"BORN TO BE LOVED; LOVE TO BE HATED!"
His Anger Teaches Everybody Reality!!
It's your boy BOBBEE BEE "THE HATER" aka the trouble maker from the "city of brotherly love" I am an obnoxious, opinionated, third grader whose ego is bigger than T.O.! I am an "odd"combination of Terrell Owens, KOBE Bryant, Rasheed Wallace, and Allen Iverson!
by Eric D. Graham #TheRapProfessor. If you like what you are learning ($JeffreyBarnes)
Bobbee Bee, what makes a good Web site? Five-Star Evaluation Criteria:
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Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who think they are crazy enough to change the world… are the ones who do.
Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 following a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 56.
Human Trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Victims are young children, teenagers, men and women. After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000 (TVPA) defines "Severe forms of Trafficking in Person as:
Sex Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commerical sex act, in which a commerical sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act is under of 18 years ;
Labor Trafficking, on the other hand, is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
In both forms, the victim is an unwilling participant due to force, fraud, or coercion.
Trafficking Victims
Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims annually are trafficked across internationl borders worldwide, according to the US Department to State. These estimates include women, men and children. Victims are generally trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. Many victims trafficked into the United States do not speak and understand English and are therefore isolated and unable to communicate with service providers, law enforcement and others who might be able to help them.
How Victims Are Trafficked
Many victims of trafficking are forced to work in prostitution or sex entertainment. However, trafficking also takes place as labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, sweatshop factories, or migrant agricultural work. Traffickers use force, fraud and coercion to compel women, men and children to engage in these activities.
Force
Force involves the use of rape, beating and confinement to control victims. Forceful violence is used especially during the early stages of victimization, known as the seasoning process, which is used to break victim's resistance to make them easier to control.
Fraud
Fraud often involves false offers of employment. For example, women and children will reply to advertisement s promising jobs as waitresses, maids and dancers in other countries and are then forced into prostitution once they arrive at their destinations.
Coercion
Coercion involves threats of serious harm to, or physical restraint of, victims of trafficking; any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause victims to believe that failure to perform an act would result in restraint against them; or abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Victims of trafficking are often subjected to debt-bondage, usually in the context of playing off transportation fee into the destination countries. Traffickers often threaten victims with injury or death or the safety of the victim's family back. Traffickers commonly take away the victims' travel documents and isolate them to make escape more difficult. Victims often do not realize that it is illegal for traffickers to dictate how they have to pay off their debt. In many cases, the victims are trapped into a cycle of debt because they have to pay for all living expenses in addition to the inital transportation expenses. Fines for not meeting daily quotes of services or "bad" behavior are also used by some trafficking operations to increase debt. Most trafficked victims are rarely see the money they are supposedly earning and may not even know the specific amount of their debt. Even if the victims sense that debt-bondage is unjust, it is difficult for them to find help because of language, social, and physical barriers that keep them from obtaining assistance.
Help for Victims of Trafficiking
Prior to the enactment of the TVPA in October 2000, no comprehensive Federal law existed to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute their traffickers. The law is compehensive in addressing the various ways of combatting trafficking, including prevention, protection and prosecution. It is intended to prevent human trafficking overseas, to increase prosecution of United States and to protect victims and provide
Federal and state assistance to certain victims. Victims of human trafficking who are not U.S.citizens are eligible for a special visa and can receive benefits and services through the TVPA to the same extent as refugees. Victims are trafficking who are U.S. citizens may already be eligible for many benefits due to their citizenship.
If you think you have come in contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-3737-888 What is the NHTRC’s National Website?
Who Can Call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center?
The NHTRC is equipped to handle calls from all regions of the United States from a wide range of callers including potential trafficking victims, community members, law enforcement agents, medical professionals, legal professionals, researchers, students, and policy-makers. Based on the past history of calls into the national hotline, we know that calls most frequently occur for the purposes of tips about potential trafficking situations, questions about human trafficking, training and technical assistance requests, emergency crisis response situations involving potential victims, and general information about how to get involved in the anti-trafficking movement.
How Does the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Respond to Calls?
The NHTRC is available to answer calls from anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year. Urgent requests are processed 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Non-urgent requests are processed primarily between the hours of 9am and 9pm EST, Monday through Friday, during an extended business week. If a non-urgent request comes in after 9pm EST, on the weekend, or on a holiday, a message will be taken by the call specialist on duty, and a full-time program staff will respond to the request within one business day or, in the case of holidays, on the next business day. A chart detailing the available services of the NHTRC is available below: Pictured above is Eric D.Graham, along with Pam Stricklalnd, the founder of the Eastern North Carolina Stop Human Trafficking Now and Katherine Bass during a recent workshop designed to fight Human Trafficking on September 7th 2011 held at the Ed Emory Auditorium in Kenansville, North Carolina. The event was sponsored by the Duplin County Library System, the Duplin County Sheriff's Office, and the Duplin County Cooperative Extension.
1. Personal Courage Stand up for something, even if it means standing alone. 2. Practice Excellence Do every thing with energy and rigor 3. Service to others The good deeds that you do for others is the rent that you pay to occupying space on far. 4. Lifelong learning Are you listening or are you waiting to speak 5. Accountability Own your actions and the impact they have on others 6. Spirit Connect your soul with your role
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FANNIE FOUR EYES: YOUNG, BLACK AND AMAZING by Constance C.R.White
1. Ask yourself, What do I want to be doing at 40? 2. Make a plan and work it. You can tweak it along the way. 3. Reach out. You don't have to do it alone. We're here for you. 4. Save a bit every week, even a single dollar. 5. Don't accept negative things others say about you, if they have an observation, tell them to make it constructive. 6. You are responsible for your actions. 7. Video dancer is not a profession. 8. Be aware of the ways pop culture may try to diminish you. Reject them.
9. Be patient with people's shortcomings but not their bad behavior. 10. Know that you can love someone and still walk away. 11. Any job is better than no job. It's not forever. It's merely a stepping stone. 12. Whatever you dream, there's a Black woman who has already done it. 13. You can do it, too.
Unlike so many ‘Third World' nation-states, Libya, under the leadership of Muammar Gadhafi, has been a surrogate of neither the East nor the West. The first thing that hits you when you step off the plane at Tripoli International Airport is that Libyans are firmly in control of their country. Libya is a power unto herself and Libyans are not taking kindly to NATO's attempts at re-colonization.
What has developed in Libya is a conundrum for NATO. They may have imagined that with such vicious ongoing bombing raids, Gadhafi's forces would have crumbled.
Instead, they have witnessed the opposite. In the face of this all out aggression, over 10,000 bombing raids and into its fifth month, the Libyan patriotic and revolutionary armed forces and the vast majority of Libyans have remained steadfast and loyal, defending their revolution and its leader.
There are even pro-Gadhafi rallies in Benghazi, and constant gun battles between pro-Gadhafi forces and the rebels in Benghazi and Misurata. In villages and towns, reportedly under rebel control, the green flag of the Al Fateh revolution can be seen flying from homes and public buildings. One thing is clear, if Gadhafi did not have mass support he could not be resisting this barbaric onslaught so effectively.
Every day the rebels reveal themselves to be mere surrogates of an imperialist plot to overthrow the Libyan revolution. They cannot call for health-care, housing, free education, subsidized food and a share in the oil wealth because they have all of that.
Residents in areas where the NATO backed rebels are in control, have reported that the rebels are looting stores and removing goods and food at gunpoint. There are also numerous reports of torture, rape and execution of captured pro-Gadhafi soldiers, Black Libyans and migrant workers from neighboring African countries.
The nature of the Benghazi rebels is best illustrated by events that occurred after rebels took control of the mountain village of Qawalish in Western Libya. Many of the villagers were forced to evacuate the area since, according to a report carried on July 10th, in the New York Times:
“All of the shops in the town had been ransacked, several homes were burned, and the town's gas station, in fine condition when Qawalish fell, had been vandalized to the point of being dismantled. In building after building furniture was flipped over, dishes and mirrors shattered, and everything torn apart. Except for a few rebels roaming the streets in cars and trucks, the town was deserted – a shattered, emptied ghost town decorated with broken glass.”
There is no doubt that ‘the Coalition of Demons', as Minister Louis Farrakhan has called them, has realized their grave mistake – if not out in the open, certainly behind closed doors. Having finally understood that the Benghazi rebels are not now, nor would they ever be in a position to take power in Libya, the ‘Coalition of Demons' is crumbling, with major differences surfacing amongst members on how to proceed with this ill-fated mission impossible.
After spending billions of dollars at a time when their economies are in deep crisis and reeling from the cost of years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Europe and the US are now scrambling for a solution which will allow them to save face.
The truth behind the U.S./NATO war on Libya The French, who were the driving force behind the invasion of Libya, are now pressing for dialogue with Tripoli. On July 11th, in a report carried in Flash News Today, French Defense Minister, Gerard Longuet stated: “We'll stop the bombing when the Libyans talk to each other and the military forces on all sides return to their barracks. They can talk to each other because we provide the proof that there is no solution by force”.
I wonder sometimes if these people actually hear themselves. No matter what disdainful spin Gerard Longuet tries to put on the situation, he can never convince us that the purpose of this mission was an exercise to prove that this conflict could not be resolved by force.
The truth is that the French, British and Americans, in their arrogance and ignorance, believed that toppling Gadhafi and rolling back the Libyan revolution would be a push over and now they are trying everything to avoid admitting an all out defeat. In addition to the death and destruction caused by this French, British and US barbaric adventurism, an estimated 150,000 people have been forced to flee Libya, many of them African migrant workers. These refugees, who were working in Libya and supporting their families in other parts of Africa, now find themselves sleeping in parks in Italy and France.With an estimated 23 million men and women unemployed in Europe, a figure that is expected to increase in the coming months as the capitalist crisis deepens, the situation for these refugees is disastrous.
NATO picked on a country that has experienced a profound political and social revolution for the past 40 plus years. The majority of Libyans only know life in the Jamahiriya and have lived in its dignity, comfort and calm all their lives, causing many of them to perhaps become complacent, taking much of what they had for granted.
However, there is no doubt that their revolutionary spirit has been reignited by NATO's bombs and they are standing behind the Al Fateh revolution. As one female student from Al Fateh University put it, “Libya is our mother and Gadhafi is our father.”
NATO – North Atlantic Terrorist Organization
NATO is a terrorist organization. Originally created to check the spread of Soviet Communism into Western Europe, this European organization has now reinvented itself as an enforcer and defender of White supremacy. On a global crusade, NATO brutally enforces neo-colonialism worldwide under the guise of ‘spreading democracy' and ‘humanitarian intervention'.
Since the onset of colonialism, hundreds of years ago, West Europeans have carried out a policy of genocide and plunder throughout the world. NATO comprises these same old tribes of Europe organized under a modern day umbrella.
Gadhafi – African Hero
Only leaders who are determined to live for their people are prepared to die fortheir people. Young Libyans from the Student Revolutionary Committees in the streets of Tripoli chant ‘Allah, Gadhafi, Libya'. The overwhelming majority of Libyans – young and old – love him. And then there is the massive outpouring of love and support that has come from every corner of the globe, where people, organizations and liberation movements, all of whom have received assistance from him at one time or other, have raised their voices against NATO's unprovoked aggression.
But nowhere is Gadhafi loved more than in Africa. His genuine commitment to our liberation is known to all Africans. African youth support his vision. Rappers have called him ‘African Hero'.
Tuaregs and freedom fighters from all over the continent have joined with the Libyan people to defend Tripoli. The Pan-African movement has been re-energized. It is no accident that it took an attack on the man who said ‘The Black race shall prevail throughout the world', to galvanize the movement which is capable of bringing about the dream of Garvey and Nkrumah, a dream which Muammar Gadhafi has pursued at his own peril.
Tingba Muhammad, in an excellent article in The Final Call, made the following indisputable points:
“Since he came to leadership in that oil-rich nation in 1969, Col. Gadhafi has amassed a record of accomplishment for Black Africa unmatched in modern history.
Using his nation's oil revenues, he has set the exploited former Italian colony firmly on the road to true independence… those who take the time to look past the litany of white lies about Gadhafi will be introduced to a man whose progressive record of accomplishments very well may be unmatched by ANYONE who has ever led a nation in modern times.
The women of Libya are taking a leading role in defending the gains of the revolution. Under the leadership of Muammar Gadhafi they have been able to realize their own emancipation, which is uniquely Libyan and not based on the Eurocentric notions of Western feminism.
They are amongst the most highly educated female population in Africa and the Arab world. They are free to dress with or without the headscarf, because Gadhafi understands that Islam cannot be enforced by a ‘moral police force', harassing and beating people in the streets for not dressing in hijab and not praying on time.
Adhering to the edict articulated by Prophet Muhammad, stating that ‘there can be no compulsion in religion', Gadhafi knows that the only way forward is to raise the consciousness of the people.
What protects the Islamic tradition and way of life in Libya is that their very liberation is derived from the true emancipatory spirit of Islam. They have been able to hold onto their traditions, while shedding the reactionary pre-Islamic residue that permeates so much of the Muslim world. No one is clearer than the women of Libya about what to expect from the backward, al-Qaeda inspired Benghazi counter-revolutionaries, and they are having none of it. Sarkozy – the Wicked Pied Piper
NATO is arming and fighting alongside al Qaeda in Libya after telling the world for years that al Qaeda is the single largest threat to their national security.
At the same time, they continue to claim that they are fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia. This might seem like a contradictory and confused foreign policy however, it is classical Machiavellian policy at play and nobody plays Machiavellian politics better than Europeans.
War criminal, Henry Kissinger, summed it up many years ago when he said: “We do not have permanent friends or permanent enemies – we only have permanent interests.”
Obama, Cameron, Berlusconi and other European leaders were led on a merry dance by French president and white supremacist, Nicholas Sarkozy.
His real reason for France's frantic move against Libya was his government's embarrassing failure to save their minion, Zinedine Ben Ali in Tunisia, in an election year. We know this man Sarkozy by his actions and his words. He is on record as saying, in true Hegelian spirit, that:
“The tragedy of Africa is that the African man has never really entered history. The African peasant has known only the eternal renewal of time via the endless repetition of the same actions and the same words. In this mentality, where everything always starts over again, there is no place for human adventure or for any idea of progress.” He added: “Africa's problem is that its present is permeated with nostalgia for the paradise of its lost childhood….”
They call it Democracy – we know it as Hypocrisy
Muammar Gadhafi has handed out kalashnikovs to an entire people. Libya is one of maybe only two countries in the world – the other being Cuba – that could arm their people under these circumstances. Why?
Could Sarkozy, Cameron, Obama, or for that matter the Sheikdoms in the Arab world who have lined up against Gadhafi, hand out kalashnikovs like pancakes to their populace under the same circumstances? I think not.
In fact, in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia was called on to invade and brutally suppress the rebellion. The Bahraini ruling family is certainly not arming the people.
When the Saudis brutally suppressed the uprising in Bahrain, not a word was uttered from the ‘international community' – international community being a euphemism for the US and Western Europe. And if a few words were uttered by Hillary Clinton, it was done for the sake of protocol and meant nothing.
Kwame Ture Speaks
The great Pan-African revolutionary, Kwame Ture, was a frequent visitor to Libya. He was a member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli and a vocal supporter of the Al Fateh revolution. He led a worldwide campaign to break the unjust sanctions placed on Libya in the 90s and worked tirelessly to promote Nkrumah and Gadhafi's vision of a united and truly independent Africa.
He made an interesting point about the double standards that the West applied when dealing with Africa, which is particularly relevant to what is happening in Libya today.
He observed that when sections of society in Europe or the United States disagree, even violently disagree, it is called pluralism and this is said to be a vital ingredient of their democracy.
It is never said that the US is undemocratic because they disagree–on the contrary it is, according to them, what makes it democratic. Our people on the other hand are not allowed to have differences or disagreements. When we do, it is called disunity and dissent, never pluralism.
When revolutionary leaders defend their revolutions against counter-revolutionary uprisings they are called brutal dictators. The contradiction is that throughout the history of the United States, any uprising against America's injustice has always been suppressed violently, and Kwame would remind us that he was one that knew this from personal experience.
The Libyan rebels make up an estimated 2 percent of the entire Libyan population. What is the percentage of people who disagreed with George W. Bush or who now disagree with Barak Obama? In fact, Bush only received 50.7 percent of the US citizens' vote and Obama only 52.9 percent. There is a great deal of dissent there.
In the Green Book, Muammar Gadhafi has this to say:
“Political struggle which culminates in the victory of a candidate obtaining 51 percent of the total votes of the electorate, establishes a dictatorship in the seat of power garbed in the guise of democracy. It is in fact, a dictatorship because 49 percent of the electorate would then be governed by an instrument of government they did not vote for, and which has been imposed upon them. This is the essence of dictatorship…under such systems the people are the victims whose votes are vied for by exploitative competing factions, who dupe the people into political circuses that are outwardly noisy and frantic, but inwardly powerless and irrelevant.”
Western Fallacies
Let us put one fallacy to rest forever – Europeans do not have a monopoly on the theory and practice of democracy. It is not my intention here to enter into what is a huge discussion of what constitutes democracy. Suffice to say, that Western Europe and the US, which continue to this day to brutally enforce their undemocratic systems of colonialism, neo-colonialism and capitalism worldwide, are not in either a moral or historical position to lecture the world on what is or is not democratic.
Those who promote democracy, European and US style, must be aware that the Fathers of the American revolution excluded the indigenous peoples and the captured Africans from their ‘democratic' project. Same with the French revolutionaries, who in 1789 were proclaiming ‘liberty, equality and fraternity', but were not prepared to extend these principles to the captured Africans working their plantations in the Caribbean.
However fallacious the Western notion of democracy may be, the only thing that matters from an African perspective is that the West is prevented from continuing to impose this fallacious notion on us. They can, as far as we are concerned, have whatever political system they choose. The point is, so can we as Africans. This is what we are fighting for – our inalienable right to self-determination – to freely decide our own destiny.
That is what it means to finally throw off the yoke of colonialism and imperialism, and that is what Libya dared to do under the leadership of Muammar Gadhafi. And Gadhafi dared to extend this vision to the entire African continent.
In the words of the Afrocentric intellectual warrior, Dr Molefi Kete Asante:
“The work of the Brother Leader, as he is sometimes called, has been to raise African consciousness to the point that some of the nations on the continent of Africa begin to reject the loyalty they hold for their colonial masters…Gadhafi has proposed that Africa do away with travel restrictions, create a common currency and ease trade tariffs and barriers. This African solidarity is not only a threat to the West – some who identify as Arabs have a difficult time accepting the Africanity promoted by Gadhafi.”
The battle for African self-determination did not start in Libya or with Gadhafi – it is a very long battle stretching back to the earliest incursions into Africa. And it is not the first time that Africans have faced such a sophisticated and deadly European attack – we can look way back at the battle of Isandlwana in 1879, where the arrogant British army, one of the most technologically advanced in the world at that time, was humbled by the Zulu fighters under the leadership of the great African king, Cetshwayo.
What this ‘Coalition of Demons' currently attacking Libya, armed with the most sophisticated weaponry known to humankind, is slowly coming to realize, is that they could well be defeated by the will of the Libyan people armed with their faith, revolutionary consciousness and kalashnikovs.
Fear of a Black Planet
‘Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will' – Marcus Garvey
‘The Black race shall prevail throughout the world' – Muammar Gadhafi
This is a defining moment for Africa and Africans all over the world. It is a moment in history that we must seize.
Africans on the continent and throughout the Diaspora were recently given a tiny glimpse of the kind of power that Africa can possess, when Jean Ping, speaking on behalf of the African Union, directed all member states to ignore the ICC's (International Colonial Court) call for Gadhafi's arrest. Jean Ping stated that “the ICC is discriminatory because it only pursues Africans. The Hague-based court ignores crimes committed by Western powers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan”. Thank you, Jean Ping.
However, it is the African youth on the continent and in the Diaspora that are leading and inspiring us towards true independence. Tendai Wenyika, Deputy General Secretary of the Pan-African Youth Union, addressing the recent AU Heads of State summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea called on African leaders to:
“demand the arrest of the likes of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy, who through their unprovoked war have violated the supreme tenets of the Nuremburg Principles and committed the crime of all crimes…We call for the suspension of all engagements with NATO, and Africa must begin to strengthen its internal ties, security and trade mechanisms in order for us to prosper.”As I have stated in previous articles, there is nothing that White Power fears more than a united Africa. They know that a united Africa would completely alter the balance of power globally. The well-documented fact is that if Africa stopped the flow of all resources and raw materials to the Western nations for just one week, the United States and Europe would grind to a halt.
In 2007, in Conakry Guinea, Gadhafi made a simple observation to a cheering crowd of thousands:
“Whenever I ask people about Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola people immediately say it's an American or European drink. This is not true. The kola is African. They have taken the cheap raw material from us, they've made it into a drink, and they sell it back to us for a high price. We should be producing it ourselves and selling it to them.”
If only Africa could realize its immense power. Realizing this power is primarily a psychological transition, since the material facts are overwhelmingly clear. Almost every known natural resource needed to run the contemporary industrial economies—such as uranium, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan (for cell phones, video games, laptops), platinum, diamonds, bauxite, and especially large reserves of oil are located in Africa. Azania (South Africa) alone contains half the world's gold reserves. Democratic Republic of Congo contains half of the world's cobalt and 80 percent of the world's known coltan reserves. One quarter of the world's aluminum ore is found in the coastal belt of West Africa and the continent is awash in petroleum reserves.
Time for ‘us' to put sanctions on ‘them'
It is time to stop the flow of these strategic resources to the Western capitals until they meet our demands. Yes, it is time for us to sanction the Western capitals. The Global Pan-African Movement and the African masses are crying out for it – the time is now. Africans everywhere must exert maximum pressure on their leaders to realize this power, as Muammar Gadhafi dared to, or move aside.
But how would we survive if we were to sanction these Western capitals? I can hear the detractors cry. Answer: there are huge emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil who will be only too happy to pick up the slack.
Already this is the West's greatest fear: In an article titled, ‘Wen calls for more Access for Africa', which appeared in 2007 in the Financial Times, W. Wallis and G. Dyer, wrote: “Western powers real concern is that African States will opt for Chinese deals to free themselves from the punitive conditions of IMF/ World Bank loans and other forms of financial dependence on Europe and the Unites States. As the second largest source of oil in Africa, Angola is now in such a strong position that it is rejecting IMF loans completely. As one consultant put it, with all their oil revenue, they don't need the IMF or the World Bank. They can play the Chinese off the Americans.”
In another article, ‘China and the USA in a new cold war over Africa's oil riches: Darfur? It's the oil, stupid…' William Engdahl points out:
“Today China draws an estimated 30% of its crude oil from Africa. That explains an extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives which have left Washington furious. China is using no-strings-attached dollar credits to gain access to Africa's vast raw material wealth, leaving Washington's typical control game via the World Bank and IMF out in the cold. Who needs the painful medicine of the IMF when China gives easy terms and builds roads and schools to boot?”
What does all this mean for Africa? Quite simply it means that we now have a choice in trading partners, and although all trading partners drive a hard bargain – some are giving better deals than others.
Black Power – African Power!
This is the moment to put all our efforts into the realization of Nkrumah and Gadhafi's grand plan for a United States of Africa. A strong and truly independent Africa, with one government, one defense force and one currency based on our African gold standard as Gadhafi has proposed. Only when we can achieve this level of unity and power, will we be able to take our rightful place in the world. Only then can we say that the time is finally over when Africa must run from one power broker to another to do our bidding. At last we will be able to do our own bidding on our own terms. Backed by a population of 1 billion people, Africa will then be able to make demands that cannot be ignored.
In 2009, at a meeting of the AU in Addis Ababa, Gadhafi, commenting on European and US attitudes to Africa, had this to say: ‘If they do not want to live with us fairly, then they should know it is our planet and they can go to another planet.'
Fair and just is all we are seeking – only the unfair and unjust have anything to fear from a Black planet.
Only when we can achieve this level of unity and power, will we be able to take our rightful place in the world. Only then can we say that the time is finally over when Africa must run from one power broker to another to do our bidding. At last we will be able to do our own bidding on our own terms. Backed by a population of 1 billion people, Africa will then be able to make demands that cannot be ignored. Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations, Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Libyan revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli.
by Eric D.Graham NORTH CAROLINA (BASN) -- We all remember the "classic" 1979 Coke Cola commercial when Pittsburgh Steeler great “Mean Joe” Greene guzzles down a magic bottle of the devil’s dark colored witches brew.
The ad instantly transformed a big menacing black man into a friendly fella giving the shirt off of his back to a little white kid, who stared in amazement.
Now, that’s a powerful potion. No wonder, they want all of these Black athletes drinking this stuff.
The subliminal suggestion in this "classic" commercial of a little white child conquering the savage beast could even be seen by legendary blues singer Ray Charles.
Or maybe not, because even Ray Charles blindly sold Diet Pepsi in the early 90's coining the slogan "You Got the Right One Baby, Uh-Huh"
OH NO!!! Because we all know, you will never catch a professional athlete drinking this poisonous concoction on the sideline, at half-time or at the end of the game.
So why do these clever “money-making” marketers continue to place Black athletes in their silly soda commercials and why do athletes pretend like they drink this stuff.
Money is the obvious answer.
Capitalism is the cousin of compromise. Profit over people is the by-product.
Remember Nike's animated attempt to use Penny Hardway's image in the form of a buffoonish cartoon character named “Little Penny” which utilized the annoying voice of Chris Rock to sell sneakers to children?
Little Penny” made some big bucks off selling sneakers by the pool but it didn’t help Hardway's game at all.
Despite "Little Penny's" early retirement, Sprite "borrowed" heavily from the concept to create their character called Miles Thirst to sell sodas to children. The commercials as well as the character were not funny and fizzled out like the soda it tried to sell. Having an animated character is an old tactic used by advertisement agencies.The evil clown, Ronald McDonald is a classic example of using character placement to sell fast food to children. Notice how McDonald's traps our young Black athletes even before they graduate from high school by sponsoring the infamous McDonald’s High School basketball All-American game.
Now that's gangsta.Over the years, Burger King has tried to steal some of McDonald’s thunder by developing an ever smiling King, who humorously pops up unexpectedly during NFL games intercepting passes and running the ball in the end zone.
Now, Burger King is selling beer and burgers. Now, that's crazy.
I must confess, every time I see this silly commercial, I catch a cramp in my neck that sounds like LeBron James in his first Spite commercial from laughing so hard.
Honestly, as an athlete, I have worked tirelessly trying to convince my two nephews to protect themselves from the temptation of slick television advertisement that puts the sizzle and fizzle of this sugary, syrupy soda over water.
But as a parent it's hard to compete with the soda industry when they have famous "And One" street ballers like Phillip "Hot Sauce" Champion seeking crossover appeal while utilizing his "killer crossover" to the tune of James Brown's Super BAD drinking Mountain Dew after dribbling through a maze of bad guys.
The funny thing about this commercial is for a brief second it reveals that Hot Sauce is actually hallucinating in the middle of the street.
Maybe that's why Hot Sauce was cut from the 2008 And One Street Ball Tour because he was out of shape from drinking too many sodas.
Who's stupid enough to believe that after drinking a bottle of Mountain Dew that he or she could perform these moves anyway?
In the 1990s, Sprite attempted to address this issue by making Grant Hill their spokesperson in their double-talk anti- soda advertisement in which kids, who drunk Sprite thought they could beat Grant Hill one on one.
After those Sprite commercials, I thought the soda industry was making some progress but before I could put down the remote control from dehydration, I saw former Heisman Trophy winner and New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush getting out ran by a Diet Pepsi soda machine in the 40-yard dash!!!
Try drinking a 64 oz bottle of Diet Pepsi and run a 40 yard dash and see what happens to you? I just caught two cramps in both of my calves and one in my side just thinking about that.
Who drinks Diet Pepsi anyway?
Can a brother get some water around here?
I mean some good ole water. Enough with all this soda stuff.
Hasn’t anyone seen Adam Sandler’s classic comedy movie entitled WATER BOY!! I need some plain non-carbonated, non-polluted water with no silly logos from Aquafina, Evita, Greyser, Deer Park, Mountain Spring or Donald Trump’s ugly face on the cover.
I need some colorless, tasteless but tasteful water that quiches my thirst not some “new” mango favored “Vitamin” water sold by rapper 50 cent.
Water is absolutely essential to the human body’s survival. A person can live for about a month without food but only a week without water
Water, in fact, increases your metabolism, regulates your appetite, increases your energy level, helps maintain a healthy body, and decreases certain types of cancers which include colon cancer and cancer of the bladder.
Water also reduces joint and backaches, helps to flush out wastes and bacteria, alleviate headaches, and even naturally moisturize the skin.
So put down the soda and drink some water.
OBEY YOUR THIRST. Now that’s a commercial I would love to see.
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Over the years, Burger King has tried to steal some of McDonald’s thunder by developing an ever smiling King, who humorously pops up unexpectedly during NFL games intercepting passes and running the ball in the end zone.
