The Fading Spirit of 1776

In the spring of 1954 Texas Instrument Chief Gordon Teal unveiled the transistors at an industry convention. Yet what happened that spring day would have an impact that would not be understood for another forty years as the introduction of the transistor launched computers into the modern age. Looking back and considering the implications of this new technology, that fact that it was scorned and scoffed at now seems short sighted and silly. But when Texas Instrument introduced the world to the transistor, it completed a journey started by Alexander Graham Bell, which would ultimately lead to the domination of three screens. In 2008, media giants Verizon and AT&T launched their ‘three screen’ strategy designed to lure consumers to their brand by offering a one stop shop for all of your information needs via telephone, television and internet. At the same time another national phenomena was taking place.

The newspaper industry now understood what its industry brethren in the railroads felt over a century before with the advent of air travel. Newspaper readership is down losing a battle with more advanced news information platforms. As a result in the same manner pharmaceutical companies compete for the cure for cancer, or AIDS, communication companies compete for the newer and faster ways to disseminate information. Information is often what separates winners and losers. Before armies go to war they utilize their intelligence resources to gauge enemy strengths and weaknesses. Hence both the capacity to gather and disseminate information is critical - businesses use it so they can effectively market their product, for politicians information gathering helps them to plan their political campaign in the same way that military strategists prepare to prosecute a war.

Lost in this barrage of new technology, and multi platform media outlets, is a dramatic shift of power is underway. A shift so dramatic that in my view it undermines the intent of the original intent of our founding fathers which was to have a government of the people and for the people. What makes this shift dangerous is that most Americans and unaware of the lurking dangers. Therefore for many of us, the power of Washington, Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, is intact and the handiwork of James Madison lives on. Yeah right. Only a well conceived story of fiction would lead one to believe that the President of The United States really runs this country. We all remember the glorious campaign of 2008, the choked up Keith Olberman announcing that Barack Obama would be the 44th President of the United States, and the great speech in Grant Park. Yet, how does the saying go, that was then, and this is now. In the final analysis, Barack Obama’s hold to power is only as strong as the media’s desire to keep him there. But as long as Americans focus on the distilled power conferred by the Constitution to our government leaders and ignore the real power of the media to wage a mind control program that would make Joseph Goebbels blush, our blindness will continue to “energize’ the new world order.


All that to say what? The Obama Administration is a well conceived trick on the American public. Not trickery because of ill intent by President Obama, but the Obama election obscures the the reality of a democracy in decline, and a growing inability of Washington to produce real change. I am not sure if Barack Obama is a dude that understands that at the end of the day, the best he can do is to deliver “change lite’ and hope that what he does sets in motion a critical mass that can open the floodgates for future progressive Presidents.Change agendas that sound so compelling on the campaign trail reach Washington and enter a twilight zone, where the media decides for its non critical thinking viewers and listeners whether this change is socialistic, un-American, good, bad, ugly or indecent. President Obama must feel like a worn out puppet as he continually recalibrate due to the musings of the media. When he first ran for President he was not black enough, then as time moved forward he was too black, and too radical, he was praised by the media for been cool, and nuanced, now blasted for not being angry enough. And before the public can get their arms around which President Obama they should like, they media changes again.

This game is worth billions of dollars to the major networks, their outlets, talking heads, and bloggers. Whether it comes from the right via FOX or from the left via MSNBC, they both need hyperactivity, vitriol, and insecurities to keep fear moving at warp speed. Politicians have always pandered to the media, but now the pandering is so pervasive, that voters can’t keep up with the number of faces a politician may put on from day to day. Furthermore, voter’s perceptions are now crafted not by common sense, or the reality on the ground, but by the pontifications of their favorite talking head. Look no further than the influence of the media on the issue of government spending. During the Bush years, when the Bush Administration fleeced the government coffers blind, with tax cuts to the rich, and wars of choice, the right wing media was silent on the issue of federal debt and therefore the American public many steeped in personal debt, saw our fiscal imbalance as a non story. Now the conservative news media label Barack Obama as a freewheeling spender whose expansive stimulus package was borderline socialism, and therefore now the American public finds our debt as disconcerting and want to rein in spending. President Obama ought to ask them where do they want the ax to fall.

Networks understand their power in crafting perceptions.  I recall in the days leading up to President Obama’s Afghanistan review decision, NBC News sent Brian Williams to Kabul ostensibly to garner American sympathy for the plight of the Afghanistan people, and to give the upcoming military buildup decision a soft landing. In addition in the aftermath of the Gulf Crisis, President Obama eschews his “cool hand Luke Persona” to tell The Today Show's Matt Lauer that somebody needs to kick BP’s ass. President Obama went hard only after the media hounded him for not being angry.

On the eve of America’s 234th  birthday, the levers of power have shifted far beyond the wildest imaginings of the founding fathers. Now to be sure, the men who met in Philadelphia in 1776 understood in their own time and in their own way the importance of messaging, and image. As evidenced by no other than John Hancock whose imprimatur, was large enough to be viewed across the Atlantic by the British King. Yet the vast influence in today’s media, is unprecedented and in my mind dangerous. Multi platform, media corporations are now under the banner of General Electric – NBC, Viacom – CBS and Disney owns ABC and ESPN. And let’s not forget that Fox News owned by the world’s second largest media conglomerate News Ltd is not American owned. In a world where we zig zag from work to home, to school, to soccer practice, rehab centers, and back again, our dependency on the media has become an unseemly American addiction. News shows like the Today Show have now morphed into a hybrid of a news/gossip show, while other outlets like Fox and MSNBC have become media darlings of the conservative and progressives respectively. But just because Keith Olberman says something, in direct contrast to Glen Beck does that make it so? How much of what is said and done in Washington can truly be trusted or credited as original thought? How much is done merely for “effect”, how much is done for spin?


Over two hundred years ago they wrote, “When in the course of human events it may become necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them”. This is now an unrecognizable America, seemingly incapable of big things, where reality is suspended in favor of noise. The bands that now connect us come in the form of a “3G” network where bandwidth is king. Urban rumors, mindless chatter, gossip, fears, hatred, is now dispensed faster than you can say 1776. At a time of two wars, economic instability, a gathering ecological storm, our political leaders prefer grandstanding than grand vision. When a politician speaks, now the first question that is asked is “what audience” is he or she speaking to, lending a certain amount of two facedness by our leaders.

As Rome burned, Nero fiddled, as America continues to crumble under her own overextended weight, our leaders “mean mug” for the camera. In 1960 John F. Kennedy faced Richard Nixon in the first televised debate, according to historian the late Teddy White, those who saw the debate which pitted the younger and charismatic Kennedy against and older Richard Nixon sporting a five a clock shadow, many who saw the debate on television said Kennedy got the better of it. Those who listened to it on the radio gave the nod to Richard Nixon. All which gave birth to political style over political substance.

Our current leadership now comes with talking points, which often become the sanitized version of what is said in the media, or they make a 180 degree reversal after reading the media driven tea leaves. What we need, and what the spirit of 1776 was based on was leaders having original thought, having a vision, and doing the big things need to run a country. Today those leaders have more strings than Pinocchio, as what they say, do, or produce is done at the behest of their media masters. Today the spirit of 1776 has been replaced by a dark, foreboding media mega power whose power to control minds, takes us closer to Nazi Germany than Philadelphia and the spirit of 1776.

THE ORIGINS OF A REVOLUTIONARY MIND

FIRST - My parents – Young Gifted and Black both revolutionaries, one drawn to the light, the other to the dark, but their essence was to make a change. I am reminded of the great quote by Tupac, “I may not change the world, but I will spark the mind of the one that does.” Through their energy the mind of a revolutionary was born.

My evolution was marked and sparked by events that would span a lifetime.

1959
In June of 1959 my mother felt the need to engage a game of badminton in the backyard of her parent’s home. At that time, I decided – a month early I decided to descend into human form. I was born to two brilliant people, my mother who graduated 2nd in her class from high school, and graduated from high school at age 15, and a father who was equally brilliant, but donned a revolutionary fervor. My father’s gift for writing, and chess was well documented, however he turned to crime – urban/family legend has it that he did so in support of either the Panthers the NOI or both. As a result of his crimes, my mother left him, and I had to develop my revolutionary spirit through the prism of my mother’s inherent conservatism, and belief in the American dream of me being a high flying corporate.

1968
Within a stunning, and devastating 60 days - two of the last giants of the 20th century Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were silenced. That summer was the most eventful and personally emotional year of my life. One of the things I remember was that I didn’t cry when Dr. King or Bobby was killed, but I cried that fall when the St. Louis Cardinals blew a 3-1 lead and lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers. But more than the tears - it was the experiences.

The night King was killed, the television show The Flying Nun interrupted by the first news bulletin, the angry voices outside – almost immediately. The calm march in St. Louis after Dr. King’s assassination which was in a stark contrast to other “chocolate” cities was my first clue that the African American community in my city was quite “different”.

Two months later my mother gets her own “3 am call” the one to announce that Senator Robert Kennedy was shot. Given the importance of those two men in my psyche, it is no secret that a film on Dr. King forty years after his death (with one on RFK to follow) became one of my first films. The summer of 1968 I visited Arlington cemetery clearly over the wishes of my mother to “bless the Kennedy Brothers” my mother’s response was “who does he think he is – the Pope?” later that summer as a nine year I co-wrote my first political poem

“Humphrey Humphrey he’s our man, Nixon belongs in the trash can”.

Perhaps if America had listened to nine year olds, we would have avoided the scandal of Watergate. What was the impact of 1968? A long period of woulda, coulda, shoulda. What would happen in particular if Bobby had lived and continued the Quixotic Kennedy narrative? Did the government really kill great men – and why – for who? I didn’t realize as a nine year old that was my natural path to evolution was to ask the tough questions, say the tough things, and ultimately define myself on my terms – not by societies. But life got in the way, and my journey to evolution took many twists and turns, so that by the time I had reached 30 on June 20th, 1989 – I was oblivious to what direction I should take my life.

1973
On June 25, 1973 my eight grade teacher Elmeda Harris wrote in my class autograph book,

“Since you love history so much, go out and make it”

That summer I lost a battle of wills with my mother who first angered me by cancelling my 8th grade graduation party because I didn’t score in the first tier of the IBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skill). But more importantly, she defied my wished to matriculate to high school at Charles Sumner High School – the oldest African American high school west of the Mississippi river. Sumner High was the school of my family as well as tennis notables that included Comedian Richard “Dick” Gregory, and Tina Turner, and where Arthur Ashe honed his tennis game under the tutelage of Richard Hudlin. Instead I was shipped off to Thomas Jefferson College Prep School one of the most exclusive private boarding schools in the country, where I was introduced to Jackson Browne, Loggins and Messina, Paul McCartney, as well as Homer’s Iliad which I had to translate from Homeric Greek to English.

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus

The net result of my mother’s Pyrrhic victory was a widening of my social horizons, as well as the foundations of a thirty year struggle to define myself on my terms, not hers.


1992
I recall sitting with my grandmother as LA burned during the riots, amazed and yet – removed from “those people”. At the moment of this writing, I am not sure of the origin for my subconscious animus with so much that defined black culture, but I do understand that what I looked outward and saw elements of blackness that I viewed as a reflection of assimilation, and slave mentality, I looked at it with a sense of disdain. In addition, I viewed black displays of emotion mentally “mouthing enough already” unaware of my own slave mentality that created a natural disdain on anything that I viewed as over the top and loud. As a result for a black man to have claimed to have “been there” at the beginning of rap with the release of Rappers Delight in 1979, but by 1989 rap had become too loud too ghetto and I tuned out in favor of The Who, Jackson Browne and the Eagles. By 1980 a person emotionally bonded with the Kennedys cast their first presidential vote for a republican Ronald Wilson Reagan. By 1980 a person who prided himself on his ability to write only wrote resumes. All that changed in the early 90’s.

In 1991 my plan to climb up the banking ladder was obliterated when I was mysteriously fired from then Mercantile Bank. (of course I never mentioned that in job interviews) soon after I worked at call center and was introduced to a new world of young people in their 20’s with a POV world far different from mine. They smoked bud, listened to rap, probably never voted, some were straight “slanging and bangin.”At the same time, Spike Lee’s movie Malcolm X sparked as revived interest in the slain leader, and my reading of his autobiography was a game changer. In 1993 Dr. Dre’s The Cronic as well as the plant that the name comes from, reintroduced me to a sub culture that I had ignored and often dismissed. If that was not enough I was introduced to the music of a twenty three year old prodigy by the name of Tupac Amaru Skakur. He had me at Cradle to the Grave.

2001
By 2001 I had transformed, my nutrition had changed, I was hitting free weights, and writing poetry and I begun to see the world through my own prism. It was during that period that I begin to find my voice as a writer, it was the most prolific writing period of my life, I wrote political commentaries, poems, and screenplays. Then on September 11, 2001 the world changed.

2008
YES WE CAN! Smarting from a failed marriage, unemployed, and sinking fast I ran into a buzz saw called the campaign for change. I always rolled my eyes when many black folks doubted that they would see a black man in the white house because I believed firmly that we have been pacified to the extent that a black person could be trusted by America’s hidden king makers to steer the good ship America. I also felt it would be the “rank and file” average white American that would have issues with a black man. Not an early convert to the Obama mission, I even told my wife at the time, not to worry about putting an Obama sign in the front yard, because he would be history by Super Tuesday. I was wrong. By the summer of 2008, I was knocking on doors, making phone calls, and even ended up on Canadian television late in the campaign. The historic election of Barack Obama reconnected me back to politics, even though I remained at the core an independent political agnostic.


The writings in this book are a reflection a flawed soul on a path to personal evolution, and Liberation. The essays, commentary, and poetry, represent a mere down payment on my spiritual debt that I owe to honor my gifts, my guardian spirits, my ancestors, and the Creator.