth Warren Brings News Anchors To Knees
W-O-O!! W-O-O!!! The Professor teaches us all a Financial History Lesson!!
Elizabeth Warren EMBARRASSES Bank Regulators At First Hearing
W-O-O-O-WWWW!!!! W-O-O-O-WWWW!!!! W-O-O-O-WWWW!!!!
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Minimum Wage Being $22 per Hour
WH-A-A-A-A-T-T-T-TT!!!!! WHA-A-A-A-ATTTT!!!!!
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Why Our President Obama Is Having Problems
Why Our President Obama Is Having Problems
A wise man once said..."We may not have it all together, but together we have it all."Many people wonder why Republican legislators are so unrelenting on President Obama. Frederick Douglass gave us the answer many years ago."... Though the colored man is no longer subject to barter and sale, he is surrounded by an adverse settlement which fetters all his movements. In his downward course, he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress.If he comes in ignorance, rags and wretchedness ... he conforms to the popular belief of his character, and in that character he is welcome; but if he shall come as a gentleman, a scholar and a statesman, he is hailed as a contradiction to the national faith concerning his race, and his coming is resented as impudence. In one case he may provoke contempt and derision, but in the other he is an affront to pride and provokes malice.''Frederick Douglass ,September 25, 1883
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Justice for Marissa! Set her Free!
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Monday, October 7, 2013
Saturday, October 5, 2013
A MIRACLE HAPPENED BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE BELIEVED
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COURAGE
AND FIGHT FOR JUSTICE
Although I prayed and thanked the Supreme Being for the release of Herman Wallace, four days later he was released from Life due to a chronic illness from which he had been suffering. Although one must descry his unworthy incarceration, we must indeed rejoice that he spent his last days in freedom, surrounded by friends and family. What a happy homegoing that had to be for someone in his sad but brave condition. The following message from the NYCMumia organization gives more details.
This morning we lost without a doubt the biggest, bravest, and brashest personality in the political prisoner world. It is with great sadness that I write with the news of Herman Wallace's passing.
Herman never did anything half way. He embraced his many quests and adventures in life with a tenacious gusto and fearless determination that will absolutely never be rivaled. He was exceptionally loyal and loving to those he considered friends, and always went out of his way to stand up for those causes and individuals in need of a strong voice or fierce advocate, no matter the consequences.
Anyone lucky enough to have spent any time with Herman knows that his indomitable spirit will live on through his work and the example he left behind. May each of us aspire to be as dedicated to something as Herman was to life, and to justice.
Below is a short obituary/press statement for those who didn't know him well in case you wish to circulate something. Tributes from those who were closest to Herman and more information on how to help preserve his legacy by keeping his struggle alive will soon follow.
With deepest sadness,
--
Tory Pegram
Campaign Coordinator
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
On October 4th, 2013, Herman Wallace, an icon of the modern prison reform movement and an innocent man, died a free man after spending an unimaginable 41 years in solitary confinement.
Herman spent the last four decades of his life fighting against all that is unjust in the criminal justice system, making international the inhuman plight that is long term solitary confinement, and struggling to prove that he was an innocent man. Just 3 days before his passing, he succeeded, his conviction was overturned, and he was released to spend his final hours surrounded by loved ones. Despite his brief moments of freedom, his case will now forever serve as a tragic example that justice delayed is justice denied.
Herman Wallace's early life in New Orleans during the heyday of an unforgiving and unjust Jim Crow south often found him on the wrong side of the law and eventually he was sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for armed robbery. While there, he was introduced to the Black Panther's powerful message of self determination and collective community action and quickly became one of its most persuasive and ardent practitioners.
Not long after he began to organize hunger and work strikes to protest the continued segregation, endemic corruption, and horrific abuse rampant at the prison, he and his fellow panther comrades Albert Woodfox and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown in solitary. Robert was released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary but Herman remained there for an unprecedented 41 years, and Albert is still in a 6x9 solitary cell.
Herman's criminal case ended with his passing, but his legacy will live on through a civil lawsuit he filed jointly with Robert and Albert that seeks to define and abolish long term solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment, and through his comrade Albert Woodfox's still active and promising bid for freedom from the wrongful conviction they both shared.
Herman was only 9 days shy of 72 years old.
Services will be held in New Orleans. The date and location will be forthcoming.
ARTICLE IN HUFFINGTON POST'S
"BLACK VOICES"
Herman Wallace, Member Of The
'Angola 3', Dead At 71
By CHEVEL JOHNSON and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN 10/04/13 01:39 PM ET EDT 
NEW ORLEANS -- NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 71-year-old man who spent more than four decades in solitary confinement in Louisiana died Friday, less than a week after a judge freed him and granted him a new trial.
Herman Wallace's attorneys said he died at a supporter's home in New Orleans. Wallace had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and stopped receiving treatment. Wallace was held for years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. In 2009, Wallace was moved from Angola to "closed-cell restriction" at Hunt Correctional in St. Gabriel, where he recently was taken to the prison's hospital unit.
Jackie Sumell, a longtime supporter of Wallace, said he was surrounded by friends and family when he died. Wallace at one point told them, "I love you all," according to Sumell.
"He was in and out of consciousness," she said.
U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge had ordered Wallace released from prison on Tuesday after granting him a new trial. Jackson ruled women were unconstitutionally excluded from the grand jury that indicted Wallace in the stabbing death of the 23-year-old guard, Brent Miller.
A West Feliciana Parish grand jury re-indicted Wallace on charges connected to Miller's death on Thursday. District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla told The Advocate newspaper that Jackson ordered a new trial because he "perceived a flaw in the indictment — not his murder conviction."
Wallace and two other inmates held in solitary confinement for years came to be known as the "Angola 3."
Wallace's attorneys said in a statement Friday that it was an honor to represent him.
"Herman endured what very few of us can imagine, and he did it with grace, dignity, and empathy to the end," they said. "Although his freedom was much too brief, it meant the world to Herman to spend these last three days surrounded by the love of his family and friends. One of the final things that Herman said to us was, 'I am free. I am free.'"
Wallace, of New Orleans, was serving a 50-year armed robbery sentence when Miller was stabbed to death.
Wallace and fellow "Angola 3" member Albert Woodfox denied involvement in Miller's killing, claiming they were targeted because they helped establish a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party at the Angola prison in 1971, set up demonstrations and organized strikes for better conditions.
In 2010, Woodfox was moved to the David Wade Correctional Center in Homer, where he remains in custody.
The third "Angola 3" member, Robert King, who was convicted of killing a fellow inmate in 1973, was released in 2001 after his conviction was reversed.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
National Religious Network [CBN] Scam Unveiled at Last
Ozymandias: It is shocking and disgusting that religious organizations are all too often found like the fallen statue Ozymandias , where the full upper body, torso, and limbs are made of gleaming, precious metals or gold, but the feet are of muddy clay, causing the demise of the structure and ruining the confidence and faith of the once-adoring public. It is shameful and hudrtful whenever this type of shoddy maneuvering is found out and broadcast into broad daylight. It offers up all types of disdain for the operators of organized religion and in particular the type that is proffered by widespread media operations.
I for one have always had much to disagree with this religious leader in so many of his egregious statements and mis-statements, and generally can not stand to listen to him. Now he has given not only me but many others a viable reason to consider him with disdain. This is a man, I believe, that should be indicted for fraud as convincingly as the authorities did for Jim Baker and his associates. Why has this not happened yet? When will a day of reckoning come forth? Why is not this a reason for this man to not be required to "step down." Perhaps there are others who can carry on in the spotlight and in his absence, but the program itself should be injoined from being allowed to continue to received donations for a certain number of years. At least his man's own program. The network could still be preserved with others who were not a part of the scheme such as was done with Baker's network or a new one should evolve. What do you as a believer think? Why not voice your opinion here?
Marileeza
The most disgusting matter is that they use the continent of Africa to carry out their schemes of greed. It is history repeating itself in just another form. When will the regular citizen and religious advocate wake up and do something to counteract this? Now is the time!
Pat Robertson reportedly diverted Operation Blessing donations to mining project
- A new documentary may be one of the highest-caliber shells fired across Pat Robertson's bow in a
- long time. Back in 1994, Robertson's humanitarian organization, Operation Blessing, claimed to
- have raised scads of money to help thousands of Rwandan refugees who fled across the border
- to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But according to Mission Congo, slated to premiere
- tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival, much of that money actually went to fund
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON - DOUBLY BLESSED
FIFTIETH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON - DOUBLY BLESSED
Two notable pivotal points in
American History can be considered those marked by the March on Washington in
1963, and also the one that has just passed fifty years later in 2013. The first was doubly significant because it
also was set to commemorate the year of the Emancipation Proclamation a hundred
years prior. [1] After the first March came the Civil Rights
legislation of the Sixties, which ensured social and political freedoms that
had been sought over the years. [Many credit the March with passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting
Rights Act (1965).]
The second March on Washington of 2013 is also
doubly significant because it represents not only how far American society has
come in the present day, but also sends up a flare signal exposing how the
system appears to be retrogressing toward pre-Civil Rights era days -- if we
are not vigilant. Such a new
commemorative occasion can and should serve to galvanize the activist community
into organizing more fervently to reach their collective goals. So it is not only a way of honoring the
past, it becomes also a “wake up call”; to spur us forward into the future to
regain our status -- now slipping ground.
Dr. Lowery, a contemporary of Dr. King, recently remarked about an old
sermon he found still appropriate today that suggested the more things change,
the more they stay the same. For
regardless of our excellent progress, it is astounding that we as a people
appear to be facing the same Racism today that we have faced for
centuries. It is just in a different
form or format, but the end result is the same. Why anyone would consider this a
“post-racial” society -- simply because we have the first Black President -- is
a mystery to those who know better. In
fact that achievement seemed to only “bring out the crazies”. Some say that instead of “Jim Crow”, we are
now confronted with “Mr. James Crow, Esq.” these days. (But I do not wish to digress.)
It may be considered somewhat
incredulous that though we are at a more “equalized” point in our society, the
thrust of the March of 2013 is the same as that of 1963. The theme of the 1963 March was for “Jobs and
Freedom”, and it is the same for the March of 2013. It is perplexing that what we need in this
country for our people and for all people today is still MORE JOBS. In the Sixties, President Johnson's resolution
was to institute the programs of the “Great Society” legislation which helped
to elevate many more people through jobs and training that was provided by the
government. There is no chance of that
currently with the Ultra-Conservative, Anti-Government, Regressive,
Recalcitrant Republican Congress of today. Never mind that with Government-backed Green
and Infrastructure jobs that could be provided by the Government, all people
within the society would be able to bring up the standard of living as well as
the national economy with their financial contributions. It would simply be an investment in our
collective economic future.
This is not the way of Dr. King, who left us with many truths to
contemplate and to be inspired by. [2]
We have to learn to apply his wisdom in
this world. For he taught: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out
hate; only love can do that.” He also
taught that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Dr.
King also warned us that “A nation that continues year after year to spend
more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual doom.” More ominously he
predicted a truism that as a nation “Our scientific power has outrun our
spiritual power. We have guided missiles
and misguided men.” He also left us with
this unequaled challenge: “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the
narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all
humanity.” That is tantamount to the
piercing observation he presents in “He who passively accepts evil is as much
involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting
against it is really cooperating with it.”
We love
Dr. King and we love his words now that he is an inactive martyr we can admire
from afar. Many in his time did not
accept nor ascribe to his advocacy. Yet
he teaches us even today that “Human progress is
neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice
requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
“Dedicated individuals”, King points to.
As quiet as it’s kept, that is actually needed even more today than
yesterday. 
As much as we revere Dr. King, many people who
were not involved nor who are students of history will erroneously credit him
with the organization of the first March on Washington. However, research will show that the March
was the brainchild of the leader of the Pullman Porter’s Union, known as A.
Phillip Randolph, but was masterminded by the political genius, Bayard Rustin,
a social activist with vast experience. They
had organized a march thirty years earlier to confront racism which was called
off under the FDR administration after he made concessions. However, their continued activism led to the
end of racial discrimination in the armed services, among other things. This time, at the last resort, Rustin was
removed from visible participation the actual March due to pressure placed on
the Movement by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and others who feared that word
of Rustin’s homosexual orientation would become a blemish on the Civil Rights
Movement.
Although formal
alliances with the LGBT community were not obvious at the first March, concern
about their rights has risen visibly in place of the mandates produced for the
second March. This would actually be a
fitting tribute and credit to the man who fought so hard for the freedom of the
many, Bayard Rustin. What is more
President Obama’s office has announced that the highest award of distinction in
this country will be given to Rustin and others within the month.
President Obama’s presence at the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the March on Washington this year was a strict departure from presidential
involvement of the first March, because President Kennedy remained at the White
House. Yet he met with leaders of the
March ahead of time and even attempted to insinuate some of his own demands of
them. The first March involved speeches
by male representatives of Civil Rights, Union leaders, Church leadership and
Pacifist groups, along with musical renditions from Peace Movement singers and
gospel greats. The only woman scheduled to speak was Myrlie Evers; but when her flight was delayed, Daisy Bates took her
place.
Women
were always the backbone of many of the Movement matters, but were often
relegated to lesser positions in the public eye. That’s another reason that the Second March
was so different. Linda Johnson Robb
spoke in representation of her father, President Johnson. Caroline Kennedy spoke to represent President
Kennedy. Two prior presidents, Jimmy
Carter and Bill Clinton were among the speakers the second time around. Republican political figures who were invited
all declined to attend. There were also
many more people of note from the cinema and media community who stood out this
time, such as Forrest Whittaker, Jamie Fox, Ed Shultz, Oprah Winfrey, Al
Sharpton and others.
The only living
speaker from the first March, who was then a leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who is now a U.S. Congressman, the Honorable
John Lewis finally got a chance to say what he wanted to say. During the first March, his intended remarks
were thought to be too radical for the situation, and he was forced to make
modifications. Mrs. Myrlie Evers, who
missed the first March, was able to be a prominent speaker at the Second March
on Washington. Two children of Dr. King,
who were very young during the first March, were powerful speakers during the
Fiftieth Anniversary. In fact, the
Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington was largely planned by the Rev.
Dr. Bernice King, SCLC and the typical Civil Rights and Peace Movement
organizations of today. It is unusual
how history tends to repeat itself.
Precisely
at 3:00 p.m. not only were bells to be ringing in Washington, D.C. and across
the nation, but it was also at that time fifty years ago that Dr. King gave his
extemporaneous, famous “I Have A Dream” speech, which replaced his written
one. Fifty years later it was fitting
that the first African-American President, President Barak Obama would be
giving the headline speech of the day. While
Obama would not -- nor could not -- be a match for the inimitable oratory of a
Dr. King, he did rise
Perhaps that short time in the presence of the
spirit of Dr. King at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington and
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech may have positively affected President
Obama. For we do attest that it was only
after participating in this event that President Obama conceded to wait for the
sanction of Congress before he declared war on Syria -- as he seemed intent upon
doing. We can only hope this gives him
time to think about how to pursue other peaceful means of approaching the
situation and work through the United Nations. For as Dr. King has said,
“True Leaders work for Peace” – not surreptitiously go to “War” for Peace.
What is more, if he had lived, I believe Dr. King would have spoken out against the one percent of the population who have little or no concern about the 99 percent, which the Occupy Movement brought to the forefront of the conscience of the nation only a couple of years ago. I believe Dr. King would have led the charge against the Banking industry and Wall Street for creating a situation where U.S. citizens -- Black, White, and otherwise -- would be at the mercy of the system that steals their homes away from them, and steel-mindedly refuse to renegotiate unjustly raised mortgages --all the while destroying the Housing Market in this country --, while callously putting families out on the street without regard to conscience. I believe that Dr. King would be calling to conscience corporations who have reaped billions for their investors while carelessly eliminating or even raiding the retirement funds of their employees. Dr. King would have called into judgment the shortening of the work week hours so that businesses would not have to pay their workers the benefits they deserve. He would have shouted out against the business world that refuses to pay its employers a decent wage and those who ship their jobs to foreign lands for cheap labor while their own country fails financially all around. Dr. King would have been a voice crying out into the wilderness of the prison system in this country which incarcerates Black and Brown men many times over that which they do for White men in the New Jim Crow of privatized prisons. He would be blasting out against what is now known as the Crib to Prison Pipeline for Black boys in this country. He would expose the payola that the Koch Brothers with ALEC are involved in with most Congressmen of this country. Today more than ever, we as a people and as a nation need a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We need a Jeremiah (maybe even a Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright once again), an Isaiah, an Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea or Amos today. We need true inspired moral leadership to bring this country from the brink of disaster where it seems to be heading. With a Dr. King as our guide, this country would indeed become “Doubly Blessed.”
Considering “Double
Blessings” bring up the fact that on this Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on
Washington, this country was blessed to have double commemorations: One was held on Saturday, August 24th led
by Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and other activists or rights
groups. The second one we learn was
largely planned by Dr. Bernice King and other Civil Rights and Labor
organizations as well on Wednesday August 28th, the actual date of
the 50th anniversary. We as a
country were doubly blessed that both events were well attended and filled up
the mall along the reflecting pool just as it did fifty years earlier. This not only doubled our delight but doubled
the overall count in attendance as well. Aside
from the King children, Rev. Al Sharpton, John Lewis and a few others who spoke
at both, the major participants and invited guests of the two programs were
completely different. This doubled the
pleasure of the nation of history lovers.
It has become a time that dually will long last in the minds of all
Americans who revere Dr. King and what he stood for. With these two celebratory events to take
place at this crucial time in our lives, our world has indeed truly been “Doubly
Blessed.”
Interracial crowd around
the Reflecting Pool at the 1963 March on Washington.
“The
ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and
convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“People
fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because
they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not
communicated with each other.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“If you can't fly then run, if you can't
run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to
keep moving forward.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
― Martin Luther King Jr.
M. White, August 31, 2013
[1]
The National Museum of American History current exhibit has this statement
which corroborates this fact: In 2013
the country will commemorate two events that changed the course of the nation –
the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1963 March on Washington. Standing
as milestone moments in the grand sweep of American history, these achievements
were the culmination of decades of struggles by individuals – both famous and
unknown – who believed in the American promise that this nation was dedicated to
the proposition that "all men are created equal." Separated by 100
years, they are linked together in a larger story of freedom and the American
experience.
[2]
The Museum of American History also records these words by Dr. King: On August 28, 1963, at the March on
Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. began his speech by declaring, "Five
score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed
the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon
light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of
withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of
captivity ... In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a
check."
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