Echoes of Charlie Wilson's War

"We fucked up the end game"...closing thoughts on former Texas Congressman who made the struggle of the Afganistan his personal campaign.

Things I plan to say on March 21, 2009

1) Happy New Year
2) It feels good to be back at 135 pounds - I did not get back to 135, but I lost 2 inches!!!!
3) I was able to discard 5 shirts and purchase 7 more ( I discarded 2 shirts, no new purchases - moved to June 20th goals.
4) I was able to purchase 3 nice new sweaters. ( no new sweaters, but I did purchase new tennis shoes and discarded the old ones.
5) I started thinking about this tattoo in January. ( See me on April 4th)
6) I felt good not to be on MSNBC, or the chat rooms.(It was real good to unplug)
7) Another colonoscopy, and another clean bill of colon health.( moved to June 20th deadline - add Prostate clean bill of health 2!)
8) That teeth cleaning was nothing nice! ( move to June 20th)
9) I am on track with my "settling accounts" goals (moving fwd...will accelerate after May 1)

In addition
On March 21 i am able to say:
1) I am moving fwd on the trailer for Misdirection
2) My Muse returned and blessed me with a jewel Congestive Mind Failure
3) I established a wonderful new friendship.

Of New Beginnings - Hopes and Thoughts of Renewal

To be continued

I started this thread January 20th, but I was not certain what I wanted to say, but I understood the fire below. On one level, I celebrated the inaguration of Barack Obama, indeed new beginnings - yet my thoughts and hopes for renewal were personal. Obama's victory for me meant a validation of the personal core principles needed to achieve.

1) Discipline
2) Focus and Clarity of purpose
3) Honoring of intention and committment
4) Love of self
5) Being true to self
6) Sound decision making & having the benefit of wise counsel
7) Supporting and nurturing relationships
8) A personal vision

A review of my life brought about a grim assesment that I have not scored well in many of those areas. The last 18 months is as then Senator Obama would say the final verdict of a gifted life underminded by self sabotage. In homage to my adherence to astrological principals, I recently celebrate March 21st as "New Years" as the Sun moves into Aries bringing and end to winter and organic renewal of life with the dawning of Spring. As grim as my assessment is, my gifts and my light while dulled, has never left. I spent 18 months focusing on how to extract myself from an unhappy life situation, then focusing on the election of Barack Obama.

President Obama's inaguration brought closure to one phase of my journey. Thus it paved a way for new beginnings. As I move forward toward my 50th year on this planet during this incarnation, it is time to do as President Obama said..."put away" childish things. Thus for the next days in preparation for my "New Years" my focus is on personal growth and evolution, purging the old, and making way for the new. During this time I will limit my time on the internet to only usefull "surfing", checking my personal e-mails 2x a day max, no chat rooms, no IM's, no checking in on the political blogs, Salon, TPM, or MSNBC. In the next blog, I will provide more details on my goals for the next 60 days.

Peace until March 21

Transparency I can believe in

Below is a letter I sent to Sen McCaskill, as well as other Congressional Leaders. It is my hope that others will join me in encouraging both Congress and the White House to act on their desire to restore transparency to Government. Billions of taxpayer dollars are a state on infrastructure spending. According to supporters of this package, these jobs will stimulate the economy by both saving existing jobs and through job creation. I believe that as taxpayers we deserve to know who gets these jobs and what their credentials/qualifications are. If you are willing to join me in my "crusade" please copy and paste this letter and fwd to you local congressional leaders as well as the House and Senate Leadership. Their contact links are below.

TO: Senator Claire McCaskill

Cc: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid, Senator Mitch McConnell, Congressman William Lacy Clay, Congressman John Boehner

RE: Economic Stimulus Package Transparency Act of 2009

The restoration of transparency was a core component of the Obama change message. It is my hope that transparency becomes a core element of the stimulus package. Specifically I would like a website that will allow taxpayers to see the names, qualifications, budget, number of jobs (both new and existing), and record of minority hiring, and minority subcontracting. In addition that website should provide information on how that company was selected, so that taxpayers will have an idea on how companies competing for “infrastructure” bids won the bid. It is my hope that the leadership in Congress as well as in the White House work together to include this important aspect in the upcoming legislation.


http://mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm
http://www.speaker.gov/contact
http://republicanleader.house.gov/Contact/
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Remembering Dr. King - The Revolutionary

On April 4th 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King broke his silence on the Vietnam War
On April 4th 1968 - Dr. King was silenced.

As we spend time to reflect on the life of Dr. King. It is my hope that today, and in future celebrations, we begin to go beyond the prism of I have a Dream, and the marches in Montgomery, and Selma, into the geopolitical, revolutionary words uttered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, April 4, 1967.

Currently, I am working on a film project Beyond Vietnam - Dr. King's Last Year which I hope discusses the least talked about aspect of Dr. King's legacy. Below is the link to the rough on YouTube - last Sunday locally I showed the DVD and had a very insightful and informative panel discussion.

http://www.youtube.com/BeyondVietnam

It is my plan to complete the full length project by the fall of 2010 for the 2011 Dr. King celebration.

Feel free to contact me for more information about the film at
imfilms2007@gmail.com

Finally I picked some excerpts from his speech below, words spoken, often prophetic, but too often ignored.

“Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.”

“There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war”

“So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.”

“If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam."

“They must see Americans as strange liberators.”

“I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam.”

“If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve.”

“As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection.”

“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”

“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.”

“The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.”

Introducing Wayne Shorter - Sort of

I don’t know if Wayne Shorter is living or dead. No slight – I just haven’t kept up – again no slight. My music interests if anyone hadn’t noticed for the last twelve years has been 2Pac, 2Pac, and more 2Pac. Throw in the occasional foray into Neo Soul, or a reflective nod towards The Who and The Doors and that’s it. As a result, Wayne Shorter kinda got left behind. If I were in a chat room I would say “whisper I know, Wayne Shorter wasn’t more than a footnote – I was just being nice lol”. But oh well, digressions albeit the most well meaning ones are obnoxious. Which begged the question, If I know noxious, what does adding “ob” mean? Then I looked it up Ob was Latin for “exposed to” and noxious equaled harm. Okay well digressions may be hell to work through, and stomach, but not harmful. Ungainly circling back to Wayne Starter, both the living and deceased one, and to his wife if married filing jointly – don’t ask –


I am in the car bumping some 2Pac from the “last working cassette” in America, I turn off Pac in favor of the local NPR station. I am listening but halfway tuning the announcer out when I heard him say “coming up after the break mush mush by Wayne Shorter. Now let’s be real clear, he could have said mush mush by Miles or Coltrane, and I wouldn’t have known it, but I would have strained my high ass upright to hear the song. Then the music started.


That’s when I had one of those “if I could pick the last song I ever heard” moments – I was like dayam…now straining to hear who this was, wondering if the broadcast was taped, thinking dayam one of the great musical pieces I would never hear again because I can’t remember the name. I am still haunted by that with a Marvin Gaye song, surely the madness would not repeat it self. But in a time when the Tampa Devil Rays win the World Series and the Arizona Cardinals go to the Super Bowl, when a black man is elected President and an airplane lands safely in the Hudson, I am going to hear the name of that song. And Yes! As I waited he said “you have been listening the Wayne Shorter composition Go!


For those Wayne Shorter fans, I mean no disrespect, it was like a ignorant baseball fan seeing Luis Aparicio go four for four and stealing 3 bases and say “gosh all this time I thought he was just a good fielding shortstop”. Wherever Wayne Shorter is in the pantheon of great musicians, he got there on the merits of his genius, my ignorance of him notwithstanding.

Conversly,

If you do brilliant shit....it doesn't need any defense!

n2deepthings

January 9, 2009

If you do stupid shit -

defend it with brilliance!

n2deepthings

January 09, 2009

Obama not the 1st Black Prez? Give it Rest!

In every aspect of culture there are inside jokes that are rooted in a hybrid of perception, legend, facts, but more often, hope and fears. In the black community one of those jokes was that our first “black” President was William Jefferson Clinton.The thought of that alonecaused me tremendous inner grief, and was part of my emotional inability to embrace him as President. This grief motivated me to write derisively in a poem

“On the watch of William Jefferson Clinton, black men on death sentence still filled American’s prisons, Ron Brown was murdered but did we listen?….”


It was my way of saying, black people wake up! This dude is frontin, and ya’ll are buying it hook line, and sinker. More on the black community’s relationship with Bill Clinton later. Because even before, and certainly after the Clinton star blazed bright, tales of other “black” Presidents were circulating within the African American Community. My mother recently, showed me a document tiled “The Six Black Presidents” which listed Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and finally Dwight Eisenhower as six “black” Presidents. The thesis of this document is based on the concept that one “drop” of black blood made one “black”. Thus the "blackness" of these six Presidents was based on their DNA. Okay if cases can be made to support that thesis – then slam dunk, closed case, we can now rewrite American history right? How bout not only wrong, but pervasively wrong and spiritually wrong.


Here’s why. It appears that there seems to be a general agreement within the black community that the term “blackness” denotes to, having at the very least, an affirming and visceral understanding and appreciation of issues, rights, traditions, and history of the black community in America. At the highest end, an affirmation of simply being black. Thus, while some may question your fidelity to the issues of blackness, but your words, deeds and actions left no ambiguity on whether or not you claimed yourself to be black. So when one ascribes to the belief that these six aforementioned Presidents were black due to genetics, and ignores that they never expressed a fundamental and almost primal attachment to blackness, nor did they in any substantial, recordable or public manner fundamentally affirm their blackness, then that is a problem. A big problem. It’s akin to saying that darkness equates to the absence of sunlight, but technically since the 12:30 sun is less vibrant than it was thirty minutes earlier, it equates to midnight. Danger and foolishness lurks when we overreach by extending “technical” truths to the point where we defy both logic and context.



As an American, there is both contextual and logical support to assert that Thomas Jefferson, whose combined, intellect, passion, and vision, to help both create, and expand this country may have been America’s greatest President. Similarly, support can be found to honor the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln who seemingly willed the reunification of this country, and paid the ultimate price for it. Yet, as a black man, I have to draw the lines. At no point did either Mr. Jefferson or Lincoln openly acknowledge their “blackness”. While Abraham Lincoln is credited as the Great Emancipator; history suggests that he vacillated on the issue of emancipation, and that his highest priory was saving the nation - not freeing the slaves. Now before someone says well President Obama has a big plate, and if he tried to be the “black” president, he would undercut a great majority of his mandate, and goodwill – well just stop! I get that. This summer I wrote that then Senator Obama was correct in not calling for Reparations, because by doing so would step on his change agenda, which called for less divisions, hence joining the reparations bandwagon would have been a disaster. But please don’t confuse the two. Having a policy that is more color blind in a climate that neutralizing rather than politicizing race makes sense. Barack Obama while in his youth and early adulthood was admittedly confused how as a bi-racial man he should allow the social construct of race to impact him. But Barack Obama was never confused that he was not, or is not a black man. So when African Americans wish to give the mantle “blackness” to men whose concern from blackness was more political then soulful, who never open acknowledged their blackness, as Obama said on the stump – “that ain’t right”.


I am not sure if Condi Rice coined the phrase “birth defect” concerning slavery in America, but she is the first person I heard use that term – and it fits. This desire within the African American community to elevate solely on the basis of DNA, men who never affirmed blackness suggest that the birth defect of slavery obscured by the light of Barack Obama still thrives. Which allows me to now circle back to William Jefferson Clinton. In those halcyon days of yore, when the Clinton - Black community love fest was in full bloom, even the death of Ron brown, and indictment of Mike Espy and their associated whispers, failed to dent the Clintonian armor. But for me what was the “et tu” moment occurred during the Monica Lewinski affair when blacks “assuming” Clinton’s infidelity and love for felatio said “see now this proves he is ‘one of us’ ”. My mind simply could not accept what I was hearing but I heard it too often to dismiss as a product of a single deranged mind. I tried to blow it off as a joke, but the manner in which it was said suggested a pleading earnestness in which they hoped they were right. To my dismay, I realized that there was a portion of the black collective, including those in the upper classes of the black race, who now took one of the most unseemliness actions of a white man, and used that to affirm his blackness. The mere thought that the black mindset could reach those depths nearly forty years after the deaths of Dr. King and Malcolm X shook me to my foundation. And for me it was not a joke. And this mentality is not a joke. We simply need to stop! We are undercutting the phenomenal achievement of Barrack Obama with trivial mind bending mischief. While only history can judge whether Barack Obama will be considered a great President, we ought not deny the odyssey of a 47 year old man from Hawaii raised by a single parent to achieve what only a few years ago many people believed would never happen. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln have their place in the pantheon of America history, let’s not allow the residual effect of our birth defect of slavery to deny Barack Hussein Obama his.